170

DEATH S DOINGS.

copied from the European Magazine for March,1790, where a learned professor is described as

examined and authenticated by the learned Director of the An-tiquary Society; and by him, or his order, was copied and sent(no beautiful detrition, conciliating freckle, or picturesque fis-sure, omitted) to the Reverend and very acute Mr. SamuelPegge. He expeditiously furnished an ample comment uponit, which was lately read, to the general improvement of its au-ditors, in Somerset Place, when formal thanks were unani-mously voted for so erudite a communication. Such, indeed,was the effect of this discourse, that the personages present atits recital (as Lydgate observes of the fortunate Trojans whobeheld the carbuncle that illuminated the Hall of King Pria-mus)

' ------mervayled ech one,

Soche lyghte ysprang out of thylk stone.'

" The inscription aforesaid is expressed with that simplebut majestic brevity which marks the performances of ancienttimes. It states, in unaffected terms, that Hardylinute, afterdrenching himself with a horn of wine, stared about him, anddied- Our language, however, will not do complete justice tothose harmonious and significant words, ymbstarud (or, as itshould rather have been written—starude,) and swelt. —Thesculpture of the fatal horn itself, decorated with the Danishraven, affords sufficient room for belief that the imitative arts,even at that early period [1042], were not unsuccessfully cul-tivated in England.—The public is now waiting, with everymark of impatience, for a plate representing this precious mar-ble, as well as for a perusal of Mr. Pegge's illustration of it, inthe next volume of the Society's Archaeological Collections.

" But, notwithstanding this venerable relic haS passed theordeal of such well-instructed and microscopic eyes, a set of ri-