The Collected Writings of James Henley Thornwell (Volume 3); Theological and Controversial

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1888 edition. Excerpt: ...in Rome is one numbered in the old printed catalogue 64 (now 43 F. 5), which, as I hope to show presently, holds a unique position among the MSS of this corrupt poem. It is in parchment, consisting of 84 leaves. The order of its contents is as follows: 1. Franc. Petrarchae Eclogae. 2. Claudianus de Raptu Proser-pinae. 3. Prudentii Psychomachia. 4. Epistola Saphos poetisse ad Phaonem amasium suum feliciter. 5. Calpurnii Eclogae. 6. Culex. 7. Aetna 1--6. It was therefore written after the publication of Petrarch's Eclogues, and may belong to the late 14th or early 15th century. The capitals in which the titles or headings of each poem are written are in red; as also the names of the interlocutors in the Eclogues of Petrarch and Calpurnius. In form the MS is a very tall octavo; a large margin of more than an inch is left on the right of the text; a smaller (about inch) on the left. Each page, when written uninterruptedly, has 35 lines. The writing is clear and the pages very clean. I shall mention at once what gives it a unique place among the MSS of the Culex. vv. 366--368 are written in all the earliest MSS (those at Paris, the Cambridge, and Vatican 3252) as follows: 365 Mucius et prudens ardorem corpore passus Legitime cessit cui fracta (facta Vat.) potentia regis Hic curius clare socius uirtutis et ille Flaminius deuota dedit qui corpora flamme. Ab far as I know, no one has yet been able to explain the meaning of 366. Now the Corsini MS gives it as follows: Cui cessit lidithime facta potentia regis i. a Cui cessit Lydi timefacta potentia regis, a reading which at once makes all clear. The Lydian King is of course the Etruscan Porsena. I should suppose that there can be no doubt that this is right; and if so, the form of the...