of the Grceco- Roman Era in certain ancient Sites of Asia Minor. 153 



It was clearly a thanksgiving, after the cessation of some epidemic sickness, 

 from which the writer had been preserved, or if affected, had recovered, 



I had contented myself at first with the transcription which I had made from 

 Mr. Arundell's volume. But I could not resist the curiosity which I experienced, 

 in consequence of the occurrence of the false quantity in the second line, to test 

 that gentleman's accuracy by an appeal to the original monument. It turned 

 out precisely as I had anticipated : the inaccuracy rests with the traveller. He 

 is, however, perfectly correct in his disposition of the lines, which to the un- 

 practised eye of the mere metrist appears quite extraordinary, the following in- 

 congruous assemblage having been formed : a monoraeter iambic, a hyperca- 

 talectic of the same, a species of hypercatalectic trochaic, but with a spondee in 

 the first seat, another iambic redundant by one syllable ; next follows a cretic, 

 and, last of all, a pure iambic monometer. 



Horace says very truly, that in poetical compositions of a certain class, how- 

 ever you may break up their metrical arrangement, 



" Invenias etiam disjecti membra poetae." 



With regard to the poetical merits of the verses under consideration, I ven- 

 ture not to offer an opinion, but unquestionably the resolution has been very 

 complete, although not very happy in its sequence of metres. 



The question naturally suggests itself, to whom are we to ascribe it? To 

 which I return for answer, doubtless to the laplcide, who had been employed by 

 this grateful votary of the health-restoring stream. I have been often quite 

 astonished at the unconcern which the ancient Greeks seemed to have felt about 

 the style in which their epigraphs were engraved. They seem to have left 

 almost every thing to their workmen ; and hence the capricious assemblages of 

 characters which occur in some, and the violations of the rules of the language 

 which we observe in others. Yet, on the whole, the persons of this class appear 

 to have been of a very superior order (I express myself, of course, comparatively), 

 and by no means unfit to be entrusted with the records which were, from time 

 to time, entrusted to their care. 



One word more, suggested by the votive inscription which I have just now 

 noticed, and I shall dismiss it. The question has frequently been asked me, are 



u2 



