the bushes and brambles; at last, however, with incredible difficulty and labour, we got through; but to our great furprize and difappointment, we found the country very different from the account we had read of it: the lawns were entirely overgrown with a ftubborn kind of reed or brush, in many places higher than our heads, and no where lower than our middles, which continually entangled our legs, and cut us like whipcord. After we had walked about three or four miles, we got fight of a bull, which we killed, and a little before night got back to the beach, as wet as if we had been dipt in water, and fo fatigued that we were scarcely able to ftand. I foon found that the ifland produced limes, four oranges, cocoa-nuts, bread-fruit, guavas, and paupas in great abundance; but we found no water-melons, fcurvy-grafs, or forrel.— • Notwithstanding the fatigue and diftrefs that we had endured, and the various climates we had paffed through, neither of the fhips had yet loft a fingle man fince their failing from England; but while we lay here two died of fevers, a difeafe with which many were feized, tho' we all recovered very faft from the fcurvy. I am indeed of opinion that this is one of the most unhealthy pots in the world, at leaft during the feason in which we were here t. The rains were violent, and almoft inceffant, and the heat was fo great as to threaten us with fuffocation. The thermometer, which was kept on board the fhip, generally ftood at 86, which is but 9 degrees lefs than the heat of the blood at the heart; if it had been on fhore it would have risen much higher. I had been upon the coast of Guinea, in the Weft-Indies, and upon the island of St. Thomas, which is under the Line, but I had never felt any fuch heat as I felt here.' : After enumerating the inceffant torments fuftained from the flies in the day, and the mufquitos in the night; from fwarms of centipieds and fcorpions, and of large black ants, fcarcely inferior to either in the malignity of their bite; as well as from other venomous infects without rumber, altogether unknown to them; the Commodore relates the difficulties they met with in difcovering the diftant haunts of the cattle, which are faid to have been procured on fuch easy terms in Lord Anson's relation. The Commodore's parties, who were fent out to kill them, were abfent three days and nights before they could fucceed; and when a bullock had been dragged feven or eight miles, through fuck woods and lawns as have just been described, The feafons in which Lord Anfon and Commodore Byron vifited this ifland were nearly the fame. The former anchored here about the 26th of Auguft, and failed on the 21st of October: the latter arrived here about the rit of Anguit, and failed from hence on the ift of October. to to the tents, it was generally full of fly-blows, and ftunk so as to be unfit for ufe.' The fatigue, too, of the men, in bringing down the carcafs, and the intolerable heat they suffered from the climate and the labour, frequently brought on fevers which laid them up.' According to the following quotation, the flies of Tinian must be expeditious breeders, and their maggots come very early into life, in this tropical hot bed. We procured poultry, fays our Journalist, upon eafier terms: there was great plenty of birds, and they were eafily killed; but the flesh of the best of them was very ill tasted, and such was the heat of the climate that, within an hour after they were killed, it was as green as grafs, and fwarmed with maggots.'-But we refer this matter to the confideration of the naturalifts. We shall here terminate our account of this voyage, and the prefent article, by only adding that the Commodore fteered his courfe from hence, by the Bafché Inlands, and the coast of Sumatra, to Batavia. From thence he proceeded to the Cape of Good Hope, and at length arrived in the Downs, on the 9th of May, 1766, having spent fomewhat more than 22 months on this expedition. [To be continued.] B. ART. XIII. Fragmentum ex Lib. xci. Hiftoriarum Titi Livii Patavini. Nunc primum eruit ex codice MS. Vaticana quondam Palatino inter Latinos fignato, No. 24. Et celeb. Beniamino Kennicott, infcripfit Paul lus Jacobus Bruns. A Fragment of the 91ft Book of Livy. Now first discovered and published from a Collection of Latin Manufcripts in the Vatican Library, and inscribed to the celebrated Benjamin Kennicott, by Paul Jacob Bruns. I s. Hám burgh printed; fold by White in London. 1773. T is well known that forty-five books, only, of Livy's Roman Hiftory, have reached us in a perfect state. As to the reout a mainder, even to the 140th, they continue truly among the defiderata; and therefore the discovery of any, even the smallest part, of fo valuable a treafure, will, without doubt, be welcome to the learned. Mr. Bruns appears to have been one of the perfons employed by Dr. Kennicott in collecting materials for the great work in which that gentleman has been fo long engaged. He informs us, that during the time which, in the last year, he spent at Rome, after he had confulted many collections of Oriental writings in the Vatican Library, he applied himself to search for Greek and Latin MSS. which might anfwer the purpofe of his journey. He determined to use particular care, he tells us, in felecting those which had been applauded by learned men, for their excellence and antiquity; and as he knew that BlanREV. Aug. 1773. chinius L chinius had mentioned, with great approbation, a Latin Codex, diftinguished by the number 24, and comprehending the books of Tobit, Job, and Efther, this he fought after, and proceeded to examine. He prefently found that the above-mentioned books were fuperfcribed on fome more ancient character, which lay concealed beneath, and that the manufcript was to be ranked with thofe which are called refcriptos, or, fays he, to fpeak more in the Ciceronian ftyle, palimpfeflos: the last of which terms, we fhould obferve, is particularly ufed to fignify parchments dieffed in fuch a manner that, by a little moisture, what had been written on them might be effaced, after which they were ready to receive other impreffions. However, in the prefent cafe, the characters were not fo far deftroyed but that, with affiduity and attention, our Author was able, in a great mcafure, to recover them. This Latin Codex contained, we are informed, 176 leaves, nine of which have been more lately added, together with fome others about the middle of the book, from fol. 54 to 72: as to the reft, Mr. Bruns fuppofes they were parts of different authors reduced into the prefent form about the eighth century, when the new text was inferibed on the more ancient one. One part of thefe leaves, he thinks, contains fome of Cicero's orations; but a more minute examination of this he leaves to any future enquirer. He employed himself, however, awhile, in confidering thofe pages, in feveral of which the ancient text is fo greatly obliterated that he conceives it hardly poflible for it ever to be restored. At length he met with an elegant character, and exerted himfelf to the uttermoft, that he might dif cover what had been there written. He prefently, he fays, fnatched a word here and there: he found fometimes occurring the well-known names, Pencil, Contribi, Sertorii, and ob ferved in the front of one page LIB. XCI. and of the other TITI LIVI, but in a character fo very minute, that it might eafily escape the fight. After this elucidation he read over the epitome of the gift book of Livy, and perceived that it treated of the Sertorian war in Spain: after all which he concluded, without any doubt, as he apprehends will all his readers, that he had here met with a fragment of Livy which had not been feen by, or known to, any perlon, for a long feries of years. This fragment, which had been probably torn away from tome ancient volume, conftitutes, it is faid, the 73d and 78th, 75th and 76th leaves of the Culex. The text, which has been more lately tranfcribed, runs tranfverfely on the ancient one; fo that whoever would read the fragment of Livy muft turn the book in such a manner as that the margin to the left hand may become the loweft edge of the leaf : (ut margo ad finiftram ora folii infima evadat.) Concerning Concerning the character of this fragment, it is faid to be that which is called uncialis; which is generally accounted the moft antique, and is found in the finalleft number of manufcripts. Mr. Bruns compared it with the most celebrated ancient writings, and perceived that it yielded to none in point of excellence or antiquity. When he was afterwards at Naples he met with feveral Latin words which had been infcribed on fome of the walls in Herculaneum, and having very carefully confidered the form of thefe letters, and thofe of the lately difcovered fragment, he fays, they appeared to him very exactly to resemble each other. He has added to his work an engraving of four Latin words, which he faw at the bottom of a picture taken out of the Herculanean ruins, as a fpecimen of the character in which the fragment is written. Our Author, on the whole, does not fcruple to give it a first place among ancient manufcripts in the Latin language; and, left he fhould be deemed rah in forming this judgment, he introduces a learned Italian, Vito Givenazzi, Abbate, particularly fagacious in this kind of enquiries, as joining him in the fame opinion. The parchment of this fragment, it is obferved, is very thin, and of a yellow colour: there are two columns in each page containing thirty lines, and the words have no intervening fpace to diftinguish them from each other. Mr. Bruns has published the fragment firft in its original form, afterwards in a more modern way. In fome places he has been obliged to leave a word or a fentence imperfect; but though it is short and incomplete, it is nevertheless an acceptable addition to the excellent hiftory of which it makes a part. The Editor has added a few annotations and criticisms on MONTHLY CATAL O GU E, POETICA L. Art. 14. Evelina; a Poem. By John Huddleftone Wynne, THIS HIS is the well-known Evelina who makes one of the principal characters in Mafon's Caractacus, where the is infinitely more interesting than the is found to be in this poem; which is diffufe and declamatory, but disturbs not the paffions. There are, however, fome well fabricated lines in it, and defcriptions not unpoetical: Nor lefs the ftream of Llyvon marks the fcene, L 2 When When vernal funs their brightening influence shed, Then fwells his torrent with refiltlefs force, &c.' A well-wrought comparifon follows, of the fons of Cambria to their river: they are gentle and kind in peaceable times; but when The fhrill-tun'd trumpet fummons them to arms, Art. 15. Town Eclogues. 1. The Hangman. 2. The Harle- Too bad for bad report L. SHAKESPEARE. L. Art. 16. The Naval Review; a Poem. Infcribed to the Right Hon. Sir Charles Saunders, Admiral of the White, &c. By the Rev. Robert English, late Chaplain to his Majesty's Ship the Royal George; and to the 24th Regiment of Foot. 4to. 1 s. Becket. 1773. "And if you needs must write, write Cafar's praife." POPE. And, "Nobly wild, with Budgell's fire and force, Paint angels trembling round his falling horfe." Art. 17. A Collection of Poems, the Productions of the Kingdom of Ireland; felected from a Collection published at Dublin, Wintitled, The Shamrock; or, Hibernian Crees. ¿vo. 38, fewed. Bladon. 1773: -for our account This felection is made with judgment and taste :of The Shamrock, fee Review, vol. xlvii. p. 44. Art. 18. Mufa Seatoniana: A complete Collection of the Cambridge Prize-Poems, from the firit Institution of that Premium, by the Rev. Mr. Thomas Seaton in 1750, to the prefent Time. To which are added, two Poems, likewife written for the Prize, by Mr. Bally and Mr. Scott. 8vo. 3 s. 6d. Pearch, &c. 1772. Of thefe poems, which came under our review at the times of their first publication, we have now nothing to fay; but we fincerely wish that Mr. Seaton's beneficence may, for the future, be better bestowed, and his eftate be better tenanted. Art. 19. The Swedish Curate, a Poem. By Mr. Jerningham. 4to. 15. Robfon. 1773. Gustavus Vasa, after his escape from his confinement in Denmark, was received, as he travelled through Sweden in difguife,, by Suverdfio, a country curate, who, at the hazard of his life, concealed him in the parith church. This ftory is not fufficiently interesting or eventful; nor has the poet raised fuch a structure upon it as will greatly น. |