compels me in this instance to depart from my former habits of referve; and I fhall now endeavour to apprize you of the whole tranfaction, relating it from the beginning as concisely as I am able.

V.

From a Speech in an Action of Debt.

THIS moft abandoned of men, without producing those witneffes, before whom he afferts the money to have been paid, affects to think it just, that you fhould give greater credit to them, who alledge that it was restored, than to us who deny that we have ever received it; yet it is well known, I believe to all, that, as in the flourishing state of their father's fortunes, they would not have difcharged the debt without compulfion, fo after his disgrace and total ruin we could not even have compelled them to difcharge it.

NOTES ON ISÆUS.

PAGE 75. —of which they boldly affert that he was a creditor.] A flight variation in the text would make it neceffary to alter the translation of this passage; and, instead of the words above cited, to read-" which they affert that he had encumbered with debts :" it seems, however, more probable, that the devifees pretended to have a lien on the paternal estate of the young men for fome money due to the deceased, than that Cleonymus fhould have mortgaged the property of his nephews, which we can hardly fuppofe that he had a power of doing.

76. Polyarchus] Reiske has fubftituted Poliarchus, ruling the city, inftead of Polyarchus, with extenfive fway; but the first proper name appears to be unfupported by analogy, and the second stands foremost in the lift, which Xenophon has given us, of the thirty tyrants.

77. Cleonymus himfelf, when he recovered

from that illness, in which he made his will, declared, that he wrote it in anger.] The conftruction, which Taylor propofed, and which Reiske thought unintelligible, feems to convey a clear and obvious meaning, as I have rendered it.

80. When one of the proper officers came to the door] The text has Archonides, a proper name, which I cannot help fufpecting, as the Archon is mentioned a few lines before; and the fimilarity of found might have misled the transcriber.

82. - one of the two moft oppofite things] I have supplied a chasm in the original, as well as I was able, and have given the paffage a tolerable fenfe. Taylor fuppofes this fpeech to be very imperfect, and imagines that half of it is loft, because the names of Pherenicus and Simo, who are not mentioned in the oration, occur in the argument; but it must be observed, once for all, that the Greek arguments are for the most part erroneous, and feem to have been written by fome very ignorant gramma

rian.

84. the Cyprian] Not a native of the ifland Cyprus, but member of a borough in Attica so named. Reiske.

-poffeffed of three talents] I used to value the Attick talent, on the authority of Arbuth

not, at 1931. 15s. and to think it confiderably underrated by Tourreil and Prideaux; but my friend Mr. Combe, whofe knowledge of ancient coins is no lefs exact than extenfive, has convinced me that Arbuthnot himself has undervalued it; for, by weighing with great accuracy thirty of the finest Athenian tetradrachms in the collection of Dr. Hunter, and by comparing the average of their weight with the standard price of filver, he showed to my full fatisfaction, that the Attick drachma was worth about eight-pence half-penny, the fixth part of which was the obolus, or one penny, and five twelfths; the mina therefore, which Solon raifed from fixty to a hundred drachmas, was equal in value to three pounds ten fhillings and ten pence, and the talent, or fixty minas, to two hundred and twelve pounds ten fillings. Three talents then, of which Pyrrhus was poffeffed, were fix hundred and thirty-feven pounds ten fhillings, a small fortune in England, but not inconfiderable at Athens, where filver was fcarce, and even the fuperfluities of life eafy to be procured. Whereever Attick money is mentioned in these fpeeches, the reader will in a moment reduce it to English money by the help of this note.

89. one witness only, named Pyretides] I have left the word dawgaróμe untranflated, although it is emphatical in itself, and feems to