been found no less judicious than humane; and those of the Polish Nobles, who have adopted the plan, in addition to the pleasure of restoring thousands to their rights, have been rewarded for their justice by a triple increase of their revenues.' From this view of the subject, as connected with Government, it appears, that almost the only favor, which Agriculture expects from the laws, is, to be preserved unmolested in its course. Equally disordered by the poisonous breath of tyranny, or by the rude blasts of popular licentiousness, it flourishes best in a free and regular state; where property is secure alike from the encroachments of despotism, and from the caprice of democracy; where no arbitrary monarch can extort from the husbandman his well-earned gains, and no tumultuous populace decree the execution of an Agrarian law. With pleasure then we view the wise interference of our own Legislature, directed rather to the abolition of abuses, than to the establishment of regulations. Whilst those pernicious reliques of the Feudal system, which tended to monopolise and desolate our plains, have in this kingdom been disarmed of their extensive influence (and probably so much alone remains as is necessary for the support of an honorable Aristocracy,) the lesser evils, which privileged oppression still retains, do not pass unnoticed. 2 Some designs doubtless there are, worthy a free and enlightened government, and which government alone can execute with energy, whose influence will have the happiest effect on Agriculture. Where the exertions of individuals would be partial and incomplete, the direct interposition of the law is necessary:-and it is impossible to contemplate the noble project of subduing to the plough what still remains an uncultivated waste, without emotions of joy and gratitude. An acquisition of territory without violence, a civil conquest achieved by arts instead of arms, is a glorious era in the history of a Nation. May the tribute of praise due to disinterested patriotism not be withheld from its authors! May their names long be cherished and revered !— By those they ever will, who prefer the diffusion of happiness to pomp and splendor, and who then feel patriots most, when their country's interests are blended with the welfare of mankind. Besides the encouragement Agriculture has received from the liberal and enlightened system, which modern governments begin. to adopt, extensive and increasing commerce imparts vigor to all its operations. By supplying other outlets for circulation,3 the superfluous produce of estates is no longer consumed, as formerly, in rude hospitality, but every degree of profit, however minute, or however exorbitant, finds an advantageous channel, or returns to increase the annual reproduction. Add to this, that a spirit of improvement on bolder and more comprehensive views distinguishes a mercantile people; while the employment of larger capitals animates and invigorates the design. 1 Coxe's Travels. 2 The Game Laws- the abolition of which was under the consideration of Parliament at the time this Essay was written. Of their evil tendency with respect to Agriculture, much may be seen in Young's Travels. 3 Smith's Wealth of Nations. 4 Ibid. From a close and successful cultivation of the Sciences also, which marks the character of the present age, much assistance has been already derived, and much more may be expected. The perfection of mechanism is displayed in the numerous schemes that have been invented for expediting the process of husbandry, and increasing the power and accuracy of its instruments. Chemistry is deeply occupied in analysing the various ingredients of soils, in determining their relative qualities, and in making experiments on their combination. Botanical researches have ascertained the properties of plants, and introduced as well as facilitated the practice of selection: they have warned us against such as are noxious, and recommended to our notice many, whose existence was unknown, or whose value was undiscovered. And to the more intimate inquiries in natural history we are indebted for a developement of those secret but tremendous causes, which blast the hopes of harvest, and involve a nation in the horrors of famine. Laborious investigation has laid open to our view the minutest workings of nature; and while it has simplified our notions on the origin and progress of the evil, has provided us with weapons for our defence, has introduced method into our endeavours to counteract it, and pointed out the precise object, against which to direct our resistance. The benefits, which are thus imparted to Agriculture as a science, would however be limited in their operation, and confined to the learned alone, were it not for the influence of rewards to stimulate the industry, or of example to overcome the prejudices of those whom they most concern. To effect this important purpose, the zeal of modern times is eminently conspicuous in those societies whose means of communication have extended the discoveries, which their liberality or their judgment have excited. Nor can we sufficiently admire the principle of an establishment, which regards not interest as the sole spring of human action, but holds forth better and more noble motives. The hope of pecuniary recompence is the only engine government can employ, to encourage mercantile enterprise, or mechanical ingenuity; but the glow of emulation, and the prospect of honorary distinction, are found adequate to promote a spirit of inquiry in all the branches of Agricultural concerns, and to compensate for a communication of the discoveries, to which it may lead. Such a reliance on the generosity of individuals, while it favors the propagation of public spirit, tends also to ennoble the art, which it patronises-to impart the last and most effectual aid, which it is capable of receiving, by raising it in the order of liberal professions. To this grand object were the writings of those Sages of antiquity directed, whose characters and opinions we justly reverence, and whose example were alone sufficient to stamp the occupation with respect. But, in addition to the authority of their sentiments, we have seen what awful warnings history presents of the danger incurred by a neglect of it. We have seen the support which it extends to commerce, and the superiority it maintains over it, whether considered as a source of political grandeur, or of private happiness. We have seen that, by cherishing in us a love of independence, an attachment to our country, and a purity of moral principles, it proves the best preservative of our liberties, the firmest pillar of our strength, and the most powerful corrective of the contagion of luxury, and of that growing mercenary spirit, which trade is ever apt to produce, and which undermines by slow decay the virtue of a Nation. Thus while it proposes objects well deserving the attention of the Statesman and of the Philosopher, it exhibits likewise all the attractive charms, which a liberal art can possess; and we may with confidence expect, that the employment, which Xenophon, Cato, and Cicero esteemed most worthy of their patronage, and most becoming their situation, will once more be reinstated in the honors to which it is intitled, and again diffuse its salutary influence over our personal and public interests-will communicate happiness to individuals, and energy to the state. June 15. 1796. EDWARD COPLESTON, A.B. REMARKS ON « ILLUSTRATIONS OF HOMERY TO THE EDITOR OF THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL. SIR, IN my Article, intitled Homer Illustrated, which you did me the honor of inserting in the 8th Number of your learned and useful work, in whose success I shall always take a great interest, I have said, that "Pope, in his translation, limits the man to four horses, but Homer mentions no particular number." It would ill become me, who have so often endeavoured, in your Journal, to correct the errors of others, without ever attempting the concealment of my name, (for I am not conscious of having written what I should be ashamed to own,) to overlook the errors into which I may occasionally fall, and I candidly acknowledge, that I have here been guilty of an oversight: wirvgas, four, is only the Æolic form for rérogas, which, in the hurry of composition, I must have neglected to observe. In the same Number is a Critical Review of those Illustrations of Homer, which appeared in No. vi. I am sorry that this article, which has much merit, should have been written in a strain of such severity, that the arguments lose one half of their force. Perhaps the writer may not be displeased to see how this article, which he has "anointed with the vials of wrath," has been criticised in a very useful publication, which has lately issued from the press of Edinburgh, and the pen of the Rev. G. Dunbar, the Professor of Greek, intitled, Exercises on the Syntax, and Observations on some peculiar Idioms of the Greek Language, with an attempt to trace the Prepositions, several Conjunctions and Adverbs, to their radical Signification: "Airoquai and ATKVEUW always govern the accusative: An attempt has lately been made in the 66 Class. Journ. for June, 1811. to revive the old, and justly-exploded interpretation of the two following lines in the 1st Book of the Iliad: Ατρείδη, σὺ δὲ παῦε τεὸν μένος, αὐτὰς ἔγωγε λίσσομ' ̓Αχιλλῆς μεθέμεν χόλον, &c. V. 282. Do thou, Atrides, suppress thine anger; but I entreat Achilles to lay aside his resentment, &c. The chief objection to this interpretation arose from the circumstance of aircouμai never being found in Homer governing the dative; an objection which cannot be got over by saying, that reason and analogy would warrant the dative case after it in every instance: for reason and analogy are mere names, unless resting upon examples closely connected with the subject under discussion, in all the material points of relation; and in Homer not a single example can be found to support the above translation, except the very line in question! and no one surely ever thought, before this attempt at criticism, of supporting a doubtful reading, or disputed construction, by the rejection of all authority, and trusting to the vague idea of the immutable principles of language.' This verb is found in the Iliad and Odyssey more than fifty times, without any other case (when it has a case after it) than the accusative: had the dative been found three or four times after it, some handle would have been given for supporting the old translation; but every one, acquainted with the nature of evidence, knows that a few instances, unless particularly strong, are not sufficient to outweigh numerous examples, and that a doubtful case can never be admitted as proof: the analysis of the other words is, perhaps, equally incorrect: arag, with which the criticism begius, marks commonly transition, seldom, or never, opposition: it has precisely the same meaning, as the English conjunction but, which,' says Horne Tooke, is the farthest of any word in the language from intimating a stop; on the contrary, it always intimates something more, something to follow in this place it marks no opposition except what arises from the suggestion of an additional reason: ywyɛ does mark a particular emphasis: Nestor, in the first instance, calls upon Agamemnon of himself to repress his anger, as unbecoming his dignity as a king and commander of the united forces of the Greeks, and what might lead to unpleasant consequences; but, lest this injunction should fail of effect, he immediately subjoins, in addition to this, I intreat you (I, whose advice on former occasions heroes superior to you did not despise) to lay aside your resentment against Achilles: why? because he is the great defence of all the Greeks against the havoc of war. The reason here assigned by Nestor has peculiar force, according to this interpretation, as it points out to Agamemnon the propriety of conciliating Achilles, whose valor was of such importance to the safety and success of the army according to the other, it is a mere compliment paid to the warrior's vanity. The advocate of the old translation does not appear to be much conversant with the language of Homer, otherwise he would not have asserted, that 'peléesv, with a noun in the dative, or accusative, does not mean to dismiss, but to send, to throw, to transfer.' What will he make of the following passage? Τῷ σ' αὖ νῦν κέλομαι μεθέμεν χόλον υἷος ἑῆος· Il. B. 15. 1. 138 Here μl has precisely the same meaning as in the line under discussion: it is not indeed followed by the dative, yet it signifies to lay aside, to dismiss, and either the dative or accusative might have come after it; for the dative in l. 283. is not governed by the verb, but by the noun χόλον: an example of this occurs in the Odys. B. 21. 1. 377. where the same verb has the genitive after it, as it commonly has: καὶ δὴ μεθίεν χαλεποῖο χόλοιο Τηλεμάχῳ· Equally ill-founded seem his remarks upon l. 327. of the same Book, οὐδ ̓ ἄρα τῷγε ἴδων γήθησεν Αχίλλευς. The Critic supposes, 'that the hero expected that Agamemnon would accept the challenge he had given him in the following words, τῶν δ ̓ ἀλλῶν, ὁ μοί ἐστι θοὴ παρὰ τῆι μελαίνῃ, τῶν οὐκ ἂν τὶ φέροις ἀνέλων, ἀέκοντος ἐμεῖο· εἰ δ' ἄγε μὴν, πειρήσαι, ἵνα γνώωσι καὶ οἵδε· αἴψα τοι αἷμα κέλαινον ἐρώησι περὶ δουρί. and by coming himself, give Achilles an opportunity to execute his menace:' but what was Agamemnon's menace? ἀπειλήσω δὲ τοι ὧδε ἐγώ δε κ' ἄγω Βρισήϊδα καλλιπάρηον, αὐτὸς των κλισίηνδε, τὸ σὸν γέρας, &c. 182. And what was Achilles's reply to this? 298. χέρσι μὲν οὔτι ἔγωγε μαχήσομαι ' εἵνεκα κουρὴς οὔτε σοὶ, οὔτε τῷ ἀλλῷ, &c. Agamemnon did not threaten to take any thing but Briseis: Achilles declared that he would not fight for Briseis, either with Agamemnon, or any one else: is it usual for a man to be gratified at the sight of his enemy coming to plunder him, unless he thinks it a fair opportunity to take his revenge? but the reason is assigned by Homer himself why Achilles was not pleased at the sight of the heralds: his pride and his love were both wounded; his pride at seeing himself affronted by Agamemnon in presence of all the Greeks, and his love, by being deprived of his mistress: δάκρυσας. Trin. Coll. Camb. Jan. 18. 1812. αὐτὰρ 'ΑΧΙΛΛΕΥΣ line 368." I am, Sir, respectfully your's, EDMUND HENRY BARKER. |