44 



1 come now to the mofi: difEcult, though not the leaft pleafuig part of 

 my fubjcft, the Phoenician poetry. The learned academy does not require 

 to be told, that the Carthaginian and Phoenician tongues are fuppofed to 

 be the fame, and that, if we except the lines in the Pocnulus of Plautus, 

 no remain whatever of the Phcenician verfe hath decended to us. But 

 the Hebrew and Phoenician being the fame language, or at leafl filler 

 dialefts, it follows, that what attaches to the one, attaches to the other; 

 and that, if the Hebrews rhimed their poetry, the Phoenicians rhimed 

 theirs. The verfes that Plautus gives us, were perhaps never yet written 

 in the Punic : had we them, however, accurately penned after the old 

 Carthaginian manner, it is probable we fliould be lefs at a lofs, than we 

 are now to acquire their true underftanding. Plautus, it is certain, has 

 tranflated them, but with too much latitude, as Bochart has proved after 

 the moft fatisfaftory manner. The rhimes indeed are not obvious ; for 

 the tranfcribers of Plautus, by writing in the Latin character, and not 

 underftanding the proper found of the Phoenician vowels and confonants, 

 might not be very correft in putting down the Punic words : and what 

 has been obferved above concerning the Hebrew, Chinefe, and other 

 unfamiliar poetry, applies here in the very fame extent. Even in tlie 

 Greek and Latin, of which the copyifts had always fome knowledge, the 

 ofcitancy of tranfcribers is the perpetual complaint of the critics, who, 

 however, by their /kill and accuracy in thefe languages, and their perfeft 

 knowledge of the rhythm of the poets, have generally been able to 

 reftore the true reading. But the total ignorance of the copyifts here, 

 and until of late years, of the critics themfelves in the hues before us, 

 might eafily have let in as many errors, as there are words in the verfes. 

 Even the tranfpofition of a fentence, or of a fingle word, might defeat 

 the rhime, and though not alter the fenfe, yet confound and embarrafs 

 the rhythm. And, indeed, fuppofing the text were completely reftored,* 



the 



"* So little hope have we of this, that I have not feen two editions of Plautus, whofe 

 text has agreed in the reading of thefe lines. It looks, is if the editors had been running 

 a race, to fee which of them Ihould deviate fartheft from the true leilion : yet none of them 



materially 



