Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	word_n	write_v	year_n	588	4	4.4611	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A53450	Dr. Bentley's Dissertations on the Epistles of Phalaris, and the fables of Æsop, examin'd by the Honourable Charles Boyle, Esq.	Orrery, Charles Boyle, Earl of, 1676-1731.	1698 (1698)	Wing O469; ESTC R17620	183,635	307

and perhaps he 'll know as little of him two or three Years hence as he does now and yet I assure him He 's to be met with in a Celebrated Greek Author in Whom he lies buried and unknown to many of the Great Lights of the Commonwealth of Learning because that Good Author has the Misfortune to be put out without a Good Index Now I 'll undertake to trace Aristolochus or Lysinus as soon as Dr. Bentley shall Chlonthachonthlus and when he lights upon him he 'll find that the Author where he is is confessedly Genuine notwithstanding he mentions this unheard-of Monster of a Man whom no-body ever mention'd since or before him But Dr. Bentley has a better Objection than the Silence of Authors against these Tragoedians he says they could not have a being in Phalaris's time because there was then no such thing as Tragoedy it self neither the Word nor Thing being known while Phalaris tyranniz'd at Agrigentum But Thespis was the first Inventor of it who acted his First Tragoedy twelve Years after the Death of Phalaris and both the Name and the Thing were then and not till then born together In Opposition to this I shall endeavour to make out these Three things first that granting Thespis to have been the Inventor of Tragoedy yet he found it out early enough for Phalaris to have the use of the Word from him in the next place that Tragoedy was much Older than Thespis and that He was only the Improver but not the Inventer of it and yet further that the Word Tragoedy was more ancient than the Thing which we now understand by it I think these Three Points to be clear beyond dispute if the Reader after I have produc'd my Proofs thinks so too he will I suppose have a less Opinion of Dr. Bentley's Learning and Modesty than even he has already and be something nearer toward thinking these Epistles Genuine Let us suppose for the present that Thespis was the Inventer or as Dr. Bentley Emphatically speaks the First Inventer of Tragoedy 't is plain Phalaris might have the use of the word from him That Thespis was Cotemporary with Solon Plutarch and Diogenes Laertius expresly affirm telling us very particularly what pass'd between ' Solon and Thespis in relation to the Plays of the Latter And this account of Thespis's age Our Dissertator himself in his Soft Epistle to Dr. Mill allows Now Solon was Archon Olympiad XLVI 3 Phalaris began his Reign Ol. LIII 3 and ended it Ol. LVII 3 according to the account which Dr. Bentley allows So that between the Beginning of Solon's and the End of Phalaris's Government there are full 44 Years Time enough in Conscience for the Word Tragoedy to come from Athens to Agrigent And Eusebius's Chronicon allows near as much Room for it placing the Rise of Tragoedy at the 47th Olympiad a little after Solon's Archonship But to take our account at the very lowest let us suppose that Thespis's first Plays were those that Solon saw towards the Latter End of his Life Solon dy'd at the end of the LIII or the beginning of the LIV Olympiad that is a Year or two after Phalaris took the Tyranny upon him Take Two or Three Years before Solon's death when Thespis is suppos'd by this Low account first to have written and from thence to the End of Phalaris's Reign there is a space of about 17 Years for Phalaris to hear of Thespis's Tragoedies for it does not appear but that those Letters where the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 occurrs might have been written at the very End of his Tyranny However let 'em have been written in the middle or at the very beginning of it yet still there will be time enough for Phalaris to learn this new word in That Pisistratus seiz'd the Government of Athens some Years before Solon's death Dr. Bentley I dare say will grant me that he was turn'd out in or rather before Phalaris's Reign he will not I hope deny me because he has own'd it in Terms p. 41. of his Dissertation Allowing then that Solon and Thespis were Cotemporary there can be no doubt whether Phalaris might hear of Thespis's Tragoedies All that can startle us in the case is the Authority of the Arundel Marble which fixes the acting of Alcestis one of Thespis's Plays as low as the 60th Olympiad But that all the Aera's of that Marble are not rightly adjusted is certain and Learned Men have prov'd beyond dispute and if there be mistakes in it why may not this be one of ' em when what is said there is contradicted by such an Universal Concurrence of almost all the History of those times which we have left Dr. Bentley I am sure ought not to insist on the Authority of the Marble in this case because He himself has quitted it in an Instance of the like Nature The Arundelian Marble indeed says he differs from all these in the periods of Gelo and Hiero which would quite confound all this argumentation from Notes of Time But either that Chronologer is quite out or we can safely believe nothing in History Dissert p. 85. The Mistake of the Marble may be in putting Thespis's name instead of Phrynicus his Scholar and Alcestis the name of the Play would make one think so which Suidas expresly mentions as one of Phrynicus's but is no where that I can find reckon'd among Thespis's And such a Mistake might easily I suppose arise from the Negligence of the Graver who when he had gone as far as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 might throw his Eye upon a Lower Line where there was an account of Phrynichus's Age and finding the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there exactly in the same Situation might think himself right and go on with the rest that follow'd it which is a Case that is known often to have happen'd in the copying of MSS and may the rather be supposd to have happen'd here because the next Aera in the Marble falls as low as Olymp. 67 before which time it is not to be doubted but the Alcestis of Phrynichus that Phrynichus who was Thespis's Scholar was acted But without the help of this Conjecture and without laying aside the Authority of the Marble what is said there may possibly be true and yet Plutarch's and Laertius's accounts be true too and the Epistles Genuine For some of Thespis's Plays might be acted in Solon's time that is about the 53d Olympiad and yet his Alcestis be shown not till about the 60th which being a Play written after a great Experience and when he was in his Maturest Judgment might be the Best of his Works for ought I or Dr. Bentley can tell and That by which he carried the Prize from his Rivals and the fittest therefore to be taken notice of to Posterity The Dr. indeed says it was his First and says it in such a manner as if the Marble had said it before him but that

off as well for mentioning the Messanians that inexcusable Ignorance in this matter which Dr. Bentley presses so hard upon the Sophist must lye at his own Door till he can remove it But this the Dr. says Thucydides will not suffer who relates that at the time of Xerxes 's Expedition Anaxilaus King of Rhegium besieg'd Zancle and took it and call'd it Messana Thucydides says indeed that Anaxilaus beat out the Samians from Zancle and call'd it Messana but fixes the time of this action no otherwise than only by saying 't was not long after the Samians flying from the Medes possess'd it Dr. Bentley calls this Xerxes's Expedition as if the Medes had never made an Incursion upon Greece till the time of Xerxes I don't know how he will excuse himself for misrepresenting that Excellent Author but only by pleading that he has dealt as freely with others For after the Words last quoted from Thucydides he adds the same says Herodotus whereas what Herodotus says is so far from being the same that it contradicts both the Story which Thucydides himself tells and that which Dr. Bentley makes for him For he says not that Anaxilaus expell'd the Samians from Zancle but that he assisted 'em to take it not that this was done at the time of Xerxes's Expedition but in the Reign of Darius A common Reader would be surpriz'd to hear him profess immediately after these Two fair Citations that he loves to deal ingenuously but I begin now to understand his Figurative Expressions when he offers an argument that has no Consequence or Meaning in it then his Phrase is 't is Evident When he has transcrib'd two or three Pages together from another man then he crys out a Discovery and when he would put a false Colour upon any thing then he loves to deal ingenuously But to deal a little more ingenuously than He does I will give his Authorities all the force that they will bear tho' not all that he lays upon 'em and then consider how far the Positive Testimony of Pausanias may prevail against ' em That Anaxilaus chang'd the Name of Zancle into Messana is agreed between Dr. Bentley and Me the only question is about the Date of this Change Thucydides fixes upon no date Diodorus places the Death of One Anaxilaus in the 76th Olympiad but does n't say this was the Anaxilaus that nam'd Messana Herodotus in the place cited says nothing about the Change of the Names but tells a Story of the Samians seizing Zancle a little after Miletus was taken that is about the 70th Olympiad and all the Ground we have from this Passage of Herodotus to conclude the Change of the Name Zancle into Messana to have happen'd after this time is his calling the City Zancle and not Messana throughout this Story which I think proves nothing more than that the Old Name was not yet yet so utterly abolish'd but that it was call'd indifferently either Zancle or Messana still and this I take to be the most Natural Interpretation of another Passage in Herodotus which I shall produce in Terms because Dr. Bentley has not where having occasion to mention Zancle after the Samians had possess'd it he calls it Zancle still only letting us know that it had also a New Name Messana So that hitherto we have had no direct and positive Testimony about the Time of Zancle's changing its Name Pausanias is the only Author that speaks fully up to the point and He expresly affirms this to have happen'd in the 29th Olympiad and tells the Story with a great deal of Solemnity and Circumstance He says the Flight of those Messanians who nam'd Messana was after the taking of Ira by the Lacedaemonians in the 28th Olympiad when Chionis the Spartan carried the Prize the first time that upon their Flight Anaxilaus Prince of Rhegium who had War with the Zancleans invited 'em to joyn with him that they did so and together with his Forces took Zancle and had it given 'em to inhabit and new nam'd it Messana in the 29th Olympiad when the same Chionis won the Prize the Second time That this Anaxilaus was the Great Grandson of Alcidamidas who fled with his Family from Messene to Rhegium after the taking of Ithome and the Death of Aristodemus which happen'd he tells us in another place the first Year of the 14th Olympiad that is about Threescore Years before so that all the little particulars of Pausanias's whole Story are adjusted with the utmost exactness He speaks home to the point so as to leave no possible room for interpreting his Words to any other Sense and we have as much reason to depend upon him in This as in Any Aera of Chronology whatever that he has laid down throughout his Writings And that Pausanias who gives us this account was not unacquainted with what Herodotus had said appears from his quoting Herodotus in relation to Micythus the Servant of Anaxilaus so that this cannot be thought an Error of his owning to his want of Memory or sufficient Light but his fix'd and settled Judgment after the Matter had been by him throughly consider'd And doubtless when he laid down this Account so peremptorily and with so much Exactness he had such Authorities in his View as he judg'd sufficient to bear him out in it and to be more than a Counterpoyse to the Testimony of Herodotus which he rejects not only as to the Age of Anaxilaus but as to the Circumstances of his Life also giving us a very different relation of them The most Eminent Chronologers and Men best vers'd in these things having never seen that whole Tenor of History confirm'd by so many Synchronisms and Concurrences which I suppose Dr. Bentley keeps by him in reserve fall in with this account of Pausanias Vbbo Emmius follows it in his History of Ancient Greece Lydiat in his Notes on the Chronicon Marmoreum Ioseph Scaliger in his Animadversions upon Eusebius and in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so does Petavius too who never agrees with Scaliger when he can help it and Meursius who has a distinct Chapter on this Subject To sum up our Evidence then against an Indirect and Dubious Proof built chiefly on a Disputable Passage in Herodotus we have the express and full and undoubted Authority of Pausanias and the Opinions of Vbbo Emmius Lydiat Scaliger Petavius and Meursius to counterpoise Dr. Bentley's and if These are not Enough to do it I promise the Dr. to throw half a dozen more into the Scale the next time he and I talk together In the same Epistle from whence Dr. Bentley took an occasion of giving us this large and ingenuous account of Zancle and Messana the Tauromenites were mention'd with the Zancleans 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon which I expected that when he had dispatch'd the Zancleans he would have fallen upon the Tauromenites but to shew his Aversion to any