In 1805 Mr. Payne Knight published 'An Analytical Enquiry into the Principles of Taste,' 8vo, Loudon, which passed through several editions. This work is characterleod by acuteness of thought, and is tho only production of Mr. Knight's which is interesting to the general reader, but it would now probably attract no notice if it were pub lished as an original work. It was reviewed with some severity in the Edinburgh Review' for January, /800. (See also some remarks on it in Mackintoeh's 'Life,' vol. i. p. 871.) Mr. Knight afterwards cou tributed to the ' Edinburgh Review' (Number for July, 1809) a critique of Falconers 'Stab(); a work published at the Clarendon Press. In the following year Mr. Copleeton, then a tutor of Oriel College, Oxford, and afterwards Bishop of Llaudaff, published a defence of the University of Oxford against the strictures of the 'Edinburgh Review.' This defence related not only to Mr. Knight's critique of Falconer's 'Strides,' but also to passages in other articles ascribed to Mr. Playfair and Mr. Sidney Smith. An article in reply, contributed by the three reviewers, appeared in the ' Edinburgh Review' for April, 18]0: Mr. Knight's abare of it extends from p. 169 to p. 177. Mr. Copleston afterwards rejoined, and the controversy with Mr. Knight ended in a grammatical discussion totally foreign to the question at issue. In 1809. were published ' Specimens of Ancient Sculpture, selected from different Collections of Greet Britain, by the Society of Dilettanti,' fol., and a second volume was published in 1835. Thin magnificent work was chiefly doe to Mr. Knight's industry and taste ; the subject' were chosen by him, and ho wrote the prefaces and descriptions of the plates.
In 1816 Mr. Knight was examined by a select committee of the House of Commons on the Elgin Marbles. The evidence which lie gave upon this occasion, while like all that he published quite devoid of any profundity, was not marked with his usual good taste as to the merits of the remains of Greek art ; an examination of it, written in a hostile spirit, may be seen in the ' Quarterly Review,' vol. xiv.,
pp. 533-543. Mr. Knight distributed a short Answer to the Quar terly Review' among hie literary friends in explanation of the parts of his evidence which he considered had been misrepresented. In ]820 Mr. Knight published an edition of the `Iliad' and 'Odyssey,' with prolegomena. His object in this edition was to restore the text of Homer to its original state. He rejected the Wolfian hypo thesis concerning the origin of the Homeric poems, and supposed the 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey' to have been each the work of a single poet; the poet of the Odyssey' being posterior to the poet of the Iliad.' The process by which he attempted to restore the text of these two poems to their original state was twofold : 1, the remodelling of the language, by the introduction of forme disused in later times, and of the ancient letter styled the ' digamma; ' 2, the rejection of verses interpolated by later rhapsodists and poets. It will be enough to say that the work is not now regarded by scholars as of any authority. After Mr. Knight's death his catalogue of his coins was published by the trustees of the British Museum. (' Nummi Veteres, &c., 4to, London, 1S30). Besides the works above mentioned, /0 is Knight wrote several papers in the Classical Journal ' and the Archasologia ' (see vols. xv. 393, xvii. 220, xix. 369): the article ou the works and life of Barry, in the Edinburgh Review' for August 1810, is also by him. To these may be added a paper on the 'Homeric Palace,' published after his death in the Philological Museum,' vol. ii., pp. 645-49. He likewise first published the cele brated 'Elean Inscription,' concerning which see Boeckh, Corp. luscript. Gr.,' No. 11.