and 597-731. Virgil's description is the finer piece of poetry; Homer's, the juster representation of a work of art. I read, with the same view, some remarks of the Abbé Fraguier on the origin of painting, Hist. de l'Académie des Belles Lettres, tom. i. p. 75 -89. Elegant and instructive, but somewhat vague. I likewise read the whole nineteenth book of the Iliad, v. 1-424, the end, and consulted Potter's Archæologia Græca, vol. i. p. 246-261, in relation to the ceremonies observed by the ancients in their oaths. I also finished, to-day, the Journal des Savans, and the Mémoires de Trevoux for December, 1761. They contain little more than de Inscriptione quâdam Egyptiacâ Tourini inventâ, Décembre, p. 334-345. Mr. Needham pretended that these Egyptian letters were the same as the old Chinese characters. The similitude is here contested.-Observations sur les Systèmes des P. P. Hardouin et Berruyer. The object is to prove, the society always disapproved the visions of these two writers. There is much artifice, and some curious anecdotes, in these observations. I believe that the Jesuits were innocent in this respect.

7th. I finished the Mémoires de Trevoux, and the Journal des Savans for January, 1762. The Journal contains Tragédies de Sophocle, traduites par M. Dupuy de l'A. R. des I. et B. L. p. 3 -15. Elegant, exact, and a great addition to the French literature.-L'Antro Elausino, &c. par M. Bartoli, p. 49-58. Ingenious, but very doubtful.-The Memoirs Annæi Senecæ de Brevitate Vitæ, p. 149-163. One of the best extracts I ever read.-Le Pitture Antiche d'Hercolano, p. 216-225. Ancient, and therefore curious.

8th.I reviewed the first hundred and fifty lines of the nineteenth book of the Iliad. The generous character of Achilles raises him every moment higher in the esteem of the reader; his care for the dead body, the spirited frankness of his reconciliation, and his impatience for the combat. I finished the Journal des Savans, and Mémoires de Trevoux for February, 1762. The Journal contains Thom. Hyde de Religione veterum Persarum, p. 289-301; a new edition, with long and trifling notes on an excellent book. Idylles de Gesner, traduites de l'Allemand, p. 380397. Un Allemand ne peut-il pas être bel esprit? The Memoirs contain Explication d'un Passage de Herodote, p. 405-427. A happy solution of a difficult passage in lib. ii. c. 142, only by explaining the word og an annual revolution of the sun.

9th.-I finished the Mém. de Trevoux for March. They contain little more than La Bibliomanie, p. 167-176; severe and spirited; and Dissertation sur l'Ecriture Hieroglyphique. Original. He pretends that there never were any; but I think his proofs too weak for such a paradox.

11th.-I reviewed the remaining two hundred and seventy lines of the nineteenth book of the Iliad, and think the long debate between Achilles and Ulysses might have been shortened, though the speeches of the first are highly characteristical; nothing can surpass the sublime description of his arming himself for battle.

I likewise read the twentieth book of the Iliad, v. 1-258; and when I was at church, followed the second lesson with my Greek Testament in my hand; it was the 23rd chapter of St. Luke. I find this method both useful and agreeable, and intend to keep it up whenever I go to church. I finished the Journal des Savans, and Mémoires de Trevoux for April, 1762. The first contains Aristophanis Comœdiæ à P. Burmanno; good, but inferior to Kuster's: and the Grammaire Française Philosophique de M. d'Acarq, truly deserving of that name; the second République de Platon. The translation appears good; I am sure the extract is so.

12th. I read the twentieth book of the Iliad, v. 258-503, the end.

The

13th. I reviewed the whole twentieth book of the Iliad. battle of the gods is worthy of every thing Longinus says of it. It would be difficult to find another example which reunites so thoroughly every part of the sublime, both as to thoughts and language. The combat of Achilles and Æneas is very animated and picturesque; and the long speech of Eneas, though faulty, and even ridiculous upon the whole, does honour in its details both to the poet and the historian. I finished the Journal des Savans, et Mém. de Trevoux for May, 1762, part the first. The Mém. contain nothing in the Journal there is Callimachi Hymni ab Ernesto, Lugd. Bat. The text is exactly reviewed, and the version is a new one.-Vie de M. Bossuet, par M. de Burigny. Exact and judicious.

14th. The twentieth book of Homer, and particularly the speech of Æneas, drew on a variety of discussions. In order to understand the genealogy of Dardanus, I read Apollodori Biblioth. lib. iii. c. 11, p. 205-215, in Greek; I then consulted Strabo, lib. xiii. p. 607, 608, and some difficulties arising about the word in@pela, as Plato explained it, the lower part of the hills, which were inhabited after the deluge, before men dared venture down into the plain, I read a dissertation upon the deluges of Ogyges and Deucalion, by the learned Freret, Mém. de l'Académie des Belles Lettres, tom. xxiii. p. 129-148, who, from a chain of authorities, shows, incontestibly, that a deluge was unknown to Homer, Hesiod, and Herodotus; that the first who speak of it (Plato himself, Pindar, and Apollodorus) expressly confined it to Greece, and intimate that a great number were saved; that afterwards, the Greeks mixing their traditions with those of the Jews and the Chaldeans, swelled the deluge of Deucalion into an universal one; but that it never obtained general credit before the time of Plutarch and Lucian. Afterwards, to be well acquainted with Æneas, I read Strabo, lib. xiii. p. 692, 693; Mezeriac's Ovid, vol. ii. p. 142-146, and 153-168; and a Dissertation upon the Julian Family, by the Abbé Vatry, Mém. de l'Académie, vol. xvi. p. 414-424. Mezeriac, as usual, compiles without a thought of reasoning; but from the sensible criticisms of the others, it appears that Eneas's posterity probably reigned in Phrygia in the time of Homer, and that his Voyage to Italy is a fable invented by the Greeks about the time of

Alexander. N. B. The Greek authors whom I consulted, I read in Greek. I likewise read the twenty-first book of the Iliad, v. 1—135, and finished the second part of May, Journal des Savans, and Mém. de Trevoux. The first contains a better extract of the Dissertation sur l'Ecriture Hiéroglyphique than the Mémoires had given. I now see that the new system is absolutely indefensible. The second speaks of Histoire du Siècle d'Alexandre, par M. Linguet: I suspect that they speak too slightly of the book. However that may be, the author is certainly a man of genius, whom I should like to know.

15th. I read only that most contemptible performance the Vie du Marechal Duc de Belleisle, par M. de C****

16th. I read the 21st book of the Iliad, v. 136-611, the end. 18th. I did nothing but go to church. The lessons were the 12th of 2 Samuel, and the 5th of St. John's Gospel, both of which I read in Greek.

23rd. I finished the third volume of Le Clerc's Bibliothèque Universelle, which concludes the year 1686. It contains Explication Historique de la Fable d'Adonis. He thinks that Adonis, or Osiris, was the son of Hammon or Cham, and grandson of Cinyras, or Noah; and that the incest of Myrrha with her father, was the discovery of Noah's nakedness by his children. But this interpretation is very far-fetched, and can only suit the followers of Ephemerus.Bibliothèque Universelle des Auteurs Ecclésiastiques, par Dupin. Curious and impartial.-Life of Hai Ebn Yokhdan. A fine, though irregular, production of Arabian genius and philosophy.-The Works of Dr. Barrow. Barrow was as much of a philosopher as a divine could well be.-Commentaire Philosophique. The most useful work Bayle ever wrote, and the least sceptical.-Puffendorfii Commentarius de Rebus Suecicis. Exact, heavy, and partial.

24th. In order to get a clear idea of those oracles so often mentioned by Homer, and so essential a part of the Grecian religion, I read three dissertations of M. Hardion, inserted in the third volume of the Memoirs of the Academy upon the Oracle of Delphi, p. 137 -191; and some observations of M. de Valois, tom. iii. historical part, p. 73-79; and, drawn away by the affinity of the subject, I likewise read two dissertations of the same M. de Valois, upon the Amphictyons, the guardians of this temple, tom. iii. p. 191—228, and tom. v. p. 405-415.

25th. I read the history which M. de Valois has given us of the two sacred wars, which the Amphictyons decreed to avenge the sacrileges committed at Delphi, tom. vii. p. 201-239; tom. ix. p. 97-113, and tom. xii. p. 177-204. Besides the light that these pieces throw on the Greek religion, they are valuable for the knowledge they give us of that civil and religious bond of union in the Hellenic body, which for some ages rendered it invincible.

28th. I read the articles of Jupiter and Juno, in Bayle's Dictionary. That of Jupiter is very superficial. Juno takes up seventeen pages; but great part of it, as usual, very foreign to the purpose. A long enquiry when horns began to be an emblem of cuckoldom;

numberless reflections, some original, and others very trivial; and a learning chiefly confined to the Latin writers. When he doubted if Juno was really worshipped at Carthage, why did not he quote Minucius Felix? V. octav. p. 259, edit. Gronov. Upon the whole, I believe that Bayle had more of a certain multifarious reading, than real erudition. Le Clerc, his great antagonist, was as superior to him in that respect, as inferior in every other. I reviewed the first two hundred lines of the twenty-first book of the Iliad. There is great dignity of sentiment, and a calm sternness, in the answer of Achilles to the moving prayers of the unfortunate Lycaon.

29th. I reviewed the remaining four hundred lines of the twentyfirst book of the Iliad. The combat of Achilles and the Scamander is finely described. If Homer, when he speaks of the gods, does not rise in his sentiments, at least he does in his language and poetry. I likewise read some very sensible and curious observations of the Abbé de Fonterne, sur le Culte des Divinités des Eaux; Histoire de l'Académie des Belles Lettres, tom. xii. p. 27-49.

30th.—I read the twenty-second book of the Iliad, v. 1—515, the end.

August 1st.-I read the lessons at church in Greek, viz. the thirteenth chapter of the first book of Kings, and the twenty-first chapter of St. John's Gospel. How very free a version the Septuagint is! for I imagine ours is a very literal one.

2nd. I reviewed the whole twenty-second book of the Iliad, in which the whole interest of the preceding books is wound up, in the lives of Hector and Achilles. Notwithstanding the reasons given by Mr. Pope, every reader of taste must be disgusted with Hector's flight. The true grounds of courage were not well understood, and poetry had not learnt the art of raising an hero without debasing his enemies. The fears and lamentations of Hector's family are beautifully pathetic; but I think that Andromache is rather too much the mother, and too little the wife. As I am now entering upon the twenty-third book, which contains the funeral of Patroclus, I read the eight first chapters of the fourth book of Archbishop Potter's Grecian Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 160-241, upon the Grecian Funerals. They contain a great fund of learning, without any useless digressions.

3rd.-I began M. de Burette's set of Dissertations in the Memoirs of the Academy, on the Gymnastics of the Ancients: they are learned and judicious, but too full of fruitless, and therefore frivolous, enquiries into the origin and etymology of every art. I read to-day only Observations générales sur la Gymnastique, Hist. tom. i. p. 89 -104; and first Mémoire sur la Danse, Mém. tom. i. p. 93-117. 4th. I read second Mémoire sur la Danse, tom. i. Mém. p. 117 -136; Mémoire sur la Sphoeristique, p. 137-153; and first Mémoire sur les Athlètes, p. 211-237.

5th. I read second and third Mémoires sur les Athlètes, p. 237 -291; and Mémoire sur la Lutte, tom. iii. Mém. p. 228-255.

6th. I read the several Mémoires of M. de Burette, sur le Pugilat, la Course, le Pentathle, et le Disque, tom. iii. Mém. p. 255

-343. Having finished these, I read three Dissertations of the Abbé Gedoyn, sur les Courses des Chevaux et des Chars, surtout aux Jeux Olympiques, tom. viii. p. 314-330; and 330–341; and tom. ix. Mém. p. 360-376; and a Mémoire of M. de la Barre, on the same subject; tom. ix. Mém. p. 376-397. Gedoyn is polite and curious, but somewhat pert and superficial. De la Barre is difficult to be understood, but is worth studying, for he is very ingenious as well as learned. There is a great dispute what was the length of the Olympic course for chariots. Burette makes it twentyfour stadia, or twelve revolutions of one stadium: Gedoyn, eight stadia, or one revolution of four stadia: De la Barre, forty-eight stadia, or six revolutions of four stadia: Mr. West, (v. West's Pindar, vol. ii. p. 135) forty-eight stadia, or twelve revolutions of two stadia. I have not room for their reasons; but I am of De la Barre's opinion. When one reads these Dissertations, one admires the active spirit of the Greeks, sensible to every species of entertainment and glory; who could at the same time, and with the same application, bring to perfection, dancing and philosophy, boxing and poetry.

7th. I read the twenty-third book of the Iliad, v. 1–257.

8th.-I read the twenty-third book of the Iliad, v. 257-897; and the articles of Lemnos, Hercules, and the greatest part of Helena, in Bayle. If Bayle wrote his dictionary to empty the various collections he had made, without any particular design, he could not have chosen a better plan. It permitted him everything, and obliged him to nothing. By the double freedom of a dictionary and of notes, he could pitch on what articles he pleased, and say what he pleased on those articles. When I consider all that Homer says of the isle of Lemnos, and the extensive trade it carried on, both with Phoenicia (Iliad, xxiii. v. 743) and with the Greek army before Troy (v. Iliad, lib. vii. v. 467–475, and lib. xxi. v. 40), I am amazed to see the more modern poets represent that habitation of the unfortunate Philoctetes, as an island totally desolate and uninhabited.

10th. I reviewed only the first hundred lines of the twenty-third book of the Iliad. The sullen grief into which Achilles sinks, is not less expressive of his character, than his violent rage in the preceding books. The apparition of Patroclus is the opening of a new world, of Homer's creation.

11th. I reviewed the next two hundred lines of the twenty-third book of the Iliad. This day I finished the Mémoires d'Anne d'Autriche, par Madame de Motteville, one of her greatest favourites. They are written in a natural, unaffected style; and it is a proof of the author's sincerity, that though she had a very high opinion of her mistress, the candour with which she relates facts, shows us Anne of Austria as she really was: a proud and silly woman, who abandoned herself to a favourite out of indolence, supported him through obstinacy, and began at last to hate him, when he began to affect an independence. There is perhaps no period of history for which we have better materials, than for the minority of Lewis XIV.