Book II: SIME tranfire conantes, multitudine telorum repule runt. Who can doubt then but fome of the oldcft books having IEXPO, a careless transcriber, trufting to his conjectures, wrote AIEXPNÉ, whereas he ought to have written ΙΣΧΥΡΩΣ, 2 letter only being negligently omitted: ixugus aywoxμives, audaciffime, acriter praeliantes. By this, which scarce deferves 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, confpicatus, DECIMAM LEGIONEM subfidio noftris mifit. But between dwdexalov and rà déxalov, 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, whilft they affaffinated Caefar in the Senate. So Plutarch relates the story in the life of Brutus, and Cicero in his fecond Philippic; cum intorficeretur Caefar, tum te à TREBONIO vidimus fevocari. Shakespeare in Jul. Caef. A&t III.

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

Brutus,

SECT.

SECT. VII.

N transcribing not only fingle letters are 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. I. c. 1. ft. 43.

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

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

read, the fleepers' spent, i. e. ill treated, brought to shame. A word commonly used by Spencer; and by our poet, in Hamlet, A& III.

"Ham. How in my words foever the befbent.

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. fcendan, confundere, dedecorare. Germ. Schandan. A fchand probrum. Anglo-S. frande. Perhaps originally from the Greek σκάνδαλον, σκανδαλίζω.

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

"He fent our Meffengers."

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

"Unxere matres Iliae addictum 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? Aɛuxóτegoi xióvos. II.' x'. . 437. And fo they are defcribed

I

described by Euripides in his Rhefus.

horfes Diomed and Ulyffes carried off,

Thefe

" ARDENTESque avertit equos in caftra. Æn.I.476. ARDENTES is a general epithet, a fort of botching in poetry; CANDENTES is proper 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 seems 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 seems to have been omitted in K. Lear. A& III.

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

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

So in Macbeth. Act I. "This castle hath a "pleasant feat." i. e. is pleasantly fituated. Or perhaps fea is only a wrong fpelling for fee; from the Latin word fedes: which is used by Douglas in his verfion of Virgil. p. 13. 1. 32.

In Cartage fet hir fe.

i. e. her fee, refidence. The word is ftill retained in ufe, as, a Bishop's fee, &c. Chaucer too uses it in the Monkes tale. 263.

"At Babilon was his foveraine fe."

In the Twelfth Night. Act I.

"O Spirit of Love, how quick and fresh art thou!

"That, notwithstanding thy capacity

Receiveth as the fea, nought enters there, "Of what validity and pitch soe'er,

"But falls into abatement and low price, "Even in a minute. So full of shapes is fancy "That it alone is high fantastical."

A letter only is omitted, and we should read Ir's fancy, viz. of Love.

And in the same play, and Act.

"Sir Toby. Fie, that you'll fay fo! he plays o'th' violdegambo, and speaks three or four

"languages