1808.] 
sure of the classic writer, rendered either 
long or short. Permit me also to make 
my present communication a vebicle for 
one or two remarks on classical commu- 
nications in your former volumes. Mr. 
S. Wesley (in the 2nd vol, for 1806) dis- 
covers an inconsistency in Ovid’s story of 
Phacéton, when the pcet informs us that 
the rivers were dried-up by the effects of 
the flaming chariot of the sun, and af- 
terwards makes use ef the yatta flam- 
mantia ablurt ord, as applied to the Ri- 
ver Po, or Eridanus, wherein Phaéton 
fell. ‘Yo this it may be replied, wah the 
space of at least one day, according to 
hiterary precedent, may be with propriety 
yee to be occupied by the fall of 
Phaéton, in which time, the face of nature 
might ei in a considerable degree re- 
newed. I give one of the most well- 
known instances, that of Vulcan, (liom. 
Iliad 1, 592), 
Tlay Pupp peposeny, aa Yneriw aaladuils, 
Kamqeroy ev Anpsyw, doc. 
Every seeming incongruity is thus re- 
moved fromthe text of Ovid. 
While the remarks on Tieyne’s Virgil 
were promulgated in your Miscellany, an 
enquiry was made, (Sept. 1805) respect- 
ing the propriety of a line in V irgil, to. 
which no answer has yet been offered, 
excepting what I now submit. 
Rheebe diu, res si gua diu mortalibus u//a est. 
This phraseology, says the querist, is 
equivalent to any any, or to the Irish 
phrase at all at ali! 
May we not regard the word wll, Mr. 
Editor, as existing in the ablative, with a 
subaudition of purte, so frequently an- 
derstood in the Roman tongue P-—* If, in 
any point of view, duration can be as- 
cribedto mortality.” ‘This sense appears 
reasonable. . 
I have combined these subjects ina 
single letter, from a desire of attaining a 
brevity consistent with your lunits, and 
I trust, Sir, that these strictures will prove 
not Hnelecme from 
Tower-hill, April7, 1808. SyMPpHoRus. 
eae 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
Cumberland’s letter with 
SIR, 
iT SAW Mr. 
great respect. The crweltiessuffered by 
young womez who are apprentices to mil- 
liners or mantua-makers, ave not always 
perhaps deliberate and intended cruelties : 
but they are dreadful in their conse- 
quences to health, comforts, and life. 
I only object to extra-pay tor extra- 
* hours, being conyinced that, unless within 
Explanation of a Passage in Ovid, Kc. 
very cautious limits, it would defeat the 
benevolent attention. Many, and those 
of the most respectable, the active, and 
industrious, vould be te mnpted to make a 
voluntary, though unsuspected sacrifice of 
health and life. 
To limit the hours of work to be per- 
formed in those houses by law, except in 
extreme cases to which the on already is 
open, may be perhaps impracticable. But 
an associution of dadies might do ereat good 
to their sex, by resolving neve rto sacrifice 
to wi ufeeling fashion and vanity, by de- 
manding a dress to be furnished with une 
reasonable dispatch: and to encourage 
those shops where such demands do not 
meet with compliance: and by treating 
those, who are often in every respect 
equal with the best, with a kind and un- 
attected attention, nee of supercilious 
hauceur. 
COMPROMISE OF DEBTS. 
Your Correspondent appears to have 
coniounded two very different classes. 
Properly speaking, an insolvent debtor 
is a person entitled to be discharged out 
of custody, under the temporary acts 
which pass occasionally on the surrender 
of all his property; not being a trader, 
nor consequently a subject of the bank= 
rupt-laws, 
If he were 2 ¢ruder, be would be under 
a beiter provision; entitled, on obtainin 
his certificate, not only to personal liber- 
ty, but to an allowance fixed by law ac 
cording to the dividend to his creditors, 
entitled to the extinction of all his debts 
merely personal, due at the time of his 
bankruptcy. 
A compromise upon a fraudulent state« 
ment proposed by a person, whether he . 
be or be not a trader, is indeed hi shly 
criminal: a compromise without suftie 
cient information, is weak and reprehene 
sible on the part of the creditors. 
But a compromise may ‘be very pro- 
perly offered on one side, and accepted on 
the other, if it be made ona full, fair, 
honourable statement t, and accepted by 
all the creditors who stand out. If noé 
accepted by all, none are bound by its 
and any to whom 1001. or upward is due, 
may sue out a commission; for to propose 
taking /ess than their just ‘debts, i 1S a CON=- 
fia of such circunistances, or a proof 
of such a ST in the proposer, that 
the law has regarded it from almost the 
earliest commenceinent of the bankrupt 
code, as amounting to an act of banka 
ruptcy. 
Suil, if done on an honest and satisfac 
tory 
