Ἁλιεύς.
Dublin.
Anagram (Vol. vii., p. 546.).—Some years since I purchased, at a book-stall in Cologne, a duodecimo (I think it was a copy of Milton's Defensio), on a fly-leaf of which was the date 1653, and in the neat Italian hand of the period the following anagram. The book had probably belonged to one of the English exiles who accompanied Charles II. in his banishment. I have never met with it in any collection of anagrams hitherto published. Perhaps some of your numerous readers may have been more fortunate, and can give some account of it.
"Carolus Stuartus, Angliæ, Scotiæ, et Hiberniæ Rex,
Aulâ, statû, regno exueris, ac hostili arte necaberis."
John o' The Ford.
Malta.
Passage in Sophocles (Vol. viii., pp. 73. 478. 631.).—Your correspondent M. is quite right in translating πράσσειν fares, and referring it not to Θεὸς, but to the person whom the Deity has infatuated; and he is equally right in explaining ὀλίγοστον χρόνον for a very short time. Πράσσει, the old reading restored by Herman, is probably right; but it must still be referred to the same person: Ille vero versatur, &c. Mr. Buckton explains ᾧ, which is the relative to νοῦν, to signify when, and translates βονλεύεται as if it were equivalent with βούλεται. Τὸν νοῦν ᾧ βουλεύεται is the mental power with which he (ὁ βλαφθεὶς, not Θεὸς) deliberates. Ἄτη is, as M. properly explains it, not destruction, but infatuation, mental delusion; that judicial blindness which leads a man to his ruin, not the ruin itself. It is a leading idea in the Homeric theology (Il. xix. 88., xxiv. 480., &c.).
Though the idea in the Antigone closely resembles that which is cited in the Scholia, it seems more than probable that the original source of both passages is derived from some much earlier author than a cotemporary of Sophocles. As to the line given in Boswell, it is not an Iambic verse, nor even Greek. It was probably made out of the Latin by some one who would try his hand, with little knowledge either of the metre or the language. Mr. Buckton says, that to translate late ὀλίγοστον very short, is not to translate agreeably to the admonition of the old scholiast. Now, the words of the scholiast are ὀυδὲ ὀλίγον, not even a little, that is, a very little: so ὀυδὲ τυτθὸν, ὀυδ' ἠβαιον,