144 A Wyheliamite's Reivnge against Adams's Antiquities. [Feb. 



We should never have known the existence among the Greeks of 

 what are so unceremoniously called modern carriages, had we not acci- 

 dentally met with a testimony which, according to the received rules of 

 conjectural criticism, is quite conclusive. In poring over an invaluable 

 Greek author, whose name and subject are as yet undiscovered, we 

 found among the fragments, subjoined at the end, the word Tra^ayiyvmrci. 

 And here we cannot sufficiently eulogize the practice of adding to the 

 works of an author those scraps of sentences which have been rescued 

 from decayed manuscripts. Captious persons have objected that they 

 are often reduced to so few successive words, as to render the discovery 

 of their meaning utterly hopeless. But this, in reality, is one of their 

 chief merits, for the very mystei-iousness of the text affords peculiar 

 scope to the ingenuity of the scholiast, who justly holds that he is en- 

 titled to supply the deficiencies, in the proportion of three conjectural 

 words of his own to one surviving word of the author. Nor is even the 

 hiatus of half a page any bar, as, provided there remain a few words, 

 nothing is more easy than to complete the whole by conjecture. Upon 

 this principle we shall explain Tra^ayiyvmoi. We think it probable that 

 the whole is a dialogue in the manner of Lucian ; and we are justified 

 in supposing it to take place between a physician and his patient, since 

 the sons of j^sculapius have in all ages been peculiarly exposed to the 

 brunt of satire. We must further observe that, owing to the ancient 

 practice of making all the letters of a MS. closely consecutive, without 

 any interval to mark the end of each word, four distinct words, Tra^a, 

 yiy, VYiT, ot have been run into one. 



The patient, it seems, is recommended by his physician to try sea- 

 bathing. He, probably, replies, " ttcu ;" " where ? " And the physician, 

 perhaps, answers, " 'cv l.cvvio);" at " Sunium" (Sunium having been the 

 Brighton of ancient Greece, as is implied by Homer's caUiug it •' l,ouvicv, 

 om^cv A9>ivwv," " Sunium, the end of Athens," that is, of the Athenian 

 season). The patient possibly asks what conveyances there are to 

 Sunium ? The doctor, who seems to have been a wag, answers, 

 "srafa yiy, v»t ot ;" — " Barrow (sc. wheelbarrow), gig, neat hoy ;" there- 

 by clearly establishing the existence of these three vehicles. It may be 

 objected that the word <^apa is " parrovv :" but why may not these dis- 

 courses, evidently vulgarisms, by the physician suggesting to a sick 

 man such a thing as a ho}', have used tt for S, as the Welch do p or b, 

 and as they did in the days of Shakspeare (witness Fluellin's expres- 

 sion of " Alexander the Pig," &c.) Should grammarians contend that 

 TTa^ayiyvrjToi, if any thing, must be a misprint for ■^a^ayiyvr,rai, the third 

 person singular, present tense, passive or mede voice of Tra^ayiyvo/xai, 

 we can only answer that, until they strike out of their reading as much 

 information as we have from ours, we must be permitted to adhere to 

 our own. Having thus proved that the ancients were acquainted with 

 our private carriages, are we to imagine that they were destitute of 

 public conveyances ? By no means. Many years ago, a mere boy 

 (to the shame of all gi'own scholars be it spoken), by mere acuteness of 

 penetration, discovered that 



" Caesar ivit in Galliam sunima dilijrentla" 



meant 



" Cassar went into Gaul on the top of the diligence." 



