ritus quidam siccus et frigidus, ater, tristis, raro subsidens, sui impos, qualitercunque condensatus et incorporatus, et breviter, tale monstrum, cui nec Homericus Polyphemus, nec Virgiliana Fama, nec Ovidiani gigantes, nec Horatiana pictura, nec allum vel a Wigoleisio, vel a Seufrido, vel ab Amadiso, vel a quopiam necessariorum ejus, debellatum portentum, comparari queat.

"Formam Cornelii intuentibus, pro diversis subjectis in quibus dominatur, varie se instar Protei manifestat. Quidam enim hominum consortia fugientes ad loca solitaria properant: alii versantur quidem cum mortalibus, sed taciturni, cernui, morosi, quibus dici solet, eos calendaria componere, aut speculari divina, aut claves quærere, aut Cornelium habere, quorum postremum prioribus tribus verius nos existimamus: nonnulli, præsentibus aliis, ubique recursis spatiis deambulant,

'Spectantes terram, manibus post terga rejectis,' et succinentes sibi melancholico murmure, cujus harmoniam nec ipsi, nec alii, sed solus qui eos vexat Cornelius intelligere potest. Objectum Cornelii sunt res, actiones et verba. Res, ut calcei, vestes, uxor, ligna, candelæ, sanitas, morbus, vinum, virgines, cerevisia, compotatores, corrivales, pulices, pediculi, quamque primo decuisset loco poni, pecunia, et similes. Actiones, ut si quis cucurbitari se novit, quod tamen mutari nequit : si patientiam Socratis addiscere quis teneatur: si quem pulices infestant, ubi capere dedecet: si puella superciliosa, quæ se Dianam aut Junonem esse credit, ne nimis demissa aut humilis videatur, procum suum asperius repudiavit, quem tamen perdite amat, et reverti iterum atque instare tacite exoptat; ille vero nihil de ea sollicitus, aliam, quod aiunt, quercum excutit. Verbo, ut si lepus quidam, cui cor in caligis, Thrasonis alicujus minis perterrefactus, pacem et requiem emit, aliquot Joachimicis, aut ducatis, aut florenis in convivium commune exhibitis; memor istius Maronis En. xi. Nulla salus bello, pacem te poscimus omnes: et illius sacri, Pacem inter vos alite, Marc. 9, 24, &c."

Second thoughts, says a Cambridge prize poem, are best; and as we feel some misgivings lest what has amused us should not be equally amusing to some of our readers-lest, in short, we should be unintentionally instrumental in inflicting Cornelius on them, we have determined to shorten our extracts, and conclude with a few of the "Corollaria" subjoined to this curious tractate:

Cor. Grammaticum. An Cornelius possit declinari? Affirmamus, præterquam in genitivo casu, (the case, we presume, of such as are born of a Cornelious temperament,) quem non putamus esse declinabilem.

Dialecticum. An Cornelius in homine habeat respectum subjecti occupantis, an subjecti occupati? Posterius affirmamus: nam falsum est, quod vulgus dicitur non habere Cornelium. Nos enim Cornelium non habemus, sed Cornelius nos habet.

Musicum.

Cornelius licet per omnes declinabiles casus possit cani, suavissimus tamen in ablativo statuitur; ibi namque vim suam exserit Lydius, teste Cassiodoro 2. variar. 40.

Astronomicum. Cui signo conveniat Cornelius in zodiaco? respondemus, Capricorno per omnia.

Juridicum. An Cornelius possit contra Corneliosum agere interdicto Uti possidetis? Negamus, quia Cornelius vi possidet, cui non datur hoc interdictum. 1. 1, §. ult. ff. Uti possidet. Physicum. Cornelium augmenti et decrementi esse capacem, atque ita subjacere alterationi, arbitramur, contra Aristotelem de generat. et corrupt. lib. 3, c. 33.

Philologicum. Dubitatum meminimus, uter sit natura prior, ipsene Cornelius, an vero Corneliosus. Hunc esse priorem statuimus, tanquam subjectum adjuncto suo.

Historicum. An C. Cæsar, cum acceptis vulneribus veste faciem tegeret jam moriturus, Cornelium habuerit? Negamus: est enim hoc. Cornelii genus irregulare.

AN INQUIRY INTO THE TRUTH OF HISTORY.

Truth severe in fairy fiction drest."

THE persecutions of Alva and of Louis the XIVth had a sensible effect on English commerce; for we date the prosperity of our woollen manufactures from the arrival of the Flemings, and our silk trade from the revocation of the edict of Nantes. Yet if the trade of Flanders and France had been united, it would by no means have justified such a description as has been given of the trade of Tyre-a description, which is not in the language of flattery or of praise, but of inspiration. Neither was the ruin of the trade of Tyre a partial ruin; the city itself fell after a very long and very severe siege, and its fall and the dispersion of its inhabitants was effected by the same mighty monarch who destroyed Jerusalem, and who conquered and dispersed the

See Isaiah chap, xviii, and Ezekiel chap. xxvii.

Elamites, Moabites, Ammonites, and Egyptians. What then was the effect of conquests and dispersions to which history can furnish no parallel? To say that they had no effect, is to say but little in favor of our philosophy and political economy, and to contradict the sure word of prophecy: to say that their effect is still to be found, is to acknowlege that the search may be successful, and that our time will not be utterly wasted in making it.

Let us begin by trying to discover the true sense of those words in which Isaiah mentions the songs of Tyre. "After the end of seventy years shall Tyre sing as an harlot. Take an harp, go about the city, thou harlot, that hast been forgotten; make sweet melody, sing many songs, that thou mayest be remembered."

What are we to understand by these expressions? If, as we have been told, they allude to the revival of the commerce of Tyre, the metaphor does not seem very apt, for the noise and bustle of a sea-port have little resemblance to sweet melody; neither does it seem very necessary, as mention is afterwards made of her merchandise and her hire. Yet if we take the expressions in a more literal sense, where shall we find the songs of Tyre? The greatest part of our information concerning Tyre is derived from the Holy Scriptures: her restoration was prophesied and accomplished; but, from the time of Ezekiel to her final ruin by Alexander, we find nothing of the sweet melody and many songs which are mentioned by Isaiah. Perhaps a little attention to one word may remove our uncertainty. The songs were to be as the songs of a harlot, sweet, but false, perverting and disguising the truth; and they may therefore be found in the fabulous history of the Greeks: for we should bear in mind that the fabulous history of the Greeks, notwithstanding its contradictions, and impurities, and absurdities, must have had some foundation; it is an invention, and not a creation: for that "nothing can come of nothing," will always be true when applied to man. We may add, and pervert, and falsify, and embellish; but we must have some material to work on-we cannot create the wildest dream that was ever dreamt may be traced to an origin. The cause and the effect may be as unlike as the acorn and the oak; but fabulous history, and every other lie that was ever invented, was made out of something. Without further preface, therefore, let us attempt to reconcile the Bellerophon of fable, with that history which was given by inspiration, and which is true in all its particulars.

The Bellerophon of Homer is mentioned in an episode; but

'See Jeremiah, chapters xlvi. xlvii. xlviii. and xlix.
But sce the marginal translation of our Bible.

his adventures are related with so much circumstance, that we may appear to act unwarrantably in considering them as a perversion of the truth. Mitford, however, has gone still farther, in asserting that Sisyphus, Glaucus, and Bellerophon, are “names to which poetry has given fame, but not delivered down to us as objects of history" and in neither mentioning nor allowing room for Prœtus among the kings of Argos, and, as well as I can discover, in making no provision for Diomed, Sthenelus, and Euryalus. We may, therefore, allow ourselves to pass over all smaller matters in the story of Bellerophon, and to confine our attention to the striking features which seem peculiar to him as an individual. We may collect from Homer, that Bellerophon came from a distant country; that he brought letters or tokens, the meaning of which was concealed from him, and which contained an order for his destruction; that he subdued a monster, which breathed fire, and had a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail; that he conquered the Solymi and the Amazons; and that in the latter part of his life he experienced very great misery. To this account other authors added, that he caught the winged horse Pegasus; that he attempted to fly up to heaven, and was cast down. Let us begin by attempting to discover what this monster or chimæra really was.

A burning mountain is still to be found in Lycia; and if we suppose that lions lived at the top of it, and goats in the middle, and serpents at the bottom, we shall have the usual explanation of the Chimæra. As for Bellerophon's conquering it, that is quite another matter. If the volcano still exists, we may infer that Bellerophon did not put it out; and if all the heroes of the present day were to try, they would probably do nothing more than burn their own fingers. On the other hand, if goats are put between lions and serpents, we shall not want any hero at all to deliver us from the goats. Let us then consider this monster as the fabulous emblem of three kingdoms. If we put the lion for Judah, we shall have the support of Scripture.. Jupiter was nursed by a goat; Minerva's shield, or ægis, was covered with a goat's skin; Pan's lower half was that of a goat; and Egypt is represented as the mother of idolatry. If we infer from these circumstances that Egypt was represented by the goat, our inference will derive some support from etymology; for in Ægis and Egypt, or, to use the Greek characters, in Aivis and AYUTTOs, we may trace a similarity. The dragon, or fiery serpent, may in like manner be made to allude to Ethiopia; which we may derive from two Greek words, the one

See the second section of his first chapter.

signifying fiery, and the other a serpent; so that the Chimæra may stand for the three kingdoms of Judah, Egypt, and Ethiopia. The reader may startle at such an explanation; and his surprise will be increased by his being told, that in bad puns and in mistakes he must be content to find an explanation of many fables, which are thought to contain very elegant and tasteful allegories.

But why should the reader have taken for granted that Greek nature was very different from English nature, and that men are not the same in the same circumstances? A lion tearing a cock was thought a fit emblem of the victories of Marlbo rough; an H and an arrow are still recognised as an emblem of Harrow School. What are these but bad puns? As for mistakes, do we not laugh at the French for the gross blunders which they make in English names; and was it very wonderful that an Englishman, who did not understand French, confounded bras d'or with brass door? A little reflection may perhaps convince the reader that blunders were very common in classical times: even now the lower classes will be found to turn a name which they do not understand into something that is familiar to them. The Bellerophon of classical literature is the Billy rough-one of the sailor; the Bien-faisant is turned into the bonny pheasant; the Boulogne mouth is represented by a bull and a mouth; the Mantichora is the man-tiger; and if the geologist searches for oyster-shells in Oyster-hill, the antiquary will correct his mistake by telling him that we have confounded oyster and Ostorius.

Such then being the case in modern times, let us not fancy that they who spoke in Greek or Latin could make no blunders, because they spoke in Greek or Latin; but let us rather be guided by human nature, and admit that if a cock is an emblem of France or Gallia, the Chimæra ' may be an emblem of three kingdoms which Bellerophon conquered.

In the Solymi, who fought so fiercely, we may recognise either the people of Elam, or the nation "terrible from the beginning," whose capital was Salem, or Solyma. The Amazons of Homer differ from the Amazons of later authors, for every story gains in telling. The Priam of the Iliad is mentioned not as the ally, but as the enemy of the Amazons; and nothing is said by Homer to hinder us from supposing that his

'If Chimæra relates to fire, it is probably derived from the same root as shems, the Arabic word for sun; but I suspect that Himalayer is only the softened sound of Chimæra, and that the roots of the first part of both words may be traced through Xer, Hiems, and Hiver, and those of the latter part through alpw, anp, ara, and, with Cicero's leave, ala. So that the meaning will be cold heights, or snowy mountains.