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ority and pre eminence of the antients, in fcience, and which was particularly noticed in a former volume of our review*, The medals of which he here treats, conftitute part of a collection made by him in different parts of Europe, and, excepting two or three, have never yet been publifhed. The firft of thefe performances contains the figures and explanations. of near thirty Greek and Phenician medals; fome of which, particularly a few of the first clafs, are fingularly beautiful. Among these there are fome that evince, not only that the Sicilian artifts excelled all others in the delicacy and elegance of their workmanship,-which is a point generally acknowledged; but likewife, as the Author obferves, that the arts flourished in the highest degree in Sicily, near 200 years before they arrived at perfection in Greece.

In proof of this obfervation, it here appears that there are medals of Gelon, who reigned at Syracufe about 500 years before J. C. that are fuperior, both with refpect to taste and execution, to those which the Greeks produced above 150 years afterwards, even in the cities where the arts were most highly cultivated. Fifty or fixty years before the time of Gelon, the arts in Greece, M. Dutens remarks, were in a state of downright barbarifm. Pliny, as he elsewhere obferves, names two fculptors at Crete, in the year 560, before our æra, who were the first that worked on marble; their predeceffors having hitherto exercised their art only upon wood. From this circumftance, a fair inference may be drawn with refpect to the art of engraving; as thefe two arts are congenial, and have conftantly kept pace with each other.

On the fubject of his attempts to explain the Phenician medals in this collection, the Author previously obferves, that a conftant application during twenty years to the ftudy of the Hebrew language, had induced him to hope that he might conquer fome of the difficulties attending the elucidation of these coins. On his first entrance on this part of the medallic fcience, he was surprised to find rather conjectures than rules, more doubts than certainties, more of empiricifm than of science.' By what other title, he adds, can we more properly characterise the writing of poems in a language t, if we may give it that name, with the very alphabet of which we are unacquainted? It is indeed ludicrous to reflect, with the Author, on the difputes carried on concerning the fenfe of certain paffages, which are faid not to be conformable to the genius of the

*See Appendix to our 35th Volume, 1766, page 544.

+ M. Dutens alludes to certain Phenician poems, manufactured at Oxford. See Pietas Univerfitatis, and the Carmen Phenicium, in the Epithalamia Oxonienfia, printed in 1761.

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Phenician

Phenician language:'-for, it seems, those who are the beft judges of this matter know very well that, instead of undertanding all the fineffes of the Phenician tongue, we scarce know fifty words belonging to it, a few proper names excepted. The learned, M. Dutens obferves, are not agreed even as to the power of fome of the Punic letters; and fupposing that difficulty got over, and that they have reduced them to the titles of the correfpondent Hebrew characters; they have no other method of interpreting the words in this language, than by giving them the fignification which they bear in the Hebrew and Samaritan tongues. The Carmen Phenicium above referred to, confirm this obfervation: and yet we fee fome of your more fuperb Punic antiquarians, who are themselves wandering in this dark labyrinth, stalking along with as much stateliness, and divarication of the legs; and infulting their fellow-wanderers with as much confidence, as if they alone had a clue to direc their ftrides through it!

To enable future adventurers to grope their way with more fecurity through these intricate paffes, M. Dutens has given a plate containing the various forms of the Phenician, Punic, and Siculo-Punic characters that occur on coins, together with the titles of the correfponding elements in the Hebrew tongue, The Punic alphabets which the Abbé Barthelemy has published, have not been intirely acquiefced in by Mr. Swinton; who, on the other hand, has published others, which, in their turn, have not been univerfally adopted: nor does even his own alphabet, as we are here told, which he published in 1764, agree with that which he gave in 1750. This of M. Duten's has the merit of being formed on more certain principles; as no characters are admitted into it, the powers of which have not been generally or univerfally acknowledged in the explication of legends, and acquiefced in by all parties. So far as it goes therefore it may be abfolutely confided in.

The fecond of thefe performances contains 22 Phenician medals, in the collection of M. Duane; the fubjects and legends of which the Author endeavours to explain in a concife and unaffected manner. His explications and conjectures will, we apprehend, be acceptable to those who choose to amuse themselves in this harmless, and occasionally instructive branch of antient erudition.

ART.

1

ART. XII.

Quatrieme Lettre a Monfieur de Voltaire, par M. Clement. M. Clements's fourth Letter to Voltaire. Octavo. Paris. 1773.

N our laft Appendix we gave an account of M. Clement's first, second, and third letter to Voltaire, and we can assure our readers that the fourth is not inferior to any of the preceding. It is written with great fpirit, and in a ery entertaining manner. The Author fhews himself to be a man of good tafte, and an excellent critic, though fometimes, perhaps, a little too fevere. The fondeft admirers of Voltaire, however, if they have any pretenfions to candor, and are not strangely prejudiced indeed, muft allow that most of Monf. Clement's criticisms in the letter now before us are extremely juft and pertinent.

What he propofes, is to vindicate the literary characters of Fontaine and Boileau, and to examine what Voltaire has faid of them in his Siecle de Louis XIV. and his other writings. He begins with Fontaine, of whom Voltaire, after speaking of Corneille, Boffuet, Moliere, &c. fays, (Siecle de Louis XIV. Chapitre des Beaux Arts) qu'il se mit prefqu'à côté de ces hommes fubtimes. He afterwards affirms that Quinault deserves to be ranked with his illuftrious cotemporaries, fo that poor Fontaine is thruft down to a lower rank than Quinault,-ce qui eft, peutêtre, fays our Author very justly, le jugement le plus honteux pour un bomme de goat

Voltaire in his catalogue of Authors in the age of Lewis the XIV. tells us, that Fontaine is often negligent, and unequal; that his works are replete with grammatical errors; that he has even frequently corrupted the French language, that he finks too often into the familiar, the low, the trivial, &c. and he endeavours to fupport these affertions by examples.

M. Clement examines the feveral parts of this charge at full length, and vindicates Fontaine in a very ingenious, and to us,

a very fatisfactory manner. He fhews that Fontaine, instead of

corrupting the French language, has enriched it with a great variety of bold and nervous expreffions, and he produces many beautiful and Ariking paffages from his works in support of

what he advances.

As to the familiar, the low, the trivial, &c. which are charged upon Fontaine, our Author gives us much stronger examples of them in Voltaire's own writings, than any that are to be found in Fontaine's. These examples too are taken not from the productions of Voltaire's dotage, but from thofe of his better days, and chiefly from his epiftles to the king of Pruffia, in one of which we have the following lines:

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Confervez, ô mon Dieu! l'aimable Frederic,
Pour fon bonheur, pour moi, pour le bien du public.
Vivez, Prince, et passez dans la paix, dans la guerre,
Sur-tout dans les plaifirs tous les Ics de la terre,
Theodoric, Ulric, Genféric, Alaric,

Dont aucun ne vous vaut felon mon pronoffic.
Mais lorsque vous aurez, de victoire en victoire,
Arrondi vos Etats, ainfi que votre gloire, &c.

In another epiftle to the king of Pruffia, we have the following lines:

En Hibou, fort fauvent renfermé tout le jour,

Veus percez d'un oeil d'Aigle, &c.

En bibou percer d'un ail d'Aigle, what will you call that, fays our Author? I leave you to your own reflections upon it.

In regard to Boileau, there is none of the French poets, who did honour to the age of Lewis XIV. of whom Voltaire (peaks fo differently in the different parts of his writings. Sometimes he commends him highly, but much more frequently cenfures and criticizes him; in confequence of which, it is a common practice among Voltaire's difciples to infult the memory of Boileau.

Our Author does not collect the feveral paffages in Voltaire's writings, wherein he attacks the reputation of Boileau, but confines himself to his epiftle to that great poet. It begins in the following manner :..

t

BOILEAU, correct Auteur de quelques bons écrits,
Zoile de Quinaut, et flatteur de Louis;
Mais oracle du goût, dans cet art difficile,
Où s'egayoit Horace, au travailloit Virgile.
Dans la cour du Palais, je naquis ton vsifin;
De ton Siecle brillant mes yeux virent la fin,
Siecle de grands talens bien plus que de lumière,

Dont Corneille, en bronchant, fut ouvrir la carrière.

M. Clement places the whole of this epiftle before his readers, and then enters into a full and distinct examination of it. Hear part of what he fays:,

BOILEAU, correct Auteur de quelques bons écrits. Could lefs have been faid of a grammarian, who had been the Author of fome good work, correctly written? Is correctness then Boileau's principal merit? Is not Boileau one of our greatest poets, for the beauty and truth of imagery, the energy and elegance of expreffion, the choice of, epithets, the variety of ftyle, and the harmony of numbers? Is not he the greateft mafter in that very difficult art of beftowing the graces. of poetry upon little things? The Author of the Lutrin, and the Art of Poetry is a correct Author of fome good writings! Your

defign,

defign, then, Sir, in this epiftle, was to infult Boileau's memory. And what was your motive? The fame which made you detract from the praises of Corneille, and fometimes from thofe of Racine, viz. because you yourself had written tragedies the fame, which made you difparage Malherbe and Rouffeau, because you never wrote a fingle ode that de erved to be called a good one: the fame which made you criticize Fontaine, because you have not a grain of naïveté in your genius or your style. It is impoffible for you to be ignorant that, as long as Boileau's fatires are remembered, and they will be long remembered, yours will be condemned; and that the Lutrin, the only epic poem in our language, though the fubject be a trifling one, will bear teftimony against the Henriade, which has fo little of the epic in it, though the fubject be a noble one. In your Effay on Epic Poetry, you had a fair opportu nity of faying fomething concerning the Lutrin, but not a fyllable on the contrary, you tell us, that Boileau meddled only with didactic fubjects, which require nothing but fimplicity I fhall make amends for this omiffion in my letter upon the Henriade, where I hope to be able to prove to you, that this celebrated Henriade is only an hiftorical poem like the Pharjalia, and that the Lutrin is the only poem in our language that can give us an idea of the true epic.

Zoile de Quinaut, et flatteur de Louis.

You had rather not write at all, than not begin a work of what kind foever, by an antithefis, your favourite figure. And what an antithefis is this! the moft injurious and the most abfurd that can be imagined, Boileau, Zoile de Quinaut. Quinault then is transformed into a Homer, for having written fome pretty verses, in the worst fpecies of compofition, if, after all, the opera may be deemed a fpecies: and Boileau, for having justly cenfured the morality and the infipidity of fuch rhapfodies, is confidered as the Zoilus of this Homer of the opera. You will never be reproached, Sir, with being the Zoilus of any middling writer, but with being the Zoilus of Corneille, of Boileau, of Fontaine, of both the Rouffeaus, of Crebillon, of Montefquieu, of Buffon, &c. in a word, of all thofe who are the objects of your jealousy.

As to-flatteur de Louis, this is equally abfurd. In the first place, what a ftrange contraft! Lewis XIV opposed to Quinault! As if Boileau ou ht not to have praifed Louis le grand, because he had cenfured Quinault! If this famous writer had commended any wretched Author. which he never did, then he might, with juftice, have been reproached with partiality and want of judgment, as there is juft reafon for reproaching you, Sir, for having difparaged and infulted much greater men than Quinault, and for having, at the fame time, praised, flattered, and offered up incenfe to fuch men as La Motte, Perrault, &c.

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