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DEMODOCUS of sight, and to have given him the art of minstrelsy in recompence:

Τον περι Μεσ' εφίλησε, διδε δ' αγαθον τε, κακον τε,
Οφθαλμων μεν αμερσε, διδε δ ̓ ἡδειαν ἀοιδην.

HOM. Od. viii. 63.

In this there is no antithesis, because no opposition between seeing and singing.

As in the allegory, so in the metaphor should be observed the Horatian precepts, "Denique sit quidvis simplex, duntaxat et unum," and "Servetur ad imum qualis ab incepto processerit, et sibi constet." The idea, which has been adopted in order to illustrate a subject, should be uniformly pursued, and the terms applied to it should be suitable. Yet even MILTON is not always on his guard in appropriating his language to the first-conceived image; for instance, in

these lines:

As one whose DROUTH

Yet scarce allay'd still eyes the current stream.
Par. L. vii. 66.

The application of EYES to DROUTH is improper.* SOPHOCLES indeed has γηρυς λάμπει, and ελαμψε φανείσα φαμα, in his (Ed. Tyr. 196-481. ÆSCHYLUS also has xlumov dedogxa, v. 103. Sept. adv. Theb.; in both which passages the sense of seeing is applied for that of hearing. But as both these senses are external, the exchange of one for the other is not so violent; DROUTH is an internal sensation, and on no account can properly be said to EYE the passing stream.

POPE, though the poet of REASON more than of IMAGINATION, with all his cold correctness, falls into confusion of metaphors. Thus, in the following line,

In Folly's cup still laughs the bubble, Joy.

Essay on Man, ii. 288.

"Folly's cup," taken by itself, is poetical; "laughs the bubble," in allusion to the common expression of sparkling wine, is also poetical. But what means "the bubble Joy laughs in Folly's cup?" Joy is there made a person or passion, and a bubble at the same time.

Another instance may be adduced from the "Essay on Criticism." The Poet speaks to Walsh:

[* Does not the verb eyes refer to one instead of drouth? E.]

The Muse, whose early voice you taught to sing,
Prescribed her heights, and prun'd her tender wing.
Ver. 735.

The PRUNING of a wing is a term inapplicable, and introduces an idea foreign to the purpose.

Poets have indeed a world, sentiments, and language, peculiar to themselves. They must give body and attributes to beings of their own creation, personifying natural, moral, intellectual objects. Thus far it is true, that "Pictoribus atque poetis Quidlibet audendi semper fuit æqua potestas."— But good sense requires that this power of Imagination, either in poetry or painting, should not combine absurdities or connect incoherences. Genius and Judgment should never be separated; their union will produce simplicity and propriety amidst the most sublime conceptions of fancy: their separation may occasion, if not the extravagances of an ARIOSTO, or such violations of the costume as are notorious in the paintings of RUBENS and TINTORET; yet such errors as will not bear the examination of sound criticism.

1787, Nov.

C. BOURN, whence probably derived

R. O. P.

MR. URBAN, Νου. 2. I AM inclined to think that Bourn is generally used, not for a rivulet, as your correspondent supposes; but for the ground bordering on a stream. In the North of England, and in Scotland, it is common to say,-"Walk, or gang, down the bourn or burn." As one instance out of many, take this expression from a Scotch song:

"Gang down the burn, Davy love,

"And I will follow thee."

All towns and villages, the names of which end in bourn, are situated near water. I could instance many, by rivers of different names. I therefore believe bourn to be a contraction of by-eau-run, i. e. by the water course.-The same may be said of places ending in ern, as Tintern, Malvern, Mintern, &c. which may also be derived from eau-run.-Ewage, in our old writers, is the toll of a water passage; the word is derived from the French, eau: and ewer is a water-vessel. For both these words see Chambers's Dictionary. Numberless examples may be cited, in which, by contraction, rapid pronunciation, and consequent

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mis-spelling, words have lost their original meaning, if not all meaning. I shall specify a few: "Sammodithu, a form of salutation, signifying tell me how you do,' rapidly pronounced. Say me how doest thou*""To berry, to thresh, i. e. to beat out the berry or grain of the corn; hence berrying-stead, the threshing-floort:" now contracted to barn. Barton, I derive from birthing, the place near a house where the young are brought forth of cows, hogs, fowls, &c.-The meaning of butler is certainly bottler, the person whose office it is to bottle and take care of the liquors.-In a letter of Lord Burleigh, which is introduced in a note on his life in the Biographia Britannica, the word achates repeatedly occurs. I imagine this word originates from the French acheter. In those days, when all the great and the wealthy raised all common things on their own estates, of course what was bought was considered as costly, and as a delicacy. So that in time achats (or achates by corruption) might be generally used in that sense as an English word. From hence also may be derived cates (dainties) and cater (to provide for the table.)

1788, Νου.

Yours, &c.

CI. On Imitation and Originality.

MR. URBAN,

E. P.

IT is not surprising to find that writers among the ancients transcribed each other's works, sometimes without the least acknowledgment, and with little alteration; for this practice was inviting, from the small hazard of detection, and in some degree pardonable before typography was known, when to multiply copies of a book was so laborious and costly that they were of necessity circulated among very few. We are, therefore, induced to forgive Terence, Solinus, and Apuleius, their depredations on Menander, Pliny, and Lucian. But since this difficulty is removed by the press; and the noble art of printing, the most beneficial invention that the mind of man ever produced, hath diffused literature so universally, it would be no easy task to apologise for the innumerable plagiarisms which are daily obtruded on the public.

*Ray's Collection of English words, &c.

† Ibid.

That writers on science, who are constrained, from.the nature of their subject, to confine themselves strictly to the narrow track of truth, should sometimes tread in the footsteps of earlier authors, is perhaps excusable; but that the novelists and poets, who are allowed to range at large over the boundless regions of fancy, and who in many cases, did not think themselves restrained even within the limits of probability, should so often servilely follow their predecessors in a beaten path, betrays an imbecility of imagination truly wonderful. A cavern inhabited by a troop of robbers, to mention no other instance, hath been looked on as such a favourable scene to display distress, that it is introduced into their fictitious narrations by Lucian, who is said to have taken it elsewhere; by Apuleius, by Heliodorus, by Ariosto, by Spenser, and Le Sage. Apuleius hath not only stolen the cave of banditti from Lucian, but openly robbed him of his ASS, and laden it with many additional extravagances: among which, the tale of Cupid and Psyche particularly attracts the attention of the reader by the wildness of its imagery, which bears striking marks of an Oriental origin.

The delicate Cervantes, though well acquainted with the ancients, found their manners in general too coarse to weave into the exquisite texture of his matchless romance, which still delights, even in translation, notwithstanding the characters and customs vary almost as widely as those in Homer from our own. Neither do I recollect that he selected any classical adventure, if we except the encounter with the winebags, which seems to have been suggested by Apuleius.— "Cadavera illa jugulatorum hominum erant tres (caprini) utres inflati, variisque secti foraminibus, et, ut vespertinum prælium meum recordabar, his locis hiantes, quibus latrones illos vulneraveram." Metamorphoseon, sive de Asino aureo, 1. iii.

These borrachas had been transformed into the appearance of men by an enchantress; and the stranger, who destroyed them by mistake as thieves, is an ignorant and unwilling actor in an annual ceremony dedicated to a very extraordinary deity of antiquity, the god Laughter (Deo Risui.)

66

A critic of great eminence hath the following remark on Petronius: "I shall observe, by the way, that the copy of this author, found some years ago, bears many signatures of its spuriousness, and particularly of its being forged by a Frenchman. For we have this expression, ad CASTELLA sese receperunt" that is, " to their chateaux, instead of ad VILLAS." Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope, vol. I. p. 176.

With due deference, I do not apprehend that this argument

founded on the word castella, is by any means conclusive. Since not to insist on the Norica Castella of Virgil (Georg. iii. ver. 474,) which were probably no more than sheepcotes, the word frequently occurs in Apuleius, particularly in the succeeding passage: "Sed habitus alieni fallacia tectus, villas seu castella solus aggrediens, viaticulum mihi corrasi." lib. vii.

The critic's reproof of Pope, for his compliment to Petronius, is certainly just. The scenes of the private life of the Romans, which that writer exhibits, would be highly pleasing, were we not obliged to wade through much filth, to obtain a view of them.

1789, April.

T. H. W.

CII. TURL at Oxford, whence so named.

MR. URBAN,

Oct. 10.

EBENEZER BARCLAY, in your Magazine of 1784, asks why a certain narrow street in Oxford is called the TURL? A correspondent conceives this word to be of CELTIC or SAXON origin: and, if CELTIC-not else-(for, if Saxon, he does not presume to interpret it)--and, if the street moreover be on a declivity-but, on no other supposition-gives him to understand that it takes its name from that circumstance; TURL, in the Celtic signifying a descent. He adds indeed that, if again this same street be in the purlieus of OXFORD (for he never saw it, having never been there,) it may signify, but does not say why, the place where the country-people used to alight, as a ford, or entrance into the

town.

Again;-P. Q. from Peshall's History of OXFORD, informs us that the TURL Gate was so called from Peter Thurold, who built and lived near it: and that this gate gave its name to the street.

The truth, Mr. URBAN, is this: TURL is not of Celtic, but of Saxon origin. Thirl, in the Saxon, i. c. our old English language, signifies an orifice or aperture. Hence they had the compounds, Eag-Thirl, Eye-Thirl, the aperture of the Eye; which was also used for a Window as an aperture to look through--Næs-Thirl, Nose-Thirl, whence our Nos-trilNædle-Thirl, the aperture, or as we call it, the eye of the Needle. Hence also it was used to signify any narrow-opening or passage. And hence also it may therefore reasonably

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