P. 7.

the Troades, &c. He did not always, however, take his fubjects from the Grecian ftory; for he compofed one dramatic piece wholly Roman: it was entitled Brutus, and related to the expulfion of the Tarquins. It is affirmed by some, that he wrote also comedies, which is not unlikely, if he was the author of two pieces, the Wedding, and the MerVoffius de chant, which have been afcribed to him. He did not conpoct. Latin. fine himself to dramatic writing, for he left other productions, particularly his Annals, mentioned by Macrobius, Prifcian, Feftus, and Nonius Marcellus. Decimus Brutus, who was conful in the year of Rome 615, and had the honour of a triumph for several victories gained in Spain, was his particular friend and patron. This general was fo highly pleased with the verses which Accius wrote in his praife, that he had them infcribed at the entrance of the temples and monuments raised out of the spoils of the vanquished. Though this might proceed from a principle of vanity, and may not be fo much a proof of his affection for the poet as his love of applaufe; yet it is thereby evident, that Brutus had an opinion of Accius's poetry, and Brutus was far from being a contemptible judge (b). He has been cenfured for writing in two harsh a style, but in all other respects has been esteemed a very

Mont. What forms did these new wonders represent ?
Guy. More ftrange than what your wonder can invent.
The object I could first distinctly view,

Was tall ftrait trees which on the waters flew,
Wings on their fides, instead of leaves, did grow,
Which gathered all the breath the winds could blow;
And at their roots grew floating palaces,

Whofe out-blow'd bellies cut the yielding feas.
Mont. What divine monsters, O ye gods, were thefe,
That float in air, and fly upon the feas!

Came they alive or dead upon the shore?

Guy. Alas, they liv'd too fure! I heard them roar ;
All turn'd their fides, and to each other fpoke,
I faw their words break out in fire and smoke.
Sure 'tis their voice that thunders from on high,
Or these the younger brothers of the sky.
Deaf with the noife, I took my hafty flight,
No mortal courage can support the fright.
(b) Paterculus, (lib, ii. c. 5.) gives
a fhort but handsome encomium on
the military accomplishments of this
general, and Cicero fpeaks thus of
his learning: D. Brutus, M. filius,
ut ex familiari ejus L. Accio poeta
fum audire folitus, & dicere non in-
culte folebat, et erat cum literis La-
tinis tum etiam Græcis ut temporibus

"Decimus

illis fatis erat eruditus.
Brutus, fon of Marcus, had an ele-
gant way of expreffing himself, as
his friend Accius the poet often told
me; and was well acquainted, for
the time he lived in, with the Gre-
cian as well as Roman writings.
In Bruto. c, 28.

great

great poet. Aulus Gellius tells us, that Accius, being in his way to Afia, paffed through Tarentum, where he payed a vifit to Pacuvius, and read to him his play of Atreus; that Pacuvius told him his verfe was lofty and fonorous, but fomewhat harsh and crude. "It is as you obferve, faid Accius, nor am I forry for it, fince my future productions will be better upon this account; for as in fruit fo in geniuses, those which are at first harsh and four, become mellow and agreeable; but fuch as are at first soft and sweet, grow in a fhort time not ripe, but rotten (c)." Accius was fo much efteemed by the public, that a comedian was punished for only mentioning his name on the stage (d). Cicero fpeaks with great derifion of one Accius who had wrote a history, and, as our author had wrote annals, fome infift that he is the perfon cenfured; but as Cicero himself, Horace, Quintilian, Övid, and Paterculus (e), have spoke of our author with so much applause,

(e) Tunc Pacuvium dixiffe ferunt, fonora quidem effe quæ fcripfiffet et grandia, fed videri ea tamen fibi duriora et paulum acerbiora. Ita eft, inquit Accius, uti dicis ; neque id fane me pænitet, meliora enim fore quæ deinceps fcribam. Nam quod in pomis eft, itidem, inquit effe aiunt in ingeniis, quæ dura et acerba nafcuntur, poft fiunt mitia et jucunda: fed quæ gignuntur ftatim vieta et mollia, atque in principio funt uvida, non matura mox fiunt, fed putria. Lib. xiii. c. 2.

we

(d) The player being fummoned to answer for the injury, said, in his defence, that it was lawful to name a man who had furnished pieces for the stage; but Publius Mutius, who fat as judge in the cause, paffed fentence against him. Autor, Rhetor. ad Herennium, lib. ii.

(e) Summi poetæ ingenium non folum arte fua, fed etiam dolore exprimebat. (Cicero pro Sextio.) "He difplayed the genius of a great poet, not only by his skill in verfification, but by his expreffion of grief."

Ambigitur quoties uter utro fit prior
Pacuvius famam docti fenis, Accius alti.

Horat. Epift. I. lib. ii. ver. 55.

"Whate'er difputes of ancient poets rife, In fome one excellence their merit lies: What depth of learning old Pacuvius shows! With strong fublime the page of Accius glows." Tragediæ fcriptores Accius atque Pacuvius clariffimi gravitate fententiarum, verborum pondere, et autoritate perfonarum. Virium tamen Accio plus tribuitur, Pacuvium videri doctiorem, qui effe docti affectant volunt. (Quintil. Institut Orat. lib. x. cap. 1.) "The two tragic writers, Accius and Pacuvius, excel in the

Francis.

fublimity of their fentiments, the force of their expreffions, and the dignity of their characters. Those who fet up for men of learning, fay, that Accius had the greatest ftrength of genius, and that Pacuvius was the more learned of the two."

Ennius arte carens, animofique Accius oris,
Cafurum nullo tempore nomen habent.

Ovid, Amor, lib i, eleg. xv. ver. 19.

Imitated.

we cannot think it is he whom the Roman Orator cenfures with so much severity.

There was alfo in this age a pretty good orator of the same name, against whom Cicero defended Cluentius. He was born in Pifaurum, and perhaps was a relation of our poet.

ACCORDS (Stephen Tabourot, feigneur des) advocate in the parliament of Dijon, in France, and king's advocate in the bailiwic and chancery of that city, born in the year 1549. He was a man of genius and learning, but too much addicted to trifles, as appears from his piece, entitled, Les Bigarrures, printed at Paris in 1582 (a). This was not his first production, for he had before printed fome fonnets. His work, entitled, Les Touches, was published at Paris in 1585 (b), which is indeed a collection of witty poems, but most of them upon obfcene fubjects, and worked up rather in too loose a

(a) The first book of the Bigarrures is divided into twenty-two chapters, which treat, amongst other things, of the rebus's of Picardy, of double entendres, of antiftrophes, of retrograde verfes, or fuch as read the fame backward and forward, of allufions, of acrostics, of the echo, of leonine verses, of other forts of verse waggishly and ingeniously contrived, of epitaphs, &c.

The fourth book is of a more ferious turn than the three firft; it is divided into three chapters, the first contains useful inftructions for the education of children: the fecond relates to altering one's firname; the third, several obfervations on French

verfe; and the work concludes with a difcourfe on wizards, and their impoftures.

(b) This piece is divided into three books, the firft being dedicated to Pontus de Tyard, lord of Bissy, and bifhop of Chalons. The author boafts he wrote it in two months at Verdun upon the Soame in 1585. It confifts chiefly of epigrams, which may with propriety be called Touches: "Because, fays the author, it is a flight kind of fencing, in which, by parrying with the file, I give fuch a touch or thruft as fcarce raises the skin, and cannot pierce deep into the flesh." Dedication to the Touches.

manner,

manner, according to the licentious tafte of that age. His Bigarrures are wrote in the fame ftrain. He was cenfured for this way of writing, which obliged him to write an apology. La Croix du Maine fays in one place, that Accords wrote a Bibliotheque dictionary of French rhymes, but he afterwards corrected Francoife, P. 156. himself, having found that John le Fevre of Dejon, fecretary to cardinal De Givre, and canon of Langres, was the author Ib. p. 22. thereof. Accords himself mentions him as the author, and declares his intention of compiling a fupplement to his uncle Le Fevre's work; but, if he did, it never appeared in print. The lordship of Accords is an imaginary fief or title from the device of his ancestors, which was a drum, with the motto (A tous Accords) chiming with all (c). He died on the 24th of July, 1561, in the forty-fixth year of his age.

(c) He had fent a fonnet to a daughter of Mr. Begat, the great and learned prefident of Burgundy, who, fays he, did me the honour to love me.---And inasmuch, continues he, I had subscribed my sonnet with only my device, A tous Accords, this

lady first nicknamed me, in her an-
fwer, Seigneur des Accords; by
which title her father alfo called me
feveral times. For this reason I
chofe this firname, not only in all my
writings composed at that time, but
even in these books.

ACCURSIUS, a law-profeffor, born at Florence, who flourished in the thirteenth century. The expofitions he wrote on the law, gained him great reputation. He is said not to have begun this study till forty years of age, when he went to attend the lectures of the celebrated Azo, at Bologna. Before this he had applied himself to other parts of knowledge. In a little time he made fo great a proficiency in the civil law, that he became a famous profeffor in this fcience. He gave lectures for fome time in Bologna, but afterwards retiring from this employment, he wrote a continued glofs on the whole body of the law, which was accounted fo useful for young ftudents, that all former expofitions were neglected, this being esteemed the completeft and beft digested that had ever appeared. Many contradictions have however been remarked in Accurfius's work; but thefe, we are told, proceeded not from his inconfiftency or defect of memory, but were owing to his giving only the initial letters of the different authors whose opinions he quotes: and many of these letters being worn out, the readers have often taken for his opinion what he quoted as the doctrine of another. His authority was formerly fo great, that fome have ftiled him the idol of the lawyers; and most interpreters have taken more pains to ex- claris legum plain his glofs, than to comment upon the text of the interpret.

laws.

Pancirol de

lib. ii. cap.

20. P. 147.

De claris leg

interpret, lib.

. c. xxix.

P. 149.

laws (a). Some critics, who fet up for admirers of the beauties of ftyle, have exclaimed against our author for his harsh and barbarous diction; but it is almost universally allowed that he was a great genius, and the imperfections of his writing were owing to the age in which he lived (b). He was in very easy circumstances, having a handsome house in town, and a pleasant country feat. He had two fons who were likewife men of learning; and Panzirolus fays, that he had also a learned daughter who was chofen into the profefforfhip of the civil law. Accurfius died in 1229, in the 78th year of his age. His monument is to be feen at Bologna, with the following fhort and fimple inscription: Sepulchrum Accurfii, gloffatoris legum, et Francifci ejus filii. i. e. "The fepulchre of Accurfius, the expounder of the laws, and of Francis his fon."

(a) The following paffage is quoted by one of the modern civilians who had very little esteem for gloffographers: Noftis quanta fit autoritas gloffatoris. Nonne heri, &c. "You know the great authority of an interpreter. Did not Cyn. say yesterday, that the glofs was to be feared because of the idolatry paid to it by the lawyers, fignifying that they worship the interpreters as fo many evangelifts, after the manner of the antients, who paid adoration to idols as if they had been gods. I would therefore rather have the glofs than the text in my favour; for, if I cite the text in behalf of my caufe, then the lawyers, who are my antagonists, and even the judges, fay, Do you imagine the interpreter did not look into the text, and underftand it as well as you? I remember, when a student, I was a keen difputant, and one day I had the prefumption to cite a text in oppofition to our doctor's opinion. Says one of my fellow ftudents, What, do you speak against the gloss, which says so and fo? I replied, Tho' the gloss says fo, yet I fay fo and so, not knowing at

that time the great authority of the gloffes; for I supposed they were explanatory notes, like those of the commentators on Virgil and Ovid, &c. But it is not fo; for the interpreters are accounted to be men of the greatest learning and authority. It will be fafer therefore for us to depend upon those who have seen thro' the whole body of the laws, than on ourselves, who are not fupposed to be capable of fuch penetration." Raphael Fulgofius, in L. Si in folutum C. de Action & Oblig. apud Fr. Hoftomannum, præf. confiliorum.

(b) Ludovicus Vives (De caufis corrupt. artium, lib. i. p. 52.) and Bernartius (See his Treatife on the Advantages of reading History) have been moft violent on the style of the gloffographers. The proverb, Græcum eft, non potest legi, is supposed to have taken its rise from the ignorance which prevailed at that time amongst these interpreters, who, as it is pretended, when they met with a Greek word, used to leave the place uninterpreted, giving this reason, That it was Greek, and could not be read. Alciatus, cap. xvi. lib. ii.

ACCURSIUS (Cervot) fon to the preceding. He made much more hafte than his father to get his degrees, having ftood for a doctor's degree in laws before he was seventeen, which was granted him after many debates whether by the

ftatutes