A.P. DI PIO, Italo-Græcos.
Carlisle.
"Plurima gemma latet cæcâ tellure sepulta" (Vol. ii., p.133.).—In the course of my reading, some time back, I met with a passage which was given as quotation from Bishop Hall. I transcribe it, as it appears to me to approach nearer to the above hexameter than even Gray's lines:
"There is many a rich stone laid up, in the bowels of the earth; many a fair pearl in the bosom of the sea, that never was seen, nor ever shall be."
Time when Herodotus wrote (Vol. ii., p. 405.).—The passage in Herodotus which shows that he was still employed on his history when he was seventy-five, is in his first book. But A.W.H. thinks, that, as it is a general introduction, showing why he mentioned all places, small or great, it must have been written at the beginning. I should infer the contrary; that he would give an account why he had done so after he had done it, and not while it rested merely in intention.
But perhaps it may be said, that ην is in the former part of the sentence, and therefore might have been repeated in the latter part, which is the converse of it, though it might not be exactly the proper tense.
However, F. Clinton puts down his birth B.C. 484; 452 or 456 as the years in which he read his history at the Olympic Games; and 408 as a year in which he was still adding to it.
However, if he wrote the passage when he was thirty, that would justify the past tense, which perhaps, too, we have a right to construe have been, for that verb has no perfect preterite.
C.B.
Lucy and Colin (Vol. iii., p. 7.).—The ballad adverted to, which is the one translated by Vincent Bourne, is by Tickel, and will be found in any collection of his works. Notwithstanding Southeys epithet "wretched!" it will always be admired, both in the original and the translation.