by a war, which continued till the close of the year 1697. And. this object they effected, as will be seen in The complete History of England, and Bp. Burnet's History of his Own Times; and now Roma fuit, fuit Othmanides, fuit improbus orbis (See Daubuz on Rev. xiv.) In the mean time, in 1690, a remnant of the Vaudois crossed the lake of Geneva, and recovered their ancient seats, as the greater body had before crossed the British Channel. (Boyer, ch. xxvii.) GRIESBACH, IN SACRED CRITICISMAND ELMSLEY, IN ATTIC. In the Prolegomena of Griesbach to his immortal edition of the Greek Testament, the third section contains those canons of criticism, by which on the maturest judgment he thinks the sacred text ought to be determined. I have always lamented, that Griesbach gave the canons barely without any instances of the right or the wrong involved in them, so very necessary to the understanding of their import and truth. Would it not be a pleasant and useful task for some scholar to illustrate those canons by a few striking instances in each case from the edition itself? Allow me to suggest two canons which obviously require such illustration: I cannot understand them without it. 6. Lectio, præ aliis sensum pietati (præsertim monastica) alendæ aptum fundens, suspecta est. 7. Præferatur aliis lectio, cui sensus subest apparenter quidem falsus, qui vero re penitus examinata verus esse deprehenditur. To the 4th canon, which begins thus Insolentior lectio potior est ea, qua nihil insoliti continetur our own excellent Elmsley o paxapírns has suggested a very strong demurrer; as far indeed as the criticism of the tragic writers is concerned, but not in the least affecting the consideration of the sacred text-in re omnino dissimili. “Objici quidem potest, rarius vocabulum veupòs in commune véos ex conjectura mutandum non esse. Sed regulam Griesbachii criticam, in diversitate scripturæ vocabula rariora præfe renda esse vulgatioribus, non semper veram esse monui ad Med. 427, 8. p. 152." P. E. ad dip. Colon. v. 702. "Hic igitur locus notissimæ criticorum regulæ, in diversitate scripturæ vocabula rariora præferenda esse vulgatioribus, aperte adversatur. "Grammatici veteres scilicet, secus ac multi putant, rariores et in prosa oratione minus usitatas vocabulorum formas data opera sectati sunt, quas pro communibus in poetarum libris collocarent. Id sæpe fecisse recentiores grammaticos, quos criticos vulgo vocamus, extra controversiam est. Ut uno exemplo defungar, Barnesius, qui cuivis fere veterum magistrorum judicio par erat, σTEÚσei lavatoio TeλEUTàv dedit v. 151, idque et celato auctore, et metro violato, neque ullo libro consentiente. Sed magis poeticum ideoque Euripide dignius ei videbatur Homericum lavatoio, quam vulgare illud et in omnium ore tritum bavárou. Quod fecit Barnesius, quidni fecerint Didymus, Dionysius, aliique homines veteris linguæ Atticæ ignarissimi ?" P. E. ad Med. vv. 427, 8. The lovers of Attic literature will never cease to regret the loss of a man like this. After the names of Bentley, and Dawes, and Porson, to complete the quaternion, what name shall be added? That of Elmsley stands alone in the competition. R. S. Y. PERSIAN INGENUITY. AMONG several passages extracted from Eastern writers, showing by various examples the ingenuity of Persians in different arts and sciences, one particularly struck me, as it serves to prove, that between three and four hundred years ago, great progress had been made in a branch of mechanics, which, from the report of travellers, it would appear, had not, since that time, been cultivated by Asiatics with much success. Having offered some preliminary observations, I shall quote the passage in question, as one which probably has never before been committed to the press. It occurs in the manuscript work of that celebrated historian, Muhammed ben Khúwend Shah ben Mah Griesbachius Prolegom. ad N. T. p. 62. múd, more commonly denominated Mirkhond, who died in the year of the Muhammedan era 903, or of Christ 1498. His excellent Persian chronicle, entitled the Rauzet al Safa, or "Garden of Purity," was composed by desire of the Emir Ali Shir, and is generally transcribed in seven large volumes, besides an appendix; but some ingenious critics have doubted whether this khátemah or appendix, and indeed whether part of the seventh volume, might not rather be ascribed to Khondemir, the son of Mirkhond, than to the illustrious Mirkhond himself. That the modern inhabitants of Persia are not inferior to their predecessors in natural ingenuity, appears from the concurrent testimonies of several travellers; and what the ancient Persians were able to effect in works of art and mechanical contrivances, may be learned from various passages of classic writers, and from venerable monuments still existing in different provinces of that country. The stupendous ruins that indicate the site of Persepolis, and may be regarded as the remains of Darius's palace, must here be particularly noticed. On a reference to the engravings given by Chardin, Le Brun, and Niebuhr; also by those who within the present century have visited those admirable fragments of antiquity, M. Morier, Sir William Ouseley, Sir Robert Ker Porter, and others, it will be found that the Persepolitan sculptures, executed probably between two and three thousand years ago, represent objects of highly elaborate workmanship. The different articles of dress in which numerous human figures are clothed; the ornaments which they wear; the arms, more especially the bows with their cases, and quivers with arrows; their caps, crowns and helmets; the extraordinary harness of their chariots; and many things of which it would now be difficult to ascertain the use-all these sculptures bespeak, as the very first glance will sufficiently show, that they are imitations exact even to minuteness, of the objects which they were designed to represent; and no one can hesitate in acknowleging that artists capable of making the arms and armor, the ornaments, chariots, harness and other matters which the sculptures so exactly imitate, must have been persons of considerable ingenuity. The same opinion may be formed on examination of those sculptures which were executed at a much later period (from the third to the seventh century), representing Persian kings, of the Sassanidan race, with their nobles, and warriors, according to the descriptions and delineations of them given by the travellers above-mentioned. From these monuments, however, it does not appear that the artists, in any respect, proved them selves superior to those who, many hundred years before, had been employed on the Persepolitan marbles. Yet it is probable, that the oldest Persian workmen, and those of the Sassanidan ages, wanted, not only in executing the sculptures, but in fabricating the arms, ornaments, chariots and other things represented by them, many of those tools and mechanical implements which render such tasks comparatively easy to Europeans. That observant traveller, Chardin (than whom no better judge could be consulted respecting mechanical operations), has remarked the extreme simplicity of apparatus and the paucity of tools among modern Persian artists; also the facility with which they establish their portable workshops in the corner of a room, where, sitting on the bare floor, or perhaps on a sorry piece of carpet, they produce such specimens of ingenuity as it would be difficult to equal among us, notwithstanding the multiplicity of implements and all the helps of mechanism to which our artists are accustomed. The reader will see in Chardin's fourth volume (12mo edition), how the Persians of his time (the seventeenth century) excelled in various branches of art; in embroidery of silk or leather with gold and silver; in pottery or earthenware, some of which rivalled the porcelain of China; he celebrates their dexterity in turning; in making vessels of copper, and tinning them so as to resemble silver; in the manufactory of sword-blades; in their admirable fire-works; in the cutting and engraving of precious stones, and in articles made of pasteboard, and beautifully varnished. Such mechanics as be amongst them, says Sir Thomas Herbert, are industrious and ingenious; whether you consider those that labor in silk and bombasin; or that dye and weave carpets, or other arts, with which their bazzars abound: besides, they have a rare art to print flowers of all sorts in leather and in colors; of which they make buskins, sandals, saddles, and furniture for houses. (Travels, p. 320, Third Edition.) With all this ingenuity, however, it appears from Chardin's account, that the art of making clocks or watches (l'horlogerie) was unknown to the Persians, or at least only practised among them by a few Europeans. Yet in the manuscript to which I have above alluded (Mirkhond's great historical composition), an anecdote is related indicating some mechanism of the clockwork kind, invented or constructed by Mulana Haji Muhammed, a celebrated painter, who, in the fifteenth century, held, for a while, the honorable appointment of Kitáb-dár, or librarian, to the Emir Ali Shir. I now lay before my reader the Persian text of this anecdote, and shall subjoin a translation. که از جمله مخترعات مولانا حاجي محمد صندوق ساعتي است که در کتابخانه امیر علیشیر ترتیب نمود و در آن صندوق دست داشت و چون چوبي در صورتي تعبیه کرده بود یک ساعت در روز میگذشت آن پیکر چوب را یکنوبت بر نقاره که در پیش او بود میزد و بعد از گزشتن ساعت دوم دو نوبت آن حرکت ميكرد و علي هذا القياس Among the inventions of Mulana Haji Muhammed was a clock (literally, an hour-box), which he set up in the library of Emir Ali Shir; and in that clock was contrived a certain image holding in its hand a stick or club, and when one hour of the day had elapsed, this figure struck once on a brazen drum which was placed before it; after the lapse of another hour it struck two blows with the same kind of motion, and in like manner at each succeeding hour. By what mechanism this movement was produced does not appear; we are authorised, perhaps, to suspect that sand or water may have been employed. A passage quoted by Mr. Turner, in his History of the Anglo-Saxons (book v. ch. 11. note 15.), describes a wonderful clock sent by the king of Persia to Charlemagne, about the year 807. In this clock the "duodecim horarum cursus ad clepsydram vertebatur;" for marking the hours, brazen balls were contrived to fall and tinkle on a cymbalum, while figures of horsemen, corresponding in number to the hours, came forth at regular intervals from some of the twelve doors or windows; closing by the impulse of their egress, at the conclusion of each hour, as many of those windows as had before been open. (For this passage Mr. Turner quotes the Annales Carol. Mag. Astron. Reuberi, p. 35.) But this does not appear by any means so astonishing a piece of mechanism as that which, in the seventh century, was contrived to represent the Persian monarch Chosroes as ev oùgava xaliuevo, xal megl Toro " Huoy xal Servny xal Aorga, &c. sitting as it were in the heavens, surrounded by the sun, moon, and stars; whilst showers of rain were seen to fall, lightning flashed, and thunder was heard to roll, as we learn from Cedrenus (ad annum Heraclii 1S.). This eidouranion of Chosroes is likewise noticed by several Eastern authors. We may, perhaps, regard as specimens of ingenuity in clockwork, many figures which Persian writers have described as almost miraculous, and impelled to move by means of talismanic art: thus in the rare manuscript entitled Zeinet al Mejalis, we read that |