218 



of the description, which the scholiast of Apol- 

 lonius has left us of these machines for kindling 

 fire*. He says, that the upper wood, which 

 turns, resembles a wimble : vxpaartofffiov ?pw$m 

 and such is the idea given by your paintings. 

 No philologist has remarked the allusion, which 

 Apollonius makes in this place to the passage of 

 the Homeric hymn to Mercury. This allusion 

 however seems to me calculated to dispel the 

 doubts, which the learned Rhunkenius has raised 

 respecting the interpolation of this passage *f\ 



The resemblance of the pyre'ia to the wimble 

 must be referred to the early period of the inven- 

 tion of this tool ; and we might be surprised at 

 finding it attributed to Dedalus^:, who was a con- 

 temporary of Theseus, if the invention of the 

 Athenian artist did not agree more exactly with 

 the trepan, of sculptors, a much more perfect in- 

 strument than the mere wimble, from the rapidity 

 which the cord and the moving traverse give to 

 its motion. This connexion between the pyreia 

 and the wimble has not escaped the ancient wri- 

 ters, who treat of the culture of trees ||. They 

 complain, that the action of the borer, employed 



* Liv. 1, v. 1184. 



t Ep. crit. 1, ad Hymn, in Mercurium, v. 25. 

 % Pliny, lib. 7, § 57. 



j| Ibidem, lib. 17, § 25 ; Columella, lib. 4, v, 29, 



