No. XXVII. Several views of the bridge and city of Cen torbi, or Centurippi-an ancient ftable, well preferved and characterized-some beautiful remains of an ancient fountain or refervoir; are the objects represented in the fix plates of this number. Centurippi was a democratical city, which, like Syracufe, received its liberty from Timoleon. Its inhabitants cultivated the fine arts, particularly fculpture and engraving. Ia digging for the remains of antiquities, cameos are no where found in fuch abundance as at Centurippi and its environs. The fituation of the place is romantic: it is built on the fummit of a vaft group of rocks, which was probably chosen as the most difficult of accefs, and confequently the propereft in times of civil commotion. The remains of its ancient bridge are a proof of its having been a confiderable city. Cicero fpeaks of it as fuch. It was taken by the Romans, plundered and oppreffed by Verres, destroyed by Pompey, and restored by Octavius, who made it the refidence of a Roman colony.

No. XXVIII. The objects contained in this number are all modern, except a baffo-relievo of a Sarcophagus, in white marble, placed in the Cathedral of Sclafani. It represents a feftival of Bacchus, with all its allegories, and contains several very graceful figures. The city of Speringa, celebrated in mo. dern hiftory for the asylum it furnished to 300 French, during the horrors of the Sicilian vefpers, is here beautifully represented in its pleasant fituation on the fummit and declivity of a high mountain. This is the fubject of the 163d plate. The following one contains a fine drawing of the basso relievo now mentioned. The 165th and 6th plates represent the nuptial ceremonies of the Albanians, performed according to prescriptions of the Greek ritual. Thefe Albanians fled into Sicily for an afylum from the perfecution of the Turks. They founded four villages, the most remarkable of which is Palazzo Adriano, fituated at the foot of the Mountain of Roses, so called from the immenfe quantity of these flowers that it produces fpontaneously, and famous for other aromatic productions, which form a confiderable branch of commerce. There is fomething very pleafing in the figures of these Albanians, as they are delineated from nature by our ingenious artist. The men have affumed the Sicilian habit, but the women ftill retain the drefs of their ancient country, which is very graceful as it is reprefented in the 167th plate. In the fecond divifion of the fame plate, there is an antique figure of Minerva, called Sai, which, in a very remote antiquity, was worshipped at Polizzi, on a splendid altar, and has now no other refidence but a basket. It carries, even in its prefent fhattered and degraded state, the veftiges of the brilliant period of the arts. It has three heads; one of a woman, another of a young man, and the third of an old man; and the

heads,

heads, the figure, and the drapery, feem to us to be in the pureft and finest tafte. M. HoUEL does not attempt to explain this figure, or its attributes. He fuppofes it to be an emblem of fome religious truths or duties. Whatever the intention of the artift may have been, we think the three heads a very happy emblem of the beauty, vigour, and venerable dignity, that are involved in the idea of true WISDOM.

The 168th plate exhibits the Albanian women of the lower claffes, in their ufual drefs, which is really graceful, and fuperior to all our refinements of luxury in that line.

No. XXIX. In the 169th plate, our Author has followed the Albanian ladies into their dreffing-rooms. He feems unwilling to leave them. The drefs of the ladies of quality, as exhibited in this plate, is modeft and rich, and not inelegant. The following plate represents the interior of a Sicilian house, and is accompanied with an interefting defcription of feveral of their domeftic occupations and cuftoms. In the 171ft, 2d, and 3d plates, we have A View of the eaftern extremity of the mountain of Caftrogioanni, and two of the lake of Naphtia. This number is terminated by the view of a noble ancient edifice, of which it is not eafy to point out the purpofe. If it does not offer to our view fuch fplendid remains of the arts of antiquity as fome of the preceding numbers, it nevertheless contains a learned and interefting account of the places through which M. HOUEL paffed, fuch as Bivona, Santo Stephano, Cuifquina, Caftranovo, Alimena, Caftrogiovanni, Piazza, Aidone, Mazzarino, Barrafranca, Pietraperzia, Caltagirone, Mineo, the lake and town of Palica, Militello, and St. Lio.

We must advertise our Readers, that the third vOLUME of this great and elegant work begins with the twenty-fifth Number.

[To be continued.]

AR T. III.

D. WYTTENBACHII Defcriptio ac Specimen Editionis Operum Plutarchi. i. e. A particular Account, accompanied with a Specimen, of a new Edition of the Works of Plutarch. By M. WYTTENBACH, Profeffor at Amfterdam.

IT

T is now fifteen years fince this Edition of Plutarch was promifed to the Public by the learned and acute M. WYTTENBACH, Profeffor in the academical fchool at Amfterdam, and eminently diftinguished from the vulgar and infipid class of philologifts by his philofophical genius, judgment, and tafte. He undertook this laborious work in the fervid feafon of youth, and propofed to finish it in ten years; but at this season the fpirit of enterprife does not always permit us to weigh deliberately the powers APP. Rev. Vol. LXXVIII.

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of execution. Maturer thought fuggefted to him the neceffity of adding five years more to the ten; and the work is finished in a manner which we believe will give great fatisfaction to the Public, and place our Editor in a high rank among the critics and interpreters of the ancients. The account which M. WYTTENBACH gives of his labours is elegant and judicious. He began them on a very extenfive plan. By confulting and collating a great number of ancient manufcripts of his Author in the libraries of Holland, France, Italy, Mofcow, &c. he not only reftored a multitude of words that had been evidently corrupted, but filled up confiderable chafms, which rendered the meaning of Plutarch incomplete and defective. By the perufal alfo of ancient writers, and the affiduous ftudy of his Author, he collected a great quantity of materials both for the purposes of amending the text and explaining its true fenfe. But while he was going on at a great rate in thefe refearches, he bethought himfelf of the old maxim, that art is long and life is fhort: apprehending also that fuch ample collections would tempt him to fwell his edition to an enormous fize, he resolved to depart from his primitive plan, and to reduce his work to a narrower compafs. He thinks (and fo do we) that his undertaking will meet with the approbation of learned and candid judges, if his edition of Plutarch be found, with refpect to the correctness of the text, the propriety of the notes, and the fidelity of the Latin verfion, much fuperior to former editions. To render it fuch, M. WYTTENBACH has fpared no pains; and, if we may judge from the fpecimens of the text, verfion, emendations, and notes, that we have now before us, we think he has perfectly fucceeded. The emendations and variantes, which take up little room, are printed under the text, and then follow, on the fame page, the Latin verfion, and below it the notes. This arrangement we think more commodious both to the eyes and hands of the reader, and confequently lefs apt to divide and weary his attention, than the method followed by thofe editors who, facrificing convenience to typographical elegance, print the text, readings, verfion, and notes, in feparate pages. Nor does this arrangement at all deform the prefent edition, which will be pleafing to the eye by the beauty of the type, the quality of the paper, and the excellence of the prefs-work. If, as he tells us, his edition will be ftill more elegantly printed than the specimen annexed to this profpectus, it will certainly deferve encouragement, even on account of its typographical merit.

But the very highest encouragement will be due to it on account of merit of a fuperior kind. The improvement that M. W. has given to Xylander's verfion by the elegant and judicious touches of his truly claffic pen, is indeed valuable, but his notes

have a degree of merit which entitles him to a diftinguished place in the first clafs of interpreters. We find here no pompous oftentation of barren and useless philology, no accumulation of phrafes to explain paflages in which there is no real difficulty or to illuftrate fuch as can only appear obfcure to the ignorant. Nothing, on the contrary, can be more judicious than the choice of the paffages on which our Editor has bestowed his labours, as a grammarian, a critic, or a philofopher; and much light does he caft upon his Author in these characters, as appears even by the fpecimens of the work now before us. It is only doing juftice to the learned Profeffor to obferve, that he has reduced to practice the rules of interpretation which he has himself laid down in the elegant and judicious piece we are now reviewing, and against which the laborious herd of commentators have finned fo grievously. As a proof of his taste and judgment, we fhall felect the following paffage from what he has faid on this fubject; its length, we truft, will not displease our learned readers.

Ceterum, interpretatio certum quoque finem ac modum habeat. Nam ut nemo dubitat, quin obfcura illuftrari, et impedita expediri debeant, ita dubitatur, quid fit obfcurum et impeditum. Atqui hæc non per se, fed comparatione, conflant: non funt abfoluta, fed relata; ut quod aliis obfcurum impeditumque fit, idem aliis perfpicuum expeditumque reperiatur. Ergo neque ita diffundenda eft interpretatio, ut eos etiam locos explicet, qui non nifi pueris ac tyronibus obfcuri funt; neque ita reftringenda, ut jolos attingat eos locos, in quibus doctiffimi homines hæreant. In priori genere funt Minellianæ, Farnabianæ, fimilefque editiones; quas ego baud penitus contemno, quippe ipfe quondam eorum utilitatem expertus: fed Plutarchum totum ad eam rationem edi nolim. In altero genere funt Bentleianæ editiones, que unice in emendando verfantur, rerum verborumque omnem interpretationem, quafi legentibus cognitam, omittunt, nec eam nifi obiter, ubi emendationis ratio reddenda eft, attingunt. Ad quam item rationem paucis accommodatam, non edendus eft Plutarchus, cujus doctrina eum habet fructum, qui in publicam utilitatem explicari debeat. Quid igitur? Media quedam tenenda eft via, quam quifque non imperitiffimus fequi poffit. Carneades in fchola nimium clamans, a vicino admonitus ut vocem aliquantum fubmitteret, refpondit, Da mihi vocis menfuram: cui vicinus, menfuram habes auditores tuos. Ita editor menfuram interpretationis habet legentes, quorum captui, quafi auribus, ita vocem accommodabit fuam, ut a quovis non furdo intelligatur, nec contentione obtundat acutiores, nec fubmiffione præterlabatur bebetiores. Non igitur fe ipfe faciet menfuram, ut de iis tantum locis dicat, qui adbuc ipfi difficiles videantur, prætereat autem locos, quos, antea minus intellectos, jam longo auctoris uju intelligit. Perfonam fumet medii hominis, qualis ipfe fuerat anteaquam ad interiorem cum Auctore familiaritatem pervenerat : tum ipje je excutiet, ac fua jenfu explorabit, quem interpretationis modum legentibus admetiatur. Denique de locis defperatis, quibus lucem aut fanitatem adferre non potuerit, ne taceat, fed ignorantiam ipfe fuam candide profiteatur. Qui fecus facit, dupliciter peccat; et quod filentio intelligentiam fimulat, et quod aliis corruptum tamquam Janum

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Janum tradit. Nec poteft, nifi fimplex et apertus, quifquam esse bonus interpres.'

Thefe characters of a judicious annotator are realised in our learned Profeffor, who, by his profound knowlege of the genius of the Greek language, his own philofophical fpirit, and his intimate and extenfive acquaintance with the philofophy of the ancients, has illuftrated his Author with the greatest fuccefs in fome of the notes that are now before us.

Among the many circumftances that render this edition of Plutarch worthy of our recommendation, the four indices deferve attention. The firft contains things, and is much more ample than that which we find in the edition of Stephens; the fecond, the matters and words that are explained in the notes; the third, the names of the writers who are mentioned by Plutarch; and the fourth is, a Lexicon of Plutarch's Greek, in which are contained the new obfervations that have occurred to the Profeffor with respect to the diction of his Author, and the meaning and import of the terms he employs. This may be called a clavis Plutarchiana.

The prefent edition will contain all the works of Plutarch. that are extant, beginning with his moral writings, and ending with his lives; and a particular and circumftantial account of all the manufcripts which M. WYTTENBACH has made ufe of in reftoring the true text of his Author, will be given in the Preface.

AR T. IV.

Sermons fur divers Textes de l'Ecriture Sainte, par feu M. CHARLES CHAIS, Pafteur a la Haye, Membre de l'Academie de Haarlem et de la Societé de Dublin. i. e. Sermons on feveral Texts of Scripture. By the late Rev. CHARLES CHAIS, Paftor of the French Church at the Hague, and Fellow of the Philofophical Societies of Haarlem and Dublin. Svo. Printed for Schourleer, Hague. 1787.

G

NOOD fenfe and found argument conftitute the character of Jour British preachers; but their fermons, however excellent as theological or philofophical discourses, have not, in general, that fervor and animation which ought to distinguish an address to a popular audience, from a differtation intended for the clofet. Indeed fo far is an eloquent ftyle and an animated delivery from being encouraged, either by the precept or example of our elder and fuperior clergy, that nothing is more common than to hear all pretenfions to these accomplishments treated with seeming contempt, and nothing is more rare than to find them cultivated. Thus, from their exceffive dread of one extreme, our preachers frequently fall into its oppofite: hence the moft fublime and affecting form of prayer often loses all its beauty and effect by being read in a flovenly monotonous man

ner;