illiberal manner; I mean the Scholiasts, who have been treated most unjustly. A goodly host of scribblers looks forth from the grave of antiquity. And here, before proceeding to speak of the theories of later times, it may be permitted me to suggest that casual allusions by writers who write not expressly on the subject, and who are sufficiently accurate on those points to which they have directed their attention, are often more valuable than the folios of writers who go on the principle of book-making.

[3] Plato, Ion, p. 550. c.; Xenoph. Mem. iv. 2. § 10.; Sympos. iii. 5.; Plutarch, Themist. 2. 24.; Cim. 4. 14. 16.; Per. 8. 10. 13. 26. 36.; Strabo, x. p. 472.; Athen. xiii. p. 598. e.

[4] Quoted by Athenæus (ix. p. 374. a.) under the title of Περὶ τῆς ἀρχαίας κωμωδίας, which, however, is also the name of a work by Eumelus.

To enumerate the modern works of Homeric controversy, would be an endless and tedious task, nay, even useless, when so able and full an account exists in Engelmann's Bibliotheca Classica. The chief works, however, are Wolf's Prolegomena; Wood's Essay on the Original Genius of Homer; Creuzer, Symbolik und Mythologie; Hermann, Briefwechsel mit Creuzer über Homer und Hesiod; Welcker, Der Epische Cyclus; Lange, Ueber die Kyklischen Dichter und den sogenannten Epischen Kyklus der Griechen; Lachmann, Fernere Betrachtungen über die Ilias (Abhandl. Berlin. Acad. 1841); Voss, Nitzsch, O. Müller, Thirlwall (Hist. of Greece, vol. i. appendix 1. p. 500. foll.), Quarterly Review, No. lxxxvii., Grote (Hist. of Greece, pt. i. chapter xxi. vol. ii.), Mure's Critical History of the Language and Literature of Antient Greece, the article in Smith's Dictionary, vol. ii. p. 500., and Giovanni Battista Vico (Principi di Scienza nuova).

The foregoing writers are the principal who have occupied themselves with the subject. I will, in my next paper, pass on to a review of the question itself.

KENNETH R. H. MACKENZIE.

January 26. 1852.

FRENCH REVOLUTIONS FORETOLD.

It seems strange to find in Dr. Jackson's Works a prophecy which, if then thought applicable to the French nation, is much more so now. I have no opportunity of verifying his reference, but will extract all verbatim, giving the Italics as I find them:—

"And without prejudice to many noble patriots and worthy members of Christ this day living in that famous kingdom of France, I should interpret that dream of Bassina (see Aimoinus, aliter Annonius) de Gestis Francorum, lib. i. c. 7. & 8. in the Corpus Franciæ Histor., Printed in folio, 1613, Hanoviæ, Queen unto Childerick the First, of the present state of France: in which the last part of that threefold vision is more truly verified than it was even in the lineal succession of Childerick and Bassina, or any of the Merovingian or Carlovingian families. The vision was of three sorts of beasts: the first, lions and leopards; the second, bears and wolves; the third, of dogs, or lesser creatures, biting and devouring one another.

"The interpretation which Bassina made of it was registered certain hundred years ago. That these troups of vermin or lesser creatures did signifie a people without fear or reverence of their princes, so pliable and devoutly obsequious to follow the peers or potentates of that nation in their factious quarrels, that they should involve themselves in inextricable tumults to their own destruction. Had this vision been painted only with this general notification, that it was to be emblematically understood of some state in Europe: who is he that can discern a picture by the known party whom it represents, but could have known as easily that this was a map of those miseries that lately have befallen France, whose bowels were almost rent and torn with civil and domestic broyls? God grant her closed wounds fall not to bleed afresh again. And that her people be not so eagerly set to bite and tear one another (like dogs or other testie creatures) until all become a prey to wolves and bears, or other great ravenous beasts, which seek not so much to tear or rent in heat of revenge, as lie in wait continually to devour and swallow with insatiate greediness the whole bodies of mighty kingdoms, and to die her robes, that rides as queen of monsters upon that many headed beast, with streams of bloud that issue from the bodies squeezed and crushed between their violent teeth; yea, even with the royal bloud of kings and princes."
Works, book i. cap. xiii. lib. i. pp. 46-7.: Lond. 1673, fol.

RT.

Warmington.

IDEES NAPOLEONIENNES.

We hear a vast deal in these ages of what are called "Idées Napoléoniennes," the wisdom of Napoleon, and so forth. Some of this is invented by the writers, and ascribed to Napoleon; some of it is no wisdom at all; and some is what may be called second-hand wisdom, an old familiar face with a new dress. Of the latter sort is the famous saying:

"From the sublime to the ridiculous there is but a step."

For this remark Napoleon has obtained considerable notice: but the truth is, he borrowed it from Tom Paine; Tom Paine borrowed it from Hugh Blair, and Hugh Blair from Longinus. Napoleon's words are:—

The passage in Tom Paine, whose writings were translated into French as early as 1791, stands thus:—

"The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related, that it is difficult to class them separately; one step above the sublime makes the ridiculous, and one step above the ridiculous makes the sublime again."

Blair has a remark akin to this:

"It is indeed extremely difficult to hit the precise point where true wit ends and buffoonery begins."

But the passage in Blair, from which Tom Paine adopted his notion of the sublime and the ridiculous, is that in which Blair, commenting on Lucan's style, remarks:—

"It frequently happens that where the second line is sublime, the third, in which he meant to rise still higher, is perfectly bombast."

Lastly, this saying was borrowed by Blair from his brother rhetorician, Longinus, who, in his Treatise on the Sublime, has the following sentence at the beginning of section iii.:—

"Τεθόλωται γὰρ τῇ φράσει, καὶ τεθορύβηται ταῖς φαντασίαις μᾶλλον, ἢ δεδείνωται, κἂν ἕκαστον αὐτῶν πρὸς αὐγὰς ἀνασκοπῇς, ἐκ τοῦ φοβεροῦ κατ' ὀλίγον ὑπονοστεῖ πρὸς