On the subject of this mysterious letter, the Æolic Digamma (to say nothing at present of Mr. Knight's peculiar orthography in other matters), much has been written by other learned critics, besides Dawes, particularly by Villoison in his Prolegomena to Homer, by Chishull, Dr. Bentley, and Dr. Taylor. Chishull has given, in his Antiquitates Asiaticæ, a. 1728, examples of it from inscriptions on ancient monuments. Bentley and Taylor have left behind them certain editions of Homer, in which they have marked many places and inserted this Æolic Digamma. Dr. Taylor has further illustrated this matter from inscriptions on ancient monuments, in his Marmor Sandvicence. It does not fall within the limits of our observation to enter upon a serious and critical inquiry into the reality, (for some have asked, where was there ever a copy, or where is now to be found a manuscript of Homer's writings, with this digamma in it?) nor into the form, the use, and the extent of this Aspirate. Such matters would be too copious for our present purpose, and, indeed, foreign to its object. We shall only say, that the reality of the Digamma being admitted (and notwithstanding the question just put, there is ample testimony to its reality), the form is sufficiently evident, from its name, though its force and extent would admit of much debate. The critics are far from being agreed among themselves in some particulars on these points. But we may pretty safely follow Dawes's testimony to one important article at least; "ex locis jam descriptis istud in transcursu observare est quam frustra sint ii, qui Æolicum F eidem apud Latinos figuræ potestate itidem respondisse contendunt:" and we further incline to follow Mr. P. Knight in the following observation. "The Folic dialect, we know," says Mr. Knight, "had more guttural sounds than any other, and more particularly employed the Digamma, which is thence called Æolic by the later grammarians. We may therefore fairly conclude, that it represented this sound, to which, perhaps, there is nothing nearer in modern language than our WH, as pronounced in the word whirl, or that of the Tuscan GU, as pronounced by the natives of Florence and Pisa, in the word Guerra.' The above passage is quoted from Mr. P. Knight's "Analytical Essay on the Greek Language;" which is here distinctly pointed out to readers, who, before they pass a judgment on the Carmina Homerica, ought certainly in justice to make themselves ac Marmor Sandvicense, cum Commentario et Notis Joannis Taylori, &c. 1743. quainted with that work: his Analytical Essay containing the theory, by which Mr. Knight directs his practice in this singular volume. As a specimen of Mr. P. Knight's way of applying this Aspirate, the Digamma, in the Homeric writings, an extract has been given above: and instead of any extraneous observations, our readers shall be now presented, from Dr. Bentley's and Dr. Taylor's copies, with specimens of several places in which they apply this same character. Dr. Bentley's copy is preserved in Trinity College Library, Cambridge; Dr. Taylor's in the public Library of the same university, together with many other of his printed books containing his manuscript notes. From Dr. Bentley's Copy. Μηνιν αείδε, Θέα, Πηληιαδεω Αχιλήος Ατρείδης τε ξαναξ ανδρων, και διος Αχιλλευς. In v. 20. υια ξεκηβολου. in v. 38. Ειφι ξανασσεις. in v. 64. Ος From Dr. Taylor's Copy. Μηνιν, αείδε, Θεα, Πηληιαδεω Αχιλήος Στεμματ' έχων εν χερσι Γεκηβολου Απολλωνος. ν. 24. Αγαμεμνον' εξηνδανε θυμω-ενι Fοικω-έδεισεν-Απολλωνι Γανακτι-ιφι ξανασσεις Feκατηβέλεταο Fανακτος-προφων Γεπεσιν και For μαλα Γειπε-Αγαμεμνονα Γειπης-εν στηθεσσι ξεοισι-δομεναι Γελικωπίδα. The above extracts were made very cursorily and hastily, but, if we mistake not, they are all the places, within the limits, in which the Æolic Digamma is placed. And what will strike our readers at once is, the abundance of places in which Mr. Knight puts his Æolic Digamma, and the paucity of Dr. Bentley's and Dr. Taylor's insertions. It is, however, evident, that both Dr. Bentley and Dr. Taylor have only employed it in a few particular cases, which perhaps more immediately struck them, incidentally, and perhaps in reference to some particular points of criticism, on which they might have been employed at the time, and without attending to the other places, in which they would have admitted that the Digamma might have been inserted. Dr. Bentley's insertions appear to have been very scanty. And with respect to that learned critic's projected edition of Homer with the Æolic Digamma, mentioned by Dawes, it was perhaps one of those numerous pro jects, which literary men are apt to form, and of which many, like castles in the air, through the multiplicity of their pursuits and the shortness of human life, come to nothing. Dr. Bentley also had announced, in like manner, his intention of giving a new edition of the Greek Testament from new manuscripts collated, and ancient versions compared. Dr. Middleton pronounced it supra vires, and it came to nothing.-Non omnia possumus omnes. As it is not intended to resume the subject of the Eolic Digamma in what may hereafter be offered on the language of Homer, it may not be improper to subjoin here as follows. Not having met with this letter, expressive of the aspirate, in the most ancient manuscripts of Homer, which it has fallen in our way to peruse, and never having heard of any that has it, we called the character mysterious, not doubting however that the Eolians expressed it. The manuscripts of Homer, not excepting the very ancient, are allowed to be very much corrupted: but that most magnificent and elegant edition, the Editio Princeps, printed at Florence, a. 1484, under the direction of a learned Greek, Demetrius Chalcondyles, who followed the best of them, has no trace of it. Nor does it occur in the earliest grammars by learned modern Greeks.3 In speaking therefore of this character, as mysterious, and, in putting the question how all these Digammas had fled from Homer, it was only intended to say, that such as may even The Townley Homer, as it is called, (purchased by Dr. Burney, out of Mr. Townley's collection) now in the Brit. Museum, and the Greek Manuscript of Homer in New College Library, Oxford. 2 Bernardus Nerlius in the preface to this Aldine edition observes as follows, of Homer, qui quidem ob incuriam et negligentiam librariorum ita sui dissimilis videbatur, ut in nullo fere codice quamvis perveteri integer agnosceretur. Yet he has only the rough and smooth breathing as now used, no Æolic Diganıma, or F aspirate; and he had, as he said, besides, with study compared the Commentaries of Eus tathius. 3 Gram. Gr. Chrysoloræ et aliorum: Ald. 1517. Theodori Gazæ. Paris. 1518. have doubted of its reality, may at least have some ground for their opinion, though for some observations that may solve this difficulty we refer to Mr. Knight's Prolegomena. And as the following passage from his Analytical Essay on the Greek Language seems to be as exact, though in few words, and satisfactory an account as any that has been given of the Digamma, we shall close with it our present paper. "An ancient scholiast, cited by M. de Villoison, says that, when the H became a vowel, it was divided into two letters, the first of which, F, was employed to signify the aspirate, and the second, I, the slender, or simple vowel sound. Quintilian and other old grammarians seem to have held the same opinion; so that there can be no doubt that these marks were so employed in the manuscripts of their times. There is, however, no instance of the I in any ancient monument now extant, or in any manuscript anterior to the ninth century, though the Foccurs upon the medals of Tarentum, Heraclea, and Lesbos, and also on the Heraclean tables, and an earthen vase published with them by Mazochi; who has conjectured, with much ingenuity and probability, that these two notes were first employed in opposition to each other, to signify the thick and slender enunciation of tone, by Aristophanes of Byzantium, the inventor of the accentual marks The present notes (') and (') are corruptions of them, which were gradually introduced to facilitate writing.4 Dr. Taylor supposed that the H was the Ionian aspirate, the F the Dorian, and the F the Eolian;s but we find the F in its Pelasgian form, E, with the t on the Heraclean tables; and the Lesbians, whose coins have the latter aspirate, which he calls Dorian, were Æolians." By way of postscript, we must add, that notwithstanding the reputation obtained by Dawes in this country, Mr. Knight maintains he was mistaken both as to the form of the Digamma, and, frequently, as to the words, to which it ought to be added: and that by his way of handling the subject he has brought this branch of criticism into some disgrace among the learned in other parts of Europe. 1 Proleg. in Homer. p. 5. where the marks, through an error of the copyist or printer, are transposed. Lib. i. c. 4. and Gramm. vel. Putch. Col. 1829, et seq. 3 Comm. in Tab. Heracl. p. 127. • Ibid. 336 NOTICE OF PROFESSOR COUSIN'S Edition of the two first books of PROCLUS on the Parmenides of Plato, 8vo. Paris, 1821. THE volume containing these commentaries, is the fourth which Professor Cousin has most laudably given to the public, of the works of Proclus ; and I trust that the same zeal and the same ability which induced him to bring to light these inestimable works, from an oblivion no less long than disgraceful to countries which profess to be polished, will also enable him to publish all that remains of the writings of this Coryphæan Platonist, and incomparable man. 2 These commentaries, indeed, are justly called by the Professor," an ancient, great, and venerable monument of Grecian and Egyptian wisdom;" and to the generality of readers, and in short, to every one who has not legitimately studied the philosophy of Plato, they will also be what he denominates them, obscure. But by the man who has happily penetrated the depths of that philosophy, at which, as Bishop Berkeley well observes, many an empty head is shook, they will be found to be as clear an explanation of dogmas and truths, which, though in their own nature most luminous, but to the multitude impene trably dark, as it is possible for the most enlightened genius to effect. And hence this work is very properly said by Damas cius 3 to be υπεραιρουσα εξηγησις, a super-excellent exposition.4 Among the Harleian manuscripts in the British Museum, there is a copy of these commentaries, of which, by permission of the Trustees of that excellent Institution, I made a transcript, upwards of thirty years ago. And the following are the emendations, which from a frequent perusal of this work, I have been induced to consider as not only probable, but for the most part indispensably necessary... In the first place, in p. 4. 1. 12, which is towards the close of a most splendid exordium, in which Proclus magnificently invokes the several orders of those divine powers that t are 'Vid. Præfat. tom. ii. p. 10. 2 In his Siris. 3 Vid. Photii Biblioth. p. 1070. 119 4 I refer the English reader, who has a genius for such speculations, to the 3d volume of my translation of Plato, in the notes on which, I have given the substance of this admirable commentary..... |