the allies of the great Napoleon, shall dictate your own terms to our common enemies." This is the way in which the French deceived Prussia while they were subduing Austria, in which they cajoled Russia while they were overrunning Prussia, in which they will paralise the Porte while they attempt to annihilate the power of the Au-, tocrat. Should this object be attained, it is eviedent that the unwieldy mass of the Ottoman empire will then spontaneously crumble into dust, and lie resistless under the feet of the oppressor. We shall not follow Mr. Galt in his return from Widdin to Constantinople, nor in his rapid tour to Nicomedie, the Grecian islands, Smyrna, &c. They contain no observations of muchinterest or originality; and the objects for which we undertook to review his work, namely, to elucidate the state of Sicily, and` of affairs on the Danube, are now completed. ART. XXII-Quinti Smyrnai Posthomericorum libri XIV. nunc primum ad librorum MSS. fidem, et virorum doctorum conjecturas, recensuit, restituit, et supplevit Thom. Christ. Tychsen. Accesserunt observationes Chr. Gottl. Heynii. Argentorati, ex Typographia Societatis Bipontinæ, 1807. THE remote date which the title of this work exhibits seems almost to disqualify it for the notice of a Review, which was itself undertaken at a period considerably subsequent; yet such for some years has been the interrupted state of intercourse with the continent, that the importation of it has been comparatively recent; the copies which have been received are not, we suppose, numerous, and it is probably a work not as yet very extensively known in this country, at a time when we may again be said, like our British ancestors, to be divided from the world, or at least from the European division of it. Under these circumstances we have esteemed ourselves justified in reverting to this publication, though an interval of several years has elapsed since its first appearance on the continent. The writer, whose work is the subject of this edition, is not indeed by any means entitled to stand in the first ranks of Greek literature, and his poem has at all times received, as it deserves, a share of attention much inferior to that which has been claimed by the more distinguished productions of the Grecian muse. The scholar, whose principal object in reading is the gratification of an elegant taste, or the acquisition of useful knowledge, will have directed his curiosity to many works of higher merit and more extensive fame, before he descends to the comparatively uninviting pages of Quintus, obscure in reputation, and disfigured by corruption. The philologist will choose to bestow his labour on some of those departments of critical literature which have been cultivated with signal success, and in which, by the practice of accurate and elegant writers, a certain and acknowledged -standard of judgment has been established, rather than involve himself in the study of an author, who flourished in a late age, whose authority is therefore of little weight, whose diction cannot always be reduced to the strict laws of antiquity, and probably not to a systematic consistency with itself. Though the poem of Quintus, notwithstanding these deductions from its inportance, is by no means undeserving of attention, yet it is more interesting by its connection with various topics of literary and historical inquiry, than by any opportunity which it affords for curious, or minute, critical investigation. This poem is remarkable for having appeared in the successive editions which it has hitherto obtained, in a state of corruption, which scarcely any other work of antiquity exhibits. It was first printed by Aldus from a very inaccurate manuscript, and the succeeding editors have transmitted nearly all the errors of the original impression. Many of these are indeed little more than very obvious mistakes of transcription, and may in numerous instances be corrected by the exercise of conjectural criticism alone, with a confidence little inferior to that which would be derived from the support of ancient manuscripts. This has accordingly been done by Rhodomannus in his annotations on this poet with distinguished success, and with a skill which proves his accurate and elegant knowledge of the ancient poetical diction. But in all editions, till the present, the received corruptions, however manifest, were suffered to retain their place; and Quintus was consequently an author who could not be perused without the inconvenience and mortification of meeting in almost every other sentence with some violation of sense, prosody, òr grammar. A good edition of this author was therefore one of the desiderata of literature. The labour of supplying this defect was long since undertaken by M. Tychsen, who having enjoyed the advantage of consulting extensive, and in some degree unexplored libraries in various parts of Europe, possessed some peculiar opportunities for this purpose; and literature has derived considerable benefit, and even some accession, from his researches. His intention of republishing Quintus was announced to the world in a critical dissertation on that author, entitled, Commentatio de Quinti Smyrnai Paralipomenis Homeri; Gotting. 1783. The promise here given has after a very long interval been in part carried into execution by the publication of the present volume, and we at length possess the text of Quintus in a state free at least from the gross corruptions which have hitherto disfigured it. Any remarks which can at present be made on this edition, must necessarily be in some degree imperfect, as the authorities and notes do not accompany this volume, but are reserved for a future publication. We are left ignorant, therefore, which of the numerous emendations received into the text are derived from the authority of manuscripts, and which of them depend for their support on the conjectures of learned men. The copious and accurate dissertation which is prefixed to the present volume, contains, however, much curious and interesting literary information, and it will be the principal subject of our present notice. The argument of Quintus Smyrnæus is sufficiently indicated by the title of Posthomerica, which his poem usually bears. He seems to have regarded the Iliad of Homer (we may be allowed to conjecture) as a detached fragment of the Trojan story, which he probably considered as executed with spirit and genius; but regretted that so noble a composition should be brought, as he conceived, to no regular and perfect conclusion. He therefore resolved to perform the same service for it, which at a subsequent period was undertaken by Maphæus Vegius, with similar views, for the Æneid. This supposition is at least suggested by the form of his work, which takes up the incidents of the Trojan war at the conclusion of the Iliad, and pursues them in a regular narrative to the capture of the city, and the departure of the Grecian fleet. If such were the design of the poet, it is evident that he had little comprehension of the nature of epic unity, and little perception of that excellence of plan which distinguishes the Iliad, and is not one of the least remarkable circumstances of that extraordinary composition. As the poem of Quintus has been little read, a brief account of the incidents which it comprises will not be useless, especially as they possess a close connection with an important and curious subject of Greek literary history. The work consists of fourteen books. The business of the poem occupies about thirty-two days, independently on a few scattered passages which contain no distinct calculation of time, so that the interval which it supposes to have elapsed between the concluding events of the Iliad, and the catastrophe of the Trojan war, consists of about forty days. The following are the principal events. A few days after the performance of the funeral rites of Hector, the Amazon Penthesilea, with a train of her attendants, arrives to the aid of the Trojans, and having signalized her valour, falls, in a combat with Achilles. Thersites reviles Achilles for his expressions of regret at the fate of Penthesilea, and is slain by him. This occasions a contention between Diomede and Achilles, which is appeased by the intervention of the Greeks. The Trojans, reduced to despondency by their successive defeats, summon a council to deliberate concerning their affairs. Memnon, the son of Aurora, arrives with a band of Ethiopians, and on the following day contends with Achilles, and is slain. The principal event of the subsequent battle is the death of Achilles, who is wounded in the heel by Apollo. Funeral games are performed in honour of the hero, and his arms are proposed as the reward of superior merit. The competitors are Ajax and Ulysses, who plead their cause before a singular tribunal of judges, an assembly of the Trojan captives. The award is given in favour of Ulysses. The disappointment of Ajax is converted into madness, and in this distemper of his imagination, he assails the flocks of the Greeks, supposing that he is inflicting vengeance on his enemies, especially the Atrida and Ulysses, and finally falls by his own hand. It is observable, that Quintus on various occasions imitates, with a servile closeness, the remarkable incidents of the Iliad. As in the second book of that poem, Agamemnon after the secession of Achilles, thinks it prudent to make an experiment of the disposition of the Greeks; so Menelaus is here represented as addressing the army with a feigned speech, exhorting them to desist from the calamitous and hopeless enterprise in which they were engaged. Calchas, who maintains the same office in Quintus as in Homer, exhorts the Greeks to seek the aid of Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles, and they send an embassy to Scyros for that purpose. In the mean time a third auxiliary, Eurypylus, a descendant of Hercules, arrives at Troy with an army of Mysians, and the fortune of war is turned against the Greeks, who (in conformity again with Homer) are driven to their ships, to which the victorious Trojans threaten to set fire. Ulysses and Diomede return from Scyros, bringing with them Neoptolemus to the Grecian camp. In the battle which ensues, Eurypylus is slain by Neoptolemus. Philoctetes, who had been abandoned in the island of Lemnos by the Greeks, is prevailed on by Diomede and Ulysses to join the camp, and his wound is healed by the sons of Esculapius. Paris, being wounded by the arrows of Philoctetes, is destined by the fates to be saved only by the intervention of Enone, whom he had deserted. She refuses her aid, and the destination of the fates is fulfilled in his death. Enone, relenting too late, throws herself in despair upon his funeral pile, and is consumed. The Greeks make an assault upon the city, but are repelled by the valour of Æneas. Calchas and Ulysses suggest the stratagem of the wooden horse, which Minerva inspires, and assists Epeus to construct. At this passage of the poem a combat of the gods intervenes, evidently imitated from Homer, and not deficient in spirit. The poet proceeds to relate the departure of the Greeks for Tenedos, the fraud of Sinon, the fate of Laocoon, told somewhat differently from the description of the same event in Virgil, the joy of the Trojans at their supposed deliverance, their fatal insecurity, and the devastation of the city. The shade of Achilles appears to his son, demanding the sacrifice of Polyxena, which is yielded to him. The captives are divided, and the fleet departs. On the return, Ajax, the Locrian, perishes by shipwreck, in a tempest raised by Minerva, in revenge for the violation of her temple. It is not easy to ascertain with any considerable degree of accuracy the age of the poem, the chief incidents of which we have here briefly described. The first indication of time may be derived from the style. The general character of the language does not resemble that of the pure and flourishing ages of Greek poetry. It has a scholastic air, which seems to refer it to the age of imitators; it is often loaded with useless epithets, and interspersed with fragments of Homeric diction, not always aptly introduced; the sentiments and descriptions are usually trivial, the expression of them often pompous and inflated. Rhodomannus thinks that the language of Quintus bears a considerable resemblance, to that of Coluthus, Tryphiodorus, Musæus, and Nonnus, a class of recent writers, who may be termed the grammatical poets; and who seem, in general, to have flourished about the fourth or fifth century after the Christian æra. Some marks of time may also be deduced from allusions and descriptions which occur in the poem. That it was written after the Roman power had risen to a great height, is apparent from the prophecy put into the mouth of Calchas, which describes the future dominion of the posterity of Æneas, seated on the banks of the Tiber, and extending their empire to the utmost limits of the east and west. · Τὸν γὰρ θέσφατόν ἐστι, θεῶν ἐρικύδεϊ βουλῇ, xiii. 335. A simile which describes the games of the Circus, and the |