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slovenliness from Dr. Goodall, to whom he has dedicated his voJume: nor to his example does he owe celebrat, penetrat, with long penultimas. This usage, and short o's, as sicco comas, dico mihi, tegendo frui, &c. are scarcely allowable.

Monosyllables again are elided without end before vowels, in the most barbarous and unrhythmical manner. Poor qui, with his family, is a constant sufferer, as e. g. in p. 64.

Interiit Pompeius, cui est extructa columna.

We now come to the direct false quantities.-When Dr. Hunter printed his edition of Virgil, the sheets were hung up in the University of Glasgow, and a præmium was offered to any detector of an error in the press-work. A similar challenge has been thrown out on the present occasion, when it has been questioned if the jealousy of English criticism will be able to detect half a dozen false quantities in the whole collection.' We take up the glove. 1. Heroes ausi magnum; quis crederet unquam.

Apropos of heroes.-A Dr. Thornton has just published the Bucolics of Virgil, with marks above the words, for the purpose of assisting prosody. He thus scans and marks,

and

Delectōs hérous, ērūnt etiam ältčră Lēllä,

Pērmīxtōs hérʊās ēt īpse videbitur illis,

remarking that et, is here long, contrary to rule.-[School Virgil, p. 95.]

2. Esonides audax est captus amore Médec

3. Carbone ardente, fusticulisque datur.

4. Buccina rauca canit: certatimque in prælia cuncti.

5. Etficiam quod potero ad fas et jura tuendum.

We have not the slightest idea how Mr. Pillans scanned this line. 6. Percussus subiit iterum, dein terra dehiscit.

In such short copies of verses a casura cannot be warranted.
7. Afferat, O Britones, memori persolvite grates.

8. Dumque parat cæ nam uxor circum oscula nati
9. Strata jacent, sterilique cruor profusus arenâ.
10. Et famá frueris nunc clara semperque frueris.

11. and 12. Ripas refugit assuētās.

Two false quantities in one line, and a syllable short. There is no authority for reading assuētās in lyrics.

13. Splendorem, et radiis ut micat omne dium

14. Gaudia sed simul ac Apollo.

15.

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doctæque minantur

Palladis in cœlum domus-et penetralia sacra. 16. Seduto agricolæ gaudent, pueri atque puellæ.

17. Es

17. Es long before a vowel-18. longè (the adverb) made a trochee--with several others of the same nature.

Yet notwithstanding these slips in metre, there has been an evident alteration for the better in Caledonian Latin poetry within these few years. It is our duty and desire to give praise where praise is due.

The Scotch poet Græme was and there, says his biographer, ing was so remarkable, that it boys, of forward and active, but

sent to Lanark school in 1763,
his proficiency in classical learn-
excited the emulation of the elder
of superficial talents.'

'His Latin versions in particular were the admiration and boast of Mr. Thomson, who had the penetration to discover, in the sallies of youthful fancy, marks of uncommon genius.-Though the discipline of Lanark School, like that of the other schools in Great Britain, did not require him to perform exercises in Latin verse, yet he attempted this mode of composition, as soon as he was sufficiently master of the ancient prosody, and continued from time to time to write Latin verses, which he found of the greatest advantage, in giving him a ready command of Latin phraseology.

'He soon acquired a facility in the composition of Latin poetry, and the following fragment of a Sapphic ode, describing the occupations and pastimes of the scholars in the hours allotted for play, Descriptio Schola Lanarcensis, must be allowed to be a very correct and manly performance for a boy of fifteen.

Pueri agrestes irridendum pecus
Pannis obsiti, circa focum premunt
Nugas narrantes, cæteros sed fugant
Rixa minaces.

Seorsim scamnis inimici sono

Sedunt, ætate catiores quidam

Lusumque vitant, cæteros spernentes

Fronte obductâ.

Ad generosum scribit hic amicum,
Legit ac alter celebrem poetam,
Rite scalpello resecat sed sordes

Tertius ungues.

Quidam quercetis trabibus dependunt,
Nominaque scalpunt Dædaleâ manu
Quidam, dum alii (puerilis turma)

Turbine ludunt.'

Now, with all deference to Dr. Anderson, the biographer, we
think we may be allowed to call this the infancy of Scotch Sapphic
poetry, while we are fully ready to allow that it is a
performance.'

very correct

When the ode was more matured in the North, up rose one Dr. Chapman, LL.D. who wrote for the Buchanan prize. As his was but a fugitive piece, our minds only retain a morsel, but that

CC 4

is

is a precious one, in which the poet immortalizes King George, Lord Melville, and the Marquis of Wellesley.

"Georgio, Melevillio, Veleslo
Mitibus, atque

Fortibus.'

To him succeed the Tentamina, and we have no hesitation in saying
that they shew a surprising degree of improvement.

Rege Saturno patre, quisque vixit
Sorte contentus, sine legis usu,
Et fidem et rectum populi colebant
Judice nullo,

Torserat nondum catapulta tela,
Nec fuit cassis, clypeusve fulgens,
Nec ferus duro faber arte sævum
Duxerat ensem,

Nunc at immitis ciet atra bella
Orbe Mars toto, resonantque passim,
Ferreo regno Jovis, execrata

Matribus arma.

Mille circumdant hominem peric❜la,
Quem juvat cornu, lituique clangor,
Atque flagranti medios per hostes

Rumpere pugnâ.'

We must now bid adieu to the Electa Tentamina, or 'Choice Specimens,'-we beg pardon, to the Muse Edinenses-and we cannot do it better than in the words of Buchanan,

Ite igitur musa steriles, aliumque ministrum.
Quærite-nos aliò fors, animusque vocat,

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ART. VIII. Journal of a Residence in India. By Maria Graham. Constable, Edinburgh. 4to. pp. 212, 1812.

THE 'HE Journal of a Residence in India,' by a young lady who, probably, went thither, like most young ladies, to procure a husband instead of information, is a literary curiosity which we are not disposed to overlook. Our fair author very justly observes, 'that almost all the modern publications on India are entirely occupied with its political and military history, details and suggestions upon its trade and commercial resources, and occasionally with discussions upon the more recondite parts of its literary or mythological antiquities.' We have governor-generals' letters of many hundred sections on trade and finance; we have the evidence and reports of committees, on affairs civil, military, and commercial, of as many thousand pages; we have Mr. Cole

brooke's

brooke's reasonings, and Captain Wilford's reveries, on the Vedas and Puranas, on sacred Brahmins and sacred islands, in every volume of the Asiatic transactions; and we have abundance of learned disquisitions and useless conjectures on the priority of the Sanscrit and the Pracrit over the Pahlavi languages; but we have no popular and comprehensive view of the manners, customs, condition, and real state of society among the great mass of the people, nor indeed of the English and other foreign residents in the country. It was on this ground that Miss Graham thought, and we agree with her, that there might still be room for a work which should bring forward' much of what strikes the eye and the mind of an observant stranger;' which should perform the same humble but useful office, as to India, which tolerably well written books of travels have done, as to most of the other countries of the world.' (Pref. p. 4.)

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With these, and with no higher pretensions, Miss Graham offers her pages to the public. That they were really and truly' written, nearly as they now appear, for the amusement of an intimate friend,' we are ready to believe, and think not the worse of them on that account. Her descriptions of the various natives and of the country, as far as she had the opportunity of seeing them, are correct, and the numerous and well executed prints, engraved from drawings taken by herself, carry with them internal evidence of their authenticity and accuracy: and if her account of the moral character of the natives be rather more unfavourable than that they have generally obtained,-if she was not fortunate enough to meet with any of those combinations of innocence, benevolence, and voluptuous simplicity, with which the imaginations of some ingenious authors have peopled the cottages of the Hindoos,' we must, with her, be content to ascribe the difference to her observations being confined immediately to the coast,-we might add, to the very worst parts of the coast.

It is our intention to accompany Miss Graham to the three presidencies, and to let her tell her own story in her own words, as far as a few pages will admit of it; this being, in our opinion, the best mode of conveying to the reader a general idea of the book, and certainly the best adapted for doing that justice to the author to which she is entitled.

On landing on the bunder, or pier of Bombay, palankins, or little carriages without wheels, with hamauls or bearers, chiefly from the Mahratta country, of the coombee, or agricultural caste, were ready to receive the passengers. These bearers, for the most part, wear nothing but a turban, and a cloth wrapped round the loins, a degree of nakedness which does not shock one, owing to the dark colour of the skin, which, as it is unusual to European

eyes,

eyes, has the effect of dress.' Farther on, the esplanade presented a gay and interesting scene, of koolies employed in washing at the numerous tanks or wells-of groups of men and women busily employed in beating the linen on the broad stones of their margins-of the better sort of Hindoo women drawing and carrying water-whose picturesque dress, consisting only of the shalie, a long piece of coloured silk or cotton, wrapped round the waist in form of a petticoat, leaves part of one leg bare, covering the other to the ancle with its long and graceful folds; while the other end crosses the breast and is sometimes thrown over the head as a veil of the Mussulman and Parsee women, in nearly the same dress, with the addition of a pair of loose trowsers. It is common to see both the men and women adorned with massy rings, and chains of gold and silver round their necks, arms, waists, and legs, and the toes and fingers decked with fine fillagree rings, while the ears and nose are hung with pearls or precious stones. Miss Graham's conjecture is, probably, the right one, that the insecurity of property, when the people were daily exposed to the ravages of barbarous armies, gave rise to this accumulation of personal ornaments, which, from their little weight, could thus be easily conveyed out of the reach of the plunderers. The black town of Bombay is built in the midst of a cocoa-nut wood, and is said to contain 200,000 inhabitants, of which eight thousand are. Parsees, about the same number Mussulmans, three or four thousand Jews, and the remainder Portugueze and Hindoos. The streets, crowded with men, women, and children, with bullock hackrays, or native carriages,' with coaches of the rich inhabitants, drawn by horses that are more remarkable for beauty and swiftness than for strength,' present a gay and bustling scene. The houses of the rich are surrounded by virandas, painted with flowers and leaves, of a green or red colour; while the walls of those of the Hindoos are covered with mythological representations. They are, commonly, very extensive, three or four generations continuing to live together under the same roof. The lower classes inhabit huts of clay, roofed with matting made from the leaves of the palmyra: each, however, has its small garden, containing a few herbs, a plantain, and a cocoa-nut tree. The various uses to which the cocoa-nut tree is applied by the native Indians, as an article of food, drink, clothing, cordage, house-carpentry, &c. are too well known to require a particular description. Rice and the fruit of this tree are the true riches of the great mass of people who inhabit Hindostan: dressed with the messala, or curry stuff, they furnish their daily meals. Less than an English halfpenny procures enough of turmeric, spice, salt, and ghee, to season the whole of the rice eaten in a day by a labourer, his wife, and five

or

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