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is at least likely to be placed on a more

solid basis.

We shall state the nature of the present work, in the words of the learned editor.

"It was my object," says he," in this revision of the poems of Homer, besides the labour which is common to editor of a every

classic author, in determining the true reading, and just interpretation, to collect the scattered remarks, so far as they are valuable, of ancient and modern commentators, slightly noticing what is of less consequence, and explaining what is more important, at greater length. As the labours of the ancients, especially the grammarians, in the illustration of Homer, form a subject of considerable curiosity, it appeared an object of importance to extract their learning from the mass of scholia, glossaries, and commentaries, in which it is contained, and freeing it from the extraneous matter with which it is combined, to present it at one view to the reader, that he may be enabled to form a judgment of its real merit. And as the moderns have, in the same province, distinguished themselves no less in both the departments of criticism, as relating to the just constitution, and grammatical interpretation of the text, and as extending to the illustration of the poetry itself, the structure, the glossaries, and beauties of the work, I have thought it an object of principal importance to associate their la bours in my plan, subjoining my own judgment, whatever may be its value."

Such is the plan, which more than twenty years ago was marked out for the execution of the present work. It originated in an application from Ernesti, the editor of Homer, at Leipsic, in 1759, to superintend a revision of his edition, which he then intended to lay before the public. This proposal was declined, since the edition of Clarke, republished and augmented by Ernesti, though a work of merit and utility, when considered with reference to the period of its execution, was still inadequate to the requisitions which arose from the advanced state to which Greek literature has recently attained. Having resolved, therefore, in the preparation of a new edition, to consult his own views, it was the first object of M. Heyne to alleviate the burden of his undertaking by the aid of some literary associate. In 1781 an engagement for this purpose was formed with S. F. N. Morus, at that time professor of Greek and Latin literature, in the university of Leipsic, a connection which was, however, shortly afterwards broken, by his removal to the chair of

theology, in the same university. A similar engagement was then formed with C. D. Beck, well known to the public by his useful labours in the province of ancient learning, who undertook the from the Scholia, and of passages quoted collection of various readings, of extracts by ancient authors, from the writings of Homer. In 1792, M. Heyne was, however, deprived of the assistance of his second colleague; and in reviewing the extent and difficulty of his plan, would willingly, he says, have relinquished his undertaking, had it been consistent with the engagements into which he had entered. Notwithstanding these discouragements, therefore, to which was added the consideration of his declining age, and the multiplicity of his avocations, he at length resolved to persevere, frequently repeating, as he informs us, that verse of his author

Δαιμόνιε, ου σε εοικε, κακον ώς, δείδισσεσθαι.

Some very important resources of dif ferent kinds were open to M. Heyne, for the execution of this work. He first enumerates six manuscripts, preserved in the public library of Breslau, the use of which was procured from the magistrates of that city. A description of them occurs in the prolegomena of the third volume, pp. 88, 89. These manuscripts were collated by Frederic Jacobs, the editor of the Anthology, and at this time a learned professor at Gotha. In the year 1788, collations were procured from Matthaei, of several manuscripts, generally imperfect, particularly some preserved at Moscow, one of which is accompanied by unedited Scholia. In the same year appeared Villoison's edition of the Iliad, with scholia, published from ancient and valuable ma nuscripts, then preserved in the library of St Mark, at Venice, and since transported, with the spoils of Italy, to the national library at Paris. This was an event of the greatest importance to the criticism of Homer, as the scholia of the Venetian manuscripts are of a much more valuable order than any of those which had been before made public.

M. Heyne also procured the use of a copy of the edition of Homer, by Stephanus, preserved in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, formerly pos sessed by Doctor Bentley, and enriched with the manuscript notes of that illus

trious scholar. It is well known that Bentley had, at one period of his life, formed the project of a new edition of Homer, a principal object of which would have been the restoration of the digamma. This plan he never carried into execution. He has, however, mark ed in the margin of his copy of Homer, the words which appear to have originally possessed the digamma; and M. Heyne acknowledges himself under the greatest obligations, in the doctrine which he has advanced on this subject, to the diligence and sagacity of our learned countryman.

M. Heyne experienced the generosity of Mr. Townley, (whose exquisite collection of different remains of antiquity, and his liberal exhibition of them to the curiosity of the public, are well known), in the use of a most valuable manuscript of Homer, which forms a part of his literary treasures. As this relic may be regarded as interesting and honourable, not only to its possessor, but in some degree to the British public, an account of it, extracted from the prolegomena of the present edition, may prove not unacceptable. It was procured about the year 1773, by Mr. Townley, along with some other manuscripts, at Rome, and its age was then referred, by Asseman, librarian of the Vatican, to the ninth century. It is written on parchment, consisting of 288 leaves, and is accompanied by a series of ancient scholia, which, on the first inspection, appeared to be of considerable value and importance. Those of the 1st, 19th, 20th, 21st, and 22d books, were transcribed, and were found in general to agree with the second Venetian scholia, and others of the same order. They are written, if not in the same hand with that of the Iliad, at least by one of equal antiquity, though with some interlineations of subsequent date, and inferior value. M. Heyne had, a short time previous to his inspection of this manuscript, obtained a copy of the scholia which pass under the name of Victorius, and he was struck by their correspondence with those which accompany the manuscript of Mr. Townley. A further comparison left no doubt on his mind that this manuscript was the source from which the scholia, copied by Victorius, and known by his name, were originally derived, a specimen of which was published in the year 1620, and may be seen annexed to several edi

tions of Homer. In the progress of his inquiries, M. Heyne also discovered the manuscript of Mr. Townley to be the same with that described by Lucas Holstonius, in his life of Porphyry, as preserved by a noble family at Florence, with scholia, ascribed by some to Porphyry, by others to a still more ancient author. The result is, that the Victorian scholia are a transcript from the celebrated Florence manuscript, which had since disappeared; and that this manuscript, the subsequent fortune of which was hitherto unknown, is the same which has since come into the possession of Mr. Townley, and which may be regarded as one of the most valuable copies of Homer at present existing. In common with some other manuscripts, it wants the catalogue.

Such is the object of the present edi tion, and such the principal resources from which its peculiar advantages are derived.

The text of the Iliad is contained in the two first volumes, with a preface, briefly stating the history of the work, and accompanied by short notes, illus trative of the structure of the poem, its phraseology, and the more obvious difficulties which may occur to the reader in a cursory perusal. The words in which the digamma is inserted (which are in general only those in which the insertion is important to the prosody), are printed in capital letters, between the text and the notes, where the variations from the common reading are also stated. The third volume includes the prolegomena, and the Latin version; the remaining five are occupied by the various readings, the observations, and the excursus.

It is not to be expected that many new discoveries can be made from any of the remaining sources of critical illustration, by which the works of Homer may be restored to a state of much greater purity, than that in which we now possess them. The writings of this poet, if we date at least from the period of the later Alexandrian grammarians, appear to have been transmitted to us in a state less corrupt than that in which many other works of antiquity have reached us. It is the judgment of the editor that, in this respect, Homer has experienced a fortune more favourable than Virgil. It may, however, be easily supposed that he possesses no exemption

from those corruptions which the lapse of time, and the negligence or ignorance of transcribers, have so profusely introduced into most of those productions of the writers of antiquity, which have descended to us through a series of ages, so unfriendly to the cause of literature. We shall here endeavour to place before our readers a general view of what has been effected in this department of the edition.

The authorities for the constitution of the text, are the early editions, the manuscripts, and ancient scholia, a critical account of which is given in the prolegomena of the third volume.

The editions of any critical authority, are stated to be but few; the edilio prin ceps of Florence, in 1488; the second Aldine, the first Strasburgh edition; that of Rome, with the commentaries of Eustathius; those of Turnebus and Stephanus, the latter of which is regarded as the basis of the common reading. Of these the principal, in critical importance, are the Florentine and Roman. There are, however, some later editions, as those of Barnes and Ernesti, which contain reports of manuscript readings. That of Clarke has lost a considerable part of the authority which it once possessed. Its merits and defects are very justly estimated by the present editor; but though Clarke cannot, perhaps, be admitted to stand in the very first rank of classical commentators, he will, beyond all controversy, in his varied characters of scholar, philosopher, and divine, continue to occupy a distinguished place among those illustrious names which form the ornament of his country. "Nomen viri docti, acuti philosophi, et theologi sobrie philosophantis, carum et sanctum mihi habetur." Heyne prol.p.32. Many valuable manuscripts of Homer, are preserved in the different libraries of Europe. It cannot be supposed that they should furnish much information respecting the state of these poems at a period earlier than that of the recensions of the Alexandrian grammarians. "Probabiliter dici posse apparet hoc," says the editor, "fundum nostræ lectionis esse Aristarcheam, mutatam tamen in multis et variatam judiciis aliorum grammaticorum, interdum temeritate librariorum et vanitate correctorum; multis tamen in locis etiam emendatiorem ac meliorem ipsâ Aristarcheâ." Several of the remaining manuscripts have not

yet been collated, and others have been but imperfectly examined; it is, how. ever, the opinion of Professor Heyne, that much further benefit is not to be expected from the collation of them, if an estimate may be formed from the advantage which has resulted to the text of Homer, from those which have been already inspected.

The ancient scholia form a more im portant field of critical investigation.

It is well known, that the respect paid by the natives of ancient Greece, to the works of Homer, was gradually carried to the highest pitch of enthusiastic admiration. The writings, therefore, of the national bard, regarded with a degree of reverence approaching to idolatry, would naturally become the subject of innumerable treatises, commentaries, and remarks. Many fragments of these works have been transmitted to the present time, and though they are incumbered with much useless and foreign matter, yet they convey also a considerable portion of information, which may be applied with great utility to the illus tration of the poet.

Our author first enumerates among the interpreters of Homer, those who undertook to explain the allegories which they discovered in his poems, or employed themselves in different ways, to defend or excuse the apparent absurdity or impiety of some of his fictions, sometimes by physical, and sometimes by ethical interpretations. Little, how ever, is accurately known respecting the earliest attempts of this nature. Ano ther species of questions was agitated by the philosophers and sophists, respecting passages which they referred to the opinions of their own age, intermixed with various substitutes relative to places of obscure or doubtful meaning. These were termed aтa or (nous, and were accompanied by the vous, of the sophists, some of which are preserved by the scholiasts.

These critics, if they deserve the name, were succeeded by the Alexandrian grammarians, under whom the reading, and grammatical interpretation, at length became subjects of some concern. From the knowledge which has been transmitted to us respecting their labours, they appear, however, to have been very remote from the critical precision of modern philologists.

As the remarks of a single gramma

rian frequently extended only to a single book, or to some other portion of the whole work, miscellanies of scholia were gradually formed from different authors, of different descriptions.

By the decline of learning in Greece, and the changes suffered by the ancient language, it at length became necessary for those who wished to peruse the writings of the flourishing ages of their country, to qualify themselves for this purpose, by the study of their native language in its former state. Homer now required an interpreter, obsolete words were to be rendered by others better known, which were often inserted by interlineations in the manuscripts, for the assistance of the reader. Hence arose a fresh order of scholia, gradually descending from the explication of the more obscure words and phrases, to those which are among the most frequent and familiar.

It became customary also to form collections of the ancient explanatory scholia, or us, reduced to alphabetical order; these were termed xa; hence the Lexica Homerica, such as that of Apollonius, published by Villoison."

From these different species of scholia, the scholia found in the manuscripts preserved to the present times, have been collected with different degrees of judg. ment and discrimination; the more ancient the manuscript, the more valuable and important the scholia generally prove. They are reduced by M. Heyne to three classes; the first is that of the ancient scholia, collected from the remarks and discussions of the Alexandrian school. These appear to be the most numerous in the first Venetian manuscript, published by Villoison; they are, however, found interspersed among the scholia of other manuscripts, of inferior order. Those of the second class are principally found in the second Venetian manuscript of Villoison, in that of Mr. Townley, those of the Leipsic, Leyden, and some others. The commentators of this class are principally occupied, not in grammatical or critical questions, but in discussions respecting the narrations, maxims, and sentiments of the poet, their proprieties and defects. Porphyry is placed at the head of this division. A work attributed to him, with the title of 'Ounpixa (ruara, is still extant, and has been several times published. He is supposed, however,

to have written a work of much greater extent upon the subject, of which the treatise now extant is, perhaps, an abridgment, and fragments of which are found in the different collections of scholia. The scholia brevia, first published by John Lascaris, in the year 1517, and found in many of the common editions of Homer, form the third class. In common with every other collection, they retain some fragments of the more ancient and valuable commentaries, but are chiefly derived from later and infe rior sources, and are perpetually intermixed with the interlineary glosses of the manuscripts.

The commentaries of Eustathius have been long in the possession of the criti cal student of Homer, but they are more valuable, perhaps, for the grammatical learning which they contain, and their numerous citations of ancient authors, than for their direct tendency to illustrate the poet to whose works they are attached. "He appears," says the edi tor," to have possessed several manuscripts of scholia, from which he has formed extracts." He accordingly calls his collection παρεκβολας.

Such are the authorities which now remain for the establishment of the genuine text, the advantages of which have been more amply enjoyed by the present editor, than by any of his predecessors, and in themselves confer a considerable degree of importance on his work.

The basis of the text is the first edi tion of Wolfius, published in 1784.

If any valuable reading is supplied by good manuscripts, it is of course adopted.

But the sagacity and diligence of modern critics have in some instances established principles of emendation, in particular cases of greater weight than the authority of manuscripts themselves. Such, in the attic poets, are the observations respecting the invariable use of the augment, and the dependance of different words and tenses on the particles with which they are connected, and the state of the clause in which they occur. Such in the construction of the tragic iambic, are the canons respecting the exclusion of the anapest from the even seats of the verse, and, by the decision of Professor Porson, from the third and fifth of the uneven places. And whenever, by an easy and probable emenda

tion, a deviation from these general rules can be removed, a critic will not hesitate to receive it, in preference to a reading which violates them, and which may, on that account, be deemed corrupt, though uniformly exhibited by the remaining manuscripts.

These rules are concluded to be universal, from a preponderancy, beyond all comparison, in the number of instances in which they are observed, and the ease with which, in all, the violation of them might have been avoided. Many of those violations which appear in the common editions, have also been removed by the authority of better copies. Similar canons of emendation, perhaps of equal certainty, may in some instances be established in the criticism of Homer. The editor, however, has rarely ventured to admit into his text any alteration founded on them, unless confirmed by the authority of some manuscript.

The hiatus in the writings of Homer, forms a probable ground of emendation. Bentley has endeavoured to expunge it in every instance in which it occurs, and with some limitations, which will afterwards be specified, this doctrine will, perhaps, generally be admitted.

The doctrine of the digamma, as applied to the writings of Homer, may, with regard at least to many words, be considered as so well established, that every deviation from it implies either a corrupt or a supposititious reading.

The Ionic forms of verbs, omitting the augment, are always, in this edition, preferred, wherever any manuscript of any value_authorizes the admission of them. In many instances this is effected merely by a different division of the words, and in others by some very easy change. Thus in Iliad i. 5, in the common editions, we read Διος δ' ετελείετο βέλη, in the present, Διος δε TEASISED fun; II. i. 2, in our present copies we find anys ins; the Ionic reading, equally consistent with the verse, would be aλy Inxe. The editor is some times tempted to regret that he has not preserved the uniformity of this rule, by the preference of these forms, wherever the introduction of them is easy and obvious, even in contradiction to the authority of manuscripts. Yet as the augment certainly occurs in many instances in the writings of Homer, where the construction of the verse does not admit

alteration, is it not possible that it may sometimes have been employed in preference to the Ionic form, in cases where both are otherwise equally admissible, for the sake of some superior melody which it may have communicated to the verse, perhaps not in all instances easily perceptible to us? Mr. Wakefield (noct. carc. 51) remarks the suavity in some cases, and the frequency of the cæsura, at the first syllable of the fifth foot, in the heroic verse. Hence, Il. xvi. 356, he would prefer the division Ardos d'ex afforded by the copies of Plutarch, and now by some manuscripts apud Heyne, to the common reading Aidos de Beßnues.

The use of the word i, , ro, by Homer, and in imitation of him, by others of the heroic poets, as a pronoun or relative, which in the use of subsequent writers, became the article, affords, perhaps, in some passages an admissible ground of alteration. Thus Il. i. 35, where our copies have nga yegos, the original reading was probably nexto ygos. It is probable, however, that this observation cannot safely be applied without some limitation.

There are some other rules of slighter importance, to which attention has been paid in the text of the present edition.

The forms βησε το and δυσετο, are res ceived in preference to those of Bozte and durato.

In many cases a division of words, commonly compounded, is preferred to their united state, as v ALLEVO, Kan xoμowvras. The latter words, in the earlier parts of the poem, are printed as they are here represented, but are afterwards compounded. No reason, so far as we have observed, is given of this in consistency. The division of these words is preferred in the excursus, T. iv. p. 180.

The confusion of the words Figue and guw, has in some instances been the oc casion of corruptions, which an attention to their prosody and signification may remove.

We shall notice two of those varieties of reading, which have struck us as most conspicuous in the perusal of this edition.

The first occurs, Iliad xiv. 485. The reading both of the manuscripts and editions in this passage, is

γνώτον εν μεγάροισιν αξέως αλκτηρα γενεσθαι.

The word aptus is, therefore, to be interpreted, with some harshness of expres

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