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Page 20
+Parthenon, h�s apelyse mitr�n; H�S �RINON anthos
Esken en h�mitelei pausamenon thalam�.+
Puellam, cujus Zonam solvit; cujus _VERNUS_ Flos
Pr�proper� tabuit in Thalam�.
[Sidenote: A _Votive Table_ corrected.]
VIII. I come now to the _Votive Table_, which is rich in poetick
Graces, however overwhelm'd with Depravation: and Sir _George_
seems as much to have mistaken the Purport, as the Words, of the
Inscription. _At _Chalcedon_, _says he_, I found an Inscription in
the Wall of a private House near the Church; which signifieth, that
_Evante_, the Son of _Antipater_, having made a prosperous Voyage,
and desiring to return by the _�gean_ Sea, offered Cakes at a
Statue, which he had erected to _Jupiter_, which had sent him such
good Weather, as a Token of his good Voyage._
+[1]OURION epi [2]PRIMN�S tis hod�g�t�ra kaleit�,
Z�na kata [3]pr�tON �Nistion ekpetasas
[4]EPI KYANEAS DINAS DROMOUS entha Poseid�n
Kampylon eilissei kyma para psamathois.
Eita kat' Aigaian pontou plaka [5]NAS ereun�n,
Neisth�; t� de [6]BALL�N psaista para [7]T� Z�AN�.
[8]HODE ton [9]EUANT� ton aei theon Antipatrou pais
St�se [10]phil�n agath�s symbolon euploi�s.+
[Notes:
1: +Ouron+.
2: +prymn�s+.
3: +pr�t�n, histion+.
4: +Kyaneais din�sin epidromon+.
5: +Noston+.
6: +bal�n+.
7: +xoan�+.
8: +Esde+.
9: +euanth�+.
10: +Phil�n+.]
I have mark'd, as before, my Corrections at the Side; and I may
venture to say, I have supported the faltring Verses both with
_Numbers_ and _Sense_. But who ever heard of _Evante_, as the Name
of a Man, in _Greece_? Neither is this Inscription a Piece of Ethnic
Devotion, as Sir _George_ has suppos'd it, to a Statue erected to
_Jupiter_: On the contrary, it despises those fruitless Superstitions.
_Philo_ (a _Christian_, as it seems to me;) sets it up, in Thanks
for a safe Voyage, to the _true God_. That all my Readers may
equally share in this little Poem, I have attempted to put it into
an _English_ Dress.
Invoke who Will the prosp'rous Gale _behind_,
_Jove_ at the _Prow_, while to the guiding Wind
O'er the blue Billows he the Sail expands,
Where _Neptune_ with each Wave heaps Hills of Sands:
Then let him, when the Surge he backward plows,
Pour to his Statue-God unaiding Vows:
But to the God of Gods, for Deaths o'erpast,
For Safety lent him on the watry Waste,
To native Shores return'd, thus _Philo_ pays
His Monument of Thanks, of grateful Praise.
I shall have no Occasion, I believe, to ask the Pardon of _some_
Readers for these _Nine_ last Pages; and Others may be so kind to
pass them over at their Pleasure. (Those Discoveries, which give
Light and Satisfaction to the truly Learned, I must confess, are
Darkness and Mystery to the less capable: +Phengos men xunetois,
axunetois d' Erebos+.) Nor will they be absolutely foreign, I hope,
to a Preface in some Measure critical; especially, as it could not
be amiss to shew, that I have read other Books with the same
Accuracy, with which I profess to have read _Shakespeare_. Besides,
I design'd this Inference from the Defence of Literal Criticism.
If the _Latin_ and _Greek_ Languages have receiv'd the greatest
Advantages imaginable from the Labours of the Editors and Criticks
of the two last Ages; by whose Aid and Assistance the Grammarians
have been enabled to write infinitely better in that Art than even
the preceding Grammarians, who wrote when those Tongues flourish'd
as living Languages: I should account it a peculiar Happiness, that,
by the faint Assay I have made in this Work, a Path might be chalk'd
out, for abler Hands, by which to derive the same Advantages to our
own Tongue: a Tongue, which, tho' it wants none of the fundamental
Qualities of an universal Language, yet as a _noble Writer_ says,
lisps and stammers as in its Cradle; and has produced little more
towards its polishing than Complaints of its Barbarity.
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