d: which words are taken from II. T. 347; and he seems to confound the two words, as if they were food, not potions; but, while Guietus would expunge the second verse as supposititious, we ourselves would rather eject the first, because έzáσavro is translated gustarunt, "tasted," which is applicable to a potion also; and thus Homer and Hesiod would agree. Therefore, if the adjunct aμßpórios be used in mentioning the limbs of the Gods, as xairai außporías, (Il. A. 529), do not translate with the Scholiast, Beias, "divine," but evooμovs, oderous," or "shining with unguent;" and Nonnus says of feet— Καὶ ποδὸς ἀμβροσίοιο μεσημβρινον ἴχνος ἐπείγων, "of a foot ederous with unguent." But if the epithet be applied to night or sleep, the signification is fetched from sweetness: we may say the same about the word verάpeoç. This agreement, or non-agreement, of Homer with Hesiod furnishes to John Le Clerc, Adnott. in Hesiodum, p. 102, an opportunity of charging both poets with negligence and inaccuracy. For, having cited what Eustathius has unscientifically written in his Commentary on Homer, he was not ashamed to make this effusion:-"But we should speak much more plainly, if we say that neither poet has spoken accurately, and that no inference is to be drawn on the supposition of accuracy in either. It is, however, true that some of the ancients considered nectar to be a • solid food, and ambrosia a 'drink,' as Eustathius shows in what follows, from Anaxandrides, Aleman, and Sappho. So little consistency do the poets observe in mere fictions." We could wish that very learned men of this sort would not so precipitately detract from the longæval fame of Homer, and would discuss at fuller leisure the topic which they handle, before they promulgate their decrees; for no writer can we expect to see, who is more uniform and more accurate in the use of terms than Homer and than Hesiod, who always sympathizes with him in these respects. We find in Athenæus (xv. 8), that ambrosia was a name given to the lily, Προείρηται δ ̓ ἄνω περὶ αὐτῆς ἀμβροσίης) ὅτι τὸ κρίνον οὕτως Aéyover, and Themistius so far deviated from the original Homeric sense of the words in question, that he makes the first a fountain, and the second a meadow; so that the exquisite and divine unguents at length became water and grass! We know not by what malignant influence men corrupt the holy genius of words: Orat. iv. p. 119, ed. 1618-Αλλὰ καὶ ὁ θρόνος αὐτοῦ τοῦ Διὸς, καὶ ἡ ἀληθινὴ προεδρία, καὶ αἱ πηγαὶ τοῦ νέκταρος, καὶ ὁ λειμὼν τῆς ἀμβροσίας. We wonder, indeed, how it happened that Marianus Scholasticus (Anthol. iv. 18, 34), in a more evil age, conspires with Homer in applying außpórios to unguents, when men born in the happiest times have distorted it into a very different meaning, especially the Latins, whom we want leisure and inclination to inspect and cite. We will lay before our readers that elegant Epigram of Marianus on the Bath of Venus : Μήτερα Κύπριν ἔλουσεν Ερως ποτὲ τῷδε λοετρῷ Αὐτὸς ἀποφλέξας λαμπάδι καλὸν ὕδωρ Ιδρὼς δ ̓ ἀμβροσίοιο χυθεὶς χροὺς ἄμμικα λευκοῖς Εἴθεν ἀεὶ ῥοδόεσσαν ἀναζείουσιν ἀϋτμὴν, We have thus karà λéžɩv, at our leisure, translated it, while the other versions give only the sense : ་་ Cyprida Amor matrem dum proluit hisce lavacris, Sudor ab ambrosia fusus cute, mixtus et almis Aurea adhuc veluti se lavet ipsa Venus." Even a man of duller optics would see here that xpùs außpórios is a skin anointed with ambrosia," because Marianus, in the 5th verse, clearly represents that ambrosia, or unguent, to have been rosy, which had thenceforth always perfumed the bath with its sweet influence. But if außpooin is in Homer sometimes "food," it does not lose the nature of an unguent, because the most learned Fortunatus Scacchus, in Myrothecio, 1, 42, p. 210, whom the reader can consult, has shown by many examples that the ancients even drank unguents, and we are indebted to him for having saved to us the trouble of proving the fact; but this most diligent scholar has forgotten Galen, de LL. Aff. iv. 9, who has most appositely called Inpakn, which is at once both an unguent and a potion, by the name of außpooía, and he must have learnt this from Homer; for the remains of what is true and ancient, often shine forth in writers of great fame and wisdom: 'Edidovy de kai πίνειν αὐτῷ φάρμακα, τήν τε μιθράδατειον ὀνομαζομένην ἀντίδοτον, ἀμβροσίαν, καὶ θηριακήν.* We must also beg leave to observe that Homer, and his coeval Hesiod, were unacquainted with a word of great celebrity among other writers, μúpov, unguent, and μúpw, to flow by drops; and we should ourselves conjecture that the words dueporía and véкrap, in these master poets, had the same signification as μúpov, since each knew that the ancients used the most exquisite unguents, púpa, and if you do not take dμßporía and vékrap in those poets for the choicest unguents, unguents would have been without a generic name. And we may well wonder that the sons of Homer should easily forget the epithets and adjuncts of so great a poet; so that when Homer had said xairaι aμßpooíai, Meleager (Anthol. iv.) has degenerately used the word μupoßoorρUXOS, whose hair is essenced with unguent. (To be continued.) * But the author of the criticism is here mistaken; for, by the principles of Greek construction, αμβροσίαν refers to μιθραδάτειον. MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE. BIOGRAPHY. The Life of John Thelwall. By his WIDOW. 2 Volumes.-Vol. I. pp. 477. Macrone. So long as civil liberty shall be regarded by Englishmen as the greatest blessing that they can enjoy and the source of many inestimable public and private advantages, so long as high-minded and consistent patriotism shall meet with its due reward in the praises and enthusiastic aspirations of a grateful people, so long will it be the duty of that journalist who espouses the great cause of civil and political freedom to rescue from oblivion the names of those, who in other and far different times fought and suffered for the acquisition of those rights which we now enjoy without question or dispute, and to hold up their names as beacons that have lighted us along the dark and thorny path leading to the land of promise. John Thelwall was one of those early political reformers who first kindled the spark which has since become a mighty flame; and we pity that man, who, looking back on the times in which the orator lived and the scenes in which he played a conspicuous part, can rise from the reading and say that the interest excited both by the man and the events has long passed by. Feeling a very different sentiment ourselves, and convinced, as we are, that common gratitude should suggest kind and pleasing reminiscences of the man who did all that he could do constitutionally in denouncing a tyrant king, an oppressive war-loving and poor-grinding ministry, and a venal, time-serving House of Commons,-and in establishing, even at the hazard of life and freedom, the liberty of opinion and of the press, we shall endeavour with what little ability we possess to do for the memory of John Thelwall what a highly respected contemporary has so ably done for Muir and his fellow-martyrs of Scotland. John Thelwall was the son of a respectable sick-mercer of London, and was born on the 27th of July, 1764. He received the kind of education then usually given to the children of his own condition; but the early death of his father most probably shortened the term of his school-existence which was so distasteful to the embryo champion of liberty. All efforts to induce him to adopt his father's calling as his own were unavailing; for his mind soon betrayed a love of literature and the drama, which unfitted him for the pursuit of trade. After remaining for three or four years in an unsettled state-first thinking of the stage-then, of the arts-and subsequently of the law, he at length took up literature as a profession, in which at the age of twenty-four, he was already gaining an honourable and competent livelihood. The progress of revolution in France was at this time (1789) the theme of general and all-absorbing interest all over Great Britain; and it can scarcely be matter of surprise that youthful enthusiasm prompted Thelwall to take that prominent part in the debating clubs to which his talents entitled him. The most celebrated of these clubs "the Society for Free Debate"-was held at Coachmakers' Hall :-it existed for more than half a century, and boasted, among other members, of an Erskine, a Garrow, and a Gurney. From the age of nineteen, at which he enrolled himself member of that society, to that of fourand-twenty, Thelwall's political opinions experienced that change which free and honest enquiry will ever produce in a young man. His earliest prejudices verged towards Toryism :-we cannot wonder that, living as he did in full view of all the horrible abuses which that party had encouraged to the injury of all classes-except the immediate dependents, he went into opposite extremes and advocated measures, which the more rational reformers of the present day repudiate as subversive of public peace and happiness. Degraded as the great factions were, which composed the parliament, and alike regardless of the national privileges and lavish of the public money,-venal, servile, and minister-ridden, all justly thinking that men had begun to feel that the heaven-born minister was fast plunging the country into slavery; but few had the boldness to run the hazard of pains and imprisonment for the expression of their honest opinions. Thelwall not only had the boldness to express his own, but to advocate the right of all to express theirs freely and without control. The absurdity of calling that assembly a national representative house, in which a majority were the nominees either of the government or of individual peers and commoners, in which, in point of fact, 162 individuals could unite their influence to legislate for several millions to whom they owed no personal responsibility, became so strikingly manifest to Thelwalk, that in the Westminster election of 1790 he came forward as an active supporter of Mr. Horne Tooke an independent candidate-neither Whig nor Tory, but the friend of the people. The great factions coalesced, and Horne Tooke was thrown out; but the zeal of Thelwall's advocacy made for him a friend, who for several years continued to solace him under the persecutions to which his fearless conduct as a politician exposed him. To bring about parliamentary reform in the fullest sense of the term, and to effectuate the abolition of all state abuses, was his great ambition; and he never omitted any opportunity, both by writing and public speaking, to denounce the corruptions of the court and the commons. Thanks to improvements in education-the public at large have gained for themselves the great victory and already obtained-in part, at least the object, in striving for which so many excellent and upright individuals forty-three years underwent the greatest persecutions, and were treated as common felons. The probable success of these early reformers induced the Pitt administration to gag public opinion to destroy the liberty of speech and of the press and under this baneful influence the different political debating societies that had been established by the Duke of Richmond, Lord Grey, and Major Cartwright, fell one by one either into ruin or insignificance. "The Society for Free Debate" was about to be suppressed -Thelwall embraced this opportunity of vindicating the right of popular discussion, and he was obliged to fight the battle ALONE,-for none had the boldness to stand by him in the contest. The associations still fell one after another, and Thelwall's popularity declined with them; but still he held on his purpose steadfast and unwavering. "The London Corresponding Society" was the only body that kept its ground during the panic occasioned by the measures of government and the news from France. It was just at the period, when every difficulty was thrown in the way of public meetings, and when individual hazard was incurred by harbouring these unfortunate recusants, that Thelwall delivered the following speech, which, as being highly characteristic of his general style of oratory, we insert here as being characteristic of the man not less than the politician :— "This is no season for indulging the idle sallies of the imagination; the hour is full of peril and dismay; the womb of Time is labouring with great events; and now, if ever, every good citizen, every real friend to the peace, the prosperity, and, above all, the permanent happiness of mankind is called upon to sound the solemn alarum that rouses the noble energies of the soul, that shakes off the sullen lethargy of indolence, and, chasing the idle phantoms of pastime and frivolity, calls up that serious, awful train of contemplation, without which it is utterly impossible that we should acquire the sedateness of character, the improvement in knowledge, the true wisdom, and the advancement towards the perfection of truth and fortitude, which all of us, ere long, may have reason enough to wish we had attained. In short, this is a season for enquiry, not for pastime; and it is therefore that I assemble you together in this public manner, to stimulate you to enquire into the nature of your rights as Britons and as men, and to investigate the nature and causes of that unhappiness which we cannot but feel too sensibly, however ignorant we may be of the sources from whence it is derived. Penetrated with the truth of this representation, and aware of the precipice on which we stand, and to the very verge of which the persecuting violence of an overbearing and desperate faction is endeavouring so precipitately to urge a half-awakening nation, I have renounced myself those pursuits of taste and literature, to which, from my boyish days, I have been so fondly devoted as to sacrifice to them the flattering prospects of affluence and worldly ambition which a lucrative profession presented before me, and have devoted myself, wholly and entirely, to the service of the public; a sense of whose injuries is the only stimulus of my conduct, and whose happiness alone I look forward to as my dearest and my ultimate reward. "When every coffee-house is filled with party hirelings and venal associators; when anonymous letters are sufficient to blast the peace and destroy the personal security of the best and worthiest members of the community; when even your own house and your own table furnish no longer a sanctuary and an altar, where it is safe to offer up the free incense of friendly communication; when the very domestic, who eats your bread, stands open-mouthed behind your chair to catch and to betray the idle conversation of your unguarded moments; at such a time as this, the utmost caution is evidently necessary, both in our conduct and in our expressions; and that this caution, on the one hand, may not degenerate into tameness and inactivity, nor be frustrated, on the other, by the nets and snares of wicked and designing men, it becomes more than ever requisite for ourselves and for society, that we should cultivate, with tenfold diligence, every species of political and constitutional knowledge; because, it is by such means alone that a fund of intelligence and copiousness of idea can be obtained, that may enable us to utter our complaints with sufficient perspicuity, without, at the same time, trespassing on the boundaries of legal propriety, and exposing ourselves to the malice of the harpies that are hovering aloft ready on the first opportunity to devour us. . . . . I shall not, at present, enter into the inquiry concerning the proper deserts of those by whom a system of this description may be introduced or supported; it would be a painful task. I am more desirous of informing, than of irritating, your minds; more anxious to impart the wisdom that softens to benevolence, than to inflame the passions to coercion and revenge. . . . I am a stickler for PRINCIPLES, not the advocate of MEN and PARTIES; an opposer of vice and TYRANNY; not the personal enemy even of the oppressors. If others, judging from the warmth of my expressions, or per haps from the narrowness of their own souls, cannot believe these professions, I pity them; I am not angry with them; I look into my own heart, and I believe I know my motives! ... I am a sans culotte! one of those who think the happiness of millions of more consequence than the aggrandizement of any party junto! or, in other words, an advocate for the rights and happiness of those who are languishing in want and nakedness! (for this is my interpretation of a suns culotte; the thing in REALITY which WHIGS PRETEND to be!) All factions, therefore, do me the honour to hold me in equal detestation; and would be as far from trusting me, as I from being the tool of their ambition.... Every individual may do something in the service of the cause. We have virtue and truth on our side; and these, if we are at once active, vigilant, and prudent, cannot fail of ultimate triumph over the arts of falsehood and corruption. Let us speak truth, then, with boldness, and cultivate it with incessant diligence; but let us speak with all the caution we are masters of; that, as our views are peaceable and honest, our conduct may, if possible, escape calumny and misrepresentation, and so we may shun the |