precipitation, which many of the Commentators upon the Apocalypse have shown in applying it's predictions to existing events; events which, though to the contemporary spectator they appear of considerable magnitude, will probably seem comparatively trifling when contemplated at a due distance by the dispassionate observer. His picture of the effects of bigotry and secularity, exhibited by the Court of Rome during the dark ages, displays in various parts his accustomed mildness and benevolence. The theological student will easily divine, to what particular authority he refers in his concluding remark:"When the establishment of that Church is pronounced to be ' venerable;' when it is declared, that Protestants and Catholics are divided by thin partitions ;' when the fabric of her idolatry is dignified with the appellation of the majesty of religion;' when it is asserted, that the Son of Perdition is yet future, and that he shall be neither a Protestant nor a Papist, Jew nor Heathen,' &c. do not all these things argue a diminution of attachment to the real interests of the Church of England? Do they not imply sentiments not very unfavourable to a system of religion, which every genuine Protestant must acknowledge to be truly antichristian? *" Perhaps, after all, Dr. Henry More has suggested the most correct canon for computing the approaching ruin of Antichrist; viz. the actual advances made in the spirit and practice of Christianity. As Dr. Zouch had previously published a Work of similar character, entitled 'An Inquiry into the Prophetic Character of * Dr. Horsley, clarum et venerabile nomen, it must be owned, has not been the only modern holding this language. Mr. Wix has lately published Reflexions concerning the Expediency of a Council of the Church of England, and the Church of Rome being holden, with a View to accommodate Religious Differences, &c, &c.' That the often-adduced testimony couched in the enigmatical 666 is applicable, not specifically or personally to any of the various names of the Pope in Hebrew, Greek, or Latin, but to the generical designation of Añosατ (as I have ventured, in opposition to the authority of Irenæus, to conjecture) will, I think, on some future day be admitted not to be wholly improbable. the Romans, described in Dan. viii. 23-25.' and including several learned statements, which were again introduced in a more popular shape, by abstracts or extracts, in his subsequent Attempt'-it became necessary, with a view of preventing repetitions, to distribute between the two productions the paragraphs common to both: and this, it is trusted, has been accomplished in such a manner, as to preserve to each it's continuity of argument. To some, indeed, it may appear that he has pressed the point too far, or used language too decided; when it is recollected that even the perspicacious Paley, in his inestimable Hora Paulina, characterising one of the passages referred to in those disquisitions, * admits it to be "involved in great obscurity." But it was a favourite subject with Dr. Zouch, as may be concluded from his having composed a third Treatise upon it in Latin, which is now given to the public in the Appendix, No. IV. Of Wickliffe, the illustrious fore-runner of our English Reformers (see the Appendix, No. I.) and of his singularlyrare work, Dialogorum Libri IV. &c., the curious reader will meet with some account in Beloe's Anecdotes of Literature and Scarce Books,' I. 130., and in Lewis' valuable History of the English Versions of the Bible, pp. 17, &c. The latter work, I will here add, in it's fifth chapter exhibits such a list of translators employed by King James I. in completing the Version at present in use (Bishops Andrews, Overal, Barlow, Ravis, Abbot, Montagu, Thomson, &c. &c.) and such a view of their separate and united exertions, that it appears a degree of presumption to which language can hardly assign a name, for an unassisted individual to profess to supersede their labours. With respect to the Memoir of Sir George Wheler, it was once my hope to have been able to add to it some specimens of * 2 Thess. ii, 6, 7. his composition in the learned tongues; as I can scarcely conceive that one so loyal would allow to pass over, "without the meed of a melodious tear," the deaths of the Queen Dowager Henrietta Maria, her daughter Henrietta Duchess of Orange, and Anne Duchess of York, which in the three successive years 1669, 1670, and 1671 produced the Threni, the Lacrymæ, and the Epicedia of Cambridge, and called forth upon each occasion the ever-ready muse of Duport. * But I have no access to the corresponding Oxford volumes, and I might perhaps explore them in vain. Upon the subject of the early academical compositions of Dr. Zouch, it may be lamented that the niceties of the ancient metres were comparatively little studied, or emulated, even by the most respectable scholars who flourished sixty years since.' It was reserved for the literati of the intervening period, particularly the par nobile PORSON and BURNEY, whose loss has saddened the opening of the nineteenth century, to construct canons to which little can be added upon that arduous topic. In the preparing of these volumes for publication, I have un * To this rapid recurrence of royal funerals the learned Grecian thus alludes, in 1671: Τρις τρισι Πιερίδεσσι πονον και πενθος έθηκαν Ου γενος, ούτε τι είδος επήρκεσε κηρα μελαιναν· Τρεις Μοίραι Χαριτων κρείσσονες εισι τριωνα An interesting duodecimo might, with some trouble, be selected from the many scores of folios and quartos printed by the two Universities upon these and similar public occurrences. consciously been betrayed into the surrender of more time, than I had originally purposed to devote to it. Those, who have occasionally occupied themselves in disentangling the relics of learned men, or anticipated the perplexity in which some surviving friend might find their own (if left in their ordinary state of intermingled reference, annotation, and parenthesis) will alone be able to estimate the extent of the toil incurred. But the sacrifice has been accompanied by it's abundant compensations. I have been led to contemplate more closely the self-rewarding virtues of an unambitious good man, doing justly, and loving mercy, and walking humbly with his God: I have made my offering at the shrine of departed virtue and knowledge; and whatever fruit may be derived to others from my labours, it will be my own fault if I have not found in them materials for my individual edification. After all, it is not intended to hold out Dr. Zouch as one of those brilliant luminaries, whose career at once dazzles and disheartens. But it will gratify, I may trust, the large circle of his personal friends to have it recorded, that his talents were such as to have acquired for him perhaps nearly every thing really valuable in elegant and useful literature, while his benevolence and his integrity conciliated universal esteem and respect. And if I might adopt the feelings of those, whose regard for his memory has furnished the substance of the present Memoir, I would add in the words also of Tacitus, Hic liber professione pietatis aut laudatus erit, aut excusatus. 6 FRANCIS WRANGHAM. P. S.-In a note, I. 369, upon the subject of Spartam quam nactus es, orna, I have been guilty of a slight inaccuracy. Having cast a hasty glance over the ill-arranged index of two folio editions of Erasmus' Adages,' without discovering the reference which I expected, I too hastily despaired of learning from others what that admirable scholar appeared not to have known. A letter recently received from the Rev. James Tate, Master of Richmond School, Yorkshire, incloses to me the following extract of one addressed to him by his learned pupil James Bailey, of Trinity College, Cambridge, Author of the Latin Prize Essay on the Origin, &c. of Hieroglyphics", which by an unusual (if not unprecedented) compliment was printed at the expense of the University. "In Beck's Euripides, among the fragments of the Telephus 'On the Grecian army being roughly handled by Telephus, Agamemnon tired of the expedition might reproach Menelaus as the cause of all the mischief; telling him that, instead of pursuing a wild game in the neighbourhood of Troy, he had best confine himself to his birthright Sparta, while he (Agamemnon) swayed the sceptre of Mycenae, as belonging to himself." 'Another fragment of the Telephus, preserved by the Scholiast on the Nubes, may have belonged to the same set of anapæsts, being apparently written in the same strain, and put in the mouth of the same speaker: ΙΘ' ὅποι χρηζεις εκ απολέμαι Της Ελενης ενεκα And this, adds Mr. T., derives great probability from a similar squabble between the brother kings, which the Iphigenia in Aulide presents to us. Euripides, indeed, seems to have been much actuated by political jealousy in every thing which he says about Sparta: and the compliment paid to Argos, in the Phænissæ, ni fallor, may be traced to a similar feeling. very Those, who know how to appreciate the erudition and the acuteness of Mr. Tate, will thank me for the above Note upon Note. F. W. |