ning could make a furrow at all. To us, it is more probable, that this wide furrow in the middle of the arena, was made by the motion of these victims in their torture, by their running round a ftake while they were confined (fixo guttere) in an upright pofition by the tunica molefta; or that they were tied to a stake (fixo guttere) on a fledge, and dragged about the amphitheatre, and thus made the wide furrow in the fand.-But we are not fatiffied with our own explanation, or, rather, conjecture; we perceive that objections may be made to it: but we are clearly of opinion that this line relates a circumftance in the punishment; and is not a tranfition to a reflection on it.-What we have written, may induce Mr. M. to reconfider the paffage, with a view of rendering it more luminous.

We shall notice one more difficult paffage: it is that where mention is made of the poor Jews, fee Sat. iii. 1. 14.

(Juvenal.) Quorum cophinus, fænumque fupellex. (Tranflation.) Of whom a basket and hay are the household stuff. (Note.) 1 basket and bay, &c.] Thefe were all the furniture thefe poor creatures had-the fum total of their goods and chattels.

This line has been looked upon as very difficult to expound. Some commentators have left it without any attempt toward an explanation. Others have rather added to, than diminished the difficulty, whatever it may be. They tell us, that thefe were the marks, not of their poverty, but, by an ancient cuftom, of their fervitude in Egypt, where, in baskets, they carried hay, ftraw, and fuch things, for making of brick, and in fuch like labours. See Exod. v. 7-18. This comment, with the reafons given to fupport it, we can only fay, are very far fetched, and are not warranted by any account we have of the Jewish cuftoms.

Others fay, that the hay was to feed their cattle-But how could thefe poor Jews be able to purchase, or to maintain, cattle, who were forced to beg in order to maintain themfelves? Others-that the hay was for their bed, on which they lay-but neither is this likely; for the poet, Sat. vi. 1. 541. defcribes a mendicant Jewefs, as coming into the city, and leaving her bafket and hay behind her; which implies that the basket and hay were ufually carried about with them when they went a-begging elsewhere. Now it is not to be fuppofed that they should carry about fo large a quantity of hay, as ferved them to lie upon when at home in the grove.

It is clear, that the basket and hay are mentioned together here and in the other place of Sat. vi. from whence I infer, that they had little wicker baskets in which they put the money, provifions, or other fmall alms which they received of the paffers-by; and, in order to ftow them the better, and to prevent their dropping through the interftices of the wicker, put wifps of hay, or dried grafs, in the inide of the baskets. Thefe Jew beggars were as well known by these baskets with hay in them, as our beggars by their wallets, or our foldiers by their knapfacks. Hence the Jewels, Sat. vi. left her basket and hay behind her when she came into the city, for fear they fhould betray her, and fubject her to punishment for infringing the Emperor's order against the Jews coming into the city. Her manner of begging too, by a whisper in the ear, feems to confirm this fuppofition.

Ii3

fition. The Latin cophinus is the fame Gr. os-which is afed feveral times in the New Teftament to denote a provision-bafket, made ufe of among the Jews. See Matt. xiv. 20 Matt. xvi. 19. Mark, viii. 19, 20. Mark, vi. 43. Luke, ix. 17. Joh. vi. 13.'

After having thus tranfcribed Mr. Madan's note, we also shall give our opinion as to the meaning of this difficult paffage. Since the fanum (hay), as well as the cophinus, is mentioned as appertaining to household stuff (supellex), we are difposed to adopt that explanation which makes the hay noticed by Juvenal to be fomething made of hay, as a platted mat, or mattrafs to lie on. Thefe miferable Jews might carry their provifions and little all in a basket; and at their backs a kind of portable bed, mar, or couch inade of hay, which they fpread under them at night: nor does the other paffage where this fame expreffion occurs (foni, cophinique relicti) appear to us to make this interpreta tion in the leaft improbable. On the other hand, there are feveral parts of the N. T. which make it probable, that it was no unufual thing for the poorer Jews to carry at their backs fome fort of bed; the Jewels in Sat. vi, was fenfible that this cuftom was a kind of badge of her nation; and therefore when she went incog, into the city, the left her basket and hay bed behind her. She walked without taking up her bed, as he was wont to do".

By these remarks, we do not mean to difparage Mr. Madan's interpretation; but only with him to review the paffage, in the light in which we have, with others, ventured to place it; perfuaded that he will confider thefe animadverfions as a proof of the attention which we have paid to his ufeful publication.

The labour which Mr. Madan has taken to explain and elucidate the nervous though difficult Perfius, will do him credit. We shall adduce, as a fpecimen, the following paffage in Sat. ii. remarking that not only here, but in feveral places, he has enriched his notes by the most appofite references to our immortal Shakspeare:

Pofcis of em nervis, corpufque fidele fenecæ :

Efto, age: fed grandes patine, tucetoque craffa

Annuere his fuperos vetuere, Jovemque morantur.

You afk ftrength for your nerves, and a body faithful to old age. Be it fo-go on: but great dishes, and fat fausages,

Have forbidden the gods to affent to these, and hinder Jove.

You ofk ftrength, &c.] Another prays for ftrength of nerves, and

that his bedy may not fail him when he comes to be old.

Be it fo-go on.] 1 fee no harm in this, fays Perfius; you af nothing but what may be reafonably defired, therefore I don't find fault with your praying for these things go on with your petitions.

Great dibes.] But while you are praying for ftrength of body, and for an healthy old age, you are deftroying your health, and laying in for a difeafed old age, by your gluttony and luxury.

Or, perhaps, Juvenal only means to fly, that thefe miferable Jews only a basket to put their provifions in, and hay or firaw to lie on.

Saujages.]

Saufages.] Tuceta-a kind of meat made of pork or beef chopped, or other stuff, mingled with fuet.

Have forbidden, &c.] While you are praying one way, and living another, you yourfelf hinder the gods from granting your wishes.

Hinder Jove.] Prevent his giving you health and strength, by your own destroying both.

The poet here ridicules thofe inconfiftent people, who pray for health and ftrength of body, and yet live in fuch a manner as to impair both. Nothing but a youth of temperance is likely to infure an old age of health. This is finely touched by the matterly pen of our Shakespeare—

Tho' I look old, yet am I ftrong and lufty:
For in my youth I never did apply

Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood;
Nor did I with unbashful forehead woo
The means of weakness and debility;
Therefore my age is as a lufty winter,
Frofty, but kindly

As
Is you like it, A&t ii. Sc. iii.'

When Mr. M. is preparing this work for a fecond edition, we would have him confider whether venofus liber should not be tranflated the fwollen inftead of veiny book; whether doctus pofuiffe figuras laudatur is accurately rendered, to have laid down learned figures he is praised; whether vitrea bilis might not have been tranflated green bile, and caudam jactare 10 spread forth (not to baft) your tail *. His explanation of the phrafe (in Sat. vi) maris expers, does not accord with venit; and as to the exofatus ager, we throw it as a bone for other critics:-at the fame time, giving it as our opinion, that, in Perfius's hard way of metaphor, it may well fignify a cultivated field. See Ifaiah, v. 2. and Bifh 'P Lowth's note.

Before we finish this article, humanity, and juftice to Mr. Madan, prompt us to inform our readers that the whole profit of this edition is to be prefented to a worthy clergyman in the country, with a large family and fmall living. This will be an additional recommendation of the work before us :

Mollifima corda

Humano generi dare fe natura fatetur,

Que lachrymas dedit; hæc noftri pars optima fensús.
Plorare ergo jubet cafum lugentis amici.

Juv.Sat. xv. 131.

* In Juvenal, we think that fegmentatis cunis (Sat. vi ) should be tranflated inlaid, rather than embroidered, cradles; flavo galero †, a yellow bonnet, rather than peruke; pultes, hafty-puoding, rather than water-gruel; [Perfius, Sat. vi. 40. Mr. M. tranflates pultis, pudding; and calculus, Sat. xi. 1. 132. by calculus, rather than by chefs man; for the defcription of the game called calculi by the Romans, in Ovid, Am. lib xiii. 357-366. clearly proves that it was not chefs. See Archæologia, vol ix. 16, &c.

Sat. viii, 208. Mr. M. tranflates galerus, a long cap.

ART. II. The Prognoftics and Prorrhetics of Hippocrates; tranflated from the original Greek; with large Annotations, critical and explanatory to which is prefixed a fhort Account of the Life of Hippocrates. By John Moffat, M. D. Tranflator of Aretæus. 8vo. pp. 312. 5s. Boards. Elliot and Co. 1788.

F

NEW of the writings of the ancients have come down to

us in a more confused ftate than thofe of Hippocrates. Befide the ill arrangement, in the various editions of them that have been published, they abound with repetitions, contradictory affertions, and irreconcilable differences of opinion. We can in no way account for thefe great imperfections, but by fuppofing that the author left behind him, not only thofe ineftimable pieces to which he had given the finishing ftroke, but also many loofe papers and memoranda, which feem to have been the materials of which his more perfect and finished works were formed, His furvivors, who probably reverenced every fcrap which fell from his pen, finding these loofe and detached papers, as well as the elaborate treatifes, were perhaps unwilling that any should be deftroyed; and confequently preferved every thing they found in his study.

That Hippocrates was a great obferver of nature, is evident from his writings; and his fyftem of phyfic is univerfally acknowleged to be erected on the ftable foundation of facts and experience. He was, doubtlefs, in the habit of making many curious obfervations, and committing them inftantly to paper, His practice was extenfive; and his pupils, who were difperfed over all Greece, and in many parts of Thrace, communicated to him fuch remarks as their practice afforded. From this mas of materials, it is probable that he fabricated the excellent work on Prognoftics, which bears every intrinfic mark of being a finished piece, and alfo one of his latest productions. The greatest part of the account of epidemical difeafes, of the book on Grifes, of the Prænotions, and of the Prorrhetics, not to mention other books that are publifhed in every edition of his works, feem to contain the hints or original memoranda for this great production and it is, perhaps, for this very reason that commentators complain of the repetitions, inconfiftencies, and imperfections in the books above mentioned, excepting the firft and third of the feven books on epidemics.

Having thus hazarded our fuppofition concerning the manner in which Hippocrates compofed his treatife on prognostics, we shall only add, that, after a general difcourfe on the nature of medical predictions, he delivers in it fome excellent obfervations on the good and bad fymptoms in acute difeafes; then follow confiderations refpe&ting a crifis, and aphorifms on critical days; relapfes are next treated; and to them fucceeds

10

ал

an enumeration of good and bad fymptoms in various kinds of fevers. The book concludes with fome general directions.for afcertaining fuch a thorough knowlege of the fymptoms, as will enable the phyfician to form a juft prognoftication of the confe quence of the disease.

Dr. Moffat fays, in his preface:

I thought I should perform an acceptable fervice, by recurring to the great fountain of medical prophecy, and tranflating into our own language the admired Prognoftica, and the first of thefe [thofe] books generally termed the Prorrhetica of Hippocrates, for this one alone can be juftly afcribed to the venerable father of Phyfic. Such a work, however, it was obvious, could not be executed in a manner fui able to its importance, except upon a large fcale. Some parts would require elucidation, others to be afcertained with accuracy, and many it would be proper to collate with parallel paffages, both of Hippocrates's own writings and thofe of other celebrated ancients. How far I have fucceeded in this arduous defign, it would be improper for me to determine. But I have the fatisfaction to acknowledge, that it has not been fubmitted to the public without the approbation and patronage of fome of the moft diftinguished medical characters of the age.'

We have copied the foregoing paragraph, because it is the bill of fare to the book; and we lament exceedingly that, unlike fome of the most diftinguished medical characters of the age, we are obliged not only to with-hold our approbation, but to say that Dr. Moffat's ftyle is obfcure and almoft unintelligible; that he has frequently perverted or mistaken the sense of the original; and that his notes are chiefly taken from former annotators.

In fupport of our firft charge, we shall transcribe the first paragraph:

In my opinion it is highly neceffary that a phyfician fhould beftow the utmost pains in attaining a foreknowledge of events, for when, with the fick, he perceives beforehand, and evinces a clear conception of the past, prefent, and future, difcovering at the fame time the neglects which they have committed, a higher degree of credit will be paid to his knowledge of their fituation; fo that mankind will, with greater confidence, commit themfelves to his care. The cure will be better performed from a foreknowledge of what is to happen; but it is not poffible that all the fick fhould be restored to a state of health, as the power of effecting this would indeed far furpaís any anticipation of confequences."

To give a more ample fpecimen or defective language, would be needlefs; we fhall therefore proceed to call in evidence for fupporting our fecond charge.

The paffage which follows the defcription of the Facies Hippocratica, fo well known in the Schools of Phyfic, is thus tranf Jated by Dr. Moffat :

Should the countenance, therefore, be such in the beginning of the disease, and you cannot from other fymptoms conjecture the caufe, it is necessary to ask whether or not the patient is of a wake

tul