fil Classic Literature. 



much doubt with respect to this point. The com- 

 position, though exquisitely beautiful, is said by 

 good judges to want some of the more striking 

 characteristics of Homer, and, in particular, to be 

 deficient in that energy and spirit for which he is 

 so remarkable/ 



Nearly contemporaneous with the above men- 

 tioned discovery in Moscow, w^as another made in 

 Venice, byM. Villoison, a learned Frenchman* 

 who, among many valuable manuscripts which he 

 examined in the Library of St. Mark in that city, 

 found a very curious copy of the Iliad, made in the 

 tenth century, and enriched with the notes and 

 scholia, hitherto unpublished, of sixty of the most 

 eminent critics of ancient times. Besides the notes 

 and scholia, the manuscript was found to con-* 

 tain various readings, equally numerous and im- 

 portant, drawn from the ancient editions of Ho- 

 mer, given by Chios, Cyprus, Crete, Marseilles, 

 Sinope, and Argos; editions before known only 

 by name, and by some citations of Eustathius. 

 This manuscript also exhibits various readings 

 drawn from many other editions; so that it may 

 be emphatically called the Homerus Variorum 

 of all antiquity, and more especially the Homer 

 of the famous school of Alexandria. M. Vil- 

 loison has since committed this copy of the first 

 Epic poem to the press, and thereby made an in- 

 estimable present to the lovers of Greek literature. 



To this chapter belongs also some notice of an 

 event which the classical scholar regards with no 

 small interest. Nearly thirty years ago the Presi- 

 dent De Brosses, a distinguished philologist of 

 France, finding, in the course of his researches, 

 some remains ot an History of the Roman Republic, 



p Vide Opnxov Tju-voc £i$ Ari[xYir^av : vel Komeri Hymnus ad Cererem 3 

 nunc pri mum editus a Davids Rvhnkenio. Lug. Bat. 8vo. 1780. 



