Plinius ipse lib. xxxvii. proximos Pannoniæ Venetos facit. Ex locis sane, quos protulimus, palam est Servium nunc Venetiam, nunc Venetias nuncupare. Venetias quoque ad primum Georgic. dixit: pleraque pars, inquit, Venetiarum fluminibus abundans lintribus exercet omne commercium, ut Ravenna, Altinum; ubi et venatio et aucupia, et agrorum cultura lintribus exercetur. Ex hujusmodi Venetiarum appellatione prodit se cujus sit ætatis C. Sempronius, qui libellum scripsit de Divisione Italiæ, si tamen fidem merentur, qui supposititium fortasse fœtum pro legitimo et antiquo nobis venditarunt. Ejus hæc sunt verba: nam usque Atrianum flumen, qui limes est Volturrenorum et Venetiarum, tenuere Hetrusci, et Venetias principio quidem Phaëtontai, postea Trojani eisdem mixti coluerunt, etc. "Apparet ex iis quæ in medium protulimus quam sint decepti, qui S. Ambrosii Epistolam ad Ecclesiam Vercellensem suspectam habuerunt ob Venetiarum appellationem, quæ iis verbis continetur sola nunc ex omnibus Liguria atque Emilia, Venetiarumque, vel ceteris finitimis Italiæ partibus hujusmodi eget officio. Sed et frustra est qui Scrutinium Libertatis Venetæ Italico idiomate conscripsit, dum in Cassiodori Epistola xxiv. lib. xii. Variarum, quæ de Provincia verba habentur, ad solam Venetiarum Urbem traducere nititur. Venetia, ait Cassiodorus, prædicabiles quondam, plenæ nobilibus, etc. Cui non apertum Provinciam hæc verba respicere, et ipsas fortasse tunc deletas urbes aut magna ex parte devastatas, Aquileiam, Concordiam, Opitergium, Altinum, Patavium, alias, quas minime dubium percelebres olim fuisse et nobilibus plenas viris? li nobiles, quotquot Barbarorum furorem potuerunt evadere, ad maritima confugerant; et, quoniam in domunculis degebant per paludes et loca insularum varia lateque dispersa constructis, delitescebat veluti sepulta eorum nobilitas, nec emergere poterat, Gothis adhuc Italiam prementibus; donec, Deo favente, in unum convenientes, pulcherrimam condiderunt civitatem, et rempublicam longe præstantissimam constituerunt; quodque commune prius erat toti Provinciæ Venetiarum, tandem nomen sibi vendicarunt, utpote qui ex primis præcipuisque Venetiæ urbibus, tam superioris, quam inferioris, profecti illuc essent. Ceterum Cassiodori ætate nondum id nomen ex Provincia in Urbem transmigraverat; nondum præclaræ libertatis fundamenta erant jacta, quæ magnum postea decus Italiæ peperit. Ea propter non Tribunis Venetiarum, sed Tribunis Maritimorum Epistola illa conscripta est. Unaquæque enim insularum, quæ Adriatico sinu comprehendebantur, suuni habebat Tribunum, ut et Venetarum rerum scriptores fatentur. Eas insulas domicilia Cassiodorus appellat per æquora longe patentia, ne quis crederet illas tantum intelligere quæ parvis euripis discretæ erant, e quibus quasi in unum connexis unica urbs conflata est. Justinianus quoque Imperator Venetias appellat ipsam Provinciam initio Novellæ xxix: τὸ Παφλαγόνων ἔθνος ἀρχαῖόν τε καὶ οὐκ ἀνώνυμον καθεστώς, ἀλλὰ τοσοῦτον ὡς καὶ ἀποικίας μεγάλας ἐκπέμψαι, καὶ τὰς ἐν Ιταλοῖς συνοικίσαι Βενετίας, ἐν αἷς δὴ καὶ ̓Ακυληΐα πόλις τῶν ἐπὶ τῆς ἑσπέρας μεγίστη κατώκισται καὶ βασιλικὴν πολλάκις δίαιταν δεξαμένη: hoc est, Paphlagonum gens antiqua nec sane ignobilis olim extitit, in tantum ut magnas deduxerit colonias, et in Venetias Italorum commigraverit, ubi Aquileia condita fuit, urbs omnium in occidente marima, quæque Imperatorum non raro fuit domicilium. Quin et Jordanus, sive Jornandes, Ravennæ Episcopus, in Historia de rebus Geticis ita scribit: qui recto cursu de Corcyra atque Hellada partibus navigat dextrum latus, primum Epirum, dein Dalmatiam, Liburniam, Histriamque, et sic Venetias radens palmula navigat. Et apertius alio loco: Hesperiam tendit, rectoque itinere per Sirmas ascendit vicinas Pannoniæ, indeque Venetiarum fines ingressus, ad pontem Sontium nuncupatum castrametatus est. Nemo non videt regionem hic designari, quæ Forum Julii, uti diximus, nunc appellatur. Idem Jordanus, quum de Attila verba habet: primaque aggressione Aquileiensem obsedit civitatem, quæ est Metropolis Venetiarum, in mucrone vel lingua Adriatici posita sinus. Nec vero negandum Venetiarum nomen paulatim subductum fuisse ad insulas Adriaticas, quod jam suo tempore obtinuisse Paulus Diaconus loco, quem supra attulimus, [significat]; ut demum nobilissimæ civitatis, uti videmus, proprium est factum." HUGONIS GROTII CARMEN, QUOD PAUCISSIMIS LEGERE CONTIGIT. Hyporchema in obitum Aldinæ Catellæ. VERSUS ex syllabis brevibus dumtaxat Græci olim fecere, quorum fragmenta extant, sed versus breves, quo ultimæ syllabæ, quæ communis, licentia citius rediret. Hyporchemata appellabantur, quod perpetua subsaltatione exprimi solerent. Latinorum veterum unus, quod sciam, Serenus sequutus est, cujus versum hunc citat Martianus Capella, et Terentianus Maurus: Perit, abit avipedis animula leporis. Post renatas litteras Jul. Scaliger versibus satis longis, sed interdum obscuris, idem aggressus est Hymno in Bacchum, Silenum, Nemesim, qui in Poëmatis ipsius extat. Nos id exemplum instaurare auși sumus: Trepidula canis animula Styga subito petiit, Niger ubi lacus, ubi nebula, ubi plaga tenebrica; I ADVERSARIA LITERARIA. No. XXXII. Extracts from the Reminiscences of CHARLES FROM this entertaining and instructive work we shall take the 1 Quum hic versus in apographo quatuor careret syllabis, inseruimus nostro periculo voces crotala et que. EDIT. however, some of our learned contributors may find in them some useful materials, and favor us with their ideas on them. I. HOMER. "The sublime conceptions, vivid figures, interesting narratives, but more than all, the exquisite style and perfect common-sense of the Mæonian bard are far above any praise, which they can receive in these pages. His work is a prodigy:-we must suppose either that he was preceded by other writers, who had brought poetry to the perfection, or nearly to the perfection, in which we find it in his writings, or that he himself was the creator of the poetry of his own immortal work. It is observable that Herodotus, 1. II. seems to declare for the latter opinion :- As for the Gods, whence each of them was descended, or whether they were always in being, or under what shape or form they existed, the Greeks knew nothing till very lately. Hesiod and Homer were, I believe, about 400 years older than myself, and no more; and these are the men, who made a Theogony for the Greeks, who gave the Gods their appellations, defined their qualities, appointed their honors, and described their forms. As for the poets, who are said to have lived before these men, I am of opinion they came after them.' Herodotus seems here to express himself, as if he considered the Grecian Theogony to have been the invention of Homer and Hesiod; but, whoever reflects on its nature, its complication and contrivance, its countless, but coherent relations and dependencies, must be sensible that this was impossible. Even if this opinion were admitted, a further difficulty would press on us. The poetry of Homer is complete; the structure of the hexameter is equalled by no other mode of versification in any language; the formation of the phrases, the collocation of the words, the figurative diction, the animation of inanimate nature, whatever else distinguishes poetry from prose, is introduced in its most perfect mode into the poems of Homer. The universal opinion of all ages has acknowledged these to constitute the true poetical character, and no succeeding age has improved on any of them. Was he then the inventor of them? This exceeds human power. Was he preceded by other bards, on whom he refined, and whom he transcendently excelled? If this were the case, what has become of these antecedent poets? To solve these difficulties, the Reminiscent begs leave to insert a conjecture, in which he has sometimes indulged himself;—that there existed in central Asia a civilised and powerful nation, in which the Sanscritan language was spoken, and the religion of Brama prevailed; this the initiated might reconcile, by emblematical representation, with philosophy; but, in the sense in which it was received by the people at large, it was the rankest idolatry; that, comparing what the writers on India, and the Siamese, Chinese,and Japanese writers relate of a celebrated man, whom they severally call Budda, Sommonocoddom, Fohi, and Xaha, we have reason to suppose that he was the same person, and a reformer of the Sanscritan creed and ceremonial; that his reformed system may be called Buddism; that this still prevails in Tartary, China, and numerous islands in the Indian Archipelago; but that Sanscritism still exists in Hindustan; that either before or after the Buddistic schism, and not far from the time usually assigned to the fabulous ages, the Sanscritans spread their doctrines and languages over the countries which lay to their west, so that in the course of time they became the religious creed and language both of Greece and Italy; that civilisation, and the arts and sciences, florished among them; that those, who introduced them into Greece, were called the Pelasgi; that those, who introduced them into Italy, received the appellation of Hetruscans; that by degrees the Sanscritan was moulded into the Greek language; that from the Greek it degenerated, in Italy, into the Latin; that this state of things continued in Greece till the irruption of the Dorians and Heraclidæ into Peloponnesus, about 80 years after the Trojan war; and in Italy, until the period usually assigned for the foundation of Rome, when, from some unknown event, the glories of Hetruria were considerably impaired ; that, after the settlement of the Dorians and Heraclidæ in Peloponnesus, but while the former traditionary learning of Greece was still remembered, Homer wrote; that, in the confusion which followed this event, the memory of Homer and the preceding or contemporary poets was lost; and that the minor poets were never revived, but that the super-eminent merit of Homer resuscitated his poems, and restored them to celebrity. This conjecture receives some countenance from the opinion generally entertained by the ancients, that Homer acquired his knowledge in Egypt, and the Egyptians theirs from India; and from the system of Sir Wm. Jones (in his excellent dissertation in the Asiatic Researches) respecting the identity of the Indian, Grecian, and Italian deities. Among these, if we believe Dr. Milne, (see his Retrospect of the first 10 years of the Protestant Mission to China, an interesting work, printed at the Anglo-Chinese press in Malacca,) we should include the national deities of China." P. 10—4. 11. LORD COKE; CARDINAL DE POLIGNAC. "The whole course of study suggested by the Reminiscent may be achieved in four years, if they are employed in the manner described in the well-known verses of Lord Coke: Sex horas somno, totidem des legibus æquis, Quatuor orabis, des epulisque duas, Quod superest, sacris ultro largire camœnis. |