The word fatalis doth not, I think, mean fimply pernicious, deftructive; but the idea of destiny is alfo then joined to it. In Skinner we have the etymologies of the word Massacre: I think that they are all wrong, and that it comes from Marti facrum. Infinuo, as also Infinuatio, is used in a sense not Broukhufius, a polite and ingenious critick, hath borrowed not a little from the notes of Jof. Scaliger on Tibullus and Propertius. Broukhufius is much indebted to. Scaliger; Madame Dacier and her husband to Tanaquil Faber; and John Hudfon to Edward Bernard. Jerome, in his life of Paul the Hermit, fays, "that the fauns and fatyrs converfed with St. Antony, and intreated him to pray that they might obtain mercy from God, who came for the falvation of the whole world." A man who writes fuch things, muft fuppofe all his readers to be fauns and fatyrs. The fame writer alfo informs us, that the gold, the filver, the ivory, the apes, and the peacocks, which came from Tharshish to Solomon, mean the writings of pagans, and of hereticks! 1 S speaking of those prophecies which are no more than accommodations, illuftrates the thing by accommodating these lines of Virgil, Georg. IV. 86. to the curing of an intermittent fever by the powder of the bark : Hi motus animorum, atque hæc certamina tanta This application, thought I with myself, is certainly too lively and ingenious to be his own. Afterwards I found it in the Bibl. Chois. XXIII. 428. See alfo Menagiana, I. 415. Thomas Burnet is a moft ingenious man. I fay of him, what Quinctilian fays of Seneca :Multe in eo claræque fententiæ; fed in eloquendo corrupta pleraque: atque eò perniciofiffima, quod abundant dulcibus vitiis. 'Vigneul Marville, I. 5. fays, "The Jews fcarcely ever ate fifh." Witnefs the New Teftament, and all that is there faid about fish and fishermen! He adds, that " in England the people eat more fish than flesh." He knew little of us, and of our diet. When I was pretty far advanced at school, my mafter would fometimes give us a Newspaper to tranflate. Of all our tasks, I found this the most difficult; and would rather have made forty verses, than than have translated as many lines of this dry and uncouth profe. In our schools the boys make too many exercifes in verfe, and too few in profe; so that many of them, who can compose a pretty epigram, cannot put together four fentences of profe in a pure and correct manner. Poetical numbers they know, if they have a good ear; but profe hath its numbers, and with these they are not acquainted. This defect often sticks by them afterwards; and when they make a Latin fpeech, or fermon, it is in linfey-woolfey ftuff, in poetical profe, larded with fcraps of Horace and Virgil, by way of embellishment. Such difcourfes I have been entertained with, more than once, by our Profeffors of Divinity. That humourous expreffion in one of our poets, "The man that fights, and runs away, May live to fight another day :" Is deduced from the Greek faying, ̓Ανηρ ὁ φέυγων καὶ πάλιν μαχήσεται. But it should rather have been, Ανηρ ὁ φεύγων καὶ πάλιν γε φεύξεται, We We have our heroes of this kind; who, as Panurge fays in Rabelais, fear nothing but danger. It is in the moral, juft as it is in the natural world: Great bodies draw the finaller after them. Example, cuftom, fashion, rule us. They who ferve Chrift and the world, are like borderers; fcarcely knowing in whose kingdom, or under whose jurifdiction they are. The church ought to be very cautious and sparing in appointing ftated fafts and thanksgivings: Elfe her children will be refractory; and, like those children in the market-places, mentioned in the Gofpel, She may pipe to them, and they will not dance; and mourn to them, and they will not lament. They who fin and confefs alternately, ufe repentance as a fort of fashionable phyfick, to be taken at set times-at spring and fall. Auguftin fays, Melius eft ut nos reprehendant grammatici, quam, ut non intelligant populi. It is not a bad leffon for preachers: But here is another, and a better, from Quinctilian: Qui ftultis videri eruditi volunt, ftulti eruditis videntur. There was at Ephefus a man of extraordinary abilities, called Hermodorus, whofe fuperior merit fo fo offended his fellow-citizens, that they banished him, and on that occafion made the following decree: Let no perfon amongst us excel the rest: If fuch an one be found, let him depart, and dwell elfewhere. The philofopher Heraclitus faid, that all the Ephefians, who were of age, deferved to be hanged, for affenting to fuch a law, Hermodorus, thus caft out, went to Italy, and took refuge at Rome; where the Barbarians (for fo the Greeks in those days accounted all, except themfelves,) received him with courtesy and refpect; defired his affistance in forming their body of laws, contained in the twelve tables; and rewarded him with a statue erected in the Forum. See Cicero, Tufc. Difp. V. 36. and Pliny, Vol. II. p. 643. We have had fome powerful Druids and High Priefts, who would have liked a decree of the Ephefian kind concerning the clergy: If any Ecclefiaftic amongst us furpafs others in learning and abilities, let him by all means be depressed; and never permitted to rife above the ftation of a Curate. "God pro Juftin Martyr fays to the Jews, mised that you should be as the fand on the feaShore; and fo you are indeed, in more fenfes than one. You are as numerous, and you are as barren, and incapable of producing any thing good.' Edit. Thirlby, P. 394. This is ingenious; and if all the allegorical interpretations of the 1 昂 |