the application. Verbum sapienti. Am I right, my dear sir, in the interpretation of these two passages? I assure you, I often wish for your powerful assistance. But I am not in the habit of recording my difficulties or my solutions, such as they may be. H. GABELL. [Vol. vii. p. 485.] Dr. Parr to Dr. Gabell. Dear Dr. Gabell, Hatton, Feb. 18, 1814. I have caught a straggling passage, which at first sight bears hard on our rule about the indefinite followed by the subjunctive, and my purpose in this letter is to crush its authority. Hac re probatur quantum ingenium valet, Phædrus, lib. i. fab. 13. When I was lately at Shrewsbury, I met these lines in the first book of the two Pentecaidecades of Kohlius, who rejects them as spurious, for a reason which other critics had given before, and from a right feeling of languor in the thought and inelegance in the diction. To be sure, the second line is hardly intelligible, and both lines carry with them an air of monkish interpolation. Now for the critics: « In quantum, Tò m, ut sæpe apud Phædrum, non eliditur."-Praschius. Vel transponenda verba sunt, vel elementum m syllabam in sese inclinatam sustineat necesse est. Vide quæ ad Fab. iv. dicta fuerunt."-Faber. "Hic syllaba ultima non eliditur, ut monuit Ritterhusius, et repetiit Faber in suis."-Schefferus. "Hos vero duos versus delendos ut spuriosa notavit ad marginem Heinsius, quia Phædrus quo fabulæ suæ pertineant, sæpe ante ipsam narrationem, raro post narratam prodit fabulam, non vero utroque simul loco."--Burmann. Kohlius assigns the same reason with Heinsius; viz. that Phædrus often begins, but rarely ends his fables with explanations of their import. But monks, like methodists, are wholesale dealers in sentimentality. In order to destroy the force of the line, as an exception to our rule about the indefinite, we must not pass over the metrical parts of the question. The line referred to as a parallel is in the 4th fable of the 1st book, and runs thus, Aliamque prædam ab alio ferri putans. "Elementum m, in fine Toù prædam, extritum non est, more veterum. Ita Lucretius, divinus vir atque incomparabilis (Scaligeri Patris testimonium est Comment. in Hist. Anim. Aristotelis,) Expressit multa vaporis Semina, seque simul cum eo commiscuit ignis. Adde, si tanti est, Gifanii Indicem, cui addes locum Lucilii, qui apud Isidorum, Multorum magnis titubantium ictibu' tundit. Legendus quoque Paulus Merula ad Annales Ennii, p. 517.”-Faber. "Elementum ultimum hic non eliditur, ut olim recte contra emendationem Meursii notavit Barthius, Adv. 4, 7, 10, et in suis Tanaquillus Faber repetiit.”—Schefferus. Heinsius, whom you and I always mention with reverence, clears away all difficulty by conjectural reading : Aliamque prædam ab alio se ferri putans Now, my friend, you and I know very well that sometimes among the old writers m finita corripiuntur. Thus in Ennius, "Millia militum Quam laudas, pluma? Cocta num adest honor idem? 'Dum Shall this reading be disturbed? For reasons to be given presently I am "An qui amant," says Virgil," ipsi sibi somnia fingunt?" Virgil, in the Georgics and the Eneid, does not write so, but in the Eclogues. Horace, in his Lyrics, does not write so, but in the sermoni propiora, and finding such a passage as si me amas, I am prepared for cocto num adest. Well, the passages I have quoted from Lucretius and Ennius, to which I could add more, show Bentley to have been mistaken when he admits m not cut off in a monosyllable, but denies every thing similar in the close of words more than hypersyllabic. You see that quantum is more than monosyllabic in the line falsely ascribed to Phædrus. Let us see what Bentley says of that and the following line; for it is well said: "Versus spurii, nec numeris probis, nec oratione Latina, nec sententia quicquam ad fabulam pertinente. Quid enim corvo virtus convenit, ut vulpi sapientia? An corvus fortior vulpe? Quid quod muútov in principio fabulæ hic veniat, nec unquam gemi netur?" Well, for the foregoing reasons given by others, I hold to be spurious the line, which might by uncritical folks be objected to our canon; and the want of conformity to that canon is an additional reason which I should urge, though it has not been urged by preceding critics. S. PARR. [Vol. vii. p. 487.] Dear Sir, Dr. Parr to Dr. Gabell. March 7, 1818. You seemed to be a little fretted at the redundance in 80' oűveka. But what will you say to a very common redundance in Latin? Nisi si illa forte, quæ olim periit parvula Forte ad nos rediit.-Ibid. iv. 4. 20. And so writes Terence in several other places. Well, an objector may say this is merely colloquial language-No, say I, let us hear Ovid. In the Nux, v. 5. Nil ego peccavi nisi si peccare vocetur Annua cultori poma referre suo. Even in the graver and more elaborate poem of the Metamorphoses we meet with nisi si. Quid mihi tunc animi, nisi si timor abstulit omnem jactati sæpe carinis Supposuere manus: nisi si qua vehebat Achivos. Ibid. v. 560. On looking at Nolten I find "Nisi si, pleonasmus quo Cicero, ut sæpe Ovidius utitur.-Vid. Heins. ad Ovid. Heroid. lib. iv. 111. Nisi si manifesta negamus." Tursellin gives, from the second book of Cicero de Oratore, "Miseros eludi nolunt, nisi si se jactent.' Tursellin says nothing of Ovid, but quotes two passages from Terence. Now, to my understanding, there is just as much pleonasm in nisi si as in 30' ovveka. Well, we say nisi unless, or if not; true,—but nisi is very different from si non, for nisi expresses a contingency which may, or may not be; but si non speaks of that which is not a contingency, but of that which actually is not; and it implies a condition in which something is positively denied. The condition lies in si, and the negative part of the proposition is si non. Nisi and si non are totally different, though not opposite; and if you will look into Herman de Ellipsi et Pleonasmo, subjoined to the last edition of Lambert Bos, published at Oxford, you will find the difference clearly made out, when he interprets un où in p. 204. Herman's words are these: "Exempla nunc afferamus particularum un où cum participio sic junctarum ut dubitanter negent. In quo usu nihil difficultatis est, si quis meminerit, un ov esse quod quis non facit aliquid, aut si non facit; un où πov autem, nisi facit. Quæ quomodo differant, non est obscurum. Qui nisi fallor' dicit, dubius est, utrum fallatur an non; qui 'si non fallor,' hoc, non falli se, ut certum sumit." I know scarcely anybody more likely than yourself to apprehend, comprehend, and estimate the difference between nisi and si non, and I trust that you will accurately, copiously, earnestly, and repeatedly instruct the Winchester boys to make a distinction, which certainly is not made by schoolboys any where, and probably is not known to four schoolmasters in England. This is a long postscript to my long letter. My friend, there is much importance, as well as much acuteness in Hermann on μǹ and uǹ où, and you will do well to correct several passages in Sophocles. If you were with me in my library, we should pull down many books, and have some interesting chat on the subject. [Vol. vii. p. 495.] S. PARR. Professor Pillans to Dr. Parr. Dear and much honored Sir, Edinburgh, June 25, 1820. Two points only occur to me at present as requiring explanation : the one regarding the double ii in the genitive of nouns, which you seem to think a licence introduced by Ovid. Yet I think I have met with it more than once in Propertius. One example occurs in iii. 3. 22. "Non est ingenii cymba gravanda tui." The other regards the use of the indicative after indefinites; in treating of which you appear to have overlooked a remarkable passage in the same poet, in which he seems to have used both moods indiscriminately, and to have passed from the one to the other without any feeling of impropriety. The passage is the last thirty lines of lib. II. 5. beginning Tum mihi naturæ libeat perdiscere mores: Quis Deus hanc mundi temperet arte domum; [Vol. vii. p. 522.] Dr. Parr to Professor Pillans. Dear Mr. Pillans, The passage from Propertius, lib. iii. eleg. 5. is one which I have again and again employed as an instance where the indicative and the subjunctive are, in the same sentence, used promiscuously; and my present scribe remembers it well. There is a parallel one in Persius. I cannot, from memory, speak about my letter to you; but I think it scarcely possible for me to have omitted so notorious a passage. Pray look at my letter. Among the early Roman poets, except the comic, there is but one instance: that one occurs in Ennius, which I must suppose myself to have produced. You will remember that I told you, that this use of the indefinite words with the subjunctive was gradually introduced as the Latin language became more and more refined; and you will take notice that, according to my opinion, the Romans, in their ordinary conversation, did not observe the rules which were afterwards established. Plautus and Terence frequently put the indicative; and this shows the colloquial use. In the Origines of Cato the structure of the sentences is very inartificial, and in the parts which have reached us there is not one sentence where the subjunctive could be used after an indefinite. But I desired you to observe that in the prose writers the rule is uniformly attended to, and for this position I appeal to Cato de Re Rustica, and to Varro. Let me intreat you to mark what I am now going to say: we are all charmed with the energetic style of Quintilian; he never violates the rule. But the striking circum stance is, that in so large a book we have very few instances in which the rule is employed. It is in the poets only that the violation of the rule occurs, and probably one reason is the metrical convenience. Thus, in Propertius, after temperet we find venit, deficit, videt, tremuere, coit, in the indicative, when the verse did not admit the subjunctive. As to the terminations in ii, from nominatives ending in ium and ius, the principle which is laid down in Bentley's Prolegomena to Manilius is perfectly correct. When I mentioned Ovid, I did not forget Propertius: I consider them as contemporary writers; and poets who lived after them would write fluvii for fluvius, and ingenii for ingenium. Thus, in Propertius, we read Quid tunc Tarquinii fractas juvat esse secures, Et spolia opprobrii nostra per ora trabit. There may be here and there rare instances; but they are very few. Now Propertius is not so correct and polished a writer as Tibullus. From both we are warranted in saying, that this use of the genitive does not occur before the Augustan age, that Lucretius, Virgil, and Horace afford no instance, that even the comic writers afford none, that the practice began with Ovid and his contemporary Propertius, was very convenient for their verse, and is found in all the poets subsequent to the Augustan age. Boys should be informed of this distinction in time; and I would permit them to use this genitive in every sort of verse, except the lyric and the iambic. Make this your rule: Never admit ii in sapphics, never in hendecasyllables, never in alcaics, never in iambics, never in trochees. But let your boys use it in heroics and elegiacs. I would further observe, that in Propertius, who, as I told you, is not a very correct writer; there are five instances where he uses a short vowel at the end of a word, when the next word begins with st, sp, &c. Dawes very acutely remarks, that in Lucretius and the old writers there is the same use. We never find it in Virgil, nor in the lyrics of Horace; but in the sermoni propiora there are several instances. Looking at the whole case, I should forbid boys to do so in all lyrics, and in all iambics, and in all stately heroics; but in heroics where the style is not grand, and in all elegiacs, I would leave them at liberty, still recommending it to be done sparingly. I will give you two instances from Propertius, and there are more than two where a short vowel is used before sp, &c. Jam bene spondebant nunc omnia, &c. [Vol. vii. p. 524.] S. PARR. Ewhurst, Sept. 12, 1820. John Symmons, Esq., son of Dr. Symmons, to Dr. Parr. My dear Doctor, I am here on a visit to my uncle, and have received, with great pleasure, your letter transmitting seven instances from Propertius of the use of the indicative for the subjunctive moods. I have not here Petronius, or would refer with pleasure to the hendecasyllables you allude to I have quite forgotten them, if I ever read them. Laurenburgius I never saw, and if I do not meet with him before, shall call on you to show him me at Hatton next year. I recollect something about myself, Professor and Kaλλíπʊyos, but don't know, so don't vouch for your version of the story. I don't know whether you have it that a lady committed us on the subject, having represented to |