REMARKS ON BLACKSTONE

I have entirely omitted a metaphysical inquiry upon the nature of laws in general, eternal and positive laws, and a number of sublime terms, which I admire as much as I can without understanding them. Instead of following this high priori road, would it not be better humbly to investigate the desires, fears, passions, and opinions of the human being ; and to discover from thence what means an able legislator can employ to conneet the private happiness of each individual with the observance of those laws which secure the well-being of the whole.

Mr. Blackstone speaks with uncommon respect of the old common law, which the generality of lawyers highly prefer to the statute law. He will find it however difficult to persuade an impartial reader that old customs (begun in barbarous ages, and since continued from a blind reverence to antiquity) deserve more respect than the positive decrees of the legislative power. I can indeed suspect that a general rule which is gathered only from a rude and prodigious mass of particular examples and opinions will easily acquire.a prolixity and an uncertainty which will at last render the priests of Themis the sole interpreters of her oracles,

I wish Mr. Blackstone had talkéd a little less of Egbert, and of a right suspended from Edward the Confessor to James I.- Such a suspension must be equivalent to a total extinction.* |

| * The remainder, being principally extracts, is omitted.

VOL. Il. AE THE

Tue fotlowing Notes were written by Mr. Gibbon the summer before his death, at Sheffield-Place, m an interleaved fourth edition of Harwood’s View of the various editions of the Greek and Roman Classics. It is to be regretted that he did not go through the-whole work as he intended; but these perhaps may be interesting to collectors of books.

Homer, B. C. 850. The positive age of Homer is of less moment than the relative distance between the author and his work. After three or four centuries he might expatiate in the fields of fiction: but if Homer lived within fourscore years of the Trojan war (Mitford’s History of . Greece, vol. 1. p. 166, &c.) he might converse with the last companions of Ulysses and Æneas, and the probable human part of his narrative may be almost read as the history of his own times.

Homeri Opera inter Poetas Græcos Heroici. Carminis ab Henr. Stephano.

Homeri Ixias, Gr. cum veteribus Scholiast. a Johan. Baptist. Gaspar d’Anse de Villoison. Venet. 1788, in folio.—The vain man had promised a standard Homer, an ancient variorum from the editions of Alexandria, Athens, Marseilles, &c. but—parturiunt montes !

Vira Homeni, inter Opuscula a Gale, p. 118. A loose Essay on his Universal Knowledge.

Vira Homeri, ad Calcem Herodoti. Some genuine traditions are perhaps mingled with the low tales of a grammarian,

- Aporueosis Homeri, a Gisberto Cupero, Amstel. 1683, in 4to. A curious and learned interpretation of an ancient monument.

ANTIQUITATES Homeric, ab Everhard. Feilhio Argentorat. 1745, ‘m1@mo. A poor sketch of a noble subject.

Gxomozocta Homent, a Jacab. Duport. Cantab. 1660, in Ato.

The

NOTES ON THE VARIOUS EDITIONS, &c. 579

The moral sentences of Homer, with a copious and entertaining collection of imitations, allusions, applications, parodies, &c. The Abbé de Longuerve, a tasteless pedant, valued Feilhius and Duport more than Homer himself.

Grocrapuia Homent, ab H. Schlichthorst. Gotting. 1787, in 12mo.. - GeocgrapHia Homeri, ab Aug. Gul. Schlegel. Hanover, 1788, in 12mo.—The tasks of two German students. ,

- Aw Ineurry INTO THE Lire AND Waitrnes or Homer. London, 1735, in 8vo, by Blackwall of Aberdeen, or rather by Bishop Berkley. A fine though sometimes fanciful effort of genius and learning.

An Essay ON THE ORIGINAL Genius AND Writincs or Homer, by Robert Wood, Esq. London, 1775, in 4to. Pompous and superficial, the scholar, the traveller, and politician! Yet not without taste and merit.

Tue Icran and Opyssey or Homer, py Azuxanper Pore. London, 1771, 9 volumes in crown 8vo. The most splendid poetical version that any language has produced. |

An Essay on PoPE’s Opyssey, BY SPENCE. London, 1747, in Lame. Pleased Pope, and can please none else; dry and narrow!

Tras ET OpyssEA, BY BARNES, 2 vols. 4to. 21. 2s. Cantab. 1711.

When Barnes’s Homer appeared at Cambridge, Dr. Bentley expressed his contempt for the edition and the editor, who understood (he said) as much Greek as a Greek cobbler. Barnes is indeed a vulgar critic, dnd surely much inferier to Lucian’s Micyllus.

- Intas ET Onysse4, Gr. 2 vols. fol. Glasg. 1758.

As the eye is the organ of fancy, I read Homer with more pleasure in the Glasgow folio. Through that fine medium the poet’s sense appears more beautiful and transparent. Bishop Louth has said that he - could discover only one error in that accurate edition, the omission of

an iota subscribed to a dative. Yet how could a man of taste read Homer with such literal attention?

Homert Opera, A BERGLERO. 2 vols. 12mo. 58. Amst. 1707.

Dr. CrarKeE’s Edition, 2 vols. 4to. Izras, London, 1729; OpyssEy,

Though not a Bentley, Dr. Clarke was a s acholar and a critic. Even his metaphysical genius was usefully employed on the nice distinctions

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