Page images
PDF
EPUB

people," and "barbarians," of the island. Now, our Malta was at that time fully peopled and highly civilized, as we may surely infer from Cicero and other writers.†

* Acts xxviii. 2. and 4.

† Upwards of a century before the reign of Nero, Cicero speaks at considerable length of our Malta in one of the Verrine orations. See Act. ii. lib. iv. c. 46. "Insula est Melita, judices," &c. There was a town, and Verres had established in it a manufactory of the fine cloth or cotton stuffs, the Melitensis vestis, for which the island is uniformly celebrated:

"Fertilis est Melite sterili vicina Cocyræ Insula, quam Libyci verberat unda freti.”

Ovid. Fast. iii. 567.

And Silius Italicus has

"telaque superba

Punic. xiv. 251.

Lanigera Melite.”

Yet it may have been cotton after all the present product of Malta. Cicero describes an ancient temple of Juno situated on a promontory near the town, so famous and revered, that, even in the time of Masinissa, at least 150 years B. C., that prince had religiously restored some relics which his admiral had taken from it. The plunder of this very temple is an article of accusation against Verres; and a deputation of Maltese (legati Melitenses) came to Rome to establish the charge. These are all the facts, I think, which can

A viper comes out from the sticks upon the fire being lighted: the men are not surprised at the appearance of the snake, but imagine first a murderer, and then a god from the harmless attack. Now in our

be gathered from Cicero; because I consider his expression of nudatæ urbes, in the working up of this article, a piece of rhetoric. Strabo merely marks the position of Melita, and says that the lap-dogs called κυνίδια Μελιταῖα were sent from this island, though other writers attribute them to the other Melite in the Adriatic. (lib. vi.) Diodorus, however, a Sicilian himself by birth, gives the following remarkable testimony as to the state of the island in his time, which, it will be remembered, was considerably before the date of St. Paul's shipwreck. "There are three islands to the south of Sicily, each of which has a city or town (ó), and harbours fitted for the safe reception of ships. The first of these is Melite, distant about 800 stadia from Syracuse, and possessing several harbours of surpassing excellence. Its inhabitants are rich and luxurious (τοὺς κατοικοῦντας ταῖς οὐσίαις εὐδαίμονας). There are artizans of every kind (παντοδαποὺς ταῖς ἐργασίαις); the best are those who weave cloth of a singular fineness and softness. The houses are worthy of admiration for their superb adornment with eaves and brilliant whitewashing (οἰκίας ἀξιολόγους καὶ κατεσκευασμένας φιλοτίμως γείσσοις καὶ κονιάμασι περιττότερον).” — Lib. v. c. 12. Mela (ii. c. 7.) and Pliny (üi. 14.) simply mark the position. Ed.

Malta there are, I may say, no snakes at all; which, to be sure, the Maltese attribute to St. Paul's having cursed them away. Melita in the Adriatic was a perfectly barbarous island as to its native population, and was, and is now, infested with serpents.

Besides, the context shows that the scene is in the Adriatic.

The Maltese seem to have preserved a fondness and taste for architecture from the time of the knights — naturally enough occasioned by the incomparable materials at hand.*

[ocr errors]

August 19. 1832.

ENGLISH AND GERMAN. BEST STATE OF SOCIETY.

IT may be doubted whether a composite language like the English is not a happier

* The passage which I have cited from Diodorus shows that the origin was much earlier. — ED.

instrument of expression than a homogeneous one like the German. We possess a wonderful richness and variety of modified meanings in our Saxon and Latin quasi-synonymes, which the Germans have not. For "the pomp and prodigality of Heaven," the Germans must have said "the spendthriftness.' Shakspeare is particularly happy in his use of the Latin synonymes, and in distinguishing between them and the Saxon.

[ocr errors]

That is the most excellent state of society in which the patriotism of the citizen ennobles, but does not merge, the individual energy of the man.

* Verschwendung, I suppose.-ED.

[blocks in formation]

IN chemistry and nosology, by extending the degree to a certain point, the constituent proportion may be destroyed, and a new kind produced.

I have known strong minds with imposing, undoubting, Cobbett-like manners, but I have never met a great mind of this sort. And of the former, they are at least as often wrong as right. The truth is, a great mind must be androgynous. Great minds Swedenborg's for instance-are never wrong but in consequence of being in the right, but imperfectly.

A philosopher's ordinary language and admissions, in general conversation or writings ad populum, are as his watch com

« PreviousContinue »