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    to what might have been hoped from his talents and learning , it may not be regarded as an

    unreasonable supposition , that one , who from the extent of his attainments was necessarily fastidious in his estimate both of his own perform - ances and those of others , who had in his view perfection in the art which he cultivated , and felt

    himself continually approaching to that point , may have been impatient of the minute labour which is often requisite in the

    preparation of works intended for the public view ; and which by fixing the mind ' on objects already familiar to it , and sometimes

    impeding it by petty difficulties which have little relation to gene * ral principles , seems to oppose an obstacle to the constant progress which it seeks to make .

    The works of Mr . Porson which have come to our knowledge , we shall briefly enumerate in chronological order . The earliest of his productions , of which we are informed , is a criticism on Brunck ' s

    Aristop hanes , which appeared in Maty ' s Review , for 1783 . With this we are acquainted only from a reference made to it by Mr . Porson himself , in a note on the Orestes ,

    p . 5 * 2 , where an extract is given which sufficiently displays that extensive learning , and that nice feeling of the minute proprieties and customs of language , which were afterwards exercised on more

    important objects- Aristophanes , was we believe , one of the first authors on whom the critical study of Mr . Porson was bestowed . We have seen a copy of that poet with iiis marginal remarks , inserted at the age of eighteen . Whether Maty ' s Review possesses any

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    other articles-from his pen , w ^ have not had the opportunity of ascertaining .

    A rcpublicatipn of Ilutchinson / s edition of Xenophon ' s Anabasis appeared at Cambridge in 1785 , to which are annexed some pages of additional notes by Mr .

    Porson . With the edition of Toup ' s Emendations on Suidas , published at Ox ford in 1790 , are printed about seventy pages of notes , communicated to the editors m

    1787 , by Mr . Porson , whose name is thus designated in the title , A . R . P . C . S . S . T . C . S . These admirable remarks are in themselves sufficient to establish

    his claim to the highe&t rank of critical skill . They shew his characteristic clearness and decision of judgment ^ his wonderful powder of illustration , and his peculiar mode of accomplishing his

    objects by the fewest and best means . The short preface is strongly descriptive of his turn of mind . In reply to an objection which might occur to the reader , that he commonly appears rather as a censor than an

    encomiast of his author , he observes , " Ita res erat , faciundum fuit . Ncque enim hoc juvenili Jactantia feci , nee quo viris me longc majoribus vellicandis laudem mihi comparare vellera , sed semper ab eoruin consuetudine valde

    abhorrui , qui nihil aliud quam , jndchre ^ ben ?) rccte , tertio quoqiifi verbo ingcrunt . Ego sane , nisi Toupii ingenium et cloctrinam maximi facerem , numquam in cum ne haec quidem , quantulacunquc sunt 9 scriberem . "

    " In 1790 , appeared the celebrated letters to Archdeacon Travis , respecting the disputed , ox

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    534 Literary Memoir of the late Professor Porsoit .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1808, page 534, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2397/page/10/