CRITICISM, verbal, is the art of settling, with probability, or, as a practitioner of that art would say, with precision, the text of the ancient Greek and Latin clas sic authors. This species of criticism takes its rise from the state in which the writ ings of those authors have come clown to modern times. The art of printing being unknown at the period when they were composed, they were presented by tran scription; from which circumstance they were evidently liable to be deformed by errors, and those errors must necessarily have been greatly multiplied by the lapse of ages. A passage in Aulus Genius, which states that a reading in Cicero was justified by a copy made by his learned freedman Tyro, and a reading in Virgil's Georgics by a book which had formerly belonged to Virgil's family, at once de monstrates the early corruption of works of taste, and the early stress which was laid upon the authority of ancient manu scripts.
In the long night of ignorance, which succeeded the subversion of the Roman empire by the barbarians of the north, the classic authors were forgotten, and their works were neglected, and left to perish. But when literature revived in Italy, they became the objects of the most eager and diligent research. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the discovery of an ancient Greek or Latin manuscript was celebrated as an event of the greatest im portance, and gave occasion to the most enthusiastic exultation. The difficulty of perusal, however, which was experienced in some instances.called into exercise the skill of the most practised scholars; and the real or supposed corruptions of the text, in most of the codices, which were at this period brought to light, afforded a copious subject for the acumen of the ablest critics. The letters of Ambrogio Traversari, of Leonardo Aretivo, and of Poggio Bracciolini, abundantly prove, that emendation was one of the first du ties of the fortunate man of letters, who had rescued a classic author from oblivi on. There is too much fear that this du ty was not in every instance discharged with the requisite ability and discretion ; —but, however this may be, the copies, which were multiplied by the hands or under the inspection of the revivers of li terature, are at this day almost the sole authority, to which the learned can refer, in settling the text of the compositions of the most distinguished writers of Greece and Rome.
The invention of the art of printing was, as might naturally be expected, soon em ployed in multiplying copies of the ancient classics, the impressions of which were carefully superintended by the great lu minarie4 of the age. Among these shine, with pre-eminent lustre,Politian,Landino, and Marcus Musurus, who, by the colla tion of MSS. and the application of tem perate conjecture, endeavoured to exhi bit the works of the classic writers in their purity. But of all these friends and promoters of good literature, the place of most distinguished honour is due to Aldus Manutius. This illustrious
scholar, by his fame, and by his munifi cence, attracted to Venice, the place of his residence, the ornaments of the lite rary world, by whose assistance, in the examination of MSS. and in the other du ties of an editor, he was enabled to pub lish copious editions of almost every Greek and Latin classic, which may he yet regarded as unrivalled in elegance and correctness. From this time, to the present day, may be traced a succession of scholars, who have endeavoured, with various success, to evince their learning and their acumen by their emendations of the text of the ancient classics; and whosoever has studied with due atten tion the lucubrations of a Heyne, or a Porson, will readily acknowledge, that even at this late period, a rich harvest may be gathered in the field' of verbal criticism.
It is much to be lamented, however, that the art of verbal criticism has been brought into discredit by the rashness of certain editors of the ancient classics, who, inspired with the rage of innovation, have despised the authority of manu scripts, and have deformed the finest models of antiquity, by the introduction of their own crude fancies, under the form of conjectural emendations. It has been well observed, that, by such critics as these, " authors have been taken in hand, like anatomical subjects, only to display the skill and abilities of the ar tist; so that the end of many edition seems often to have been no more, than to exhibit the great sagacity and erudition of an editor. The joy of the task was the honour of amending, while corrup tions were sought with a more than com mon attention, as each of those afforded a testimony to the editor and his art." The gross impropriety of this pruriency of alteration is well displayed in the Vir gifius Restauratus, which is usually print-, ed with the works of Pope, and which, though expressly intended to ridicule the proud presumption of Bently, may be regarded as an anticipated speci men of the lucubrations of certain cri tics, who have flourished in more mo dern times.
Nearly allied to verbal criticism is Illustrative Criticism, or the art of ex plaining the ancient classic authors. This art gave rise to the tribe of scholiasts and commentators. Of these, some re stricted themselves to the illustration of particular authors, and others exercised their talents upon a selection of passages from a variety of writers. Among the former may be mentioned Didymus and Eustathius, who bestowed their labours upon Homer ; and among the latter may be classed Politian, whose miscellanea contains a copious fund of erudition: The modern writers of these two classes, un der the denomination of editors, commen. tators, and translators, are in a manner innumerable.