Page:A new and general biographical dictionary; containing an historical and critical account of the lives and writings of the most eminent persons in every nation v1.djvu/315

 A P O I. L O D O R U S. 279 wo.yld have been afhamcd, but under the pretext of feveral crimes, of which he got him acculed and convi&ed. This artift did not deport himielf with the good fenfc and policy ot the orator Favorinus, who was precifely in the lame fituation towards Adrian with himtelf. Favorinus beingSee FAVO- blamed by his friends, for fubmitting in his own profeflion * to the inferior judgement of Adrian, "Shall not I eafily fufFer " him, fays he, to he the mod learned and knowing of all " men, who has thirty legions at his command?" APOLLON1US, a Greek writer, born in Alexandria, Fabric. Bib. under the rei.n of Ptolemy Euergetes king of Egypt, was a Gr<Llbilu ' fcholar of Callirnachus, whom he isaccufed of having treated with ingratitude; whereby he drew upon hiinfelf the indig- nation of this poet, who gave him the name of Ibis, from a bird of Egypt, which ufed to purge itfelr with its b-11. Apol- lonius wrote a poem upon the expedition of the Golden Fleece ; the work is ft^led " Argonautica," and conllfts of four books. Quintilian, in his" Inltitiuionesoratoriae," fays that Lib. x.cip.x* this performance is written " aequali quadam mediocritate :" that the author obferved an exal medium between the fub- limeand low ityle in writing. Longinus fays alfo that Apol-L on gin. de lonius never finks in his poem, but has kept it up in an Subiim. uniform and equal manner : however, that he falls infinitely Ca P* 2 ?* fhort of Homer, notwithftanding the 'faults of the latter; becaufe the fublime, though fubje6t to irregularities, isaiways preferable to every other kind of writing. Gyraldus, fpeak- Hlft. of the ing of this poem, commends it as a work of great variety )etS g and labour : the paflion of Medea is fo finely delcribed, that See aifoTa- Virgil himfelf is fuppofed to have copied it almoft entirely, nac i llil Fa - and to have woven it in the ftory of Dido [A]. HvtaS A.poJ'onius, not meeting at firtt with that encouragement Poete* which he expecTted at Alexandria, removed to Rhodes, where Grecs he fet .up a fchool for rhetoric, and gave led ureb for a con-' fiderable time; thence acquiring the name of Rhodius. Here it was that he corrected and put the fin idling hand to his Argonautics, which beingpublicly recited, met with univer- fal applaufe, and the author was complimented with the free- dom of the city. He is faid to have written a book " Con- [A] Rap'm. in his "Reflexions upon ous, that the catalogge of the Argo- Poetry," feems to have no great opinion nauts has nothing of that variety which of this performance of Apollonius ; he the lubjeft was capable of, and that the fay?, th- ftyle has no manner of eleva- poem it eTtremdy flat (rom the begin- tion or (ublimlty, that the ftrlidture of ning. Part ii. Relkt. 15. Uic fable of the poem is very injudici- T 4 *' cernin^