drous simplicity, asks where is the plagiarism in all this? Had he on this occasion been able to use a Greek lex. properly, even with the aid of the Porson papers, he would have seen that the gloss quoted by himself from Suidas 'Exμv, is to be referred to Soph. Ed. T. 1137. where Porson in Miscell. Crit. p. 216. and Schæfer ad Bos. p. 312. correct ἐκμήνους χρόνους into ἑκμήνους χρόνους.

17. The plagiarism of C.J. B. at Prom. 27. in Gloss. on D'Orville, Chariton. p. 416-355 is confessed.

18. 19. The defence of the confessed plagiarism discussed at 15.

20. The plagiarism at Prom. 431. in Gloss. on Alberti and others, is acknowledged to be suspicious.

C. J. B. asserts, however, "that the passages quoted at Hesychius, V. 'Avopónpapos, were collected by himself, and that he did not expect to gain much credit from the dis-, play of reading." How much credit he expected to gain it is difficult to say; how little he will gain may easily be guessed. When he shall wipe off the aspersions thrown on his veracity, I will listen to his assertions, that, at the period of his first edition, he had read the works of Aristotle, Plutarch, Ælian, and Theophylact, for the purpose of hunting out instances of gúpa in composition.

22. C. J. B. is charged with purloining at Prom. 802. ed. 2. from Porson's Advers. p. 275, instances of elta with a participle. He replies that six only out of nineteen belong to Porson. But he does not say how many belong to Dawes, p. 284 502, Kidd, and to Hermann. Nub. 857. The point, however, of the charge was meant to rest upon the hint suggested by Porson, and adopted silently by C. J. B., of defending Eurip. Phaethont. Fragm. 8, against unnecessary emendations.

23. In reply to the charge of pilfering from Schneider's Æsop, the restitution of the verses of Babrias, C. J. B. says, that he knew not even the existence of Schneider's work, till he learned it from myself." This may be true; and yet he might have obtained the idea of palming off the restitution of the fable about the Xagadpids, from Schneider's Aristot. Hist. Animal. IV. p. 488, where that very fable is quoted at length, and the hint first thrown out that metrical fables existed in the collection, which De Furia first published from the Vatican Mss. Now Schneider's Aristotle bears date 1811, and might have found its way into the liVOL. XXIV. NO. XLVIII. 2 E

brary of even an obscure country-parish priest before 1813, the date of C. J. B.'s plagiarisms.

24. Dobree's emendation in the Classical Journal, No. 111. p. 654, says C. J. B., "ought to have been known to him." By what compulsion he ought to have known the contents of a journal which he pretends not to read, I cannot discover. But that, at the period alluded to, he did not know the contents of that third number, he dares not assert; although at the moment when he was penning his article for the Quarterly Review, No. XVIII. p. 352, it was convenient for him to forget the author, and the place of the emendation; especially as in the Quarterly Review, No. xv. p. 217, he had alluded to the Classical Journal under the name of an obscure publication. Well, indeed, would it be for C. J. B. if he could, by a word of his, render that work obscure, which has brought his plagiarisms to light.

C. J. B., in defence of this acknowledged charge, says, that he should hardly have had the assurance to pass off the emendation of a friend as his own.

The man, who has the assurance to tell a falsehood in his defence, may be allowed the less assurance to steal an emendation; and if he has any wisdom, he will pilfer from a friend who will not, rather than an enemy who will, expose the iniquity.

25. In answer to the charge of conveying from the pages of the Classical Journal, No. vII. p. 159, to those of the Edinburgh Review, No. xxxvII. p. 501, an emendation of Æschylus, C. J. B. says, that he can, with the greatest truth, aver he was not indebted for it to the Classical Journal.

Now as in that very number of the Classical Journal an article by C. J. B. was inserted, under the name of " Diatribe de Antimacho," it seems scarcely possible that, in running his eyes over the table of contents, he should not have seen another article entitled "Conjecture Criticæ in Auctores Græcos," and containing emendations on that very Eschylus, whom C. J. B. was, and is, in the course of publishing. If C. J. B. will enquire among his friends, he will find more than one, who think the plagiarism in this instance of rather a suspicious character, from the coincidence of not only the emendation, but the reason assigned for the corruption of ex Tolou into ix rivos. Let the reader turn to my note on Suppl. 906, and decide for himself, whether the charge be not fully established.

On this, as on other occasions, C. J. B. has exhibited no inconsiderable degree of sophistry, in writing one thing and

meaning another. But he thinks too highly of his own, and too lightly of my talents, if he supposes me incapable of detecting his casuistry. At present I have confined myself to the fair and legitimate meaning, deducible from his supposed honest language. But if hereafter he resorts to any quibbles, he may rest assured that such an attempt will only bring additional discomfiture on his head.

C. J. B. says, that for the last ten years of his life his employments have rendered it utterly impossible for him to hunt through literary journals for the casual emendations of other scholars, and in many cases even to look at them.

This assertion, if it were true, would only prove that he is sadly negligent in his duty as an editor of a Greek author, for the improvement of whom some materials will be found in the periodical publications of that period. But what is really the fact? Nothing more nor less than this. That during the whole ten years past, not only has he read, but absolutely been continually writing in, various reviews, no matter how politically opposed to each other, yet to him all friends, as being equally the vehicle for his sneers and insinuations; and though it appears that he so little values his own writings, as not to remember them himself, yet, in the confidence of his own real, and on the part of others presumed, forgetfulness, he has thoughtlessly exposed his falsehoods to detection.

Thus have I not only supported the accusation originally made, but destroyed also every atom of the defence, two instances alone excepted, where I confess my zeal has outstripped my discretion. And I know not how I can better close the subject than by quoting the very words of C. J. B. himself in the Edinburgh Rev. No. XXXVIII. p. 508, with. only such alteration as the present case requires:

"I now take leave of Dr. Blomfield, having to apolo-. gise to my readers for the extreme prolixity of this article, which I have protracted to so great a length solely for the satisfaction of the gentleman who is the object of it. Having given a sort of a general notice of his misdeeds, and pointed out a few of his principal plagiarisms, I was concerned to find that Dr. Blomfield accused me of acting too harshly towards him. I thought it, therefore, but justice to make amends, and, in the present article, to speak as mildly as I could, of his confessed plagiarisms and convicted falsehoods. It remains for Dr. Blomfield to judge whether he has gained any thing by the change.”

Calculating on the certainty that C. J. B. must reply to this exposure of his defence, I beg leave to forewarn him that in my rebutter to his rejoinder, he will find fresh instances of his Plagiarisms, and a collection of the Beauties of Blomfield, extracted from various Reviews, in which he has abused those alone, whom he deemed unwilling or unable to reply. Nor shall he derive the least benefit from the caution through which he has abstained from provoking by word or deed those, who, should he be disposed to retaliate for the acts of one upon the head of another, will bawl in his ear: Quid immerentes hospites vexas, canis,

Ignavus adversum lupos?

Quin huc inanes, si potes, vertis minas,
Et me remorsurum petis?

But to triumph thus over a prostrate foe has been considered, from the age of Homer to the present period, as the mark of no generous mind. Nor should I have felt even the wish to use the language of exultation against a crest-fallen antagonist, were not C. J. B. that individual, who has shut himself out from all claim to mercy, by defying again the hand that has detected his former plagiarisms and his present falsehoods. Had he, indeed, in his defence, confined himself to an humble confession of his guilt, and pleaded for his manifold sins in pilfering, the poverty of his imagination, and his incurable desire to gain, without knowing how, the reputation of a first-rate Grecian, I could have viewed his errors with an eye of compassion, and would have gently rebuked him for his hopeless aspirations. But when, in utter forgetfulness of his own impotence, he has chosen to enter the ring against him, who has not unadvisedly commenced the fight, it is his own fault, if he has met with one, who, non missura cutem nisi plena cruoris hirudo, sticks like a leech, nor drops till full of blood.

425

ON

TWO PASSAGES IN VIRGIL'S GEORGICS.

Ir is now generally agreed, that, in settling the text of any ancient writer, conjectural emendation is to be avoided as much as possible. Wetstein's learning and critical boldness are well known; yet he says in the prolegomena to his edition of the New Testament, that, "though he thought that the greater part of the conjectural emendations, which he had noticed, were both learned and ingenious, and found nothing to blame in those, by whom they were suggested, he still was bound to confess ingenuously, that scarcely two of them had his cordial approbation." This observation applies particularly to those authors, the manuscripts of whose works are numerous.

Acquiescing in the truth of this observation, I yet venture to point out two passages in the Georgics of Virgil, which, though they exist in all the manuscripts, and I may add in all the printed editions of them, of which we are possessed, appear to me to be, one of them an evident transposition, the other, either that, or an evident interpolation.

1. I beg my reader to place before him the beginning of the second Georgic, and to read from its first to its 47th verse; and then to ask himself whether the verses from the 38th verse to the end of the passage should not be expunged from the place in which they stand, and inserted between verse 7 and verse 8.

The poet first mentions, generally, his subject; then addresses Bacchus, the founder of it; then proceeds to the didactic; and then, on a sudden, and without any connexion with what precedes or follows, introduces a second address :-this second address, if placed immediately after the first, will be felt to follow it naturally, and not to be discordant with the verses which, on this supposition, it will immediately precede, or those by which it will be immediately followed.-It may be added, that the plan will then immediately accord with the opening of the first Georgic.

2. I must next request my reader to place under his eyes the 3d Georgic; and passing over, if he can, the 48 first verses, to begin with the 49th, and thence read-he certainly will not find it a labor-till the 129th: and then consider whether the 120th, 121st, and 122d verses either are not an interpolation, or should not be inserted between the 96th and 97th, and make one sentence, not with the verses preceding, but with those that follow the 97th.