is thus grossly mistranslated,
On whate'er side he turns his _honest_ face.
* * * * *
There are about one thousand lines identical in the Iliad and Odyssey.
* * * * *
Macrobius gives the form of an imprecation by which the Romans
believed whole towns could be demolished and armies defeated. It
commences “Dis Pater sive Jovis mavis sive quo alio nomine fas est
nominare,” and ends “Si hæc ita faxitis ut ego sciam, sentiam,
intelligamque, tum quisquis votum hoc faxit recte factum esto, ovibus
atris tribus, Tellus mater, teque Jupiter, obtestor.”
* * * * *
The “Courtier” of Baldazzar Castiglione, 1528, is the first attempt at
periodical moral Essay with which we are acquainted. The Noctes Atticæ
of Aulus Gellius cannot be allowed to rank as such.
* * * * *
These lines were written over the closet door of M. Menard,
Las d'esperer, et de me plaindre
De l'amour, des grands, et du sort
C'est ici que J'attends la mort
Sans la desirer ou la craindre.
* * * * *
Martin Luther in his reply to Henry VIIIth's book by which the latter
acquired the title of “Defender of the Faith,” calls the monarch very
unceremoniously “a pig, an ass, a dunghill, the spawn of an adder, a
basilisk, a lying buffoon dressed in a king's robes, a mad fool with a
frothy mouth and a whorish face.”
* * * * *
The Psalter of Solomon, which contains 18 psalms, is a work which was
found in Greek in the library of Ausburg, and has been translated into
Latin by John Lewis de la Cerda. It is supposed not to be Solomon's,
but the work of some Hellenistical Jew, and composed in imitation of
David's Psalms. The Psalter was known to the ancients, and was
formerly in the famous Alexandrian MS.
* * * * *
An unshaped kind of something first appeared,
is a line in Cowley's famous description of the Creation.
* * * * *
It is probable that the queen of Sheba was Balkis—that Sheba was a
kingdom in the Southern part of Arabia Felix, and that the people were
called Sabæans. These lines of Claudian relate to the people and
queen,
Medis, levibusque Sabæis
Imperat hic sexus; reginarumque sub armis
Barbariæ magna pars jacet.
* * * * *
Sheridan declared he would rather be the author of the ballad called
Hosier's Ghost, by Glover, than of the Annals of Tacitus.
* * * * *
The word Jehovah is not Hebrew. The Hebrews had no such letters as J
or V. The word is properly Iah-Uah—compounded of Iah Essence and Uah
Existing. Its full meaning is the self-existing essence of all things.
* * * * *
The “Song of Solomon” throwing aside the heading of the chapters,
which is the work of the English translators, contains nothing which
relates to the Savior or the Church. It does not, like every other
sacred book, contain even the name of the Deity.
* * * * *
In the Vatican is an ancient picture of Adam, with the Latin
inscription “Adam divinitus edoctus, primus scientiarum et literarum
inventor.”
* * * * *
The word translated “_slanderers_” in I Timothy iii, 2, and that
translated “_false accusers_” in Titus ii, 3, are “_female devils_” in
the original Greek of the New Testament.
* * * * *
The Hebrew language contains no word (except perhaps Jehovah) which
conveys to the mind the idea of Eternity. The translators of the Old
Testament have used the word Eternity but once.
* * * * *
“The slipper of Cinderella,” says the editor of the new edition of
Warton “finds a parallel in the history of the celebrated Rhodope.”
Cinderella is a tale of universal currency. An ancient Danish ballad
has some of the incidents. It is popular among the Welch—also among
the Poles—in Hesse and Swerhn. Schottky found it among the Servian
fables. Rollenbagen in his Froschmauseler speaks of it as the tale of
the despised {577} Aschen-possel. Luther mentions it. It is in the
Italian Pentamerone under the title of Cenerentola.
* * * * *
Porphyry, than whom no one could be better acquainted with the
theology of the ancients, acknowledged Vesta, Rhea, Ceres, Themis,
Priapus, Proserpina, Bacchus, Attis, Adonis, Silenus, and the Satyrs
to be one and the same.
* * * * *
Servius on Virgil's Æneid speaks of a _bearded_ Venus. The poet Calvus
in Macrobius speaks of Venus as masculine. Valerius Soranus among
other titles calls Jupiter the _Mother_ of the Gods.
* * * * *
In Suidas is a letter from Dionysius, the Areopagite, dated
Heliopolis, in the fourth year of the 202d Olympiad (the year of
Christ's crucifixion) to his friend Apollophanes, in which is
mentioned a total eclipse of the sun at noon. “Either,” says Dionysius
“the author of nature suffers, or he sympathizes with some who do.”
* * * * *
The most particular history of the Deluge, and the nearest of any to
the account given by Moses is to be found in Lucian (De Dea Syria.)
* * * * *
The Greeks had no historian prior to Cadmus Milesius, nor any public
inscription of which we can be certified, before the laws of Draco.
* * * * *
So great is the uncertainty of ancient history that the epoch of
Semiramis cannot be ascertained within 1535 years, for according to
Syncellus, she lived before Christ 2177,
Patavius, ' ' ' ' 2060,
Helvicus, ' ' ' ' 2248,
Eusebius, ' ' ' ' 1984,
Mr. Jackson, ' ' ' 1964,
Archbishop Usher, ' ' 1215,
Philo-Biblius from Sanconiathon, 1200,
Herodotus about ' ' ' 713.
* * * * *
The book of Jasher, said to have been preserved from the deluge by
Noah, but since lost, was extant in the time of Joshua, and in the
time of David. Mr. Bryant thinks, however, very justly, that the ten
tables of stone were the first written characters. The book of Jasher
is mentioned Joshua x. 13, and 2 Samuel i. 18.
* * * * *
Andrè Chenier, imprisoned during the French Revolution, began thus
some lines on his unhappy situation,
Peut-être avant que l'heure en cercle promenée
Ait posè sur l'email brillant
Dans les soixante pas ou sa route est bornèe
Son pied sonore et vigilant,
Le sommeil du tombeau pressera ma paupiere—
At this instant Andrè Chenier was interrupted by the officials of the
guillotine.
* * * * *
Archbishop Usher, in a MS. of St. Patrick's life, said to have been
found at Louvain as an original of a very remote date, detected
several entire passages purloined from his own writings.
* * * * *
An extract from the “Mystery of St. Denis” is in the “Bibliotheque du
Theatre Francois, depuis son origine, Dresde. 1768.” In this serious
drama, St. Denis, having been tortured and at length decapitated,
rises very quietly, takes his head under his arm and walks off the
stage in all the dignity of martyrdom.
* * * * *
The idea of “No light but rather darkness visible” was perhaps
suggested to Milton by Spenser's
A little glooming light much like a shade.
* * * * *
In the Dutch Vondel's tragedy “The Deliverance of the Children of
Israel” one of the principal characters is the Divinity himself.
* * * * *
Darwin is indebted for a great part of his “Great poem” to a Latin one
by De La Croix, published in 1727 and entitled “Connubia Florum.”
* * * * *
Mr. Bryant in his learned “Mythology” says that although the Pagan
fables are not believed, yet we forget ourselves continually and make
inferences from them as existing realities.
* * * * *
The shield of Achilles in Homer seems to have been copied from some
Pharos which the poet had seen in Egypt. What he describes on the
central part of the shield is a map of the earth and of the celestial
appearances.
* * * * *
Anaxagoras of Clazomenæ is said to have prophecied that a stone would
fall from the sun. This is a mistake of the learned. All that
Anaxagoras averred may be seen in the Scholiast upon Pindar (Olymp.
Ode. 1.) It amounts only to this, that Petros was a name of the sun.
* * * * *
The Hebrew language has lain now for two thousand years mute and
incapable of utterance. The “Masoretical punctuation” which professes
to supply the vowels was formed a thousand years after the language
had ceased to be spoken, and disagrees in many instances with the
Seventy, Origen and other writers.
* * * * *
James Montgomery thinks proper to style M'Pherson's Ossian, a
collection “of halting, dancing, lumbering, grating, nondescript
paragraphs.”
* * * * *
The paucity of spondees in the English language, is the reason why we
cannot tolerate an English Hexameter. Sir Philip Sidney, in his
Arcadia, thus speaks of Love in what is meant for Hexameter verse:
So to the woods Love runnes, as well as rides to the palace:
Neither he bears reverence to a prince, nor pity to a beggar;
But, like a point in the midst of a circle, is still of a nearnesse.
* * * * *
His form had not yet lost
All _her_ original brightness,
is a very remarkable passage in Milton's Paradise Lost, wherein a
_person is personified_.
* * * * *
It is certain that Hebrew verse did not include rhyme: the
terminations of the lines where they are most distinct, never showing
any thing of the kind.
* * * * *
Francis le Brossano engraved these verses upon a marble tomb which he
erected to Petrarch at Arqua. {578}
Frigida Francisci tegit hic lapis ossa Petrarcæ.
Suscipe, virgo parens, animam: sate virgine, parce,
Fessaque jam terris, cœli requiescat in arce.
* * * * *
“Statua Statuæ” was an inscription handed about at Paris for the
equestrian statue of Louis XV, begun by Bouchardon and finished by
Pigal. The following also,
Bouchardon est un animal
Et son ouvrage fait pitié:
Il place les vices à cheval
Et les vertus à pied.
And another,
Voila notre roi comme il est à Versailles
Sans foi, sans loi, et sans entrailles.
* * * * *
Bochart derives Elysium from the Phœnician Elysoth, joy, through the
Greek Ἠλυσιον. Circe from the Phœnician Kirkar, to corrupt—Siren from
the Phœnician Sir, to sing—Scylla from the Phœnician Scol,
destruction—Charybdis from the Phœnician Chor-obdam, chasm of ruin.
* * * * *
Attrogs, a fruit common in Palestine, is supposed to have been “the
forbidden.” It has a rough rind, and resembles a citron or lemon.
* * * * *
The following quaint sentence is found in Saint Evremond. “I own I do
not envy him, when I consider that there are in the next world such
people as Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Eacus.”
* * * * *
The standard of Judas Maccabæus displayed the words “Mi camoca baelim
Jehovah”—Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the Gods? This being
afterwards intimated by the first letter of each word, in the manner
of the S. P. Q. R., gave rise to the surname Maccabæus—for the
initials in Hebrew form “Maccabi.”
* * * * *
Josephus, with Saint Paul and others, supposed man to be compounded of
body, soul, and spirit. The distinction between soul and spirit is an
essential point in ancient philosophy.
* * * * *
Lord Lyttleton acknowledged the authorship of two dialogues, in the
first of which the personages were the Savior and Socrates, in the
second king David and Cæsar Borgia.
* * * * *
Dante gives the name of _sonnet_ to his little canzone or ode
beginning
O voi che per la via d'Amor passate.
* * * * *
Boileau is mistaken in saying that Petrarch ‘qui est regardé comme le
pere du sonnet’ borrowed it from the French or Provençal writers. The
Italian sonnet can be traced back as far as the year 1200. Petrarch
was not born until 1304.
* * * * *