In consequence of various and repeated complaints of irregular delivery of this Journal, we beg to state that for the l seven years it has never failed of publication on the last days the Quarter, so as to be ready for the 1st of January, April, Jul and October. Our Readers will therefore know to whom attribute any delay. The Story of the Trojan Horse, considered as a Proof of the Reality of a Trojan War. By the Rev. G. TOWNSEND. PAGE On the Science of the EGYPTIANS and CHALDEANS. By the Rt. Hon. Sir W. DRUMMOND. No. VII. ... Notice of "Introduction to the Critical Study and Know- ledge of the Holy Scriptures. By T. H. HORNE, M.A." 58 On the Antiquity of ALCHYMY. BY THOMAS TAYLOR... 75 In EURIPIDEM Commentarii Jo. SEAGER, A.B. No. I. BIBLIOGRAPHY of the middle of the 17th Century. Cambridge Prize Poems, for 1819.-Regina Epicedium, (Gr.) Theba Ægyptiaca, (Lat.) Epigrammata :-Discri- men Obscurum. In quendam Velocipedantem. (Gr.) Discrimen Obscurum. (Lat.) Senarii Græci, Præmio Dissertation Historique, Littéraire, et Bibliographique, sur la Vie et les Ouvrages de MACROBE. Par M. ALPHONSE Lacrymæ Elegiacæ. Epist. prima, Ad Ponticum Flaccum. PAGI Thoughts on a Revision of the Translation of various passages in the Old Testament, by ARCHBISHOP SECKER, in a. series of Letters addressed to the Rev. Mr. PILKINGTON. 188 Notice of "SOPHOCLIS quæ extant omnia cum veterum Grammaticorum Scholiis, ex ed. Rich. BRUNCK. Acce- dunt Variæ Lectiones Car. ERFURDT, et Notæ ined, ADVERSARIA LITERARIA. No. XXI. Pauli Henrici Marron Elegia et Odarium. Pago Sanclodoaldæo, xxx. fere annorum Rusticatione frequentato, valedicit Poëta.→ In Suburbanum Montrolianum.-On the Death of Pope Leo Ix. On the Death of Leo x.-Osorius and Cicero. -Joannis Bapt. Bolla Iambi in Pantomimam Viganò.- ̓Αδήλου, οἱ δὲ, Τιρβίττου.-Epitaph on CORNELIA ADRI COMIA, a Dutch Poetess, written by herself.-Epitaph on PASSERAT the Poet, written by himself. FACIO and LAURENTIUS VALLA.-Ovidii Heroid. Ep. vI. v. 40. .• 201 CLASSICAL JOURNAL. NO. XXXIX. SEPTEMBER, 1819. The Story of the Trojan Horse, considered as a Proof of the Reality of a Trojan War. THE HE writers who have examined the question, whether the city of Priam ever existed, are entitled to our approbation and gratitude, though they annihilate our earliest and pleasantest associations. The scenes and the characters of Homer are not only delightful to us as children or young men ; the leisure of manhood and age is equally gratified with the life and spirit, the nature, the imagery, the la nguage, and varieties of the Iliad, the Odyssey, and of their majestic imitation, the Æneid. If Mr. Bryant and his coadjutors could succeed in overthrowing the general opinion in favor of the real existence of Troy, they would destroy the noblest illusions which have attracted and fascinated all classes of readers for nearly thirty centuries. For though it is not necessary to the pleasure arising from poetical composition, that we should consider the splendid pictures of the poet, either as mere matters of fact, or as a more vivid coloring of real history, than is usually given by the sober historian, we are little interested in the Epic dramas, which rest on no other foundation, than the imagination of their author, or the fables of romance. We care less about Kehama and Thalaba, than Achilles and Hector; because we know that these beings could not have been placed in the situations represented by the poet. If Jerusalem had never existed, we should have no interest in the heroic Godfrey, or the good Raymond: if the wood had not been cut down by the crusaders, we should have thought the poet was raving when he described the enchantments employed to prevent the VOL. XX. CI. JI. NO. XXXIX. A felling of the trees. The works of Fancy must be founded on fac knowledge, or memory, or they can neither interest nor pleas This reasoning will apply to the Iliad and the Æneid; if th persuasion that Troy had no real existence, and therefore that the were no such men as Achilles, Ajax, Hector, Paris, &c. be on universally received; the admirable talents of Homer and Virg will be no longer appreciated: their works would gradually esteemed as ingenious romances, to be neglected, though no entirely forgotten. So far from esteeming the Iliad and the Odyssey in this inferio point of view, we ought rather to receive them as a valuable an interesting collection of exact and perfect representations of th earlier manners, customs, and modes of thinking among the firs postdiluvian and patriarchal governments. Though we rejec all the fabulous parts of the story, and doubt the truth of man possible events recorded, there seems to be such an air of reality i the whole narrative of the Siege of Troy, that it challenges ou belief in the existence of the city, and in the certainty that it wa besieged, in spite of all the arguments which have been adduced by Mr. Bryant and his admirers. There is such keeping, uni formity, and connexion, that the human mind never could have invented what Homer must be supposed to have done, if the "tale of Troy divine was not founded on fact. Its interna evidence, in short, appears to decide the controversy. Many instances, in which these observations are applicable, could be pointed out; from others I have selected the curious Episode of the Trojan Horse: the coincidences which I shall enumerate will not perhaps appear too fanciful. وو The Greeks, says the history, were unable to take the city. They pretended to return home, but sailed only to Tenedos, to await the result of a stratagem, by means of which they trusted to capture Troy. They leave an immense statue of a horse on the plain before the town, which contained within its spacious recesses a large body of armed men. On the departure of the Greeks, the Trojans, as Virgil so beautifully describes the scene, open their gates, and fight their battles over again; they mark where Achilles had fought, where the tents of the several nations had been pitched, and the ships drawn up. While many were thus engaged, and others wondered at the immense horse, Sinon is found lurking on the shore. He is requested, after the first insults of the crowd, and when protection had been promised by Priam, to explain the reasons why this immense statue had been left by the Greeks. He replies, after a solemn and suspicious assertion of his veracity, that when Ulysses and Tydides stole the Palladium from the citadel, they had touched the fillets of the Goddess with hands stained |