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seemed well coough pleased with what had been set before him. When he was upon the point of returning to the palace, the poor man, who had such signal justice done him, threw himself down at his feet, and most humbly begged that he would inform him why he ordered the lights to be put out at his first entering the house, why he prostrated himself after the death of the Turk; and lastly, how he could take up with so bad a repast The Solian answered him very courteously in the following terms: "After you had brought your com plaint to me, I always suspected that no one could be hardy enough to commit such unparalleled insolence, but one of my own sons; and therefore, as I was resolved to punish it with the utmost severity, and would not be diverted from my resolution by a sight of the offender, I ordered the light to be put out. But finding afterwards that it was not one of my sons, I praised God in the manner you saw. And lastly, with regard to the repast, it is no wonder I should be satisfied with it; since the outrage upon you, which the Turk had been guilty of, so chagrined me, that it deprived me both of my appetite and repose for the last three days."

The astrologers of Baghdad having predicted an inundation, little inferior in its extent and effects to the general deluge that happened in the days of Noah; it struck the people, as well as the court, with the utmost terror and consternation. Upon which the Khatif sent for one of his most celebrated astrologers, to interrogate him as to the impending judgment, with which he and his subjects were threatened; the astrologer, being brought before him, said, "that in Noah's time all the seven planets met in the sign of Pisces; but that only six of them, Saturn being in another part of the heavens, would meet in that sign the present year. Had Saturn, continued he, occupied any part of the abovementioned sign, when all the other six planets appeared there, an universal deluge would have been the necessary and immediate effect of so great a vicinity of those celestial bodies. However, subjoined he, there will most certainly be a dreadful inundation, which will lay under water sume considerable city, tract, or disGENT. MAG. Suppl. XC. PART I.

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trict, where a vast multitude of paople from different countries will be assembled." As there was a predigious concourse of merchants and others, coming from all the remotest regions of the East, at Bagkdud, this prediction so terrified the inhabitants of that capital, who were extremely numerous, that they erected mounds or dams in those places that seemed to be most exposed to an irruption of the waters, and took all other precautions which they judged necessary for their security. And, in conformity to their prediction, it happened. that most of the pilgrims going to Mecca, who had pitched their tents in the valley of Al Manukeb, were carried away by an irresistible torrent, which with their beasts of burden, baggage, and every thing they brought with them, were drowned. This tragical event so raised the reputation of the Astrologer, that the Khalif made him a present of a sump. tuous vest, in order to do him honour, and as a reward for the skill he had shown in his art.

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be possessed of that valuable work, "Dr. Johnson's History of the Euglish Language;" I beg leave to pre sent them with two short extracts from that masterly performance of our great Lexicographer.

The first is from a version of the Gospels, supposed to have been written between the time of King Alfred the Great and that of the Norman Conquest, when the Saxon Language was in its highest state of purity; and the second from Wickliffe's version, written about the year 1880. The subject is from Luke, chap. i. and part of verse 15.

From the Saxon.

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spade that he held in his hand; commanding me at the same time to break with it the ground on which we stood. I obeyed his order, and after I had given some strokes with the spade, he told me he was Ali, and that as many of my sons should enjoy the Khalifat as I had given strokes upon the ground with the spade. Then he enjoined me to be kind to his family, and particularly those members of it that lived under my government. In consequence therefore of the promise I made him, as well as in point of justice, I ought to restore the 30,000 dinars to the descendants of that Imân, to whom they properly belonged."

A soldier having once by force picked some bunches of grapes of a certain Moslem's Vine, the man immediately carried his complaint to the Khalif; who commanded both the soldier and his captain to appear before him, in order to receive the punishment he should think fit to inflict upon them. Some of the people about bim demanded what crime the captain had committed; he auswered, “I saw him kill a man unjustly in my uncle's reign, and then made a vow to punish him for so enormous a crime, if ever the Khalifat should fall into my hands, and he should be found guilty of any other fault."

A Turk attempting to ravish by force a girl in the city of Bagdad, she found herself obliged to call in all her neighbours to her help. At the cries of this girl, Sheikb Khaiath ran to her relief, and begged the Turk, in the most pressing terms, not to offer her any violence. But the brute was so far from paying any regard to his entreaties, that he insulted him, and treated him in a very in jurious manner. The Sheikb, no being able to think of any other ex pedient to prevent him from acco plishing his design, mounted the nárch, or steeple, of the great n que, and from thence called the ple together to prayer, though it out of the stated times of praye order to excite the Moslems sembled to succour the poo and deliver her effectually out hands of the insolent Turk Khalif, having been apprized action, but being ignorant of tive to it, commanded the be brought before him, and reprimanded him for cons

people to prayer at an unlawf But being afterwards inform whole affair, he ordered th be punished according to h and at the same time con Sheikb, as often as he st violence or injustice c punish it in the same r this means the auth meet with the treatr One day a serva deavoured to drive a fly-flap in his ! Khalif's cap; founded the Vis unmoved with t This boy is exc so astonished f

not forbear f ground, and s faithful! is

80 much leni

The Khalif tice ought cident as poor boy must hav certain! action

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Dil.d co. Der left ays, that nderstand sage, I find and did not , as far as I und neither in hologia, (where As a suite of Epidicate on the Caielsewhere any derest of her attitude. ought, that the Venus Is that which was found or from that town it was Constantinople, and from they have perhaps thought, ay to bring it to Rome. Acto Cedrenus, it must have aced in the palace of Lausi at ople; but I have no conthe assertions of Authors time, and of this kind. It is e, that there was a Venus in tude of the Cnidian, but, that *s the identical statue, requires

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proof. Even should this no- more worthy of credit than it se may oppose the general conration under Leo 1. in 462, which royed three quarters of the town, the Grand Imperial Library, with sfinity of antient works of art, as at may have destroyed the Caidian ous, as well as the Olympian Juter. The Authors, with whom I

acquainted, do not speak posively of these works, but they menon, in detail, the quarters and the places of the town, which were the prey of the flames; in this number is the palace of Lausi. (See Zonur. Ann. xiv. p. 50. Cedren. Hist. Comp. $48. Evagr. Hist. Eccles. L. 2. et Valois, ibid.")

"It is to be particularly observed, that the two arms of the Venus de Medicis

ant Sculpture in France.

TI.] Anecdotes of the antunt Arabs.--Beer-Cider,

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norius: and was exhibited in, a open on all sides, that

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d well carugh pleased with trich, where a vast multitude of pen ad been set before to. Wirs ple from different countries will be pon the pout of returning embled." As there was a profi ace, the poor man, wriad go one of merchants and estace done him, fires arters, essing from all the remotent at to feet, and most gos af the Lat, at Baghdad, this that be would inform prediction as temfied he inhabitants red me igits to be of that capital, o sere extremely externg the home, sumer, at the erected mounds ner er fe or fans in those places trad and a bow to be mon expored to as inaption of the mark all other pre cations et des sy for thirty is anter

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But dition s Venus of the French idian, ought to be an t of the famous couré. (See Athenæus, 13. dippus in Clemens Alexs quoted by Montfaucon) the attitude, by which the Medicean, and Mr. Hope's re characterized, belonged to ass of persons, appears from indelicate passages in Apuleius morphos, L. ii. p. 36. ed. Bipont. Hope's Venus, of Parian marble, nd at Baiæ, one of the most peret Statues known, is in the attitude f the Medicean Venus, as to both arms; but both that and the figure of the Cuidian Medallion is taller than the famous Florentine Statue alluded to; nor are the Portraits similar. It is probable that many Venuses are portraits of favourite females, placed in the Medicean attitude, from popularity of the pattern. (To be continued.)

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ong the with the e privilege ve not preGoddess was without dradus by Praxi. (Plin. xxxvi.

Mr. URBAN,

IN

Louth, June 8. N answer to W. S. in p. 386, who is anxious to know what Selby Estate is alluded to in Hasted's History nected with the loss of that Estate to of Kent, or any circumstances conthe right heir; I beg leave to observe, that Thomas James Selby, esq. died in 1772; and in his Will (proved in December of that year) left his Estates to his "right and lawful heir;" for the better finding out of whom, he directed advertisements to be published immediately after his decease in some of the public Papers. He then adds:

in Venus be or ot) the present it is most certain ct is represented struck at Cnidus; is in attitude with xcept that one arm holds drapery over ed to contain pertengraved in Mont1. I. p. 70. Ed. Humphitude is certainly not so hat of the restoration, arm screens the bosom, titude is antient. Cedreely says, "The Cnidian made of white marble, is d covers her modesty with i only, and was made by es of Cnidus." It was at in the time of Arcadius and

"I do hereby order and direct the legacies to be paid by the said heir, his heirs, executors, or assigns, within twelve months after my decease; but should it so happen that no heir at law is found, I then do hereby constitute and appoint William condition he takes the name of Selby, I Lowndes, Esq. my lawful heir; and on. give him the Estates and all the Manors before mentioned."

From the following Pedigree (which was communicated to me by a gentleman who resides in the vicinity of Spilsby), it appears that the present heir at law of the said Thomas James

Selby,

In the Saxon we have the last word rendered "beor;"-Wickliffe gives "syder." But it must be allowed, that the words "strong drink" are by far more appropriate than either "beer "9 or "cider." Antiently the latter word meant all kinds of strong liquors (except wine), but in that sense (as Doctor Johnson himself tells us), it has been long wholly ob. solete, but certainly it was not so in Wickliffe's days. Beer was the usual and common beverage of our Saxon ancestors, into which they put Ground Ivy (and from the use to which it was applied, it afterwards obtained the naines of "Alehoof" and "Tunboof") instead of Hops.

It is probable that the Apple Tree was first propagated in this country by the followers of Wm. Duke of Normandy soon after the Battle of Hastings; and if that was the case, it was not unreasonable to suppose, that in the course of three centuries, from that event, to the time of publishing Wickliffe's Bible, they had become completely naturalized, and so much increased as to render Cider a common drink at that time in England, and therefore the venerable Rector of Lutterworth became fully justified in the use of the word "Sydyr," independant of the antient meaning of that term before hinted at.

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ACCOUNT OF THE ANTIENT SCULP TURES IN THE ROYAL MUSEUM AT PARIS; WITH REMARKS BY Mn. FOSBROOKE. No. IV.

(Continued from p. 326.) XLIV. VENUS OF CNIDUS. A Bust, The antient head of this Goddess is of divine beauty; and it belonged to a copy of the Cnidian Venus, the chef-d'œuvre of Praxiteles. The other part is a restoration. (Visconti, p. 19.) The first writer upon Venuses is Lessing. He says, that restorers have been perpetually creating Venuses. "The greater part of these figures were torsos of women, without any appropriation; others were simple portraits of pretty women; others were Venuses, but without any of the attributes, which the restoring artist added, in creating in this manner, a Venus de Medicis, or a Venus Victrisc, Urania, &c. Thus, from all the statues restored in modern times, we can learn nothing sure or positive cou

cerning the different manners in which the antients represented this goddess."

As the Cnidian Venus is an interesting subject in Sculpture, it is worth while to discuss it at length.

"According to common opinion," says Lessing, the Venus de Medicis is the same as the Cnidian, that is to say, the chef-d'œuvre of Praxiteles, in marble, which was brought to Cnidus, and to which that town owed its celebrity and concourse of strangers. (Plin. xxxvi. 5. sect. 4, 5.) We know positively that this Venus had a simil ing air, that she was naked, and covered the sexual parts with her left hand. Lucian (Amor. 13.) says, that she is quite naked; if I understand well the sense of this passage, I find there proof that the hand did not cover the bosom; and, as far as I know, there is not found neither in Lucian, or the Anthologia, (where nevertheless there is a suite of Epigrams not very delicate on the Cnidian Venus) nor elsewhere any description of the rest of her attitude. It has been thought, that the Venus of Florence is that which was found at Cnidus; for from that town it was brought to Constantinople, and from thence, as they have perhaps thought, it was easy to bring it to Rome. Ac cording to Cedrenus, it must have been placed in the palace of Lausi at Constantinople; but I have no confidence in the assertions of Authors of that time, and of this kind. It is possible, that there was a Venus in the attitude of the Cnidian, but, that this was the identical statue, requires better proof. Eveu should this notice be more worthy of credit than it is, we may oppose the general conflagration under Leo 1. in 462, which destroyed three quarters of the town, and the Grand Imperial Library, with an infinity of antient works of art, as that may have destroyed the Cnidian Venus, as well as the Olympian Jupiter. The Authors, with whom I am acquainted, do not speak positively of these works, but they mention, in detail, the quarters and the places of the town, which were the prey of the flames; in this number is the palace of Lausi. (See Zonar. Ann. xiv. p. 50. Cedren. Hist. Comp. 348. Evagr. Hist. Eccles. L. 2. et Valois, ibid.")

"It is to be particularly observed, that the two arms of the Venus de Medicis

Medicis are modern: the right from the shoulder, and the left below the elbow. In general, she is composed of many pieces, antient and modern, especially the legs, which were entirely broken. It is said, that this accident happened when she was brought from Rome, under the pontificate of Innocent XI."

The Belvidere Venus, issuing from the Bath, is that which approaches nearest in attitude to the Cnidian. She covers with her right hand the sexual parts, and lifts with her left her drapery, laid upon a vase."

Thus Lessing. Winckelman says, "The Venus de Medicis is similar to a rose, which appears at the end of a fine dawn, and expands at sun-rise. She is of that age, when the vessels begin to swell, and the bosom assumes its form. The eyes of Venus are full of sweetness, with the languishing and amorous look, which the Greeks called vypov. This look is very different from the lascivious traits, by which modern Sculptors have pretended to characterize their Venuses. For, by the antient Artists, as well as Philosophers, Love was regarded as the colleague of Wisdom. (Euripid. Med. v. 483.")

If I have said, that among the Goddesses, Venus alone, with the Graces and Hours, had the privilege of appearing naked, I have not pretended to say, that this Goddess was constantly represented without drapery. The Venus of Cnidus by Praxitiles shows the contrary. (Plin. xxxvi.

c. 5.)

Whether the Cnidian Venus be or be not (probably not) the present Venus de Medicis, it is most certain that the real object is represented upon a Medallion, struck at Cnidus; and it corresponds in attitude with the Medicean, except that one arm is extended and holds drapery over a vase, presumed to contain perfumes. (See it engraved in Montfauc. Suppl. vol. I. p. 70. Ed. Humphreys). This attitude is certainly not so graceful as that of the restoration, where this arm screens the bosom, and such attitude is antient. Cedrefus positively says, "The Cuidian Venus is made of white marble, is aked, and covers her modesty with er hand only, and was made by Praxiteles of Cnidus." It was at nidus in the time of Arcadius and

Honorius: and was exhibited in a small temple, open on all sides, that it might be every way seen. But there is still an interesting dition to be made; this Venus of the French Museum, as Cuidian, ought to be an actual portrait of the famous courtesan, Phryné. (See Athenæus, 13. 6. and Posidippus in Clemens Alexandrinus, as quoted by Montfaucon) and that the attitude, by which the Cnidian, Medicean, and Mr. Hope's Venus are characterized, belonged to that class of persons, appears from some indelicate passages in Apuleius Metamorphos, L. ii. p. 36. ed. Bipont. Mr. Hope's Venus, of Parian marble, found at Baiæ, one of the most perfect Statues known, is in the attitude of the Medicean Venus, as to both arms; but both that and the figure of the Cuidian Medallion is taller than the famous Florentine Statue alluded to; nor are the Portraits similar. It is probable that many Venuses are portraits of favourite females, placed in the Medicean attitude, from popularity of the pattern. (To be continued.)

Mr. URBAN,

Louth, June 8. anxious to know what Selby EsN answer to W. S. in p. 386, who is of Kent, or any circumstances contate is alluded to in Hasted's History nected with the loss of that Estate to the right heir; I beg leave to observe, that Thomas James Selby, esq. died in 1772; and in his Will (proved in December of that year) left his Estates to his "right and lawful heir ;" for the better finding out of whom, he directed advertisements to be published immediately after his decease in some of the public Papers. He then adds:

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"I do hereby order and direct the legacies to be paid by the said heir, his heirs, executors, or assigns, within twelve months after my decease; but should it so happen that no heir at law is found, I then do hereby constitute and appoint William condition he takes the name of Selby, I Lowndes, Esq. my lawful heir; and on give him the Estates and all the Manors before mentioned."

From the following Pedigree (which was communicated to me by a gentleman who resides in the vicinity of Spilsby), it appears that the present heir at law of the said Thomas James

Selby,

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