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salia, made by her late husband, Nicholas Rowe, Esq., late Poet Laureate, and dedicated to Us by the said Anne Rowe. And for so doing this shall be your Warrant, &c. Given at Our Court at St. James', the 8th May, 1719, in the fifth year of our reign.

"By His Majts. Command,

SUNDERLAND.

J. WALLOP.
GEO. BAILLie.
WM. CLAYTON."

"To our trusty and welbeloved
Walter Chetwynd, Esq."

DR. ARBUTHNOT.

Too little is known of the wise, the witty, and the good Dr. Arbuthnot. The following warrant of appointment throws new light upon his history. He was buried in the church of St. James's, Piccadilly.

[Audit Office Enrolments, I. p. 375.] "Anne R.-Anne by the Grace of God Queen of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, &c. To Our trusty and welbeloved Dr. John Arbuthnot greeting. We being well satisfied of your abilities and experience in your profession have thought fit to constitute and by these presents We do constitute and appoint you the said Dr. Arbuthnot to be Our Physician to our Royal Hospital, near Chelsea. You are therefore care

fully and diligently to discharge the duty of Physician by doing and performing all and all manner of things thereunto belonging, and you are to observe and follow such orders and directions as you shall receive from Us, the Governor and Commrs. appointed for the government of Our said Hospital, or any other your Superior Officers, in pursuance of the trust We hereby repose in you. Given at Our Castle at Windsor, the 12th day of November, 1712, in the eleventh year of our reign. By Her Majys. Command, BOLINGBROKE."

DENNIS THE CRITIC. Dennis was appointed one of the Royal Waiters in the port of London under the Commissioners of the Customs by royal sign manual warrant of 6 June, 1705, reappointed in the reign of George I. by royal sign manual warrant of 17 March, 1714, and allowed to sell out by treasury warrant of 21 March, 1715. The following warrant (as the more important of the three) is alone given.

[Audit Office Enrolments, L. p. 42.]

"After our hearty comendations,Whereas his Majesty by letters patent bearing date the 17th day of March in the first year of his reign was pleased to continue unto John Dennis, Esq. the Office of one of the King's Waiters in the Port of London during His Majesty's Royal Pleasure, which said Office being now revoked and determined and the same granted by other His Majesty's Letters Patent unto Benj. Hudson, Esq.: These are to authorise and require you to make payment unto the said John Dennis or his Assignes of all such Sum and Sums of Money as are incurred and grown due unto him on his Salary of 521. p. annum in respect of the said office from the time he was last paid to the day of the Revocation thereof by the Letters Patent last-mentioned.* And this shall be as well to you for payment as to the Auditor for allowing thereof on your account a Sufficient Warrant. Treasury Chambers, 21 March, 1715.

R. WALPOLE.

W. ST. QUINTIN.
P. METHUEN.
F. NEWPORT."

"To our very loving friend

Henry Ferne, Esq. Rec. Gen'. & Cashier of His Maties Customs."

GILBERT WEST THE POET.

The following documents relate to West, the translator of Pindar, and to his widow, to whom a pension was granted of 2001. a-year.

[Audit Office Enrolments, O. p. 129.]

"George R.-Our Will and Pleasure is and We do hereby direct and require that an Annual Pension of Two Hundred and Fifty Pounds be established and paid by you from Christmas last past One Thousand Seven Hundred and Thirty-Five unto Gilbert West during Our pleasure in such and the like manner, &c. Given at Our Court at St. James' the 20th day of May, 1736, in the ninth year of Our reign.

'By His Majesty's Command,
R. WALPOLE.
GEO. DODINGTON.
SUNDON."

"To our trusty and welbeloved

William Stuart, Esq."

[Audit Office Enrolments, R. p. 19.] "Pursuant to His Majesty's Warrant bearing date 12 day of June, 1746, empowering the Paymaster General to ap

* The letters patent appointing Benj. Hudson Dennis's successor are dated 17 March, 1715 (Enrolments, L. p. 41).

point a fit person to pay and discharge the Quarters of the Invalid Out Pensioners of His Royal Hospital near Chelsea with an Allowance not exceeding two shillings per diem.

"By and with the authority aforesaid, I do appoint Gilbert West, Esq. of Wickham, in the county of Kent, to pay and discharge the said Quarters at the allowance aforesaid, for which this shall be his Warrant. Given under my hand and seal this 16th day of April, 1754.

W. PITT." "Signed, sealed, and delivered (being first duly stampt) in the presence of

SAMUEL CAMPION. THOS. BAUGHAM."

[Audit Office Enrolments, R. p. 374.]

"George R.-Our Will and Pleasure is and we do hereby direct and command that an Annual Pension of Two Hundred Pounds be established and paid by you from the 5th day of July, 1756, unto Catherine West during our pleasure by quarterly payments, &c. Given at our Court at Kensington the 28th day of July, 1756, in the thirtieth year of Our Reign. "By His Majesty's Command, HOLLES NEWCASTLE.

R. NUGENT.

P. WYNDHAM O'BRIEN."

"To Our Right trusty and welbeloved William Hall, Lord Viscount Gage, Paymaster of our Pensions."

*

LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE.

THE long promised work of Colonel Mure will, we think, justify the expectation which its first announcement excited. Its ground is nearly unoccupied its subject, from its relations to all classical and to most modern literature, is of general interest; and it appears at a moment when the political annals of Greece have been invested with fresh interest by Mr. Grote. Even the time which the author has devoted to his book establishes for it a claim to especial attention. It is the fruit, as we learn incidentally from its pages, of twenty years' application to one pursuit. Such constancy and careful elaboration imply the steady enthusiasm which excellence demands, and, as among the rarer attributes of modern authorship, should be estimated accordingly by the reader.

Colonel Mure, however, merits more than negative and circumstantial praise. He is a genial critic as well as a learned chronicler. His ardour for a favourite theme is uniformly guided and tempered by good sense. He bewilders us with none of the theories or paradoxes with which continental scholars so often delight to startle their readers. He writes for the unlearned as well as for the scholar, and one with "little Latin and less Greek" may extract from his pages much pithy and pro

fitable matter. Colonel Mure, expatiating on the tale of Troy, is as pleasant a guide to the Homeric scenery as were Bunyan's shepherds to the prospect from the Delectable Mountains. Were we to choose an interpreter for the Xanthian marbles, it should be the author of the Critical History of Ancient Greek Literature. He is a true hierophant of the Homeric temple. The majesty and beauty of the Iliad and Odyssey have entered deeply into his inmost soul. He has an intense sympathy with its heroic action and repose. The similies are to him what the pictured pavement of the mount of Purgatory was to Dante. Simois and Scamander are better than the rivers of Damascus. He has in him a smack of Agamemnon's paladins, and relishes the wanderings of Ulysses as young men and maidens have in all ages relished the travels of Sindbad. He traces Homer's plots with as much zest as if Mr. Colburn had recently published a "Life of Achilles," in three volumes.

This is the right spirit for a commentator on the Ionian bard. We abhor dissertations on Homer redolent only of the lamp. The Iliad and Odyssey are no themes for the cloistered student. Like Shakspere, they need for an interpreter one who knows men

* A Critical History of the Language and Literature of Ancient Greece. By William Mure of Caldwell. 8vo. Vols. i. ii. iii. 1850.

and cities as well as books. Hence, for the most part, the merely learned Germans have misunderstood the character and conditions of the Homeric age. They brought nothing but booklearning to a subject which above all other subjects stands in the closest relations to nature and life. The difference between Colonel Mure's commentary and the commentaries of Wolf, Heyne, and Thiersch is the difference between mountain air and the atmosphere of a stove-heated room. By the one we are braced and exhilarated; the other makes us valetudinarians. Whatever objections may be raised against some of the details or the general arrangement of the volumes before us, we entertain no doubt that the chapters on Homer-more than a third of the work-will be universally acceptable, as well for their alacrity and vigour, as for their minute and solid information.

The following outline of the intended work, of which the present volumes are the first instalment, will exhibit the extent and nature of the task which the author has undertaken, not indeed without some natural misgivings that from its extent and completeness he may not be destined to bring it to the proposed end.

"The literature of Greece," Colonel Mure remarks, "classes itself almost spontaneously under six heads or periods, offering to the historian an equally apt arrangement of his subject.

"The first, or mythical period, comprises the origin and early culture of the nation and its language, with the legendary notices of those fabulous heroes and sages to whom popular belief ascribed the first advances in elegant art or science, but of whose existence or influence no authentic monuments have been preserved.

"The second, or poetical period, extends from the epoch of the earliest authenticated productions of Greek poetical genius, through those ages in which poetry continued to be the only cultivated branch of composition, and terminates about the 54th Olympiad (B.c. 560).

"The third, or Attic period, commences with the rise of the Attic drama and of prose literature, and closes with the establishment of the Macedonian ascendancy, and the consequent extinction of republican

freedom in Greece.

"The fourth, or Alexandrian period, may be dated from the foundation of Alexandria, and ends with the fall of the Græco-Egyptian empire.

"The fifth, or Roman period, succeeds, and extends to the foundation of Constantinople.

"The sixth, or Byzantine period, comprises the remaining ages of the decay and corruption of ancient civilization, until the final extinction of the classical Greek as a living language."

The volumes now offered to the public treat of the first and second of these periods, and are divided into three books. The first comprises the mythical period, the primeval character of the Greek language, the foreign elements and influences traceable in it, its structure, genius, and early culture. A chapter on the Greek mythical legend, in which the author takes an opposite view of the subject to Mr. Grote, follows, and Grecian literature is brought down to the era of the Epopeia.

With the second book commences the poetical period. Its first chapter is introductory. From the second to the eighteenth inclusive, Colonel Mure discusses the subject of Homer. He next proceeds to the other poets who have taken Troy for their theme within the limits above mentioned, mingling with his critical remarks such scattered biographical details as the scholiasts and grammarians furnish. The author's intimate acquaintance with Greek epic poetry renders these chapters the most interesting section of his book.

The third book contains the general history of Greek lyrical composition, and closes with a dissertation on the early history of writing for monumental, hieratic, and literary purposes. When Colonel Mure deals with men, manners, and poetry, he always writes genially and forcibly. He is less at home in the domain of the philologer, and his work would perhaps on the whole have been better if he had confined himself to the literature, and excluded the language, of ancient Greece. He never writes vaguely except when discussing questions which belong to linlyric poets, like his remarks on Homer, guistic science. His criticism on the imply perfect intimacy with the originals and fine instincts for art. Sometimes, indeed, Colonel Mure labours under a disease incident to editors and commentators, that of magnifying commonplace into excellence. But we quarrel with no man's tastes,

and, if the reader thinks more highly than we do of the Greek lyrists as a body, he will the better appreciate the author's elaborate miniatures of Alcæus, Archilochus, Stesichorus, and Mim

nermus.

There is, however, one point in Colonel Mure's arrangement of which we doubt the propriety and do not perceive the convenience. We mean his separation of the early history of Greek writing from the sketch of the mythical poets, and the Prolegomena to the epic era. The problem of Homer's personality, to which Colonel Mure justly attaches so much importance and has allotted so much space, depends in great measure for its solution upon the fact of the existence or nonexistence of writing for literary purposes among the contemporaries of the author or authors of the Homeric poems. In this instance, therefore, the strict chronological order was not only the most correct, but also the most convenient, and the postponement of its discussion has all the disadvantages of an anachronism. As it stands, this dissertation breaks unseasonably upon the literary narrative, and has a desultory and unsatisfactory effect where it stands at the close of the third volume.

We are too much indebted however to Colonel Mure for his gallant restitution of Homer to personal rights to carp at minor points of arrangement. The vivacious stout-hearted Ionian, who had more life in him than a battalion of ordinary poets, has suffered at the hands of his German commentators the treatment to which a Roman bankrupt was liable from his creditors. One seized a shoulder, another a leg, and a third some more vital part, while each complacently exclaimed, that he grasped the original Homer. But this analytic or rather anatomical process was never quite satisfactory even to the operators themselves; for when they attempted to construct a new Homer, according to private fancy or philological theory, confusion of tongues fell upon them, and Wolf, Heyne, Hermann, and Thiersch, could hit upon no principle of union except an agreement to reject one another's hypothesis. As this is the most important portion of Colonel Mure's work, we shall need per

haps no apology for pausing briefly upon it.

In the year 1564 A.D. was born at a market-town in the county of Warwick a child, baptized as William Shakspere, the son of honest parents, and well enough to do in the world. In early manhood, or perhaps even sooner, the said William betakes himself to London, becomes a player, and an author of plays, some of which are extant and of considerable credit even to this day. The most competent judges of such matters, whether merely men of fine taste, or whether also men of sound learning and discretion, have for more than two hundred years been of opinion that there are certain general signs, inward and outward, whereby the plays of William Shakspere may be known and discriminated from those of any other play-wright, be his name Benjamin, Philip, or John, with certain additions of Jonson, Massinger, Fletcher, or Ford, all which parties are supposed at divers seasons to have entered into partnership with the said William. And these tokens are commonly defined to be superior fullness of thought, command of language, boldness of invention, art of metre, and cunning in moving tears or laughter. But whereas it has been found in the plays of the said Shakspere that he makes pertinent allusions, implying intimacy with certain crafts -to wit, the several crafts of the wool-comber, the schoolmaster, the scrivener, the justice of peace, the butcher, and others too numerous to mention; therefore it can in no wise have been that William Shakspere was ever one and the same person, competent to sue and to be sued, to marry and beget offspring, to be seized of goods and chattels, or to perform or devise any act as a single and substantive man. Wherefore we must infer from the above premises that the plays which are described as the plays of William Shakspere were really made by sundry of the same name, one of whom was a butcher, another a justice, a third a weaver, each of whom furnished his several portions, which, when complete, formed themselves into distinct concretes, intituled Othello, Macbeth, Hamlet, and others.

We have imagined a Wolfian hypothesis as applied to Shakspere. Not

a critic or a pit would deal with it more leniently than the critics of Queen Anne's reign dealt with Rymer, or the pit of Drury Lane Theatre dealt with Ireland's Vortigern. The theory of Wolf is not a whit more rational, and, had Greek continued to be a living language, Wolf's "Prolegomena" would have been met from the first with "inextinguishable laughter." Yet Wolf himself, the parent of this critical μopμoλúkeιov, was the most acute and profound scholar of his age, and his Prolegomena on Homer, radically preposterous as it is, contributed by its erudition and its shrewd insights into collateral questions to advance Greek scholarship more than any treatise of the time-so much mischief can a mere philologer produce when he steps out of his proper circle: so much good may be derived from the errors of a really learned man. The cause of the mischief was this: Wolf had great erudition but no taste; he dwelt among books, and never looked abroad upon nature or man; he dived deep into the alms-basket of words, and from that abysmal depth decreed what was possible or impossible for men to do three thousand years before he lived.

In anatomising Homer, Wolf not only dealt with the external evidence in a slashing inconsistent fashion, but left out of his reckoning many important elements and modifications of the question. He forgot the quick apprehensive genius of the Hellenic race, the rapid civilisation, the genial climate of Ionia and the Egean islands, the active commerce of the Levant, the proximity of Phoenicia, the motherland of alphabetical writing to Europe, the contemporaneity of the Jewish monarchy, then in its prime and palmy grandeur, and the ancestral cultivation of Egypt, on which the first shadows of evening had not yet fallen. All these are as necessary ingredients in an argument of which the object is to prove that the Greeks could not write, as discussions on the digamma, on the original form of the Kadmean alphabet, or on the variations of metre and construction in the Iliad and Odyssey. But Wolf would have us believe that on the Syrian seabord men wrote and read like civilised people, but on the Ionian and Argive sea

bord they were as ignorant and helpless as if they had dwelt round the Bight of Benin. Nor is this all. For he confounds the European with the Asiatic Greeks, the tardier civilisation of Hellas proper with the rapidly matured civilisation of the Pan-Ionian league. The ignorance of a Bæotian bullock-driver in the 11th or 10th century B.c. is no warrant for similar obtuseness in a Smyrniote or Chian poet of the same age; and truly the European Greeks themselves were little beholden to Kadmus, if all he taught them was to cut monumental inscriptions upon stone or to scratch upon boards the decrees of their senate. But such are ever the theories of men who do nothing but read and write, and peer at the world around them through the spectacles of books alone.

Colonel Mure is well qualified to probe both the strong and the weak parts of the Wolfian hypothesis, since he began his preparations for the present work "a zealous disciple of the Wolfian school." Twenty years' diligent scrutiny of its doctrines have led him, as he informs us, to a thorough conviction of their fallacy, and, both negatively and positively, he has proved that the most formidable of adversaries is a former convertite.

We have written freely of Wolf, for whom, notwithstanding, we have a high respect; but usque ad aras. We love Wolf much, but we love Homer more; and his attempt to saw the bard into quantities, or to serve him as Medea served Pelias, with the expectation that his severed limbs could be boiled by any philological cookery into spruce rejuvenescence, is a flagrant act of treason to poetry and art.

We believe that Colonel Mure has correctly ascribed the heresy of the Prolegomena to the revolutionary epidemic which, at the close of the last century, extended from politics to criticism.

"The publication of Wolf's Prolegomena, or Prefatory Essay to the Iliad, in which his views were developed, took well as political destinies of Europe. A place during a crisis in the intellectual as bold spirit of speculative inquiry was then abroad, the valuable effects of which in exploding error and prejudice have been too often counterbalanced by the spread of

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