In the debate on the catholic question, in the following session of parliament, their adversary again

and without any connection with what precedes or follows, he apostrophizes his great patron;

"Tuque ades, inceptumque una decurre laborem,
"O decus, O famæ merito pars maxima nostræ,
"Maecenas, pelagoque volans da vela patenti.
"Non ego cuncta meis amplecti versibus opto;
"Non mihi si linguæ centum sint, oraque centum,
"Ferrea vox :—ades et primi lege littoris oram.
"In manibus terræ ; non híc te carmine ficto

Atque per ambages et longa exorsa tenebo.”

The poet then returns to the didactic strain.

Now, is there not some reason to suppose, that the whole of this apostrophe is transposed; and should have immediately followed the invocation of Bacchus, and inserted between the eighth and ninth verses? Is not this more natural? Do not the verses, as they now stand, interrupt the flow of the passage?

This conjecture appears to be countenanced, in some measure, by the beginning of the first Georgic. There, immediately after the invocation of the deities, Cæsar is apostrophized,and the didactic strain is, for the first time, then assumed.

In the third Georgic also, the Reminiscent suspects that the text has been tampered with. He requests his readers to peruse from the forty-eighth to the one hundred and twenty-third verse, and then consider whether the three last verses in the passage,

"Quamvis sæpe fugâ versos ille egerit hostes,

"Et patriam Epirum referat, fortisque Mycenas,
"Neptunique ipsâ deducat origine gentem,"

be not spurious, or' should not be interpolated between the sixty-second and sixty-third verses. The Reminiscent would ask, to what, if they are not thus interpolated, the word Quamvis can be referred ?

The Reminiscent having communicated the preceding observations to Dr. Parr, a correspondence between them followed.

broke a lance both of skill and power against them : but Mr. Canning was their champion,-he produced in their defence whatever a complete view of the subject, taste, genius, a kind and honourable mind, or an enlarged understanding could supply,-and triumphed. While a British catholic shall exist, Mr. Canning's name will be pronounced with gratitude: while classical eloquence shall be duly appreciated, his speech will be read with admiration.

With the doctor's permission, an extract from one of his letters is inserted in the Appendix*; and will, assuredly, be highly gratifying to the reader. It should be added, that, in the letter to which Dr. Parr's is an answer, the Reminiscent had intimated an opinion suggested by him in a former part of this publication, that Virgil's language had sometimes an extreme of polish †.

APPENDIX, Note II.

† Ant. p. 16.

XIV.

HORE BIBLICE.

THE Hora Biblica was the next publication of the Reminiscent. It is divided into two parts; the first contains "An historical and literary account

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of the original text, early versions and printed "editions of the Old and New Testament; or the "sacred books of the Jews and Christians :”— The second contains "An historical and literary "account of the Koran, Zend-Avesta, Kings, and "Edda; or the works accounted sacred by the "Mahometans, the Parsees, the Hindus, the Chinese " and the Scandinavian nations."

1. The composition of the first part of this publication afforded the Reminiscent great pleasure. Every thing on the subject of it was new, curious, interesting and instructive.

It unfolded to him something of the mystery of collating manuscripts, and of the relative values of various readings; it occasionally led him to many other new sources of literary amusement and information-all tending to impress upon him a just notion of the text of the sacred writings. His occupations did not enable him to extend his inquiries far into the text of the Old Testament: and the little which he has said upon it, renders the work, in this respect, imperfect.

We owe the first of the Greek printed editions of the New Testament to Erasmus; his edition was

successively followed by those of Robert Stephens, Beza, and the Elzevirs. By the last of these, the text, which had fluctuated in the preceding editions, acquired a consistency; and, being generally followed in all the subsequent editions, this edition became the received exemplar of the text: it is remarkable that the editor of it is unknown.

In 1707, the celebrated edition of the reverend Dr. John Mill was published at Oxford: he inserted in it all the collections of various readings, which had been published before his time; and collated several manuscripts, not previously collated: the whole of the various readings collected by him is said, without any improbability, to amount to 30,000. His edition was followed by those of Bengel and Wetstein. The last is particularly important on account of the mass of rabbinical matter, which is contained in the annotations, and which serves to explain, in numerous instances, the hebraizing expressions and allusions of the text it is a kind of perpetual commentary, replete with learning at once recondite and useful. In other respects, this edition has been superseded, in some measure, by the less bulky edition of Griesbach. From this, Dr. White has formed his Diatessaron, or four gospels in one; an excellent work, and likely to become the school-book of every place of education, catholic or protestant, in Europe, in which the Greek language is taught. Mr. Thirlwall has framed a translation of it, from the authorized version of the established church of England: it is to be wished that the English catholics were furnished with a similar translation, from the version of the New

Testament by Dr. Challoner. It should, however, be observed, that they already possess a publication, which resembles it, in the " Four Gospels in One,” by Mr. Austin, the author of the celebrated work intituled, "Devotions in the Form of Ancient "Offices *."

Such an arrangement of the gospels presents a life of Christ; but, when the language of any version, which adheres literally, or nearly literally to the text, is adopted, it must contain many passages unintelligible to general readers. On this account, the Reminiscent has sometimes thought, that such a version, as would exhibit the sense of the text, in the genuine English idiom, would be an invaluable acquisition to the generality of English readers.

Dr. Clarke's Paraphrase of the New Testament is of this nature, and possesses great merit. It has been said, that he composed it, when he was in his seventeenth year;a wonderful instance, if true, of early endowment: it certainly was written before he veered to Arianism t.

* Noticed in the Historical Memoirs, vol. i. ch. 45. sec. 4. † As whatever relates to this eminent English divine must be interesting, the Reminiscent thinks his readers will be pleased. with his inserting the following anecdote.

In a more refined, and, if not in a more intelligible, at least in a more specious form, than it had appeared before, the doctrine of the primitive Socinians respecting Jesus Christ, was pro duced, towards the beginning of the last century, by Dr. Clarke. Tritheism, Arianism, and Sabellianism, are the rocks, upon one of which the adventurer in the trinitarian controversy, too often splits. Dr. Clarke professed to steer clear of the first, by denying the self-existence of the Son, and of the