reason. Thus he has substituted the word 'monster' for the epithet paμaxeтos, Iliad, xvi. 329, with sufficient propriety, whether that word be expressive of enormity of dimension, or untameableness of disposition; in both which senses it occurs in Pindar.* We might enlarge on the terms ἀμητροχίτωνας; τροπαι Κελιοιο ; ορσοθυρη, and a variety of others equally disputed or obscure; but as they will be sufficiently recognized by the scholar, whilst the unlearned reader is enabled to pass smoothly over them, we shall just observe, that the interpretation of the proverbial passage in Odyss. viii. v. 351,

Δειλαι τοι δειλων γε και έγγυαι ἐγγυαασθαι

'Lame suitor, lame security,'

is the happiest instance of the superiority of plain sense over learning merely intricate.

When, in Odyss. iv. v. 73, Telemachus describes the mansion of Menelaus, Mr. C., with all the translators,. renders 'HλExτgov amber,' contrary to the explanation

6

*The first, in ПYО. A. v. 28.

γαν τε και ποντον κατ ̓ ἀμαιμακετον.

The second, in ПО. Р. v. 57-8.

Πεμψε κασιγνηταν μενει;

Θυοισαν αμαιμακέτῳ :

where the scholiast explains it by άxataμaxnlos, and the notes deduce it from a compound of the A titatixy and paμaw: a derivation more probable than that of our translator from aua, and the Doric paxos; unless we suppose that Homer made use for his substantives, of the Ionic, and for his compound adjectives, of the Doric dialects!

of Pliny, who defines electrum to be gold, containing a fifth part of silver, and quotes the Homeric passage.* Amber ornaments, we believe, are not mentioned by Homer in the singular. Thus, in Odyss. xviii. 294-5, the golden necklace presented by Eurymachus, is called Ἠλεκτροισιν ἐερμενον, inlaid with amber drops.

Homer, Odyss. xi. v. 579, seq., places two vultures by the sides of Tityus, who entered his entrails, and tore his liver by turns, and adds, to enhance the terror of the image,

ὁ δ ̓ ἐκ ἀπαμύνετο χερσι,

' he had not hands to rescue him ;' entranced, no doubt, or chained to the ground. This Mr. C. translates—

Two vultures on his liver prey'd,

Scooping his entrails; nor suffic'd his hands

To fray them thence.".

Why not, if he had a hand for each vulture, unless we suppose him chained or entranced?

Odyss. xix. 389, Ulysses removes from the light of the hearth into the shade, lest the nurse, who had already discovered a striking resemblance in his shape, voice, and limbs, to those of her lost master, by handling his thigh, and seeing all at once the scar on it, should be convinced that he could be no other, and betray him. This Mr. C. translates thus: p. 453.

* Plin. L. xxxiii. c. 4. 'Electro auctoritas, Homero teste qui Menelai regiam, auro, electro, argento, ebore fulgere tradit.' Helen, he continues, consecrated a cup of electrum at Lindos, mammæ suæ mensura,' and adds, 'electri natura ad lucernarum lumina clarius argento splendere.'

CHAPTER VI.

Fuseli's proficiency in Italian History, Literature, and the Fine Arts, exemplified in his Criticism on Roscoe's Lorenzo de' Medici.

THE following review of Roscoe's Lorenzo de' Medici, will shew Fuseli's critical knowledge of Italian history.

ROSCOE'S LORENZO DE MEDICI.

"The close of the fifteenth, (says Mr.R. Pref. p. i.) and the beginning of the sixteenth century, comprehend one of those periods of history which are entitled to our minutest study and enquiry. Almost all the great events from which Europe derives its present advantages are to be traced up to those times. The invention of the art of printing, the discovery of the great Western Continent, the schism from the Church of Rome, which ended in the reformation of many of its abuses, and established the precedent of reform; the degree of perfection attained in the fine arts, compose such an illustrious as

semblage of luminous points, as cannot fail of attracting for ages the curiosity and admiration of mankind.

"A complete history of these times has long been a great desideratum in literature; and whoever considers the magnitude of the undertaking will not think it likely to be soon supplied. Indeed, from the nature of the transactions that then took place, they can only be exhibited in detail, and under separate and particular views. That the author of the following pages has frequently turned his eye towards this interesting period is true; but he has felt himself rather dazzled then informed by the survey. A mind of greater compass, and the possession of uninterrupted leisure, would be requisite to comprehend, to select, and to arrange the immense varieties of circumstances which a full narrative of those times would involve, when almost every city of Italy was a new Athens, and that favoured country could boast its historians, its poets, its orators, and its artists, who may contend with the great names of antiquity for the palm of mental excellence: when Venice, Milan, Rome, Florence, Bologna, Ferrara, and several other places, vied with each other, not in arms, but in science and in genius, and the splendour of a court was estimated by the number and talents of learned men, who illustrated it by their presence, each of whose lives and productions would, in a work of this nature, merit a full and separate discussion."

"From this full blaze of talents, the author has turned towards a period when its first faint gleams afford a subject, if not more interesting, at least more suitable to his powers; when, after a night of unexpected dark

ness, Florence again saw the sun break forth with a lustre more permanent, though perhaps not so bright. The days of Dante, Boccaccio, and of Petrarch, were indeed past; but under the auspices of the House of Medici, and particularly through the ardour and example of Lorenzo, the empire of science and taste was again restored.”

Having thus, with great modesty, stated the motives for his choice of subject, the author presents us with a rapid sketch of the Medician family, the literary and political character of Lorenzo, and his undeserved fate as statesman and writer in the succeeding century: he then proceeds to a critical enumeration of the narratives composed of his life, from the contemporary one of Niccolo Valori to the recent volumes of Fabroni, the mass of whose valuable documents, together with the communications of a learned friend, admitted to the printed and manuscript treasure of the Laurentian library, and the acquisition of a number of scarce tracts, procured from the sales of the Crevenna and Pinelli books, arranged and concentrated by indefatigable assiduity, he considers as the basis on which he was enabled to erect his own system, and to fill up the chasm that had hitherto separated from legitimate history, the period elapsed between the last stage of decay and final dissolution of the Byzantine empire by Mahommed II. and the brilliant epoch that rose with the accession of Charles the Fifth to the German throne.

The first chapter opens with Florence, its origin, its tempestuous though not improsperous liberty during the political schism of its citizens into the two factions