L'EDIPE DE SOPHOCLE, et les OISEAUX D'ARISTOPHANE, traduites par Boivin le Cadet: one of the best scholars that France ever produced. Paris, 1729.

HISTOIRE D'HERODOTE TRADUITE DU GREC PAR M. LARCHER, avec des Notes, &c. Paris, 1786. 7 vols. in 8vo.

The version is clear and correct; the notes are learned and judicious; and a scholar will only regret that Larcher has not published an improved edition of the Greek text. Yet this is the man whom Voltaire made the object of his ridicule.

RECHERCHES ET DISSERTATIONS SUR HERODOTE, par le Président Bouhier. Dijon, 1746, in 4to.

THE SPEECHES OF ISEUS, translated, with notes by William Jones. London, 1778, in 4to.

XNOPHONTIS MEMORABILIA SOCRATIS, ab Ernesti, Gr. Lipsiæ, 1755, in 12mo.

XENOPHON'S EXPEDITION OF CYRUS, by Edward Spelman. London, 1747, 2 vols. 8vo.

One of the most accurate and elegant prose translations that any language has produced. It is enriched with many notes, and Forster's Geographical dissertation.

L'EXPEDITION DE CYRUS, traduite par LARCHER. Paris, 1778, 2 vols.

in 12mo.

Histoire des Animaux, par ARISTOTE, en Grec et en François, par Camus. Paris, 1783, 2 vols. in 4to. Camus is a scholar and a naturalist. The first volume contains a pure text; the second is an elaborate parallel between Aristotle's knowledge and the discoveries of the moderns.

Aristoteles

Aristoteles de Mirabilibus Auscultationibus, Gr. et Lat. Gotting. 1786, in 4to. This collection of strange stories, which may be drawn from Aristotle's works, is illustrated by the copious and curious notes of John Beekman, the editor.

APOLLODORI ATHENIENSIS Bibliotheca, Greek et Lat. cum notis Chr. G. Heyne. Gotting. 1782, 1783, 4 vols. in 12mo. The text is comprised in the first volume: the three last are a mine of mythological erudition.

POLY BII MEGALOPOLITANI Historiarum quicquid superest, Gr. et Lat. recensuit, digessit, illustravit Johannes Schleighæuser. Lipsiæ, 1789-1793, 6 vols. (yet unfinished) in 8vo. This accomplished edition, both for the text and notes, will soon extinguish the preceding The fragments are disposed in such lucid order, that we seem to have recovered the forty books of the history of Polybius

ones.

The General History of POLYBIUS, translated from the Greek, by Hampton. London, 1772, 1773, 4 vols. in 8vo. The English translator has preserved the admirable sense, and improved the coarse style of his Arcadian original. A grammarian, like Dionysius, might despise Polybius for not understanding the structure of words; and Lord Monboddo might wish for a version into Attic Greek.

L'Histoire de POLYBE traduite du Grec par le Père Vincent Thullier, avec un Commentaire Militaire par le Chevalier de Folard, Amsterdam, 1753-1759, 7 vols. in 4to. The mixed offspring of a monk ignorant of tactics, and a soldier ignorant of Greek. Language and history are tortured to support the column; but in his modern anecdotes and observations, Folard is lively, interesting, and authentic.

DIODORUS SICULUS.-Histoire Universelle de DIODORE DE SICILE, traduite par l'Abbé Terasson, Paris, 1756, 7 vols. in 12mo. The execu

tion

tion is tolerable, but the design was singular for a mathematician, who despised history and the ancients.

APOLLONII Sophistæ Lexicon, Iliad et Odyss. ab HIERONYM. TOLLIO, Ludg. Bat. 1788, 2 vols. 8vo.

NOVUM LEXICON GRECUM IN PINDARUM ET HOMERUM A CHRIST. TOBIA DAMM. BEROLINI, 1774, 4to. If we compare these two Lexicons, the Greek in his long language must veil his bonnet to the German, a most useful interpreter of Homer.

LETTERS

LETTERS

TO AND FROM

EDWARD GIBBON, ESQ.

No. I.

EDWARD GIBBON, Esquire, to GEORGE LEWIS SCOTT, Esquire.

DEAR SIR,

As I know the value of your time, and as I have already borrowed some of it, I will not increase the debt by an idle preamble.

When I was in Switzerland, I contracted an intimate friendship with Mr. Deyverdun, a young gentleman of one of the best families of that country. Misfortunes have since that time ruined his fortune, and he is at present in a situation very inadequate to his birth and merit, a clerk in one of our Secretaries of State's offices. As the dull mechanic labour of his post still leaves him many leisure hours, he has formed a design of filling them by a work of which he is very capable, and which will perhaps do him some honour. Observing that since the time Dr. Maty discontinued his Journal Britannique, foreigners have often complained they had no tolerable account of English literature, he purposes supplying that deficiency. His understanding (I think I do not indulge a friend's partiality) is an exceeding good one, his taste is delicate, his knowledge extensive; he is critically acquainted with our language, and writes very well his own. I have promised him all the little assistance in my power, and cannot help thinking that the union of two friends of different nations, whose genius, language, and even prejudices are so very opposite, may give a peculiar advantage to our works. Besides the extracts which form the basis of every journal, Mr. Deyverdun proposes to introduce two other branches, which,

VOL. III.

4 F

which, though equally interesting, have been much more neglected, the History of the Theatre and of the Polite Arts; and, 2, The Manners of Nations, at least as much of them as a foreigner can describe or strangers understand; characterizing anecdotes, occasional memoirs of singular men or things, &c. will serve to illustrate this part. The plan of the first volume is already formed, and the execution is in great forwardness. This volume will comprize a General Review of the present year; (success, time, and the advice of our booksellers must determine the periods of our future publications.) It will contain the following articles :-L'Histoire de Henri II. par my Lord Lyttleton. 2. Le Nouveau Guide de Bath. 3. Histoire de la Société Civile, par Ferguson. 4. Conclusion des Mémoires de Miss Sydney Biddulph. Témoignages Juifs et Payens en faveur du Christianisme, tome 4o, par le Docteur Lardner. 6. Lettres de my Lady Wortley Montague. Tome 7° De La Physique. 8. La Théologie. 9. Le Théâtre et Beaux Arts. 10. Les Mours. 11. Nouvelles Littéraires. You see, Sir, what a medley we have thrown together, but various stomachs, we think, require various food. Some can support nothing but novels, others can digest even divinity, and here we have provided accordingly a therogia who will serve them, in their own way.

5.

We were however both very conscious that though we were masters of no part of learning, yet there was one of the principal walks which we were peculiarly strangers to, that of the physical and mathematical sciences. This great obstacle was very near destroying our rising scheme, till at last despair gave me a kind of courage, I believe I might as well call it temerity; at last, dear Sir, I determined to apply to you. It would be impertinent in me to say that you are able to oblige us; I shall only say, that from my knowledge of your private character, I had some reason to hope that your inclination would be equal to your ability. What we desire are three or four abstracts every year of the best philosophical works that appear during that interval. To you, dear Sir, the task could not be a difficult one. For your own amusement you will probably peruse those works, and ideas so familiar to you will be very easily thrown upon paper. You will determine much better than we can pretend to do what book would be the properest, you should condescend to grace our first volume with so great an ornament;

if