respecting the music of the spheres. Here we find the rudiments of modern harmonics, and the system of concords and discords on arithmetical principles: -"Hemiolius est, cum de duobus numeris major habet totum minorem, et insuper ejus medietatem; ut sunt tria ad duo. nam in tribus sunt duo, et media pars eorum, id est, unum. et ex hoc numero, qui hemiolius dicitur, nascitur sympnonia, quæ appellatur διὰ πέντε.” Here surely is an approach to those arithmetical proportions of first, third, and fifth, on which the system of thorough bass is founded in modern music as a practical art. There seems also, in the passage just quoted, an obscure hint of a major and minor key. Oscines, Varro tells us, are "Aves ore et cantu auspicium facientes." From óxos, soot, or the black and thick substance produced by smoke, comes the adjective Voλóevres, as used in the following passage:-"Exa5ov δὲ τούτων, καλασκῆψαν εἰς τὴν γῆν, σκηπτὸς ὀνομάζεται. τῶν δὲ κεραυνῶν, οἱ μὲν αἰθαλώδεις, ψολόεντες λέγονται· οἱ δὲ ταχέως διάττοντες, ἀργῆτες· ἑλικίαι δὲ, οἱ γραμμοειδῶς φερόμενοι. Arist. Lib. de Mundo. The Greek word yúpos signifies a small mass of flesh of a round figure. Hence a frog is called yugivos at the commencement of its generation, as being a shapeless black lump, with no parts distinctly indicated but two large eyes and a tail. Thus Plato in Theæteto : — Ἵνα μεγαλοπρεπῶς καὶ πανὺ καταφρονητικῶς ἤρξατο ἡμῖν λέγειν· ἐνδεικνύμενος ὅτι ἡμεῖς μὲν αὐτὸν ὥσπερ θεὸν ἐθαυμάζομεν ἐπὶ σοφία, ὁ δ ̓ ἄρα ἐτύγχανεν ὧν εἰς φρόνησιν οὐδὲν βελτίων βατράχου γυρίνου, μὴ ὅτι ἄλλου του ἀνθρώπων. We see here why γυρίνοι came to signify, in a metaphorical sense, fools and stupid per sons. There were two Greek words, συμβολὴ and σύμο Boxov, both from the same compound verb. The Pythagoric symbols were certain pointed and short sentences, often obscure and enigmatical, employed as means of instruction by Pythagoras. The word afterwards came to signify the payment of a person's scot, or quota of a reckoning, whence our legal term of paying scot and lot, meaning parochial payments, which give a title to the rights and privileges of a parishioner. This compound phrase sometimes assumes the proverbial sense of a sound drubbing: as when Falstaff says, that if he had not counterfeited, that hot termagant Scot would have paid him scot and lot too. In the following passage symbola, not symbolum, is used for a reckon. ing: Phædrum, aut Cliniam Dicebant, aut Niceratum; nam hi tres tum simul Amabant. "Eho! quid Pamphilus ?" "Quid? symbolam Dedit; cœnavit." Gaudebam. Terent. in Andria. Pamphilus supped, and paid his reckoning. The word is used in another sense for a badge, or rallying point, for persons of the same party; conformably to which, it is applied to regimental colours, to a royal or national standard. Zuμbλǹ also, but not σúμboλov, takes the signification of a conference or parley, and of comparison. It is also synonymous with a type, in the scriptural sense of the latter word. The goddesses presiding over fate and fortune are etymologised by Pomp. Festus in the following terms: Tenitæ credebantur esse sortium deæ, dictæ quod tenendi haberent potestatem." Lib. xviii. -- The Tubilustria was the day of benediction at Rome for the trumpets dedicated to sacrifices:"Tubilustria dies appellabant in quibus agna tubas lustrabant. Tubilustria quibus diebus adscriptum in fastis est, cum in atrio sutorio agna tubæ lustrantur, ab eis tubos appellant, quod genus lustrationis ex Arcadia Pallanteo transvectum esse dicunt."Pomp. Fest. Proxima Vulcani lux es; Tubilustria dicunt: Ovid. Fast. lib. v: MISCELLANEOUS PASSAGES FROM HORACE. Ut pictura, poesis; erit quæ, si propius stes, THIS analogy between poetry and painting is just, and judiciously stated. Effects in either can only be produced by a just distribution of light and shade. A painter who shall paint in a strong light what is only adapted to a faint one, will be unable to place the spectator at any point of view, at which either the proportions of symmetry or the gradations of perspective will meet the eye aright. So is it with a poem; some parts of which are designed for a full light, others to fall into a graduated obscurity. The principle applies to the finishing of figures, as well as to perspective and chiaro scuro. A judicious painter will execute the principal and the subordinate parts with different degrees of care the former will be given in full and exact proportion, with all the mastery of drawing; the most remote and least important among the latter will rather be indicated than made out. In like manner, the poet will sketch minor objects slightly, and leave them in a subdued tone of colouring, that the reader may relax from the earnestness of his gaze, and recruit his attention for the more prominent features of the work. Uniform grace in a picture, or unrelenting brilliancy of thoughts and expressions in a poem, will in the end reduce the too highly stimulated admirer to a condition little short of a critical gutta serena. Cicero has applied the same principle of gradation to oratory: — "Quamquam illa ipsa exclamatio, Non potest melius, sit velim crebra; sed habeat tamen illa in dicendo admiratio ac summa laus umbram aliquam et recessum, quo magis id, quod erit illuminatum, extare atque eminere videatur."-De Oratore, lib. iii. Sic Jovis interest Optatis epulis impiger Hercules; Carmin. lib. iv. od. 8. The life of the gods, denominated apotheosis, when conferred on mortals, was distinguished by two especial privileges: the one, that of sitting at the table of Jupiter; the other, the marriage of some goddess. Horace was indebted to Homer, in the eleventh book of the Odyssey, for the hint of Hercules enjoying the' former privilege of divinity; and being a notoriously huge feeder, he of course made the most of his free quarters: but he does not notice his investment with the latter on the part of Homer, who gives him Hebe, the goddess of youth, for a wife: neither does he touch upon that curious opinion of the ancients, respecting the threefold partition of man after death the body of Hercules was consumed |