ART. IV. Photii Lexicon. E duobus Apographis edidit Godofredus Hermannus. Accedit Jo. Albertii Index, suppletus et auctus. Lipsiæ, 1808. pp. 518.

PHOTIUS,

HOTIUS, a native of Constantinople, after having successively filled the high offices of master of the horse, captain of the imperial guards, ambassador to Assyria, and first secretary of state, and having thus exhausted the whole range of civil preferment, was, on a sudden, elevated to the Patriarchate of the West; having been consecrated, on six successive days, monk, anagnostes, subdeacon, deacon, priest, and patriarch. Excommunicated by Pope Nicholas the First, he excommunicated Pope Nicholas in return; and after being several times ejected from his episcopal chair, and as often reseated, he was at last sent prisoner to an Armenian convent, where he died in the year 891. He seems to have been very learned, and very wicked-a great scholar, and a consummate hypocrite-not only neglecting the occasions of doing good which presented themselves, but perverting the finest talents to the worst purposes.

We have remaining of his works, besides some Letters and a collection of Canons, his Bibliotheca, or Myriobiblon, being an account of the books which were read to him during his embassy to Assyria, and his opinion of their respective merits. The ambassador, it would seem, must have had but little to do in his diplomatic capacity, since he assures us, that these books amounted to about three hundred; a number, we conceive, much greater than most of our ambassadors or public functionaries can boast of having read, in the course of much longer negotiations. It is pleasing to observe in what proper and energetic terms the good and pious Patriarch rails at the disturbers of the Church. The Novatians and Nestorians rarely come off with any gentler appellation than that of dog,' or 'impious wretch. Our younger readers, however, who take the Myriobiblon in hand, are not to suppose that the book, which at present goes under that name, is really the production of Photius; we believe that not more than half of it can safely be attributed to that learned and turbulent bishop; and we think it would not be very difficult to discriminate between the genuine and supposititious parts of that voluminous production. But our present business is with another work of Photius, his celebrated and valuable Lexicon, which, imperfect and mutilated as it is, is more valuable to the critical scholar, than ten Myriobibla."

It is well known to the learned, that the various MSS. of this Lexicon, in different libraries on the Continent, are mere transcripts from each other, and originally from one, venerable for

its antiquity, which was formerly in the possession of the celebrated Thomas Gale, and which is now deposited in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge. This manuscript, which is on parchment, bears such evident marks of great antiquity, that it may not unreasonably be supposed to have been a transcript from the author's copy. * It is written in various hands. The compendia, which are used in some parts of it, are extremely difficult to decipher; though, on the whole, they are less so than the contractions which occur in many manuscripts, and particularly those in the library of Saint Germain. The names of authors cited, it is frequently not easy to make out; and the characters of ", x, ß, μ, of λa & μ, of a & TM, of « & u, of λ & μ, of a & sr, of xi & μ, of λr & μ, and many others, are so nearly alike, that an ignorant copyist would be sure to blunder. And, accordingly, we find the various transcripts from this ancient MS. are miserably faulty and corrupt. + It was natural, therefore, that those scholars, who wished for the publication of this Lexicon, should be desirous of seeing it printed from the Galean MS., in preference to any other. Non eram nescius,' says Mr Hermann, fore, qui neque aliter quam ex ipso Codice Galeano, edi debuisse censerent. We apprehend that this inuendo is levelled at the late Professor Porson, who, it is well known, had transcribed and corrected this valuable Lexicon for the press; and when, unfortunately, his copy had been consumed by the same destructive element which devoured the Alexandrian library, and Parson Adams's schylus, the Professor, with incredible industry and patience, began the task afresh, and completed another transcript in his own exquisite handwriting.

* It seems that a copy of this Lexicon, at Florence, was transcribed, about the end of the 16th century, by Richard Thomson, of Oxford; who probably intended to publish it. We find the fol lowing passage, in a letter from Joseph Scaliger to Richard Thomson, which we extract, as we believe it is not commonly known, and as every thing which fell from that extraordinary man, even ἐν παρόδῳ, deserves to be read. 'Remitto tibi nunc Photium tuum, optimum sane librum, & quem edi e re literaria est; quanquam omnia, quæ in illo sunt, hodie in aliis, unde ipse hausit, exstant. Quia tamen laborem legentium levare possit, quod in eo omnia congesta sunt, quæ sparsim in aliis relegere labor est, non exiguam a studiosis gratiam iniveris, si tam utilem librum in publicum exire patiaris. Scaliger Epist. p. 503. See also p. 171.

† Alberti, in his notes on Hesychius, cites the Lexicon of Photius repeatedly, but with almost as many inaccuracies as citations. This is partly attributable to his having used a very faulty apograph belonging to J. C. Wolf, and partly to his own negligence.

Mr Porson's copy of the Codex Galeanus is, we are informed, amongst the papers of that incomparable scholar, which are religiously preserved by the learned society of which he was so long a distinguished ornament. Report had assigned the office of publishing it to two gentlemen every way qualified for the task. Long ago, we took an opportunity of stating, in this Journal, the wishes of the literary world with respect to it. But while we are anxiously looking for its appearance, lo! Photius is put into our hands, but not the Photius of our acquaintance, nor the Photius of Richard Porson, but the Photius of Godfrey Hermann; and, had the editor's name not been affixed, we should have been at no loss to determine at whose door it should be laid, since it bears many marks of that precipitancy and want of concoction which so often distinguish the productions of that very learned and able German.

We have here merely the naked text of Photius, extracted sometimes from one MS. copy, and sometimes from another, (both of which are eminently inaccurate) with scarcely a single correction of Mr Hermann's, or any attempt whatsoever towards the restitution of the text. His apology for all this, however, is of the most ingenuous and comprehensive nature. The blunders which he has left in the text were too palpable, it seems, to need any correction ! Sunt autem plerique errores ex eo genere, ut non possint nisi imperitissimos fallere.' Whether this be really the case, we shall have occasion to examine hereafter. In the mean time, we cannot help observing, that Mr Hermann seems to have been desirous of preoccupying the field into which he understood Mr Porson to have entered; but that, wanting time or something else, to furnish his author with a body of useful notes, or to restore him to his pristine integrity, he was yet resolved to be the first who should publish Photius: And Photius accordingly we have; but alas! how changed from that Photius who returned from Assyria, laden with the spoils of three hundred authors! We have, however, at the end of the volume, a Libellus Animadversionum,' by John Frederic Schleusner, a scholar justly celebrated for his admirable Lexicon of the New Testament; which animadversions were drawn up two years after the Photius was printed, and leave us the less room to regret the want of Mr Hermann's lucubrations. An index of authors cited is given at the end, from Alberti's Glossarium Græcum. We should add, that the Photius forms the third volume of a set, the two first of which contain an ill arranged and ponderous catalogue of words, designated by the name of Joannis Zonara Lexicon.' The Patriarch informs us in his preface, that his Dictionary is destined

principally to the explanation of the remarkable words which occur in the Greek orators and historians, but occasionally to illustrate the phraseology of the poets. Several lacunæ occur in the MSS., the leaves being torn out from the Galean copy, ε. s. from 'Αδιάκριτος to Επώνυμοι, and from Φορητῶς το Ψιλοδάπιδας.

The great Lexicons of Hesychius and Suidas, as every scholar knows, are compiled, and in many instances with very little judgment, from the works of more ancient grammarians, That of Hesychius, in particular, is to be considered, as a compilation from a vast number of sources, the streams from which, meeting in his capacious reservoir, form a pool of water very turbid and unwholesome, from which he who drinks must drink with caution and reserve. The scholars, who flourished soon after the revival of literature, received with avidity the interpolated edition, published from the only surviving MS. of Hesychius by Marcus Musurus; and, without inquiring into the antiquity, learning, or discernment of Hesychius, they considered him a sufficient authority for the existence of any word, however contrary to the analogy of the Greek language; and imputed the more manifest faults of his Lexicon, not to himself, but to his copyists. The critics, therefore, of the seventeenth century, applied the pruning hook to Hesychius, with a fearful and sparing hand; and even Alberti himself, at a later period, exercised a cautions discretion with respect to the text of his Lexicographer, which is only to be accounted for by the phlegmatic temperament which is so strongly indicated in the excellent portrait of him engraved by Houbraken, and prefixed to his splendid publication. Before him, however, the real merits and nature of this valuable vocabulary had been discussed by the British Aristarchus, in his celebrated epistle to Dr Mills. That great scholar perceived, that many of the worst faults with which it abounds, are imputable to Hesychius himself; that in compiling his Thesaurus, he made use of incorrect copies of the authors whom he pillaged, or was misled by certain compendia of writing, which he was unable to decipher: in short, that the laborious Hesychius is very little to be depended upon; that it is no easy matter to distinguish what portion of him is really derived from trust-worthy sources; that he manifests in some instances bad faith, and in many great stupidity. All this, says Ruhnken, it was reserved for the docta audacia' of Bentley to show, It is, however, to be remarked, that Hesychius is not come down to us in his original form, but mutilated by the hand of an epitomizer.

Photius, who threw together his Lexicon on a much more confined plan, probably brought to his undertaking greater

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learning and judgment than Hesychius, and seems to have given. most of his authorities from his own knowledge of the authors whom he cites. Yet even his work is little more than a compilation, of which many parts are copied verbatim from the Scholia on Plato, the Lexicon of Harpocration, that of Pausanias, and, in all probability, from the Λεξικά Κωμικὰ καὶ Τρα γικὰ of Theo or Didymus, from which, ceu fonte perenni, later Grammarians derived most of their explanations of the scenic phrases of the Greeks. These Dramatic Lexicons are unfortunately lost; but there is, in the National Library of Paris, a MS. which seems to be an Epitome of one of them, under the title of "Αλλος ̓Αλφάβητος. And with a little care and discrimination, a very considerable part of them might be recovered from the pages of the still existing grammarians.

To give one instance, out of many, of the practicability of this; Ruhnken, in his first Epistola Critica' p. 104. quotes, from a MS. Etymologicon, the following gloss. Αλκαία. ἡ οὐρά κυρίως δὲ τοῦ λέοντος, διὰ τὸ εἰς ἀλκὴν αὐτὸν τρέπειν. ἔχει γὰρ ἐπὶ τῇ οὐρα κέντρον, ὑφ' οὗ παροξύνεται καθάπερ Φησὶν Ιερώνυμος καὶ Ἐπαφροδιτος ἐν Υπομνήσει Ασπίδος Ησίοδου. We have no doubt but that this is a citation from the Comic Lexicon. Schol. Appollon. Rhod. iv. 1614. ἐν δὲ τῷ ΚΩΜΙΚΩΙ ΛΕΞΙΚΩΙ, οὐ μόνον ἡ τοῦ λέοντος οὐρὰ ἀλκαία, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἵππου κ. τ. λ. From this Lexicon Photius has borrowed, though less largely than Hesychius. For instance, we have in Photius, Ζῆ, ἀντὶ τοῦ ζήθι. Εὐριπίδης. In the Epitome above mentioned we find, Zh. ἀντὶ τοῦ ζῆθι. Εὐριπίδης Ιφιγενείᾳ. Ἀλλ ̓ ἕρπε, καὶ ζῆ, καὶ δόμους οἴκει πατρός. Σοφοκλῆς Δανάη. Ζη, πίνε, φέρβου. Again, Photius, Λίτρα, ἦν μὲν καὶ νομίσματα, (read νόμισμά τις ὡς Δί φιλος· ἐπὶ δὲ τοῦ σταθμοῦ Ἐπίχαρμος καὶ Σώφρων ἐχρήσαντο. Epitome, Λίτεα. (Λίτρα.) ἂν μὲν καὶ νόμισμα Σικελικόν. ὅτι (πότε) δὲ καὶ ἐπὶ σταθμοῦ. Επίχαρμος Ἐλπιδι ἢ Πλούτῳ, Photius, ψυχρὸς ἄνθρωπος, ἀντὶ τοῦ δυσκί γάτος. We should probably add, from the same Epitome, the words Κρατῖνος Ωραις,

Ζῆ,

Another source, from which Photius enriched his collection, were the • Lexica Rhetorica. For instance, Κύων ἐπὶ φάτνην (φάτνης) παροιμία ἐπὶ τῶν μήτε χρωμένων, μήτε ἄλλους ἐώντων. Lex. Rhetor. MS. ap. Ruhnken. Auciar. Emend. Hesych. T. I. p. 1617. Κύων ἐν φάτνῃ. παροιμία ἐπὶ τῶν μήτε αὐτῶν χρωμένων, μήτε ἄλλοις ἐπιτρεπόνThe words of Photius, Ζυγός, τοῦ σανδαλίου τὸ συνέχον τοὺς δακ τύλους, are taken literatim from the Rhetoric Lexicon of Pausanias, as the reader will perceive, upon referring to Eustathius on Homer, Iliad N. p. 956, 5. The gloss, Ζυγώσω, καθέξω, δαμά

των.

, comes from the same source, as also the explanation of "Ivvos, as appears probable from Eustath. on Iliad A. p. 877, 15. Photius. Κελέοντες, ἱστόποδες, καὶ πάντα τὰ μακρὰ ξύλα. Pausanias ap. Eustath. in aliud. Λ. p. 884, 17. Κελέοντες οἱ ἱστόποδες.