224 



turned in very ill health to his native country, and 

 died at Lisbon in 1823. 



In reference to a foregoing letter, dated July 4, 

 17^5, the two following ones are added for a further 

 illustration of the same subject. They are from the 

 hand of the learned and elegant scholar Dr. Frank 

 Sayers, of Norwich. 



Dear Sir, Sept. 12, 1808. 



The discussion into which you were so obliging 

 as to enter yesterday evening, induced me to look 

 a little more for the earliest meaning of the word 

 Kva/uoc. I do not find that it is used more than once 

 by Homer in the Iliad or Odyssey ; the passage 

 which I noticed to you yesterday in the Iliad (v. 5 89) 

 is thus translated, I find, by Damm (in his celebrated 

 Lexic. Homeric?) : "A ventilabro in area saliunt fabae 

 fuscsB et pisa — nam color harum fabarum est fuscus 

 et rufus." The same writer translates Kva/uoc, " faba 

 maxime ea species quam Germani walsche bonen, 

 vulgo saubonen vocant, et quas Graeci vooKvafiovc 

 appellant." In the Batrachomyomachia (of which 

 the a?ra however, as you well know, is somewhat 

 uncertain,) the word Kva/^oc again occurs : — in the 

 arming of the Mice it is said, 1. 123, 



Kitj^iicas fxev Trpwra 7repi Krrjfiriaiv edrjKav 

 'Vfj^aires Kva/xovs xXtopovs, €vt arTKr)oovres. 



The Kva/uoc, thus ingeniously used for greaves by the 

 mice, must of course have been of the shape of some 

 of our ordinary beans. The common meaning of 

 nvapoc, then, before the time of Pythagoras is thus 



