Π. 1. ψω, φα, φθησομαι, μμαι. τύπτω. 3. σω, και σω, και III. ω, και θησομαι, μαι. φαίνω. Secunda Series, nempe Temporum a Præsenti per Futurum Secundum formatorum, exempla longe pauciora præbet, formas inter se multo facilius connexas et expeditiores. Unâ enim eâdemque in syllabâ, antequam ad Perfectum Falso-Medium accedas, res fere tota consistit: tum, altera tantum opus est, eaque promptissima. VERBI τύπτω OMNIUM TEMPORUM FORMATIO PER OMNES VOCES. N. B. Literæ in verbo formativa, quas vocant, typo majori, essentiales minori, exprimuntur. R. S. Y. NOTICE OF ΣΟΦΟΚΛΕΟΥΣ ΟΙΔΙΠΟΥΣ ΕΠΙ ΚΟΛΩΝΩΙ. SOPHOCLIS EDIPUS COLONEUS e recensione PETRI ELMSLEY, A. M. Accedit Brunckii et aliorum annotatio selecta, cui et suam addidit Editor. Oxon. 1823. 8vo. Ar the close of our notice of Mr. Elmsley's edition of the Baccha of Euripides we indulged in the hope of meeting him ere long, in a field where ample scope would be given him, as an editor of Sophocles, to exhibit the powerful union of extensive research, inventive genius, and correct taste. Although it can be scarcely said of the hope and its completion μa Tos apa pyov, yet the expression would have been quite true, as far as respects an author, and his reviewer who were wont to interpret the words thus- One has said his say, and the other must do his work,' had we not felt a wish to comply with the fashion of the day, which discountenances, as much as it did once encourage, the language and conduct of the P. C. in the wielders of the pen and the drawers of black blood. In spite, therefore, of the spirit-stirring dictum of criticism, 'When Greek meets Greek, then comes the tug of war,' we shall content ourselves by giving a very peaceable account of Mr. Elmsley's doings in his new field of literary renown. We call it a new field, although it is not the first time that Mr. E. has taken Sophocles in hand; yet, as the manner, in which he formerly assisted the Sphinx-destroying Tyrannus, is so different from that, in which he has now waited on the blind Suppliant at Colonus, we are fully justified in the designation given to his recent appearance, in which Mr. E. has, we confess, disappointed us. But it would be as unjust to Mr. E. to insinuate that he has left us every thing to desire, as it would be untrue to say that he has left us nothing to regret. After all, perhaps, the disappointment originates, as Mr. E. once said of Hermann, rather with the reader than the author, to whom are attributed intentious he did not fulfil. "Take the good the gods provide thee" is every generous reader's motto; who feels little disposed to find fault with a repast, neither so racy, rare and rich as he anticipated, provided it escape the reproach, that it Χείλεα μέν τι δίην, ὑπερῴην δ ̓ οὐκ dive. But from even the possibility of such an insinuation Mr. E. must feel himself quite secure, when he remembers that the value of every thing from his pen is such, as to call for an early reprint to satisfy the cravings of continental scholars; and he might still with some justice have anticipated, as with a pardonable vanity he seems to do, the certainty that his present publication would obtain equal honor from the bookmakers at Leipsig, had he exhibited more of his own mind and less of other men's matter. It is, however, but fair to acknowledge, that if ever the necessity existed, in a scholar of Mr. Elmsley's calibre, to print a variorum edition of a Greek play, the Edipus at Colonus is the one, to which that necessity applies with the greatest force. For of the seven remaining pledges of the Muse of Sophocles, this is the only one, in the facetious imagery of a brother-reviewer, that has not been brought out by itself to attract the gaze, and to stand the shock of scrutinizing literary coxcombs, or ever received, even in secret, more than the temporary attentions of a learned admirer; but, like a stiff and starched virgin of antiquity, has deterred all, who might have offered their hands and hearts, by throwing such difficulties in the way of possession, as few have had the courage to attack her, and fewer still the good fortune to overcome; or, in plainer words, this play has, till within the last two years, been never edited separately, nor received any illustration or correction except from casual criticism. To add to the singularity of its fate, although the Mss. which contain it are very few and not difficult of access, still from accidental causes the various readings which those Mss. offer, have been less known than in any other of the plays of the same author. This edition, therefore, of Mr. E., which contains the collation of five Mss. hitherto unexamined, will possess no mean value in the eye of the real critic, whose first object is to know what the Mss. read, and second to elicit from thence what the author wrote. Content with the rigid performance of an editor's duty in the first of these points, Mr. E. has no doubt purposely left the second to that fanciful school,' who, deeming the playful light of conjectures the surest sign of a brilliant genius, view with ineffable disdain the leaden sons of dulness, whose highest ambition it is, with the aid of rush-light illustrations, to grope their way through the palpable obscure' of chaotic absurdity. But while we give Mr. E. all the credit due to the character of a cool and steady critic, a character which an abstinence from conjectures is sure to obtain for the fortunate holder of a capital blank in the lottery of literature, we must not deny him the greater credit due to his abstinence from the lengthy weariness of notes explanatory. It is quite refreshing, as Mister Hunt would say, to remark the readiness, with which Mr. E. in corrupt passages confesses his ignorance of what his author wrote: and in difficult passages Mr. E. had acted more wisely to own his inability to give a satisfactory explanation, than to leave the reader to make that confession for him. From such open dealing men of moderate attainments are deterred by the dread of losing a portion of that reputation, of which they have none to spare; but Mr. E. should feel that he may venture to say, on many occasions, All that I know is that I know nothing; and he may leave to such, as are disposed to ridicule this language, the not easy task of proving their superiority. Except on the score of shying at an emendation, a vice1 which, as it is more common with old than with young stagers in criticism, Mr. E. has in the course of years acquired but lately, the editor has reason to be satisfied with his handy-work, suited, as he intended it to be, for the studious youth at school and college, by presenting, as it does, at one view, nearly all that has been written on the play for the last two centuries and upwards. To be sure, the names, which figure in the list of commentators on Sophocles, are not the Dii majorum gentium; yet, such as they are, the reader has them all, good, bad, and indifferent; and Mr. E. is not to blame, if the flowers of criticism are seen to bloom but thinly over a barren Heath. As a better opportunity will present itself for the esoteric examination of Mr. Elmsley's text and notes, taken seriatim, we shall, at present, discuss only a few exoteric observations, made by the learned editor. First, with regard to the Mss. he has collated, and their intrinsic value. 2 The Mss., ten in number, are preserved in the different libraries of France and Italy; and Mr. E. seems to think that they belong to two families, one presenting the Aldine, and the other the Triclinian, recension. It appears to us, however, that there are in fact three families, and that to the Aldine may be assgined3 Laur. A., Par. A., and Ricc. A.; and to the Triclinian, ' Mr. E. will pardon this cant word, in which nothing offensive is meant, but which is merely a metaphor borrowed from the ludus Circensis of the Olympic, and familiar to the Corps Dionysiac of the 'Iwórns Κολωνός. 2 This number is to be increased by one, which we have seen in the Royal library at Brussels; but of the value of which we have nothing to say; all we remember is, that it was written on glossy paper, a little anterior to the invention of printing, and contained four plays. 3 We have adopted Mr. E.'s nomenclature, of which an explanation Par. B., T., Vat., and Farn.; while Par. F., and Ricc. B., are cousin-german to both, between whom they form the link. Nor is this observation, slight as it may seem to be, without its use, as it leads to, and is confirmatory of, our next remark, that of the two recensions just mentioned, the Aldine is the more recent, and of the least authority. 2 We know full well that, in starting and supporting such an opinion, we shall expose ourselves to the heavy charge of levity on the part of the Anti-Porso1 of Thuringa, who has ridiculed poor Buttmann for daring to defend the recension of Triclinius against the continual abuse of Brunck and Co. But unhappily for the Pseudo-Gulielmus Kuesterus, Mr. E. has shown that one of the identical Paris Mss., which was supposed by Brunck to exhibit the recension of that bardus, stipes, fungus, ycleped Demetrius Triclinius, is of a date anterior to the time of the said bardus, stipes, fungus. But, say the defenders of the Aldine recension, its antiquity is proved by the fact that both Eustathius in the twelfth, and Suidas in the tenth, century, in their quotations, almost always agree with the Aldine text. We will be found in his preface. To Laur. B., very modern, full of faults and impudently interpolated, not the least regard need be paid. By this appellation we allude to Mr. Reisig, who is never so happy as when he has an opportunity of exposing the levity of Porso (i. e. Porson). It must be owned, however, that among the rising scholars of Germany Reisig is taking a commanding station as an acute critic. But he is apt to be a little saucy, presuming probably on the strength of his long beard, the admiration of one sex and the terror of the other, as he himself informs us in his edition of the Economics of Xenophon, where, under the assumed name of Gulielmus Kuesterus, he has made rare sport with Zeunius, Schneider, and other second-rate editors. Mr. Reisig is also, as men of talent love to be, sometimes vastly absurd. For instance, in his Conjectanea in Aristophanem he very gravely wishes to prove that a proceleusmatic foot is admissible in Senarian Iambics. with all his fopperies (and in the studied eloquence of his Annotationes Criticæ in Sophoclis Edipum Coloneum, much will be found to excite a smile) Mr. Reisig has done his author good service, and his edition of three years' travail is creditable to his learning, taste, and genius. To understand Mr. Reisig's levitas, we refer our readers to Mr. Elmsley's secondary note on Ed. C. 1679. But 2 Mr. Buttmann has lately published an edition of the Philoctetes, which, intended for the use of tyros, is hardly fair game for a professed critic like Reisig to hunt down. We should suspect, however, that the contemptuous language of Reisig had its source in feelings of a personal nature, did we not find him adopting the same language to the great and little, the living and the dead of every country and period. Even Hermann, the great sun of worship to the critical magi of Germany, would be handled rather roughly, were not Mr. Reisig checked by his admiration for the original antagonist of Porso. |