MISCELLANEOUS PASSAGES FROM MODERN AUTHORS. THE President de Thou, lib. 113. on the year 1595, describes the usages of the Penitential at Rome, and the solemnities held when Henry the Fourth of France sent his two proxies to undergo his penance, and bring back his absolution. The royal heretic and renegade, more guilty than the mob of sinners, and therefore deserving severer punishment, was not slow to discover, that however it may be with geometry, there is a royal road to absolution. Delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi. On this principle, our James the First, though subject in all other respects to the severe discipline of Scotland, was allowed to have his whipping-boy. Henry's proxies are introduced with the following ceremonial: "Inde ad solium deducti; cum capite demisso rursus in genua procubuissent, Psalmus 50 recitatur, ad cujus singulos versiculos Pontifex virgula quasi vindicta, qua ut olim servi apud Romanos manumittebantur, sic nunc peccatis nexi per absolutionem in libertatem Christianam asseruntur, leviter supplices procuratores tangebat." Budæus, lib. 5. of his treatise De Asse, institutes a comparison between Croesus and Midas, and explains the asses' ears with which that Phrygian tyrant was endowed, to have been typical of the spies and emissaries he kept in pay :—" At ille calamitate et summo atque ignominioso vitæ discrimine inclaruit, hic auribus asininis non aureis innotuit. Ex eo enim in proverbium venit, quod multos otacustas, id est auricularios et emissarios haberet, rumorum captatores et sermonum delatores, cujusmodi habere solent principes mali qui stimulante conscientia securi esse nequeunt." Caracalla, for whom every act of tyranny in past times formed a precedent, and every instrument, and every engine, which could play upon the meanness of jealousy, whether fabulous or practical, was an object of desire, not only consulted impostors of every description, among the foremost wizards and astrologers, for the discovery of conspiracies against his life; but expressed a sincere longing for such a pair of ears, as could take in every word uttered about him, of whatever character or tendency. 66 In the Scaligerana, on the word Koop, the great critic gives the following etymological meaning, founded on Homer:-"Kooμýτwp ut ȧguosns, Κοσμήτωρ præfectum significabant," that is, the governor of a country, embracing the presidency over both judicial and military affairs. " Κοσμεῖν enim et ἁρμόζειν verba sunt politica, quæ administrare remp. (non autem ornare) proprie significabant, ut apud Hom. Iliad. 1. 'Ατρείδα δὲ μάλισα δύω Κοσμήτορε λαῶν.” The Popes Alexander VI. and Julius II. have been satirised by the poets of their time, for appearing in the field of battle and at sieges in armour and military array. Julius II., in 1511, exhibited himself with helmet and breastplate, to hasten a siege which his generals did not press so vigorously as he wished. A satirist warns the soldiery to be cautious in their fury, lest they should hit a Pope by a random shot. Julius is meant by the septuagenarian priest and the most holy father, in the following passage:"Num tandem ex æde charitatis, aut fidei sacello ancylia prompserat, et signa cruciata? Ecquid eum pudebat servum Dei se vocare, cum Franciam Christianorum decus, et pontificum olim, religionisque asylum, bustis ipse gallicis insigni re gestiret, cum sacerdos septuagenarius Bellonæ sacris operaretur, cui generis humani luculento dispendio litare contendebat, tum cum profanum vulgus ad delubra pacis, et concordiæ miserabili specie supplicationes inibat? Enimvero visendum spectaculum, patrem non modo sanctissimum, sed etiam senio et canicie spectabilem, quasi ad tumultum gallicum e Bellonæ fano suos evocatos cientem, non trebea, non augustis insignibus venerandum, non pontificiis gestaminibus sacrosanctum, sed paludamento, et cultu barbarico conspicuum, sed furiali, ut ita dicam, confidentia succinctum, fulminibus illis brutis et inanibus luridum, eminente in truci vultu cultuque spirituum atrocitate."-Budæus, de Asse, lib. 4. Merlin Coccaius, macaronic 3., has a long list of attributes to particular characters and professions, quaintly expressed in single hexameters. The following are amongst the number : Est Monachæ, quando moritur, maledire parentes M. de Thou gives the following account of the first voyage to Canada and Newfoundland :"Anno præteriti sæculi 34. et sequente Jacobus Cartesius Francisco I. Rege ad eas partes navigare institit, cujus et relationes extant." Budæus, in the first book of his treatise De Asse, defines the place of what he called the Hypogeum, or the precisely calculated centre of the earth :"Prædictis quatuor genethliaci etiam cardines quatuor addunt, ortum scilicet et occasum, et mesuranium quod et mesuranema dicitur (vocabulum ubique in Firmico depravatum) hoc est locus medii coeli, et huic oppositum locum quod hypogeon dicitur, hoc est punctum subterraneum inter ortum occasumque medium." Cœlius Rhodiginus, chap. 4. of the twenty-third book of his Lectiones, thus brings together some of the leading philosophers as co-operating, by apparently different but really similar means, to the attainment of the one end: 66 : - Quæ sane ratio admiranda Zoroastri veterum theologorum principi, Arimaspem conciliavit, Æsculapium Mercurio, Orpheo Museum, Pythagoræ Aglaophemum, Platoni Dionem prius, mox et Xenocratem: qui omnes numine illustrante, opere uno, ad metam unam tanquam eodem calle ad eundem itineris festinarunt terminum." The Corybantes, ministers of the goddess Cybele, were supposed to have slept with their eyes open, when they were set to watch Jupiter, for fear of his being swallowed by Saturn. A notable expedient! We are told that their name is derived σε ἀπὸ τοῦ κορύττειν, quod capita saltando jactarent, aut a pupillis oculorum, quæ Græci xópas vocant, quippe qui cum Jovis custodes essent, non modo excubare, sed etiam apertis oculis dormire cogerentur."-Ex Jos. Scalig. in castigat. ad Catull. From their eternal drumming also, a disease of the ears accompanied with continual ringing was called corybantism. G G MISCELLANEOUS PASSAGES FROM HOMER. Ἤματί κεν τριτάτῳ Φθίην ἐρίβωλον ἱκοίμην. Ἠδὲ γυναῖκας ἐυζώνους, πολιόν τε σίδηρον Iliad. lib. ix. THE French critics, in their remarks on Homer, are apt to refine too much; as indeed they do in every thing they attempt. Monsieur de la Motte objects to the calculation of the time the voyage to Phthia would take, and the enumeration of the property he should find 'there, with the additional acquisitions of the war, as too minute and circumstantial for the impassioned character of the speaker. But this surely is hypercriticism. It was perfectly natural, and equally consistent with his temper however impetuous or resentful, to impress it on the minds of the ambassadors, by arguing on the amplitude of his means and the facility of the voyage, that he would carry his threat of returning home into actual execution, and leave Agamemnon to the consequences of his own insolence and injustice. He says that his riches are already |