burden, she hath as many tons as there were years since the incarnation when she was built, which are 1636; she is in length 127 foot, her greatest breadth within the planks is 46 foot and 6 inches; her depth from the breadth is 19 foot and 4 inches. She carrieth 100 pieces of ordinance, wanting four, whereof she hath three tyre; half a score men may stand in her lanthorn; the charges his majesty hath been at in the building of her are computed at 80,000l. one whole year's ship money. Sir Robert Mansel launched her, and by his majesty's command called her The Sovereign of the Sea. Many would have had her to be named the Edgar, who was one of the most famous Saxon kings this island had, and the most potent at sea. Ranulphus Cestrensis writes, that he had 400 ships, which every year after Easter, went out in four fleets to scour the coasts. Another author writes, that he had four kings to row him once upon the Dee. But the title he gave himself was a notable lofty one, which was this, Alti-tonantis Dei largiflua clementia qui est Rex Regum, Ego Edgarus Anglorum Basileus, omnium Regum, Insularum, Oceanique Britanniam circumjacentis, cun&tarumque Nationum quæ infra eam includuntur, Imperator & Dominus, &c. I do not think your grand Emperor of Russia had a loftier title; I confess the Sophy of Persia hath a higher one, though profane and ridiculous, in comparison of this: for he calls himself The Star high and mighty, whose Head is covered with the Sun, whose motion is comparable with the ethereal Firmament, Lord of the Mountains Caucasus and Taurus, of the four Rivers Euphrates, Tygris, Araxis, and Indus; Bud of Honour, the Mirror of Virtue, Rose of Delight, and Nutmeg of Comfort. It is a huge descent, methinks, to begin with a Star, and end in a Nutmeg. Howell's Letters. A LARGE FAMILY.-At the Hague is a church monument, where an earl and a lady are engraven with 365 children about them, which were all delivered at one birth; they were half male, half female; the two basons in which they were christened hang still in the church, and the bishop's name who did it; and the story of this miracle, with the year and the day of the month is mentioned, which is not yet 200 years ago. And the story is this; That the countess walking about her door after dinner, there came a beggar woman with two children upon her back to beg alms; the countess asking whether those children were her own, she answered, she had them both at one birth, and by one father, who was her husband. The countess would not only not give her any alms, but reviled her bitterly, saying it was impossible for one man to get two children at The beggar wom ing thus provoked with ill words, and once. without alms, fell to imprecations, that it should please God to shew his judgment upon her, and that she might bear at one birth as many children as there be days in the year, which she did before the same year's end, having never born child before. Ibid. In going off pass'd between two fine Spots one N. and the other S. of the Equator, and like them appear'd oblong in going off from the O's sphericity. Two spots below the large Northern one were very much similar to the Planet. The Transit was view'd with two Reflectors: one with two Powers, the lowest of 50 the highest about 70: the other Matthew Loft's, with a Power of near 100. Much lower powers were found to be too little for the Planet and much higher would, I think, have been useless. Gilbert's Sun Glass was us'd which gives a pale yellow Image, and one of Blunt's which gives a white one. The Emersion was observ'd by Mrs. L. also. Troston, near Bury, Suff. C. L * Watch corrected by an observation of the preceding Day, and set for time as at Greenwich. REVIEW OF LITERATURE. FLECTERE NON ODIUM COGIT, NON GRATIA SUADET. The Iliad, Odyssey, and Batrachomyomachia of Homer. Translated into English Blank Verse by the late William Cowper, Esq. Second Edition, with copious Alterations and Notes. 4 Vols. 800. 1802. Concluded from Page 324. THE Odyssey of the illustrious bard now claims our attention. The action of this poem, which, like the Iliad, is composed of twenty-four books, is comprised in fifty-five days, in which are related the adventures of Ulysses, on his return to Ithaca, from the Siege of Troy. Bossu has said, " that the design of the Iliad is to instruct the states of Greece, considered as united in one body, or as parts of the whole; and that of the Odyssey to instruct those same states, considered in their private capacities." A brief sketch of the fable is also given, as follows: 66 A prince had been obliged to quit his country, and lead an army of his subjects upon a foreign expedition; after having gloriously executed this, he was upon his return home; but, in spite of all his endeavours, was detained for seve ral years by tempests, which threw him on several countries very different from one another, as to manners, customs, polity, &c. In the dangers he had to struggle withal, his companions, neglecting his advice, all perish through their own default. In the mean time, the great men of his country, abusing his absence, commit strange disorders in his palace, squander his treasure, lay snares for his son, and will needs force his wife to chuse a husband among them: all this from an opinion that he was entirely lost. But at length he returns; and, having discovered himself to his son, and some others of his friends, who had persisted in their allegiance, he becomes an eye-witness of the insolence of his courtiers; punishes them as they deserved; and restores that peace and tranquillity to his island, which had been banished during his absence." Very different from Bossu's opinion of the design of the Odyssey, is that of Gerard Croes,* the Dutchman alluded to in our review of the Iliad, who would have made it appear that Homer's principal end, in his Odyssey, was to give a recital of all that is recorded in scripture, from the time of Lot's departure out of Sodom, to the death of Moses. Another penetrating writer, whose critical observations are of a similar nature, has been able even to apply the several characters in Homer to particular persons among the moderns, and has discovered that Evenis and Antinous are the typical representatives of Calvin and Luther. *The first part of this work was published at Dort in 1704, under the title Qungos Elpasos. See Merrick's Dissertation, p. xlv, 3 C-VOL. XIV. These, the absurd presumptions of a distempered imagination, are neither worthy of refutation, nor necessary to be refuted in any other way than a simple statement of them will tend to effect. Το suppport his hypothesis, Croes, with every evidence of the fact against his supposition, is of opinion that the Odyssey was prior to the Iliad. Let Longinus, however, be heard on this head, as well as on the production, in various respects, of the poem itself which is now the object of our enquiry. He observes, Sect. ix. megi vonσews: that the Odyssey was composed after the Iliad is apparent from many reasons, and, amongst others, from this, that the heroes in the former dwell on the calamities previously suffered in the Trojan war. He therefore considers the Odyssey in the light of an epilogue to the Iliad. In proof of the first assertion, he quotes these verses, from a speech of Nestor's, Od. 3, V. 109. There warlike Ajax lies, there Peleus' son, COWPER. The Iliad, says he, is written in the acme of spirit, if we may so literally translate εν ακμῇ πνεύματος, and is a body entirely dramatic, and full of action; but the Odyssey, on the contrary, is for the most part narrative, which is a style peculiar to old age: so that you may compare the latter to the setting sun, whose intense ardour is no more, but whose magnitude still remains. After speaking of his decline in this work, and of the incredible fables it contains, he adds, " But when I notice these, I am not forgetful of the tempests there described, and of other things.—And if I talk of old age, it is, however, the old age of Homer!! yngas δ όμως Όμηρο. Having prefaced thus much with regard to the nature of the Odyssey, and of its merits, we shall, before we proceed to give any specimens of the translation, take the liberty of recounting the pleasantries of some learned men, with respect to the works of Homer, and in particular with relation to that before us. Timolaus interpolated the Iliad, by adding to each verse of Homer one of his own; but Tryphiodorus is said to have pursued a quite contrary method, and to have composed a lipogrammatic Odys sey, from which he entirely excluded the letter sigma, or s. If this be true, says Fabricius, the author must have omitted the very name of Ulysses (Odvoσeus) from a poem of which he was the subject. One might be apt to think that this were impossible, and that Eustathius, therefore, must be mistaken, were not the lipogrammatic work of Fulgentius still extant, the first book of which wants an A, and the second a B, though this gives us the history of Adam, and that of Abel. Suidas affords a different account of this extraordinary performance. Esi yag εv TW A, &c. "For in the first book," says he, "there is not an Alpha, or A, to be found, and in each rhapsody, the letter which marks the number of it is wanting."* Addison has, in the Spectator, touched on this jeu d'esprit with great felicity of wit and good humour. The passages are too long to transcribe, we must, consequently, on the present occasion, be content to refer the reader to Nos. 59 and 63 of that incomparable work. We now come to the translation, from which we shall, in the first place, select a portion which, though simple, is in the original considered as one of the finest in Homer, and it has, perhaps, neither been, nor will ever be, more happily turned than in the subsequent lines : At early dawn, Ulysses and his host, Kindling the cottage fire, their food prepar'd, "Eumæus! some familiar friend of thine, His only one, for whom he long hath mourn'd, From instant death, and, plaintive, thus he spake. COWPER, B. 16. Merrick in dissert. p.xvi. gives the whole article, and says it "is literally transcribed from Suidas by the Empress Eudocia, in her Ionia (a MS. in the King of France's library) from which some extracts have been sent me." |