difficulty in perceiving that this translation is neither literal nor correct. Again, "and the king or prince," is no translation of .but a paraphrase والملك "At first Walgrillak." In my article, published by Mr. Walpole, I had hazarded a conjecture that the word here should be written JV, and not Vl, and which would then allude to the closing up of the Pyramid, and perhaps account for the silence of the historians respecting the first opening of it. Upon the original inscription being again examined, this was declared to be the fact. My conjecture was therefore right in this particular; and the inscription which Mr. J. has called the original, and which he has, in his second proposition, taken upon himself to show is correct, is certainly incorrect. He has in other places called it a fac-simile. This is also false, notwithstanding Mr. J.'s appeal to Mr. Belzoni's book. Mr. Salamé has, it is is true, written ; but Mr. Salamé should have acknowledged that this emendation was originally proposed by me. He has, however, made a mistake, and written , which is not Arabic, for Jel, which I had proposed. I need not now dwell on Mr. J.'s proposed emendation ), which he thinks the most probable, as every one must see that he has been unfortunate in this conjecture; nor need I show that his translation Walgrillak is false. "What authority Dr. Lee has had," continues Mr. J. “ for taking out the last word but one of this inscription, &c. it is impossible for me to conceive; he has, however, by that one transposition (without mentioning others) made it appear that Malam Muhamed, &c. were the first who opened the Pyramids; but this certainly is not expressed in the original." But how does Mr. J. know this? for I presume he has not been within the Pyramid to see the original, and, at present, it is no where else to be found. And if Mr. J. has not seen the original, it may be true that this Malam, as he calls him, might have been the first who opened the Pyramid. In my article, above alluded to, I have shown both from Abdallatif and Maerizi that something of this kind did take place in the time of Othman, and that it is probable it could not have taken place before. This Mr. J. has not noticed. Now if no such king as Aly Muhamed can be shown to have existed in Egypt, which I affirm to be the case; and if part of the inscription is incorrect, which I affirm is undeniable; and farther, if the construction of the inscription is imperfect and confused, which I also affirm to be the fact, may it not turn out, upon a third examination of the original, that I have restored some, at least, of the words to their true places? That I have succeeded in one instance has been allowed by Mr. Belzoni in his own hand-writing, which I now have by me; and until I shall have seen a fac-simile of the original, as mentioned in Mr. Walpole's book, I shall not be convinced that the copy given by Mr. Belzoni is correct. But as Mr. Belzoni is not himself acquainted with the Arabic, I have no doubt he has given the best copy he could procure. Mr. J. tells us, in his first proposition, that he intends to demonstrate that the original Arabic in the construction is neither imperfect nor confused. I have shown that it is not the original, nor even true copy of it. Let us now see how it is demonstrated that the inscription is not imperfect, &c. We are told in p. 451, "that it is a complete Egyptian fragment, having neither beginning nor end."-And again, it is to be regretted that the indefatigable perseverance of Mr. B. did not enable him to transcribe what preceded, as well as what followed this imperfect fragment." And again, "the word "relates to what follows, viz. something not included in this fragment." Mr. J. therefore, instead of proving that the inscription is not imperfect, has plainly asserted that it is. If he will translate it literally, he will see that it is also confused. Instead of the other two demonstrations promised, our critic has given a false translation of an erroneous inscription; and, instead of giving proof of his erudition acquired in Barbary, has afforded unanswerable evidence that he is a mere Tiro in this. bold and figurative language. ד. Cambridge, June, 1821. SAMUEL LEE. P.S. If your correspondents would have the goodness to look into the Cambridge Calendar, they would not give me styles and titles to which I have no claim. CURSORY OBSERVATIONS On the article in the Quarterly Review relative to the New Edition of Stephens' Greek Thesaurus. ALTHOUGH it be at all times an invidious, and generally a fruitless task, to attempt to derogate from established reputation; yet, as I value one particle of generosity and literary honesty beyond all the sterling criticism which ever enriched the pages of a Valckenaer or a Bentley, I cannot forbear expressing, through the medium of your Journal, the indignation which I, in common, I trust, with every man who has a heart in the slightest degree softened by the spirit of humanity, or really interested in the cause of literature, have felt at the attempts to decry the labors of preceding scholars, editors and critics, which have been made by a certain literary Drawcansir of the present day, who is in the habit of tilting, à la Quichotte, at all he meets, whether giant or windmill. The critical tactics of this Rev. Gentleman are of a very peculiar nature, and merit at least the praise of consistency. General readers, who, according to the fashionable style of acquiring knowledge, consult the pages of periodical criticism with the design of knowing what the literary censurers of the times will allow them to approve, have little conception of a regular and most determined warfare waged through these channels. Such is nevertheless the fact, and it is universally allowed to be so by all who are able to look behind the scenes, and see the wires by which the nervis mobile lignum is agitated. But of all critics, who ever employed the pages of a Review with the insidious design of raising their own reputation upon the prostrate basis of the fame of those who have preceded them in the same path, no one has ever acted so uniformly on this plan'as the critical Colossus before alluded to. This design is not manifested merely in the 44th No. of the Quarterly —a number which promises to attain as high a degree of 'bad eminence' as the famous 45th of the North Briton, To this there is a particle of secret history attached, with which the public are not generally acquainted, but which may be relied on as perfectly authentic, and which is curious, as it serves to show the real motive that suggested the compilation of that knavish piece of work.", The same design pervades various articles, which are either avowedly written by Dr. Blomfield, or which the peculiar MAY-TAAKTHE style, so universally adopted by him, justifies us in attributing to the same pen from which the review of Butler's Eschylus and the diatribe of the Quarterly emanated. Previous to the publication of his edition of Callimachus, the real merits of which are so justly appreciated in the Jena Review, he favored us with an account of the very rare Venice Edition of 1555. This was intended to answer two purposes: 1st. to attract the attention of the learned world to the subject of his own forthcoming edition (a favorite manoeuvre of this gentleman), and 2nd. to bestow a little gratuitous abuse on Mr. Dibdin, as a mere reader of title-pages; an insinuation which, to say nothing of its snarling captiousness, comes with a peculiarly bad grace from Dr. Blomfield, who has himself been found ignoring a good Greek work, and indeed one of common occurrence apud auctores bona nota, having been misled by its omission in the Index to Brunck's Aristophanes. We have also a bibliographical notice of the editions of Eschylus, in one part of which this young reviewer, for such he was then, speaks in the following terms of the immortal Ezechiel Spanheim, a scholar who, in depth of learning and critical acumen, far surpassed Dr. B. "It is well known that this commentator of brazen entrails threatened to edit Eschylus; a design which some lucky combination of circumstances rendered abortive."-The perusal of this sentence absolutely excites a kind of ỏplółpię póBos, and its author merits, if possible, a severer castigation than he has received from the caustic lash of G. B. in the xliiid No. of the Classical Journal:-an article which has had more effect in diminishing that homage of public respect claimed by soi-disant, but due only to real superiority, than perhaps Dr. Blomfield is aware of. I should not omit to state that in his article Dr. B. speaks with sufficient approbation of his own Eschylus, then in course of publication. Dr. B. has favored us with a restored inscription of one of Dr. Clarke's Greek Marbles, which had been long before reduced to order by Porson, who in the last line proposed to read TNHPOON in one word. How superior is this to Dr. Blomfield's "flat, stale, and unprofitable" oùv spár! Bentley magnanimously appeals to the judgment of foreign universities, as a method of challenging that justice which was attempted to be withheld from him at home. If this be a fair criterion of merit, the German critiques of Dr. B.'s Callimachus and Persæ will enable us to assign him his true rank among those who have gained celebrity in the walks of Greek criticism; as G. B. has shown us in what esteem we are to hold his possession of an infinitely more valuable quality than mere learning, however genuine and profound an upright intention and a mind imbued with the firm principles of literary honesty-the incoctum generoso pectus honesto, I would recommend to Dr. Blomfield's serious notice the lines of Pope, in the conclusion of his Temple of Fame, which express the moral of the foregoing observations infinitely better than any language of mine. "Oh! if no firmer basis build my name Then teach me, Heaven, to scorn the guilty bays, Oh! grant an honest fame, or grant me none !” · P. S. I am informed that Dr. B. meditates an original compilation, after the manner of Polyænus, to be entitled ΣΤΡΑΤΗΓΗΜΑΤΑ ΚΡΙΤΙΚΑ. OF THE LATIN HISTORIANS BEFORE LIVY. PART II. [Continued from No. XLV. p. 147.] ONE of the contemporaries of Calpurnius Piso, the last historian mentioned in the preceding part of this sketch, was L. Cassius Hemina. He wrote four books of annals, recording, like his predecessors, the events of his native country and city, which he appears to have traced from the early age previous to the building of Rome to his own times. Various passages are quoted from him by Pliny, Gellius, and others, from which we are enabled to conclude that his materials were more copious than those of the earlier historians appear to have been. We are indebted to Priscian the grammarian for the title of his fourth book, Bellum |