Et pro PURPUREO poenas dat Scylla capillo.

Tibullus, I, 4.

Carmine PURPUREA eft Nifi coma.

Ovid. art. amat. 1. 1.

Filia PURPUREOS Nifi furata capillos.

Here purpureos capillos is exactly the fame as the above claros capillos: i. e. fplendid, fhining bright, &c. And Spencer uses it in this fenfe. B. V. c. 10. ft. 16.

"The Morrow next appear'd with PURPLE "hair."

It follows therefore according to all critical rules, that instead of canos or caros, we should read,

-Patri CLAROS furata capillos.

Again: Plutarch in the life of Caefar, p. 717. E. tells us that the Belgae, a people of old Gaul, were conquered by the Romans, and that they fought like cowards, ΑΙΣΧΡΩΣ αγωνισαμένες. But Caefar himself, from whom Plutarch has the ftory, fays quite otherwife, L. II. c. x. ACRITER in eo loco pugnatum eft. Hoftes impeditos noftri in flumine aggreffi, magnum eorum numerum occiderunt per eorum corpora reliquos AUDACIS

SIME tranfire conantes, multitudine telorum repulerunt. Who can doubt then but fome of the oldeft books having IEXPOE, a careless transcriber, trufting to his conjectures, wrote AIEXPNE, ΑΙΣΧΡΩΣ, whereas he ought to have written IEXYPE, a letter only being negligently omitted: ixugus azwuoaμéves, audaciffime, acriter praeliantes. By this, which scarce deserves the name of an alteration in words, but a very great one as to the fenfe, both " Plutarch and Caefer are reconciled.

12 In the fame life, p. 718. A. Plutarch attributes that to the twelfth legion, which Caefar gives to the tenth. Caefar fays, L. II. c. xxvi. T. Labienus, caftris hoftium potitus et ex loco fuperiore, quæ res in noftris caftris gererentur, cönfpicatus, DECIMAM LEGIONEM fubfidio noftris mifit. But between δωδέκατον and τὸ δέκατον, how flight is the change Again to reconcile Plutarch to himself, in Julius Caefar, inftead of Brutus Albinus we must read Trebonius, for it was he detained Antony without, whilst they affaffinated Caefar in the Senate. So Plutarch relates the ftory in the life of Brutus, and Cicero in his fecond Philippic; cum intorficeretur Caefar, tum te à TRE BONIO vidimus fevocari. Shakespeare in Jul. Caef. A& III.

Caff. Trebonius knows his time; for look
you, Brutus,
He draws Mark Antony out of the way.

SECT.

SECT. VII.

N tranfcribing not only fingle letters are

IN

omitted, but often parts of words, and fometimes whole words. A letter is omitted in the following paffage of Spencer. In the Fairy Queen, B. 1. c. I. ft. 43.

Hither (quoth be) me Archimago SENT
He that the ftubborn fprites can wifely tame,
He bids thee to him fend, for his intent,

1

A fit falfe dream, that can delude the SLEEPERS SENT.

read, the fleepers' fhent, i. e. ill treated, brought to shame. A word commonly used by Spencer; and by our poet, in Hamlet, A&t III.

"Ham. How in my words foever the befhent.

And 'tis remarkable that this word was wrongly spelt in Troilus and Creffida. Act II. where Agamemnon fays of Achilles,

"He fhent our Messengers.

1 Anglo-S. scendan, confundere, dedecorare. Germ. fchandan. A fchand probrum. Anglo-S. scande. originally from the Greek σκάνδαλον, σκανδαλίζω.

Perhaps

Se

So Mr. Theobald very judiciously restored it; the passage before being,

"He fent our Meffengers."

A letter, where the word began the sentence, was formerly defignedly omitted, that the tranfcriber might afterwards add it with some kind of ornament. My very learned and worthy friend Dr. Taylor has, in his Lectiones Lyfiaca, given many inftances of thefe kind of omiffions. To this caufe 'twas owing that in many editions of Horace we read,

"Unxere matres Iliae addi&um feris
"Alitibus atque canibus homicidam He&torem.”

Instead of,

"Luxere Matres, &c.”

Which reading Dr. Bentley has proved to be true, beyond all doubt; but the original blunder he has not accounted for: Unxere being a tranfcriber's conjecture, when his copy had Uxere. There is ftill remaining the very fame kind of blunder in Virgil; viz. Ardentes for Candentes, who knows not how minutely the Roman follows the Grecian poet, who tells us that the horfes of Rhefus were whiter than fnow? Auxóregoi xióvos. ́II. x. §. 437. And so they are described

described by Euripides in his Rhefus. Thefe horfes Diomed and Ulyffes carried off,

n. I. 476.

ARDENTEsque avertit equos in caftra. ARDENTES is a general epithet, a fort of botching in poetry; CANDENTES is proper and peculiar, having its fanction from Homer. Should we change then the context without further authority? I think not, unless perhaps Servius will be answerable for the alteration; for ARDENTES is explained Candidos et veloces: which feems as if in fome copy he found it,

CANDENTESque avertit equos in caftra.

i. e. Candidos.

In other copies,

ARDENTESque avertit equos in caftra.

i. e. veloces, generofos.

But let us now return to our author. A letter feems to have been omitted in K. Lear. A& III.

"From France there comes a power "Into this fcatter'd kingdom; who already "Wife in our negligence, have fecret fea "In fome of our best ports."

It seems originally to have been feat: " have " fecret feat," i. e. are fecretly fituated, lodged.'