yag for you. In the verse of this play we conjecture Thov rav σαίνοιμεν ὀλέθριον μόρον ; as in v. 403. Κόσμον μὲν ἀνδρὸς οὔτιν ̓ ἂν τρέσαιμ y. In Sophocl. Philoct. 733. 753. for TT; we should evidently read Tir; as in the Antigone 997. Electr. 920. Euripid. Hecub. 1374. Hippol. 1175. Troad. 1050. Heraclid. 795. Aristophan. Acharn. 177. In the verse under consideration we should prefer, Ti dozv; or Tí piv; as in Eumen. v. 203. The observation of Bentley and Dawes is only true when applied to the Tragedians. An instance of hiatus. occurs in v. 1265. of the Agamemnon. Пarai. olov rò đũg, but under particular circumstances. V. 992. of the Choephori at present stands thus, Τί σοι δοκεῖ; μύραινά γ' ἢ ἔχιδν ̓ ἔφυ; but read, μυραινά ἢ ἔφυ; púgarvá ynd, 'xidy pu; At this same verse Dr B. says " "Aga sis Ald. Rob." In our copies of those editions it is aga μ'és. Read dean's me. Q.

v. 223. Muretus Var. L. v. 19. adopts a different punctuation of this and the following verse, unremarked by Dr B.

· ν. 232. Ἔστι θεοῖς δέ τ ̓ ἰσχὺς καθυπερτέρα. Dr B. agrees with us in preferring is, the reading of Aldus and Robortellus, though he does not seem to be aware of the objection to dirt, which we stated in our notice of Dr Burney's Tentamen, No. XXXV. p. 175. We are, however, in some degree of doubt, whether the genuine reading be not, "Er becïç de y'ioxus x. A similar combination of the particles and y occurs in Euripid. Suppl. 936. 940. Iph. A. 21. Ion. 368. (where however we would read 'Anyúvitai dè x Tixoura) Electr. 1146. 1224. (èyà dé q’érexéλevod co. as it should be read) Danae 18. low, v. 288.

See be

ν. 294. Ἐκ χαλεπᾶς δύας. "Kai xarerãs Pors." and so it stands in the Aldine, Florentine and Basle editions of Marcellinus.

Ibid. υπερθ ̓ ὀμμάτων. "nie Marcellinus in Vita Thucyd. " Dr B. took Schutz's word for this: the words in Marcellinus are ὑπέρ τε ὀμμάτων.

Ibid." Primus vidit Hermannus gevaμevæv vepλav genitivos esse plurales. This statement is slightly inaccurate: in the first place not nenuvaμevãr, but xenuvauvar, the penacute, is the genitive plural; and secondly, the three first editions of Marcellinus have κριμναμένων νεφελῶν. Dr B. says σε κρημναμένην νεφέλην Ald. Rob." Our copies have νεφέλαν,

ν. 236. ̓Ανδρῶν τάδ' ἐστι, σφάγια καὶ χρηστήρια Θεοῖσιν έρδειν. We should prefer 'Ardgar Tod' tori. Tid sc. et rád in Codd. sæpe confunduntur. as Dr B. would observe.

εσω

ν. 238. καὶ μένειν εἴσω δόμων. " w dóμor Mosq. 1. Brunck. Schutz. recte, quoniam 'ATTInwrigws. The tragedians, in t1 first, third, and fifth feet, as we are inclined to think, pre

· They fight for freedom who were never free;
A kingless people for a nerveless state,

The vassals combat when their chieftains flee,
True to the veriest slaves of Treachery.'

The second canto conducts us to Greece and Albania; and opens with a solemn address to Athens-which leads again to those gloomy and uncomfortable thoughts which scem but too familiar to the mind of the author.

'Ancient of days! august Athena! where,

Where are thy men of might? thy grand in soul?
Gone---glimmering through the dream of things that were.
First in the race that led to glory's goal,

They won, and pass'd away---is this the whole?
A school-boy's tale, the wonder of an hour!

Son of the morning, rise! approach you here!
Come---but molest not yon defenceless urn:
Look on this spot---a nation's sepulchre !
Abode of gods, whose shrines no longer burn.
Even gods must yield---religions take their turn :
'Twas Jove's---'tis Mahomet's---and other creeds
Will rise with other years, till man shall learn
Vainly his incense soars, his victim bleeds;

Poor child of doubt and death, whose hope is built on reeds.
Bound to the earth, he lifts his eye to heaven---
Is't not enough, unhappy thing! to know
Thou art? Is this a boon so kindly given,
That being, thou would'st be again, and go,
Thou know'st not, reck'st not to what region, so
On earth no more, but mingled with the skies?
Still wilt thou dream on future joy and woe?' &c.

p. 62-63: The same train of contemplation is pursued through several stanzas: one of which consists of the following moralization on a skull which he gathers from the ruins-and appears to us to be written with great force and originality.

Look on its broken arch, its ruin'd wall,

Its chambers desolate, and portals foul:
Yes, this was once Ambition's airy hall,

The dome of Thought, the palace of the Soul:
Behold through each lack-lustre, eyeless hole,

The gay recess of Wisdom and of Wit,

And Passion's host, that never brook'd control:

Can all, saint, sage, or sophist ever writ,

People this lonely tower, this tenement refit? p. 64.

There is then a most furious and unmeasured invective on

Lord Elgin, for his spoliation of the fallen city; is exhausted, we are called upon to accompany

and when this Harold in his

voyage along the shores of Greece. described with great truth and spirit.

His getting under way is

He that has sail'd upon the dark blue sea,
Has view'd at times, I ween, a full fair sight;
When the fresh breeze is fair as breeze may be,
The white sail set, the gallant frigate tight;
Masts, spires, and strand retiring to the right,
The glorious main expanding o'er the bow,
The convoy spread like wild swans in their flight,
The dullest sailer wearing bravely now,

So gaily curl the waves before each dashing prow.' p. 69.

The quiet of the still and lonely night, however, draws the author back again to his gloomy meditations. There is great power, we think, and great bitterness of soul, in the following

stanzas.

To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell,
To slowly trace the forest's shady scene,

Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,
And mortal foot hath ne'er, or rarely been
To climb the trackless mountain all unseen,
With the wild flock that never needs a fold;
Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean;
This is not solitude; 'tis but to hold

Converse with nature's charms, and see her stores unroll'd.
But midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men,
To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess,

And roam along, the world's tir'd denizen,

With none who bless us, none whom we can bless ;
Minions of splendour shrinking from distress!
None that, with kindred consciousness endued,
If we were not, would seem to smile the less
Of all that flatter'd, follow'd, sought, and sued:
This is to be alone; this, this is solitude!'

p. 73-74.

Childe Harold cares little for scenes of battle; and passes Actium and Lepanto with indifference.

But when he saw the evening star above
Leucadia's far-projecting rock of woe,
And hail'd the last resort of fruitless love,
He felt, or deem'd he felt, no common glow:
And as the stately vessel glided slow
Beneath the shadow of that ancient mount,
He watch'd the billows' melancholy flow,

And, sunk albeit in thought as he was wont,

More placid seem'd his eye, and smooth his pallid front.

Morn dawns; and with it stern Albania's hills

Dark Sulis' rocks, and Pindus' inland peak,

Rob'd

thority of the Pope, there remains the declaration against transubstantiation and the invocation of saints, besides all the laws which affect Dissenters in general. It is not to be supposed that persons of this description will ever willingly consent to the repeal of a considerable number of statutes, which our ancestors, who were so much better judges of these matters than we are, thought necessary to the preservation of the constitution.

The third class consists chiefly of most of the clergy of the Established Church, and of such of the laity as aspire to the character of Highchurch men. The members of this class are adverse to the admission of any persons who do not profess the religion of the State, to offices of trust and emolument. Many of them do not scruple to maintain, that Dissenters, of all sorts and conditions, must, from the nature of things, be enemies to the government of their country. A Presbyterian Chancellor would not be less offensive in their eyes, perhaps more offensive, to several of them, than a Catholic Chancellor. Instead of raising the Catholics even to the political situation of the Protestant Dissenters, they desire to depress the Protestant Dissenters to. the political situation of the Catholics. * Of the numerous pamphlets on this subject written by clergymen of the Church of England which we have seen, we recollect only one, in which the admission of Protestant Dissenters to offices is recommended; while the exclusion of Catholics from them is defended. Mr le Mesurier, in his Sequel to the Serious Examination into the Roman Ca-. tholic Claims, (p. 68), produces the following passage from Selden's Table Talk. The Protestants in France bear office in ⚫ the state, because, though their religion is different, yet they acknowledge no other king but the king of France. The Papists in England,-they must have a king of their own, a Pope, that must do something in our kingdom; therefore, there is no ⚫ reason they should enjoy the same privileges. On these words Mr le Mesurier remarks- This is a most just and true distinc⚫tion. Protestants own no foreign head of their church, there⚫fore they have no temptation to overset the government under " which

p. 5

* Observations on the Roman Catholic Question, by Lord Kenyon, The most effectual way, therefore, of affording security to an Established Church, is to restrict to its members the possession of that power, which, if placed in other hands, would endanger it. Therefore it is required, in this country, that not only the Sovereign, but all persons appointed to offices of power and trust, should be of the Established Religion.' If this doctrine can be clearly proved, it seems to be a needless waste of time and labour, to dwell upon the particular objections to the admission of Catholics to offices of power and trust.

which they live, if not molested." A person better acquainted with the theory than with the practice of dialectics, would naturally infer from Mr le Mesurier's words, that if Catholics did not own a foreign head of their church, he would be willing to admit them to offices in the state, as well as Protestant Dissenters. A passage which occurs at the very threshold of his writings on this subject, clearly demonstrates the erroneousness of such an inferI will go farther, and venture to express my opinion, that such is the general spirit of the Romish Church, such is the tendency of all the institutions and doctrines which are peculiar to it, that it can never with safety be admitted to more than " a toleration in a Protestant state. Serious Examination, &c. p. 3.

ence.

*

To the fourth class belong all persons who view the Roman' Catholic religion with the eyes of the old Puritans. Under this class are comprehended many of the Protestant Dissenters of the more ancient sects, together with almost all the Methodists, taking the appellation in its most comprehensive sense. A Mcthodist troubles himself very little about foreign influence' and ⚫ divided allegiance.' He considers a Catholic, not as a kind of rebel, but as a kind of idolater; a believer in free-will and justification by works, a suppresser of the scriptures, and a persecutor of the godly. When we observe the great and increasing influence of the Methodists, we do not hesitate to consider them as by far the most formidable enemies to the Catholics; and, indeed, as no despicable enemies of some other persons. It is principally by means of the Methodists that the popular cry of No-Popery has been excited.

Upon the whole, we firmly believe, that if the bulk of the Irish nation were members of the Greek or Armenian Church, instead of the Roman Church, the question of Emancipation would stand very nearly, if not exactly, where it stands at prescnt. There is another opinion upon this subject, which we have sometimes been tempted to adopt, and which we will submit to the consideration of our readers, without any commentary or explanation. We suspect, that if the four, or three, or two millions of Irish Catholics were unanimously to offer to embrace any modification of Protestantism, except the Established Religion, many, if not most of those who feel, or affect to feel, such dreadful apprehensions of foreign influence,' would answer, in the words of Othello, 'Tis better as it is.'

ART.

See especially the Hints of Philagatharches, reviewed in our Vol. XVII. p. 393.