HTayter’s Report upon the Herculaneum Manuseripts, 663 
ways found wanting many letters, often 
#® word, or, more rarely, a whole sentence, 
or whole sentences, respectively. For 
the just interpretation, it was impossible, 
it would at least have been unjustifiable, 
to have proceeded otherwise, than I in- 
variably used todo in the case of each “La- 
euna.” Its dimensions I exactly ascertain- 
ed by anaccurate, often retraced, mensu- 
ration. This rigid mensuration was then 
applied by mein the same manner, and 
2greeably to thé form, under which that 
same manuscript presented every given 
character, to as many characters as, con- 
jecturally, and consistently with the 
supposed sense of the context, I wished 
to replace in that “ Lacuna,” . When I 
was entirely satisfied, that these mensu- 
rations were accurate, and that the con- 
jectural letters, thus supplied, expressed 
ie very sense of the author, or, at least, 
some not inapplicable sense, the copyist 
was ordered by meto make a partial fac- 
simile of that “‘ Lacuna,” and of the letter 
which immediately came before it, and, 
also, of the letter which immediately 
came after it, and then make in the 
“ Lacuna” itself a fuc-simile transcript of 
each character, which had been supplied, 
in strict conformity to the usual dis- 
tances between the respective letters in 
the same manuscript. When this whole 
process admitted, “ modulo,-ae pede,” 
and in aptest correspondence, my sub- 
stituted, or supplied, characters, I wrote 
them, in my own interpreted copy of that 
manuscript with red ink, inorder to dis- 
tinguish them from the actually existing 
eharacters of the original. After having 
gone through this process in_the quoted 
instance of the first piece of the above- 
mentioned eleventh book of Epicurus, 
after having repeated several times this 
process, in consequeace of the alteration 
which, the surface, by the detachment 
and loss of several of its particles, re- 
peatedly exhibited, I found, that, after 
this repeated process, and the laboured, 
tormenting, and most unsatisfactory, 
supplemental conjectures of a month, 
both in the Museum and at home, as 
well for the vacant letters, as fgr the 
tense, my whole interpretation was ne- 
cessarily wrong. This piece, which was 
supposed to farm one column, was at 
Jast discovered to consist of two halves, 
one of which really belonged to the si- 
tuation which it occupied, the other, to 
a preceding column. Of the violent 
transposition of characters by the same 
ausposition of particles, im the same 
column, an example is afforded in the’ 
following extract from my journal: 
“ Wednesday, 6th February, 1805. 
“ The ‘ Papiro,” No. 2€, which had 
been consigned to Don Antonio Lentari, 
was finished, and at the end were the 
characters, 
“ . AaaHe . McC 
lep TsC 2. oN” 
MANUSCRIPTS DISCOVERED AND NOW IN 
ENGLAND, 
The dialect of the fragments of the 
eight books of Epicurus is attic; that 
of Polystratus and Colotes, is so to a 
certain degree only. The dialect of tha 
Treatise upon Anger, I think, is somes 
what attic; the language of that treay 
tise, in general, is superior to all the 
rest. 
If one except the Latin poem, the 
subjects of all the manuscripts at Oxford 
are biographical, or physical, or philolo~ | 
In dif-” 
ferent places of different works, theré 
gical, or moral, or theological. 
are short poetical quotations from, lost 
poets. 
is incalculably precious, because we-find, 
in this quotation, the same language, ex~_ 
pression for expression, as in the present 
editions. The whole of the present text,’ 
therefore, of the poet, boasts an authen-' 
ticity of a very remote period, certainly 
not less than sixteen handred and thirty-' 
two years, if an illative argument of this 
nature may be regarded as of weight in 
this case, which, as purely accidental, 
is unquestionably freer from cayil than 
most other cases. It may be added, 
with great truth, that all these manu- 
scripts, which 
nec ignes, : 
Nec poterat ferrwmn, necedax abolere veiustas, 
even if the consideration of their bigh 
antiquity be excluded, even if no value 
be affixed to them, as the most legitimate 
criterions of orthography in the two 
learned languages, these manuscripts, I 
must say, are still inestimable, because 
the compositions, preserved in them, had 
been supposed to have been irrecover- 
ably lost. 
DEPUTATION FROM NAPLES. 
At the commencement of the year 
1806, it was well known that his Sicihan 
majesty intended to leave Naples, and 
that the queen and the royal family, 
would also be obliged soon afterwards to 
leave it, I thought it my duty to solicit 
the official interposition of his wajesty’s 
minister fur the removal of the manu. 
scripts, 
One quotation from the Odyssey 
