DIVI BOTANICI. 1^7 



only, the fact of this royal tribute to a naturalist's approved merits 

 has been unreservedly admitted as an authentic record by the latter 

 Greek, the Latin, Arabian, and modern phytographers. These 

 reasons then, with others that might be adduced to the same effect, 

 unite in authorising the historical induction — that this plant de- 

 rived its original name from the generosity of Juba, who consecrated 

 its appropriate designation to be a memorial of his affection for 

 Musa's brother ; and that, therefore, both the rules of Linnaeus and 

 the laws of eternal justice require the glory of this philosophical 

 deification to he recognized as the right of Euphorbus the physician. 

 Under the Euphorbia as a generic head, the Linneean botanists 

 have arranged a numerous tribe, embracing four hundred species of 

 vegetables ,- and, in the system styled Natural, this plant represents 



and literature. He was born in 1588, and died in 1G53 ; but, as one of his 

 learned countrymen observes, " the high reputation of Saumaise has not 

 been admitted by posterity : he is generally regarded as " un critique bizarre, 

 airjre et presomptueux ;" yet, he adds, although " ce savant cut beaucoup de 

 ridicules, il eut aussi de belles qualites qui Irs eompenserent." This "savant" 

 fancied that the Eaphorbium is specified in one of Melenger's epigrams, where 

 the ivtpo$*s axavfas is compared to the poetry of Archilochus, in allusion to its 

 satirical causticity ; but the phenomenon would be somewhat marvellous, if 

 the ancient physicians were unacquainted with an herb and its active ener- 

 gies which an ancient versifier knew so well as to employ them in a figura- 

 tive illustration. There is a miswriting here, however ; for it is proved by 

 Fabricius that the words should be <p«/5££«; axavtvs, with an emblematical re- 

 ference to the stinging sarcasms of Archilochus which might have suggested 

 the phrases archilochia edicta for virulent edicts, and archilochium carmen for 



severe or railing verse See Salmasii Exercitationcs de Homonymis Hyles Ialri- 



rtr ; folio, Ullrajecti, 1G89: and Bibliotheca Graca, sire notitiascriptorum veterum 

 Grtecorum ; auctore J. A. Fahicio : xii Tomis, Ato, Hamburgi, 1790 — 1809. — 

 Archilochus was a native of Paros : he lived in the seventh century before 

 the Christian era : his writings consisted of epigrams, odes, satires, and ele- 

 gies. Lycambes assented to the marriage of his daughter Neobule, with the 

 poet ; but she was given to a wealthier suitor, and the disappointment so 

 incensed the cynic that he satirised both the father and his child with unen- 

 durable severity, and they hanged themselves in a fit of despair. The satir- 

 ist was banished from Sparta, as an indelicate and petulant intermeddler ; 



and he afterwards lost his life by assassination Meleager was born at Tyre, 



and died in the island of Cos, so famous as the birth-place of Hippocrates, 

 Apelles, and Simonides, and also for its wine and silk-worms. He flourished 

 about one hundred years before our Saviour's advent ; and it is to the good 

 taste arid zeal of Meleager that the admirers of ancient poetry are indebted 

 for the 'AN80 Aon \, a collection of Greek epigrams which he selected from 

 forty-six (it the most esteemed poets See Anihologia Gr&ca, ab Ilugone Gro- 

 in* lidinn carmine reddita, at Hieronimo <!'■ Bosch edita ; quatuor lomis, I/" 

 Ullrajecti, 17**r» — 1H10 



