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And the place, which they quote for a proof that | Tells how it began, and who suffer'd the first, it did,

Is one that will prove them expressly forbid.

I appeal to the Hebrew, and for the Greek word, To the twenty-third Iliad, where once it occur'd; And where the old prince of the classics one sees, Never once thought of insects, but branches of As the context evinces; tho' all to a man, [trees, Translators adopt the locustical plan:

How the Latin locustæ should get a wrong sense Is their business to prove who object the pretence.

But the classical Greek, tho' it often confirm, Cannot always explain, a New Testament term, Any more than an Old one; and therefore to pass All authorities by of a paganish class,

Let them ask the Greek fathers, who full as well knew [is true? Their own tongue, and the gospel, which meaning But for insects to find a plain proof in their Greek Will cut a librariau out work for a week.

For herbs here is one, which unless it is match'd, Ought to carry this question as fairly dispatch'd; Isidorus, Greek father of critical fame,

Has a letter concerning this very Greek name,
Dismissing the doubt, which a querist had got,
If the Baptist did eat animalcules or not,

"God forbid," says the father, "a thing so absurd!

The summits of plants is the sense of the word."

Such an ancient decision, so quite a propos, Disperses at once all the classical show Of a learning, that builds upon Africa's east, And the traunts, how wild people were fabl'd to feast

Upon fancied huge locusts, which never appear,
Or huge, or unhuge, but five months in the year:
To be hoarded, and pickl'd in salt and in smoke:
Mow Saint John is employ'd by these critical folk!
Where the locust could feed such an abstinent
saint,

Of food for his purpose, could never have want:
If the desert was sandy, and made such a need,
How account for the locusts descending to feed?
In short, Mr. Bl-k-u, they cannot escape
The charge of absurd, in all manner of shape;
If they can, let them do it-mean while I conclude
That St. John's was the plantal, not animal food.
Thus, sir, I have stated, as brief as I'm able,
The friendly debate that we had at your table;
Where the kind entertainer, I found, was inclin'd,
And acknowledge the pleasure, to be of my mind:
Having only to add, now I make my report,
That howe'er we may differ in points of this sort,
Our reception at Orford, all pleas'd we review,
And rejoice in the health of its master-Adieu.

THREE EPISTLES TO G. LLOYD, ES2. ON THE FOLLOWING PASSAGE IN HOMER. Ουρίας μεν πρωτον επώχετο, και κυνας αργός, Αυταρ επειτ' αυτοίσι βέλος εχεπευχες εφίεις Βαλλ', αιει δη πυραι νεκύων καίοντο θαμειαι. Iliad. A. lin. 50.

EPISTLE I.

THUS Homer, describing the pestilent lot
That amongst the Greek forces Apollo had shot,

When his ill-treated priest the whole army had

curs'd:

Or rather that suffer'd; for custom computes That Apollo's first shafts fell amongst the poor brutes;

Instructing both critics to construe, and schools, Κυνας agy s the dogs and as the mules.

Now, observing old Homer's poetical features, I would put in one word for the guiltless dumb

creatures.

And the famous blind bard; for, as far as I see, The learn'd, in this case, are much blinder than he: At the mules, and the dogs, in his versify'd Greek, Nor Phoebus, nor priest, had conceiv'd any pique; And I doubt, notwithstanding the common consent, That the meaning is mist which Mæonides meant.

Why the brutes were first plagu'd, an Eustathius, and others, [pothers, Have made a great rout with their physical Of the nature, and causes, and progress of plague; And all, to the purpose, quite foreign and vague: But be medical symptoms whatever they will, Such matters I leave to friend Heberden's skill, And propose a plain fact to all cunninger kenThat the mules and the dogs, in this passage,

are men.

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Just then, as they rise, to explain my ideasLet the lexicon tell what is meant by In plain, common sense, without physical routs, The Grecian outguards, the custodes, or scouts: The word may be mules too, for aught that I know, For my scapula says, 'tis, Ionice, so; And refers to the lines above quoted from Homer, Where mules, I conceive, is an arrant misnomer.

If a word has two meanings, to critical test, That which makes the sense better is certainly The plague is here plainly describ'd to begin [best; In the skirts of the camp, then to enter within; To rage, and occasion, what Iliad styles, Incessantly burning their funeral piles; [fools Which the Greeks, I conjecture, were hardly such As to burn or erect for the dogs and the mules.

The common Greek word, the Homerical too, For mules is, where it will do; [coerce And there was, as it happened, no cause to Its use in this place, for it suited the verse: Whereas a plain reason oblig'd to discard, If this was the point to be shown by the bard, That first to the parties about the main camp Apollo dispatch'd the vindicative damp.

Thus much for 85-the meaning of xuve Is attended, I own, with a little more newness; For the sense, in this place, will oblige us to plant A meaning for xuves, which lexicons want: And if that be a reason for some to reject, [pect; "Tis no more than correction, tho' just, may exBut if it be just, the true critics will add, 'Tis a meaning that lexicons ought to have had. Both canes in Latin, and xʊves in Greek, And the Hebrew word for them, if critics would seek,

Should be rendered sometimes in prose writers or

bards,

By slaves or by servants, attendants, or guards:

Ours and nuts have here, in my thought,
Much a like kind of meaning, as really they ought,
The difference, perhaps, that for camp preserva-That-here it is guards, not novo mules:
tion,
Being join'd with rag companions, they knew
As εταίροι were men, that UÇnkÇ were too:
Now let us illustrate the combated place,
As near as we can, by a parallel case.

Where the wise commentators confess in their
rules,

[tion.

One mov'd, or patroll'd; while the other kept sta-
Ayes, which is white, in the commonest sense,
To describe the dogs here, has no sort of pretence;
Nor here will the lexicons help a dead lift,
That allow the odd choice too of slow, or of swift:
If the dogs were demolish'd, 't will certainly follow
That white, slow, or swift, was all one to Apollo;
Whose fam'd penetration was rather too deep
Than to take dogs for soldiers, as Ajax did sheep.
Why them? or why mules? for description al-

lows

That he shot at no horses, bulls, oxen, or cows;
With a vengeance selecting, from all other classes,
Poor dogs of some sort, and impeccant half-asses;
Now granting what poem shows plainly enough,
That Homer abounds with nonsensical stuff,
Yet it should, for his sake, if it can, be confin'd
To the pagan, and not the poetical kind.

The mules and the dogs, being shot at, coheres No better with sense, than the bulls and the bears:

To exculpate old Homer, my worthy friend, Lloyd, Some sort of correction should here be employ'd; And, for languages sake, in which matters are spread

Of a greater concern, if old writers are read, Where it seems to be wanting, the critics should To make out fair English for Latin or Greek. [seek

If the words have a meaning both human and brute,

Where Homer describes his Apollo to shoot,
Tho' brute, in the Latin, possesses the letter,
I take it for granted that human is better:
Do you think this a fair postulatum?—“ I do;
But you only affirm that the human is true."—
That's all that I want in this present epistic;
In the next 1 shall prove it—as clear as a whistle,

EPISTLE 11.

YOUR consent, I made bold to suppose, in my
To a fair postulatum had readily pass'd; [last,
That a mulish distemper, or that a canine,
Neither suited Apollo's, nor Homer's design,
Like making the subjects, who felt its first shock,
To be men like their masters, tho' baser of stock:
Now proof, at the present, comes under the pen,
That egg and xv, may signify men.

You'll draw the conclusion, so fair, and so just,
That if they may do it, they certainly must;
It would look with an unphilosophical face,
And anti-Rawthmelian', to question the case:
Tho' the proofs of this point, which I formerly
noted,

Have slipt my remembrance, and cannot be quoted;

From Homer himself it may chance to appear,
As I promis'd to make it, no whistle more clear.
That are guards, in Iliadal lore,
You may see in book Kappa, line eighty and four;

Alluding to Rawthmel's coffee-house, where several members of the Royal Society usually spent their evenings.

Plain sense, as I take it, if once it is shown That Homer opposes to-being aloneHaving two xuviç ɑgyu along with an hero, Will call 'em companions, not dogs, in Homero: Turn then to his Odyssey, Beta, line ten, Where dogs, as they call 'em, are certainly men; Attended by whom (he will second who seeks) Telemachus went to a council of Greeks.

With his sword buckl'd on, and a spear in his
hand,
[band;

He went (having summon'd) to meet the whole
So bravely set forth, so equipt, and so shod,
That, as Homer has phras'd it, he look'd like a
god;

Not alone to enhance the description of song,*
But he took with him two xuvas apysç along;
Two swift footed dogs! yes-two puppies no
doubt,

That Apollo had sav'd from the general rout!

One can but reflect how we live in an age That scruples the sense of all sensible page; Any kind of old nonsense more pleas'd to admit, If in Homer, or Virgil, or Horace, 'tis writ; But yet, to do justice to these, and the rest That time, and transcribing, and critical note Of the poor pagan poets, it must be confest, Have father'd much on them, which they never

wrote.

This place is a proof how the critics made bold To foist their own sense into verses of old; For instead of two Greeks here, attending their master,

And footing a pace neither slower nor faster; They have made in some places, to follow his track,

Of their swift-footed dogs, an indefinite pack;
The son of Ulysses unskilfully forcing
To go to a council, as men go a coursing.

Ox 15 x for master and dame,
Not alone-to interpret by Homer's true aim,
There are places enoo to evince that attendants
Were men, or were maidens, were friends or de-
pendants:

Thus Achilles-8% 10-Omega rehearses,
Had two Seganovтeç both nam'd in the verses,
Automedon-Alcimus-whom, it is said,
He valued the most, for Patroclus was dead.

Penelope thus, in first Odyssey strain,
Two aμpiñono follow'd-two women, 'tis plain,
When the dame was x and mention'd anon,

How they stood to attend her, on either side one.

Had aμpino signify'd cats in the Greek, [seek? Would not sense have oblig'd us new meaning to And two dogs as unfit as two cats, you will own, To describe man, or woman-not being alone.

To close the plain reasons, that rise in one's mind,

Take an instance from Virgil of similar kiud;

Where, in fair imitation of Homer, no doubt,
He describes king Evander to dress, and march
out;

And discern, by the help of his Mantuan pen,
How custodes and canes were both the same men;
Where canes are dogs, as all custom opines-
See Virgil's eighth book-come I'll copy the
lines

Nec non et gemini custodes limine ab alto Procedunt, gressumque canes comitantur herilem.

Kuves agya in Homer were then in his view, When Virgil, in Latin, thus painted the two; And the canes in him are the very custodes, Most aptly repeated, dignissime sodes: Did ever verse yet, or prose ever, record Any literal dogs, that kept pace with their lord? Proceeding attending-how plain the suggestion That dogs, in the case, are quite out of the ques

tion!

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Were guards and piquets, as verse sought to
Whether xviç attended, two footed, or four,
Upon heroes or kings, let the critics explore;
But pas for mules, in old Homer's intent,
I suspect that his rhapsodies never once meant.
The word is twice us'd in the twenty-third book,
In the space of five lines; where I made you to
look;

I'll refresh your attention-Achilles, know then,
Had desir'd Agamemnon, the monarch of men,
To exhort 'em to bring, when the morning ap-
pear'd,

And prepare proper wood, for a pile to be rear'd, For the purpose of burning, as custom instill'd, The remains of Patroclus, whom Hector had kill'd.

When the Morning appear'd, with her rosyfy'd fingers,

Agamemnon obey'd; and exhorted the bringers, The mules and the men;-as translation presents

Exhorted them all to come out of their tents: So the men and the mules lay amongst one another,

If this be the case, in some hammocs or other; And the men, taking with 'em ropes, hatchets, and tools, [mules.

Were conducted, it seems, to the wood by the

For the mules went before 'em-the Latinists say

[way: Which, a man may presume, was to show 'em the Or, since there was danger, the mules going first Might, perhaps, be because the men none of 'em durst;

For they all were to pass, in their present employ, To the woods of mount Ida, belonging to Troy; And if Trojans fell on them, for stealing their fire, The men in the rear might the sooner retire.

However, both mulish, and well booted folks Came safe to the mountain, and cut down its oaks; And, with more bulky pieces of timber cut out, They loaded such mules, as were mules without doubt:

When you found in the Latin, so certain a place, Where the loading description show'd mules in the case,

Your eyes to the left, I saw rolling, to seek
If the word for these mules was

in Greek,

And had they discover'd that really it was, Conjecture had come to more difficult pass; But since it was not, since 'niorov came, What else but the meaning could vary the name? Why should Homer, so fond, as you very well [quoted,

noted,

Of repeating the words which his Muse had once Make so awkward a change, without any pretence Of a reason suggested by metre, or sense?

Hovo, mules, tho' a masculine ender, Is always in Greek of the feminine gender; But nes, you'll find, let it mean what it will, Never is of that gender, but masculine still; How ridiculous then, that κρηες the Hees, Should become, by their loading 'novo, Shees? In a Latin description would poetry pass, That should call 'em mulos, and then load 'em mulas ?

Both the word, and the sense, which is really
the bard's,

Show the masculine mules to be certainly guards:
Any mules I desire any critic to name,
If Jacks in the gender, that are not the same:
May be offer'd, perhaps, as a masculine plea;
One place, which I hinted at, over our tea,
But if folks were unbiass'd, they quickly would find
A mistake to be there of the very same kind.

The Trojans met Priam at one of their gates, With the corps of his Hector-Omega relatesWhom they would have lamented there, all the day long,

Had not Priam, addressing himself to the throng, Made a speech-" Let me pass with the mules”—

and so on[upon: For mules drew the hearse which the corps lay Now the words that he said, at the entrance of Were-Ουρευσι διελθέμεν είξατε μοι. [Troy,

Priam said to the people, still hurrying down, "Let me pass thro' the guards"-(to go into the town).

This is much better sense, by the leave of the schools,

Than for Priam to say," Let me pass with the mules."

For Idæus directed the mulish machine,
While horses drew that in which Priam was seen;

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Who thought of no mules, but of reaching the dome, [home. Where they all might lament over Hector, at The mules had been nam'd very often before, In the very same book, times a dozen, or more; And the proper term for 'em had always occurr'd; It is only this once that we meet with this word: That it signifies guards, it is granted, sometimes,

As I instanc'd, you know, in the Baguley rhymes; And will critics suppose that the poet would make Variation for mere ambiguity's sake?

That Apollo should plague, Agamemnon exhort, These irrational creatures is stupid, in short; Where no metamorphosis, fable, or fiction, Can defend such abuse of plain, narrative diction. Perchance, as a doctor, you'll think me unwise, For poring on Homer, with present sore eyes; But a glance, the most transient, may see in his That a mule is a mule, and a man is a man. [plan,

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So then you think Acrisius really sold
His daughter Danae, himself, for gold;
When the whole story of the Grecian king
Makes such a bargain so absurd a thing,
That neither poetry nor sense could make
The poet guilty of the vile mistake.

No, sir, her father, here, was rich enough;
Satire on him, for selling her, is stuff:
Fear was his motive to a vast expense
Of gates, and guards to keep her in a fence:
But some dull blockhead happ'ning to transcribe,
When half alseep, has made him take the bribe,
Which Jupiter and Venus, as the bard
Had writ, made use of to corrupt the guard:
All the remarks on avarice are just;
But 'twas the keeper that betray'd his trust.

Passage from Virgil, which you here select us,
How gold is cogent of mortale pectus;
And from Euripides, that gold can ope
Gates unattempted even by the pope;

Show money's force on subjects that are vicious;
But what has this to do with king Acrisius?
Who spar'd no money to secure his life,
Lost, if his daughter once became a wife:
He shut her up for fear of death-and then
Sold her himself!-all stuff, I say again:
Death was his dread; nor was it in the pow'r
Of love's bewitchment, or of money'd show'r,
Of Venus, Jupiter, or all the fry

Of Homer's heav'n to hire the man to die.
Where is his avarice, of any kind,
Noted in all the fables that you find?

Except in those of your inventing fashion
That make him old, and avarice his passion?
To hide the blunder of amanuenses,
Who, writing words, full oft unwrit the senses
Fact, that in Horace, in a world of places,
Appears by irrecoverable traces;
On which the critics raise a learned dust,
And still adjusting, never can adjust.
Having but one of all the Roman lyrics
To feed their taste for slavish panegyrics,
The more absurd the manuscriptal letter,
They paint, from thence, some fancy'd beauty bet-
Hunting for all the colours round about, [ter:
To make the nonsense beautifully out;
Adorning richly, for the poet's sake,
Some poor hallucinating scribe's mistake.

Now I would have a short-hand son of mine
Be less obsequious to the classic line,
Than, right or wrong, to yield his approbation,
Because Homeric, or because Horatian;
Or not to see, when it is fairly hinted,
Either original defect, or printed.
Not that it matters two-pence in regard
Of either Grecian, or of Roman bard;
If schools were wise enough to introduce
Much better books for education's use;
But since, by force of custom, or of lash, [trash,
The boys must wade thro' so much traunt and
To gain their Greek and Latin, they should learn
True Greek, at least, and Latin to discern;
Nor, for the sake of custom, to admit
The faults of language, metre, sense, or wit:
Because this blind attachment, by command,
To what their masters do not understand,
Makes reading servile, in the younger flock,
Of rhyming Horace, down to prosing Lock:
Knowledge is all mechanically known,
And no innate ideas of their own.

But, while I'm rhyming to you what comes next,
I shall forget th' Acrisius of the text-
Your reasons then, why this custodem pavidum
Should not be chang'd to custodemque avidum,
Turn upon avarice; you think the father
Fond of the bribe; I think the keeper rather,
Who had no fear from Danae-the wife-
Who could receive the gold, and lose no life,
Must needs be he, and that, without the change,
The verse is unpoetically strange:

You make Acrisius to have been the guard,
And to be pavidus extremely hard
To make out either; for what other place
Shows that the king was jailor in the case?
And is not pavidus a dictum gratis?
Was not his Danae-munita satis?
Safe kept enough? If pavidus come after,

The dear joy Horace must provoke one's laughter;
Plain common sense suggesting all the while,
-Not fear, but fancy'd safety gave the smile:
Safe as Acrisius thought himself to be,
The custos avidus would take a fee;

A golden shower, they knew, would break his oath,
And Jupiter and Venus laugh'd at both.

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A hundred cups Mæcenas drink!

Where must he put them all d'ye think?
Pray have the critics all so blunder'd,
That none of 'em correct this hundred?

"Not that I know has any one
Had any scruple thereupon:
And for what reason pray should you?
The reading, to be sure, is true;
A hundred cups that is to say-
Mæcenas come and drink away."

If that was all the poet meant,
It is express'd without the cent:
Sume Mæcenas cyathos-
Does it full well without the dose,
The monstrous dose in cup or can,
That suits with neither bard nor man.

"Nay, why so monst'rous? Is it told
How much the cyathus would hold?
You think perhaps it was a mug
As round as any Jonian jug:

Thy drank all night: if small the glass,
Would centum mount to such a mass?"

Small as you will, if 'twas a bumper,
Centum for one would be a thumper:
It's balk Horatian terms define,
Vates attonitus' with nine;
Gratia-forbidding more than three
They were no thimbles you may see.

"Not in that ode-in this they might
Intend a more diminish'd plight;
And then Mæcenas and the bard
That night, I warrant ye, drank hard;
Perfer in lucem-Horace cries;
To what a pitch might numbers rise!"

A desperate long night! my friend,
Before their hundred cups could end;
Nor does the verse invite, throughout,
Mæcenas to a drunken bout:
Perfer in lucem comes in view
With procul omnis clamor too.

"Was it no bout, because no noise
Should interrupt their midnight joys?
Horace, you read, with annual tap,
Notes his escape from dire mishap:
Must he, and friends conven'd, be sober,
Because 'twas March, and not October?"

Sober or drunk is not the case,
But word and meaning to replace,
Both here demolish'd: did they, pray,
Do nothing else but drink away?
For friends conven'd had Horace got
No entertainment, but to sot?

"Yes to be sure; he might rehearse
Some new or entertaining verse;
Might touch the lyre, invoke the Muse;
Or twenty things that he might choose;
No doubt but he would mix along
With cup, and talk, the joyous song."

Doubtless he would; and that's the word, For which a centum so absurd

1 Hor. lib. 3. ode 19. v. 14.

Has been inserted, by mistake

Of his transcribers, scarce awake;

Which, all the critics, when they keep,

Are, quoad hoc, quite fast asleep.

"For that's the word"-" What word d'ƒb

mean?

For song does centum intervene?

Song would be-O, I take your hint,
Cantum, not centum, you would print;
Sospitis cantum-but the clause

Can have no sense with such a pause."

Pause then at sospitis, nor strike The three cæsuras all alike; One cup of Helicon but quaff, The point is plain as a pike-staff; The wine, the song, the lustre's lightThe verse, the pause, the sense is right.

"Stay, let me read the Sapphic out Both ways, and then resolve the doubt"

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Amongst other rules, which your Horace has To make his young Piso for poetry fit, [writ, He tells him, that verses should not be pursu'd, When the Muse (or Minerva) was not in the mood; That whate'er he should write, "he should let it descend

To the ears of his father, his master, his friend';" And let it lie by him now prick up your ears➡➡➡ Nonumque prematur in annum-nine years.

Nine years! I repeat-for the sound is enough, With the help of plain sense, to discover the stuff. If the rule had been new, what a figure would nine Have made with your Pisos, ye masters of mine? Must a youth of quick parts, for his verse's perfection, [rection?

Let it lie for nine years-in the House of Cor

1-In Mettii descendat judicis aures, Et patris et nostras.

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