936 
ed. The price of copper, in this country 
is now higher than upon the Continent; 
and whilst the necessities of the state call 
upon every class of society for enormous 
supplies, any circumstance that operates 
injuriously upon the means of raising such 
supplies, should beceme the subject of 
open and serious investigation. 
But it is not to Jarge branches of busi- 
ness that the formation of public compa- 
nies has been confined. During the last 
scarcity of provision, when bakers were 
compelled to mix coarser grain with 
wheat in some principal towns in 
England a subscription was encouraged 
to establish flour and bread concerns. The 
professed object was to make bread from 
good and unmixed wheat flour. It was 
not considered that the consumption of 
good wheat alone increased the calamity 
of famine; and that such associations, 
must deprive one class of tradesmen of 
the means of gaining a livelihood, But 
waving the impolicy of the measure, yet 
since the inducement is happily done 
away (fur towns having bread and flour 
concerns are not now better supplied 
than others are), additional reason is af- 
forded for the prevention of the existing 
evil. dies 
That a large capital can command .a 
fertain business under less expences 
than ifthe same capital and business were 
divided into ten distinct portions, can be 
readily apprehended. But when this sav- 
ing of expence is spread amongst two or 
three thousand shares, the advantage to 
individual subscribers is hardly percepti- 
ble; and is no compensation for the loss 
of employment experienced by ten trades- 
men. ‘Thedirection of the concern is ge- 
nerally left to a hired manager, and the 
appearance of the latter in the corn- 
market has been repeatedly observed to 
produce an immediate rise in the price of 
wheat; for his purchases are necessarily 
great, and hisown interest is not concern- 
ed, at whatever rate these are paid for. 
Instead of the number of these associ- 
ations diminishing, there prevails in some , study of his poem, 
parts of the country a disposition to in- 
crease it. A public company for brew- 
ing, and another for the carriage of goods 
by waggons, have been proposed. As 
there is no trade but what is liable to si- 
tnilar encroachments, the extent to which 
the evil may be carried should awaken 
the community to an examination of its 
present and future effects. 
Your’s, &c. 
Birmingham.  OpsEnvator, 
Lyceum of Ancient Literature—No. X. 
% , 
[ Oct. cM 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
LYCZUM OF ANCIENT LITERA- 
TURE.—N Oo. X. 
THE PHARSALIA. 
Critical dissertation on the merit of © 
Lucan, however short, may have 
this disadvantage, that, as he isan author 
little read, compared. with his great pre- 
cursors in the Epos, the curiosity of the 
student is faintly excited by the praise or 
censure of a poet, whom he has been ac~ 
customed to consider as so much inferior 
to Homer or to Virgil. The perusal of the 
Pharsalia is not necessarily imposed in 
our schools; few, therefore, but those 
whose literary taste induces them to range 
through the whole circle of the classics, « 
have been disposed to read it. It has 
also been the peculiar misfortune of Lu- 
can, that he has never met with a trans 
lator who, with genius to admire and imi- 
tate his beauties, and sagacicy to detect 
and avoid his errors, has enabled the less 
learned reader to peruse the poem in his 
own language. The version of our trage- 
dian Rowe has all the suavity but feeble- 
ness of style which marks his plays. In 
vain would we look for the spirit and 
energy of the Latin poet. In France he 
was equally unfortunate. For a long 
time the French had no other version 
than that of Brebeuf, written in the early 
stage of the literature of that country, 
when the declamatory style of Spain — 
adopted by Rotrou and Corneille was so 
much in vogue. Brebeuf may be said to 
have out-heroded Herod, having magni- 
fied to an extraordinary degree the de- 
fects of Lucan by his own exuberant and 
pompous phraseology. But the progress 
of letters, and the prevalence of a better 
taste, soon extinguished his temporary 
fame, and again consigned Lucan to the 
libraries of the learned. Marmontel, 
who thought the universal prejudice 
against him unfounded and unjust, endea 
voured, with some success, to revive the 
memory of Lucan, and to recommend the 
With Marmontei, we 
think that his defects are sufficiently 
counterbalanced by merit peculiarly his 
own; that a writer supported by the 
manly and unbiassed praise of Tacitus* 
and Quintilian,+ must be supposed not 
* Speaking of Lucan’s father, he says, 
«¢ Annzum Lucanum genuerat, grande adja= © 
mentum claritudinis.” Tac. Ann. lib,13, 7 
+ ‘*Lucanus ardens & concitatus & sen= ~ 
tentiis clarissimus,” Quint. Inst. Orat. iby 
10, cd. be) 
