I have my doubts too upon the word obarmet, for it occurs in no other writer of the Augustan age, nor in any writers of prose or verse, who preceded it. I find the word in Apuleius. "Nam," (or as I would read with Oudendorp,)"Jam et illi pastores, qui nos agebant, in speciem prælii manus obarmaverant," Metamorph. p. 252, edit. Oudendorpii. Lugduni Batav. 1786. It is used by Ausonius, "Mater Lacæna clipeo obarmans filium," Epigr. 25, p. 22, Amsterdam-edition, 1671. I therefore look upon it as a later word. Is it probable, my friend, that Horace should have written mos obarmet? Do you know any other instance, where differo is immediately followed by an infinitive mood? I think it is usually accompanied by the accusative case only. I read, indeed, in Symmachus, "Si quidem sermo distulit," (for so I would read, upon the authority of a manuscript, instead of detulit,) "quædam vos Lucullanis operibus æquanda fecisse," Lib. vi. Ep. 71. Vide Schoppii Notam in Phædrum, Lib. 2, Fab. 5. In the foregoing quotation, however, from Symmachus, an accusative case intervenes between distulit and the infinitive; and you will also take notice, that the signification of distulit here is not the same with the signification of distuli in the line ascribed to Horace. But further, I should not call you very fastidious, if you were to hesitate a little about the Latinity of per omne tempus, standing as the words do, is, and without any term of restriction. Per tempus, doubtless, in the sense of tempestive the adverb, occurs in the comic writers. Per illa tempora, and per id tempus, are found in Livy and Cicero, for illis temporibus and eo tempore. Again, Gesner quotes from Pliny, "Per tempus omne quo fuimus una;" and refers us to the 89th Epistle of the 10th Book. As I knew, from long experience, the inaccuracy of his references, I looked for the passage, but without effect. I could not find it in any part of the 10th Book; but in the 1st Epistle of the 3d Book, I met with the following words: "Per hoc omne tempus liberum est amicis vel eadem agere, vel alia," &c. It is of importance, however, to observe, that in Pliny we have the restrictive term hoc: and I fairly own to you, that I have some doubts as to the expression, "per omne tempus," without any adjunct. I grant, however, that some kind of analogical argument in favour of the expression, may be drawn from the third Book of Lucretius, Non modo non omnem possit durare per ævum, (604,) for such is the reading found in all the manuscripts, approved by Gifanius, tolerated by Lambinus, defended by Preigerus, and adopted by Wakefield; from the sixteenth Epistle, Book V. of Cicero ad Fam. "Omnis amor tuus, non ille quidem mihi ignotus, sed tamen gratus et optatus. Dicerem jucundus, nisi id verbum in omne tempus perdidissem;-and from Ovid, who says, Effice me meritis tempus in omne tuum. Epist. Medea Jas. 1. 84. Atque adimit merito tempus in omne fidem. Art. Amat. Lib. 2. 314. Servitium miseras tempus in omne pati. Lib. 3. 488. and who uses the same expression, on seven or eight other occasions. Now, if Lucretius wrote " per omnem (or omne) ævum;" if Cicero wrote "in omne tempus;" pnd if Ovid repeatedly wrote so, possible it is, for Horace to have written "per omne tempus." I will not venture to decide against this mode of rea 66 soning, though I cannot help remarking that the phrase, per omne tempus," appears to us moderns very convenient, and therefore, we should expect to meet it without any adjunct in more places than this controverted passage, the merit of which we are now discussing. To me it seems, that both the origin and continuance of the custom were in the mind of the interpolator, and that he has expressed both very clumsily and I am sure that the learned Master of Eton, upon principles of verbal criticism, as well as of taste, would have reproved one of his scholars for such wretched composition. If the four lines in question, which Lambin calls an hyperbatum, are thrown aside, there will be no want of clearness or fulness in the meaning of Horace, no obstruction to the general spirit of the Ode, no intermixture of dull and prosaic matter with thoughts and words exquisitely poetical; you will therefore allow me to apply the language of Markland upon the 85th and 86th lines in Eclogue 7th, Lib. 2, of Statius:—" Aufer itaque versus male natos, et sine quibus optime procedit sensus; et Monachus suum hyperbatum habeat." See p. 124, of Markland's notes upon the Silva of Statius. I am not aware that any doubt has been started by any the genuineness of a third passage in Horace: critic upon Versibus impariter junctis querimonia primum : I think the two first lines genuine, but the others not so. He, that added them, seems to have proceeded upon the erroneous supposition, that Horace meant to inform his readers, who were the inventors of different verses. Now, in speaking of the Heroic verse, Horace does not say, that Homer invented it, but that he employed it to describe Res gestas regumque ducumque et tristia bella. In the third Chapter of the third Book of Vossius's Institutiones Poeticæ, you will find evidence for ascribing the discovery of this verse to a much earlier period than Homer. When Horace speaks of the lambic, he seems to represent Archilochus as the inventor of one speciesProprio Iambo*- though the invention of Iambic verses was probably earlier, as you may see in Proclus and other writers. Yet even here, Horace is chiefly intent upon pointing out the subjects, to which it is most adapted. Thus too, when he proceeds to Lyric poetry, he does not tell us who were the authors of the different kinds of verses employed in it, but is intent upon enumerating the topics, to which it was suited: Musa dedit fidibus divos, puerosque deorum Et pugilem victorem, et equum certamine primum In the same manner, he seems to me to have written * The passage in Horace must not be supposed to imply, that no other writer before Archilochus had employed any kind of lambic verse. He might be the inventor of the particular species, to which his name is now affixed by metrical writers. Let us hear what King says:-"Utcunque hæc se habeant, Trochaicos vix reperiemus, Archilocho antiquiores. Iambicos illum longo tempore armavisse manifestum est; neque vero ille alio nomine Iamborum pater audit, quam quod plures et perfectiores conscribendo priorum iaμẞonоiv memoriam absorpsit, et velut ignes minores suo fulgore præstrinxit." Observat. de Re Metrica, p. 418. vol. 2d of his edition of four plays of Euripides. all that was necessary for his purpose, when he stated the subjects, that were treated in Elegiac verse. Versibus impariter junctis querimonia primum, Let me here state èv Tapódy, that Statius very intelligibly alludes to the metre of the Elegiac verse, distinguished from the Heroic: Et quêis lasciva vires tenuare Thalia Silv. Lib. 5. Carm. 3. See the notes of Domitius upon this passage, either in the Variorum edition, or in that of Cruceus. Markland, in his note on the foregoing line, says, "Optime etiam explicavit Domitius: Qui aufertis pedem, nec alternum versum permittitis subsequi integrum.”” Let us return to Horace. I have said enough to show you, that, if the two verses after voti compos be removed, there will be no defect in the statement, or in the reasoning of Horace. But, for your further satisfaction, I will lay before you, more minutely, my objections to the lines themselves, and endeavour to prove, not only that they are superfluous in this place, but unworthy of the writer, to whom they are ascribed. If it was not, as I believe it not to have been, the intention of Horace to inform his readers in every instance, who were the inventors, you will see plainly, that the word tamen is quite unnecessary. But what will you say to exiguos, as the epithet of elegos? In the lines, which are evidently genuine, Elegiac verses are properly called impariter juncti; but I am quite at a loss to understand what is meant by exiguos; though it be true, that the |