he was in great estimation among the sovereigns of Europe, and, on his return from Sweden, was unfortunately engaged to undertake the defence of the unhappy House of Stuart, which called down upon him the retaliation of Milton, with whom he was in no respect qualified to measure lances. Thus elated by the attentions of the great, and humbled in a contest with one who was then regarded as comparatively an obscure individual, his mind fluctuated between the extremes of grandeur and debasement, and seems for ever to have lost that firm serenity, that just appreciation of its own powers, which neither aims at things beyond its grasp, nor sacrifices, to a temporary repulse, the pursuit in which it was formed to excel from inclination and experi

ence.

*[Within the last century, however, others arose to complete the task which Salmasius left imperfectly accomplished. Various MSS. in almost all the great public libraries of Europe, contained multitudes of Epigrams which had been rejected by or unknown to Planudes; many of them such as he certainly could not be imagined to have cast aside from any of the conscientious scruples above alluded to. The great Dictionary of Suidas, also, and other

* The part included within brackets was added to the original Preface in the Edition of 1813.-J, H. M.

similar magazines of ancient literature, had preserved numbers, either entire, or in fragments, which are to be found in none of those existing MSS. and the sources of which are now no longer to be traced. From this mass of materials Brunck undertook to supply the deficiencies of all former editions of the Anthology; and his "Analecta," corrected and perfected with all the industry and learning for which his name is so deservedly eminent, form the text of the later and very superior edition which has been since given to the world by Jacobs. The "Analecta," however, comprise, besides the numerous legitimate additions to the Anthology of Planudes already mentioned, a great quantity of the works of the minor Grecian poets, who are not, strictly speaking, entitled to a place among the Poets of the Anthology; and this is avowed by Jacobs to have been his principal motive for giving a new edition of Brunck, in which all extraneous matter was to be omitted, in preference to publishing simply a commentary upon Brunck's whole text. This intention being expressed in the very outset of his Preface, it appears strangely inconsistent in him to have retained the Lyrics and Elegiacs of Simonides, the Fragments of Archilochus and Bacchylides, the Hymns of Proclus, &c. while he rejected the greater proportion of the Elegiac, Gnomic, Lyric, and Pastoral Poems which

formed so large a part of Brunck's publication. He surely might have retained the whole, if he retained any part; and he does not assign the shadow of a sufficient reason for making such a selection.

The conduct of both these Editors of the Anthology being so arbitrary in this respect, there seems to be no apology necessary on the part of an English translator, who has considered himself as not confined exclusively even within the widest of the limits which they have prescribed; and the fragments of dramatic writers, and even the few extracts from the great tragedians which will be found in the ensuing pages, may, it is hoped, defend their intrusion upon pleas at least as good as any that can be adduced in favour of Theocritus, Sappho, or Anacreon.

To return to the editions of the Anthology: Jacobs's is the latest, and incomparably the best. It proceeds (as I have said before,) on the text, and retains the paging, of Brunck; and all the numerical references in the following Work are made to the same text. Whenever the sense of any of the pieces, which I selected for translation, appeared to require explanation, I have also made free use of the assistance which his annotations furnish towards it.

A considerable portion of the Anthologia still remained in its inedited state after Brunck and Jacobs had ransacked all the libraries to which they had

access, for the sake of giving the whole to the public. A splendid MS. known by the name of the Vatican, and now in the Imperial library at Paris, seems to have been untouched by them; and it is said to contain some hundreds of Epigrams by the oldest and best poets of the Anthology, which are not to be found in either Brunck or Jacobs. Several of these have been subsequently edited by Huschke, in a small volume entitled "Analecta Critica;" but the best and fullest account of the MS. which contains them is to be found in the "Mélanges de Critique et de Philologie, par S. Chardon de la Rochette, 3 tomes, Paris, 1812," which contains also a few of the Epigrams themselves, with the conjectural emendations and notes of the very learned and sensible writer. We also learn, from that Work, that M. Chardon himself has, for a great many years past, been engaged in the design of giving to the world a new edition of the Anthology, to comprise all that ought strictly to be comprised under the term, and of course the whole of the yet unexhausted treasures of this Vatican MS. The revolution of France, he says, interrupted the execution of this design, but he gives reason to believe that he has since resumed it; and if our hopes of the whole Work are well founded upon these few specimens, there is reason to expect at last a perfect collection

of all those pieces of fugitive poetry, the history of which, and of their early assemblage and subsequent dispersion, has been hastily and imperfectly sketched in the preceding pages. To this late publication of M. Chardon, it will be seen that I am under obligations, upon other grounds, besides that of its having afforded me the information, which I have here communicated, respecting the "Anthologia inedita."]

I cannot conclude without slightly noticing the principal sources from which (besides the Anthologia,) the materials of the ensuing Work have been collected. The first is Athenæus, who was an Egyptian, a native of Naucratos, and flourished in the third century. From his extraordinary powers of memory, and from the extensive learning which his works display, he has acquired and merited the title of the Grecian Varro. Of these works, which were numerous, that of the "Deipnosophists" only remains to us, and is alone sufficient to support his character and justify his pre-eminence. To us, at least, it is rendered a most invaluable treasure by the quotations it contains from celebrated works of esteemed authors, and from authors whose names alone would have survived to us but for the fragments which it preserves. He conveys information, in the most pleasing way, on the most interesting