52G 



Monthly Review of Literature, 



[Nov. 



Walter Scott and Dr. Dibdin the first 

 time surely they could ever have met 

 are his great authorities. Mr. Goodhugh, 

 however, does not recommend books, co- 

 pies of which cannot be got at ; his, as 

 might be expected, are all of the accessible 

 kind. He even ventures a smile at one of 

 his oracles on this point. "It is amusing," 

 says he, " to notice Dr. DibdhTs advice in 

 his Library Companion, on the History of 

 Portugal. He recommends his young 

 man to procure, with all imaginable 

 earnestness, anxiety, and delight, and 

 with a fearless disregard of its expense 

 [Dr. Dibdin must be the very Apollo of 

 booksellers] the Bibliotheca Lusitana, 

 Historica, Critica, et Chronologica of 

 Barbosa Machado, Lisbon, 1741, 1759, 

 a work beyond all competition, and be- 

 yond all praise, and of the most extensive 

 difficulty of acquisition, [did the world 

 ever hear such balderdash?]: and in a 

 note he adds this consoling information 

 * The work in question is in vain looked 

 for among the displays of auction-rooms, 

 and in the repertories of booksellers, for 

 which Mr. Bohn rummaged Bavaria, and 

 Mr. John Payne, Italy, to no purpose.' " 



In the course of the volume, Mr. Good- 

 hugh introduces some original letters, 

 given him by the Earl of Buchan, of 

 Thomson the poet, which shew up the 

 bard more fat than bard beseems in a 

 very amiable light, as the kind brother, 

 who, out of his poor accumulations, set tp 

 his two sisters at Edinburgh in the 

 " millinery line," with a stock of 15., 

 and allowed them a small annual pension 

 as long as he lived. A long account also 

 is given of Jemmy Thomson and some of 

 his friends, extracted by force of question 

 and answer by Thomas Parke (a brother 

 we believe of Judge Parke) in the year 

 1791, from a Mr. Richardson, a very aged 

 surgeon of Kew, who died within a few 

 hours of the torture. The account, how- 

 ever, we have seen somewhere or other 

 before. 



Some of the opinions scattered about 

 the book are due, it may be presumed, to 

 Mr. Goodhugh himself; for instance, 

 "TEMPLE. The works of Sir William 

 Temple, first printed in 1720, in two folio 

 volumes, now re-printed, 1814, in four 

 vols. 8vo , 1. ID'S. That will be a dark 

 and doubtful period in the era of national 

 taste, when the volumes of Sir Wm. Tem- 

 ple shall be neglected or depreciated." 

 And yet we are very much afraid he is, if 

 not depreciated, neglected. To neglect is 

 not absolutely to depreciate ; but most 

 booksellers will find the book is depre- 

 ciated ; we know not who will give 

 1. 16s. for it. 



The First Twcnty-eight Odes of Ana- 

 crcon, by John Hroderick Roche, M.D., 

 and A.M. y $c. #c. ; 1827. Here are 



twenty-eight odes of Anacreon, occupy- 

 ing 300 pages. According to this ratio, the 

 140 scraps will fill 1,500 pages. The pub- 

 lishersfor it appears by the preface to 

 be their doings aware that such a mass 

 would find but a heavy sale, have sent 

 into the world this fasciculus as a feeler 

 not, to be sure, on the ground which we 

 have suggested, but kindly and consider- 

 ately to stay the impatience of the greedy 

 public, whose appetite they knew the 

 " novelty of the plan, and the advantage 

 of its arrangement," must have whetted 

 almost beyond endurance. The whole 

 if the whole ever sees the light, is in- 

 tended to be a complete Thesaurus Ana- 

 creonticus. The disposition of the work 

 comprises 



1. The Greek text, from the best autho- 

 rities. 



2. The same text arranged in the prose, 

 or literal order, for the use of learners. 



3. A translation in rhyme. 



4. A literal translation in prose, in 

 which the ellipses of the original are sup- 

 plied, and the points of difference between 

 the idioms of the Greek and English Ian- 

 guages pointed out. 



5. Variorum notes, for the most part in 

 English, selected from the best editors 

 and commentators. 



6. A grammatical analysis, in which all 

 the original Greek words are parsed for 

 the use of learners ; and 



7. A lexicon, in which the same words 

 are all fully explained, so as to supersede 

 the necessity of a separate Greek lexicon, 



The reader shall have a specimen of this 

 elaborate, or rather accumulative per- 

 formance j and as there is little motive 

 for choice, we will open the book at ran- 

 dom, to glance over the translation and 

 commentary. It proves to be the fifth, 

 headed commonly, and also by Dr. Roche 

 To the Rose." 



The prose translation, with two excep- 

 tions perhaps, is clearly and specifically 

 correct. The metrical one is anything 

 but close, any thing but gay and airy, any- 

 thing but tasteful and delicate. It is in- 

 deed coarse and heavy, fitter for the de- 

 baucheries of a tap-room than the revels 

 of the loves and graces more like the in- 

 spirations of porter than nectar. Then for 

 the commentary, wherein Dr. Roche first 

 preludes a little. " This spirited poem," 

 says he any body else might have called 

 it light and elegant " is an eulogy on the 

 rosej"and to shewthatheknewthiswasnot 

 all the same Anacreon had said of the ro$e y 

 he very properly refers to another ode. 

 But Barnes, Dr. Roche discovers, refers 

 to a fragment of Sappho preserved in the 

 romance of Achilles Tatius, where the rose 

 is styled the "eye of flowers ;" and the 

 same " poetess," in another fragment, one 

 Mcebius observes, calls the favours of the 



