with which he is not chargeable. In the translation he is made to say, "Noti Cornu, or Southern Horn, a promontory which is said to be the term of the voyage of the Carthaginian fleet of Hanno. But elsewhere, in the Periplus that bears his name, it appears that this commander did not return till he had circumnavigated the continent of Africa." It would hence appear, that the author had fallen into the error, which has not been uncommon, of confounding the accounts of other writers with the narration of the Periplus itself. The original of D'Anville is perfectly accurate: "Noti cornu, ou corne meridionale, promontoire, le plus reculé, duquel il est dit que la flotte Carthaginoise d'Hannon reprit la route de Carthage, quoiqu' ailleurs que dans le Periple qui porte son nom, ce navigateur ne revienne a Carthage qu'en faisant le tour du continent d'Afrique."

D..

SELECT TRANSLATIONS FROM THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY.

(Continued.)

The remains of Leonidas are certainly among the most beautiful that have been preserved by the zeal of the different collectors. His descriptions are always true to nature, yet original, general, but never common. Many of his pieces breathe a sensibility, a mental refinement, to which the voluptuous poets of Greece are mostly strangers. Of this, the verses on "Home," which I inserted in the last number of my translations, and those of the Mother lamenting the Death of her Son, and his own Epitaph (which were given in the little volume so often referred to) are not unfavourable specimens. His powers of natural description and imagery may be collected from none of his poems more plainly than from the following:

The Return of Spring to Sailors.

Haste to the port-the twittering swallow calls,
Again return'd-the wintry breezes sleep-
The meadows laugh-and warm the zephyr falls
On Ocean's breast, and calms the fearful deep.

Now spring your cables, loiterers, spread your sails!
O'er the smooth surface of the waters roam !
So shall your vessel glide with friendly gales,

And, fraught with foreign treasures, waft you home!

Leonidas set the example to a multitude of followers in the same description. Antipater, Argentarius, Archias, Agathias, Paul, and many others have written poems on this very subject, with regard to which the most remarkable circumstance is, that they vary so little from their original. Not one, as a whole, appears to me to equal it. A few additional images are introduced in some of them; and it struck

me

me that, taking them altogether, a more beautiful combination of picturesque incidents might be formed than any one of them, singly, can present. The following is the result of that suggestion:

With rapid prow the buoyant vessels glide,
And cut the glassy surface of the tide ;
The glassy surface, white with foam no more,
But smoothly flowing to the level shore,
Or settled in a deep and calm repose,
Unruffled by the breeze that scarcely blows.
For now the swallow's voice, heard faintly clear,
Spring's gracious zephyr wafts along the air:
Beneath the pent-house roof's embowering shade
The amorous bird her clay built nest has laid,
Securely guarded for her callow brood:
The cricket has his merry note renew'd;
And early foliage bursts through every grove;
And roses open at the touch of love.

Now set your anchors free-spread every sail,
And loose your cordage to the friendly gale!
Quit, quit the port, where the long winter's day
Has past, inglorious, unimproved, away!
Now tempt again the fortune of the wave,
Seek other shores, and new adventures brave!
So
may the gods of trade reward your toil

With every bounty shower'd on every soil,
And guide your barks triumphant o'er the main,
Laden with plenty, to their homes again.

With one more specimen I will now close my Extracts from the poet of Tarentum, although I am confident that many poems of his remain, more worthy, perhaps, of translation than those I have already selected.

The Rural Offering.

To Pan, the guardian of the woodland plain,
To young Lyæus and the azure train

Of nymphs that make the pastoral life their care,
With offerings due old Arcas breathes his prayer.
To Pan a playful kid, in wars untried,

He vows, yet sporting by the mother's side;
Luxuriant on the green entangled vine,
This blushing cluster to the god of wine;
And to the gentler deities who guide

Their winding streamlets by the mountain's side,
Each fruit that swells in Autumn's sunny bowers,
Deck'd with the purple fragrance of its flowers-

Therefore,

Therefore, ye nymphs, enrich my narrow field
With the full stores your bounteous fountains yield!
Pan, bid my luscious pails with milk o'er flow!
And, Bacchus, teach my mellow vines to glow!

Callimachus has left a votive epigram of a very different description, and which appears to require some previous explanation.

It was a general custom among the Greeks (and from them derived to the Romans, as we learn from Persius,

Nempe hoc quod Veneri donatæ a Virgine puppæ,

for girls, when arrived at a certain age, to consecrate to Venus the favourite toys of their more childish years. Their dolls were among the most common of their offerings; but it was also a fashion among the young ladies of the maritime parts of Greece to be great collectors of shells; and hence some very beautiful or rare specimen from their cabinets was an offering that could not fail of being acceptable. This solemn consecration took place often on the day, or at least in contemplation of the day, of marriage: and happy might the bride esteem herself if, like the daughter of Clinias, in the ensuing epigram, she possessed the power of making so magnificent a present as the shining conch of the Nautilus.

In the original, the Nautilus himself is the speaker. "I do not ask of thee, oh Venus, that which, when alive, I was accustom'd to implore, that the mournful Halcyon might build her nest in the ocean for me; but only that thou wouldst shower down thy blessings on the daughter of Clinias, who is accustomed to all good works, and was born in the Eolian Smyrna, &c. &c.

From an epigram of Posidippus we learn, that to Venus Zephyrites (the same here referred to) whose temple was placed on the promontory of Zephyrion, near Alexandria, was ascribed the power of calming the sea, and giving a prosperous navigation to sailors; an attribute which Anyte has also celebrated in another Venus. (See Translations, &c. p. 10.)

The Venus Zephyritis was also called Chloris, and Arsinoë, which latter name betrays her earthly origin; for it appears, after all, that she was no other than Arsinoë, the wife of Ptolemy Philadelphus, who obtained after death the honour of an Apotheosis.

The Virgin's Offering to Venus.

Queen of the zephyr's breezy cape! to thee
This polished shell, the treasure of the sea,
Her earliest offering young Selene bears,
Join'd with the incense of her maiden prayers.
Erewhile with motion, power, and sense endued,
Alive it floated on the parent flood,

When, if the gale more rudely breath'd, it gave
Its natural sail, expanded to the wave ; ́

But,

But, if the billows slept upon the shore,
And the tempestuous winds forgot to roar,
Like some proud galley floated on the tide,
And busy feet the want of oars supplied.
Shipwreck'd at length upon the Jülian strand,
It now, Arsinoë, asks thy favouring hand;
No more its vows the plaintive Halcyon hail
For the soft breathings of a western gale;
But that, oh, mighty queen, thy genial power
On
young Selene every gift may shower,

That love, with beauteous innocence, may share-
For these, and only these, accept the prayer!

ACCOUNTS OF, AND EXTRACTS FROM, RARE AND

CURIOUS BOOKS.

AN ACCOUNT OF THE LAUDIAN MANUSCRIPT

OF THE

ACTS OF THE APOSTLES, IN THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY AT OXFORD.

Sir,

To the Editor of the Athenæum.

BEFORE I proceed further, I take the liberty of guarding against an improper acceptation of something said in my last. By Egyptian letters I could not mean either the hieroglyphical characters or the ancient letters of Egypt. The former were not letters, but symbols. They are to be seen on obelisks and other remains of Egyptian antiquity, but cannot be decyphered now. The latter are

to be found on the marbles and other monuments of Egypt; but, as they differ in shape from every known language, so is their import altogether unknown to us. I meant, therefore, what may be properly called the Egyptian Greek characters, or Coptic, used in Upper Egypt, after the conquest of that country by Alexander the Great. At that period the Greek alphabet was adopted by the Copts: but as the Egyptians had some sounds which the Greek letters could not express, they superadded eight more of a different origin; so that the alphabet consisted of thirty-two letters, and these composed the Coptic language.*

Of Dr. Askew's Coptic MS. I may, perhaps, give a short account on some future occasion. Let us pass now to a Codex in the Bodleian library

VOL. IV.

G

* Vid. Montfaucon Palæogr. Græc. Athanasius Kircher (in his Prodromus Copt.) maintains that the present Egyptian or Coptic character is the same with that of the ancient Egyptian; but Mr. Greaves, a great authority on this subject, was of a different opinion. Vid. Pyramidographia, p. 114. Mr. Greaves's opinion resembles that of Montfaucon.

library at Oxford, the celebrated Laudian MS. so called from the donor, Archbishop Laud.

The Laudian MSS. of different parts of the New Testament in this library (which is said to be the richest in oriental MSS. of any in Europe) are five. That under consideration now, called by Mill, Laudianus 3, is, the Acts of the Apostles.

This famous MS. possesses some peculiarities. It is written in Greek and Latin, or, more properly, Latin and Greek; the Latin version, different in this respect from others, being on the left hand side of the page. Both are placed columnwise. It should, therefore, seem, that this Codex was written in a country where Greek was not much known, and might be intended, perhaps, as an introduction (the Latin version being as a fidus interpres) to the Greek tongue. There are fifty-eight divisions, noted by the letter T, or Tituli, though in a more modern hand. The Greek possesses some peculiar readings, different from the edited text, but agreeing with ancient authorities. A list of these peculiar readings may be seen in Dr. Mill. He considers it at the same time as one of those western MSS. which have been corrupted from the Latin version; so does Mastricht, so also does Wetstein; while, on the other hand, Michaelis produces this very MS. to prove the contrary, not only relative to this Codex, but to the Græco-Latin Codices in general.*

By collating the first chapter with the fac-similes of the Bezæ Codex and the Alexandrine, it appeared to me that its letters, orthography, abbreviations, and readings, were more of a kindred to those of the latter than of the former. I chose the first chapter without any design or preference to other chapters. The varieties were many; but most of that description, which some critics will not allow to be called various readings,+ as being too trifling, and as arising from the negligence or ignorance of the scribe, the transposition of words, or other circumstances of as little consequence. The most remarkable reading is that in v. 23. και τουτων λεχθεντων εστησαν. Erasmus and the Oxford editor read only εστησαν.

The varieties in different MSS. shew the relative state of those MSS.; but their importance and influence on public opinion are differently estimated by different editors. Thus the learned and elegant Erasmus,‡ Dr. Fell, Curcellæus, Mastricht, and Wetstein maintain that these

* Michaelis's Introduct. &c. vol. ii. p. 274.

↑ Mastricht's Canon. Critic. in Nov. Test. Amstelodami. apud J. Westenium 1735, and Dr. Whitby.

Hi sciant oportet, jam annos plus mille neque Latinorum neq. Græcorum exemplaria per omnia consensisse. Id quod ne fieri quidem possit, nimirum in tantâ librariorum non solum turbâ, verum etiam inscitiâ, oscitantiâ, temeritate. Ut ne commemorem quam multa mutata sunt ab eruditulis, aut certè a parum attentis. Comperio quædam erasa aut inducta a factionibus, quarum tumultu quondam sursum et prorsum miscebantur omnia, præsertim Orientis Ecclesiæ, dum quisque pro suarum partium patrocinio scripturam variat. Id certe factum non obscure compluribus in locis declarat Hieronymus. Levius depravandi genus est, quoties lector aliunde quod congruebat adscribat: gravius,

quum