pearance of Gesner, it was the only one in which we could find the celebrated reading of pretium mentis, for per vim mentis, in v. 140. Epist. 2. Lib. 2.

To depreciate what we know not, and to overvalue what we know, are failings from which human nature is rarely exempted by the strongest powers of genius, and the most confirmed habits of reflection. He that has attained excellence is animated with fresh enthusiasm upon every fresh contemplation of the science in which he excels. With a dim and imperfect remembrance of the motives and the circumstances which accompanied the earlier stages of his enquiries, he confounds simple choice with complex comparison, and ascribes to judgment what was the result of accident. He considers the object chosen as peculiarly adapted to the extent of his own views, and the vigour of his own faculties. He is persuaded, that the same attainments which are most agreeable and most ornamental to himself, must be the most advantageous and interesting to mankind. Upon comparing self with other men, he is conscious of real superiority; and then, by an easy delusion, in which fancy is ductile to pride, he transfers the same superiority from his talents to his studies; and he looks down upon every other part of human knowledge as unworthy of his notice, or subordinate and subsidiary to those pursuits which habit has facilitated, and success endeared.

The attention of the present age has been very generally directed to experimental philosophy, to

historical investigation, and to the discussion of the profoundest subjects in politics, in morals, and in metaphysics.

Quod magis ad nos

Pertinet, et nescire malum est, agitamus.

As members of civilised society, and as friends to the whole commonwealth of literature and science, we acknowledge the utility of such researches; we are sensible of the difficulties attending them, and we admire all the judicious and intense exertions of the human understanding by which those difficulties are gradually surmounted. But, however extensive may be the importance of the studies which are now most prevalent, and however brilliant the success with which they have been prosecuted, we feel no diminution of our reverence for the labours of those scholars who have employed their abilities in explaining the sense, and in correcting the text of ancient writers. Verbal criticism has been seldom despised sincerely by any man who was capable of cultivating it successfully; and if the comparative dignity of any kind of learning is to be measured by the talents of those who are most distinguished for the acquisition of it, philology will hold no inconsiderable rank in the various and splendid classes of human knowledge. By a trite and frivolous sort of pleasantry, verbal critics are often holden up to ridicule as noisy triflers, as abject drudges, as arbiters of commas, as measurers of syllables, as the very lacqueys and slaves of learning, whose greatest ambition is, "to pursue the triumph, and partake the gale," which wafts writers of genius into the wished

for haven of fame. But even in this subordinate capacity, so much derided, and so little understood, they frequently have occasion for more extent and variety of information, for more efforts of reflection and research, for more solidity of judgment, more strength of memory, and, we are not ashamed to add, more vigour of imagination, than we see displayed by many sciolists, who, in their own estimation, are original authors. Some of the very satellites of Jupiter are superior in magnitude, and perhaps in lustre, to such primary planets as Mars and the Earth.

To a correct and comprehensive view of the learned languages, a critic must add a clear conception of the style, and a quick feeling of the manner by which his author is distinguished. He must often catch a portion of the spirit with which that author is animated. And who, that has perused the various writings of Grotius, of Erasmus, of Casaubon, of Salmasius, of the two Scaligers, of Muretus, of Bentley, of Ernestus, of Hemsterhuis, will venture to deny, that they had abilities to produce works, equal, and sometimes more than equal, to those which they have explained? On some occasions, indeed, they hold a secondary rank; but they are secondary, it should be remembered, to Virgil, to Horace, to Cicero, the Dii Majorum gentium of literature, and by inferiority to such writers the human intellect is not degraded.

When we reflect upon the patronage with which the British Critic has already been honoured by the members of the Established Church, we are con

vinced that no formal and elaborate apology will be required by them for the extent to which any philological disquisitions may be occasionally carried in our Review. In the days which are past indeed, but to which every scholar looks back with gratitude and triumph, the Church of England was adorned by a Gataker, a Pearson, a Casaubon,* a Vossius, a Bentley, a Wasse, and an Ashton. Within our memory it has boasted of Pearce and Burton, of Taylor and Musgrave, of Toup and Foster, of Markland and Tyrwhitt, and of Porson. At the present hour, we recount with honest pride the literary merits of Burney, of Huntingford, of Routh, of Cleaver, of Burgess; and when the name of Wakefield occurs to us, who does not heave a momentary sigh, and catching the spirit with which Jortin once alluded to the productions of learned and ingenious Dissenters, repeat the emphatical quotation of that most accomplished and amiable scholar, "Qui tales sunt, utinam essent nostri?" See Preface to the Remarks upon Ecclesiastical History, vol. 1.

After these preliminary observations, which are evidently intended to justify both the length and the minuteness of our remarks upon the Variorum Edi

* Isaac Casaubon had a Prebend at Canterbury, and at Westminster.

† Isaac Vossius, son of Gerrard, was Canon of Windsor.

Master of Jesus College, Cambridge, of whom we quote Mr. Wakefield's words: "Venerabilis viri Caroli Ashton, D.D. viri, vel Bentleio judice, qui semper eum et laudibus et amore prosequebatur, doctissimi, et collegii Jesu, apud Cantabrigienses, per quinquaginta annos magistri." Silva Critica, part iii. page 90.

1812.

tion of Horace, we shall proceed to support these strictures, which have already been laid before our readers.

Dr. Combe speaks thus of Baxter's edition, improved by Gesner: "Hujusce editionis contextum, nisi in locis quibusdam, ab incuriâ typographorum, manifestè pravis, nihil prorsus mutare ausus, pro exemplari adhibui."

The Doctor says, that he has made no change whatsoever, except in passages corrupt. But it seems to us, that in passages not corrupted, changes have now and then been made; nor can we always assign the reason which induced the learned editor to make them.

Lib. i. Od. iii. 1. 21.-Od. xv. l. 13 and 16. Gesner reads Nequicquam, the Variorum nequidquam.*

Lib. i. Od. iv. 1. 19. Gesner Lycidam, Variorum Lycidan.

The Variorum here differs from Baxter's text in opposition to the spirit of Baxter's note, in which we are told that it is of no consequence whether we admit the Latin or the Greek termination, and in which Bentley is attacked for the favour he shows to Hellenisms and Archaisms, in writing Latin words.

Lib. i. Od. xiv. 1. 17. Gesner solicitum, the Variorum sollicitum.

Lib. i. Od. xviii. 1. 4. Gesner solicitudines, the Variorum sollicitudines.

Lib. iii. Od. vii. 1. 9. Gesner solicitæ, the Variorum sollicitæ.

* This variation occurs in the first volume of the Variorum, but in the second volume there are two instances where Dr. C. seems to forget the Variorum edition, and follows Gesner.

Lib. ii. Sat. 7. 1. 27. and Lib. i. Epist. 3. 1. 32. Nequicquam occurs both in Gesner and the Variorum,