Page:The travels of Macarius, Patriarch of Antioch - Volume I.djvu/16

viii First, the Professor, in order to force out something new, requires his authority to be read as it suits him; differently, of course, from the accepted method: and then Sophocles is proved to have used the word he has fixed upon for his ingenious distortions, in nearly the sense required. And all this ingenuity and labour is employed to bring out the most ridiculous conception of the passage, that the forced fancy of a Commentator could perhaps give birth to. The only word that requires any comment, is ἀντέχοις, which appears clearly to mean prohibe: Withhold from my eyes this painful light. But the obvious meaning is too simple for the acceptance of the ostentatious Critic, whose famished appetite has long been confined to the close-cropped pasture of a thread-bare text. He would gain no name by following the direct passage, to which plain sense is the guide; and prefers a noisy dash upon the rocks which bound it. These unfortunate toilers might have given occasion to some such proverb as the Arabic

To the industrious pursuit of more profitable labours, opening the road to fresh information, and unbounded communication of thought and language—to the display of feelings and propensities, as they are diversified by clime, and promoted by the suggestions of various education, so necessary to be contemplated in the happy government of the human race—the encouragement now given is the foundation of a new æra in the dynasty of Science, and venturous explorers may now strike out from the beaten track of the circulating shores of the Mediterranean.

I should have wished that it had been in my power to elucidate the text with more copious Notes from other Writers. Hut to the original remarks of Mr. Leeves, I have been able to add but few commentaries from the small number of Travellers who have visited Turkey. Dr. Neale, Wilkinson, and Walsh, have furnished me with a few; and I hereby acknowledge my obligations to their valuable Works.

In the Appendix, will be found some extracts from Sir Robert Ker Porter, Dr. King, Messrs. Hobhouse, Thornton, Madden, &c.; which I thought it advisable