Mouseion Research Articles

The Earl of Buchan's Second Summer: Dryburgh (1785–1829)

After over a century of relative neglect, the activities of David Steuart Erskine, the eleventh Earl of Buchan, on his Dryburgh estate between 1785 and 1829 have come under increasing academic scrutiny. The Earl’s retirement to Dryburgh has been seen less as a retreat from his high public profile as the founder of the Society of Antiquaries and more as a continuation both of his antiquarian and political interests. Indeed, landscape features such as the Temple of the Muses to the poet James Thomson and especially the giant statue to William Wallace have been viewed recently as part of a highly political nationalist-historic romantic landscape. While confirming the essentially political nature of these monuments, this article will explore an alternative whig and unionist reading of them. At the same time, although highlighting the continuity of Buchan’s antiquarian agenda, it will attempt to show how this gradually merged with a wide range of the Earl’s more personal enthusiasms such as Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill, classical antiquity and the beaux arts of London’s Royal Academy to form a distinctive second summer to his career.

Contest of Poetry in Alexandria: Call.Ia. 1, 13, Herod.Mim.8,al.

AbstractA combined investigation of Herod.Mim. 8 (Ἐνύπνιον) with Callim.Ia. 1, 13, andEp. 8, reveals that they all relate to a certain poetic contest that took place in Alexandria under the auspices of Ptolemy I, in one of the last years of his reign. The contest, must have been co-ordinated by the Mouseion and its director at the time, Zenodotus. The two poets took part in the contest, together with a host of other poets. Callim.Ia. 1 gives a figurative account of the contest’s course of action. Herodas, awaiting the results, writesMim. 8, where he expresses his hopes for a prize, though he suspects foul play on behalf of the poets employed at the Mouseion by the king who was supposed to decide the prize. Callim.Ep. 8 is a sarcastic reply to Herodas’ fears, whileIa. 13 narrates the harsh criticism Callimachus received from Zenodotus and his proud reaction in response, obviously after his contribution was rejected.

The Temple of the Muses, the Earl of Buchan, and the Scottish Memorialization of James Thomson

The Temple of the Muses, the Earl of Buchan, and the Scottish Memorialization of James Thomson

READING CHAUCER IN NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD, IN THE 1630s: THE COMMENDATORY VERSES TO FRANCIS KYNASTON'S AMORUM TROILI ET CRESEIDÆ

The Latin translation of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde by Sir Francis Kynaston or Kinaston, published in part in 1635 as Amorum Troili et Creseidae libri duo priores Anglico-Latini ('The two first books of the Loves of Troilus and Criseyde, in English and Latin'), has long been acknowledged as a particularly sensitive and detailed example of the seventeenth century's scholarly engagement with Middle English poetry.1 Kynaston's work was published not in London, as we might expect, but in Oxford, by the printer to the university, John Lichfield, and the fifteen commendatory poems that appear in the volume offer a multitude of perspectives not only on Kynaston's project, but also on Chaucer and his writings. Among the authors of these prefatory verses there is a peculiar dominance of fellows of New College, and the detailed knowledge of Chaucer's works that they reveal gives a suggestive insight into how groups of Oxford scholars engaged with Kynaston's activities as a translator through their own reading of Chaucer. In this article we investigate these commendatory verses, a narrow but rich seam of evidence for a variety of attitudes to Chaucer in the seventeenth century that occupy an unusual position in the history of Chaucer's reception.2 Taken as a whole, we argue, the poems suggest a peculiar concentration of Chaucerian enthusiasm in New College, Oxford, in the period.Kynastons 'Amorum Troili' and its commendatory versesThe very fact that Kynaston (1586/7-1642) should choose to publish the first two books of his Latin Troilus and Criseyde in Oxford suggests, already, a scholarly venture; the local press seldom undertook anything that was not prompted by, or at least vendible to, the local academics and students. That the Latin translation and Middle English original are presented in parallel, and with explanatory glosses, furthers the impression that this was what we might think of as an academic edition. Kynaston himself had studied at Oriel College, Oxford, before moving to London from 1605 to take up residence in Lincoln's Inn.3 After being called to the bar in 1611, he remained in London, balancing his eclectic intellectual interests with the pursuit of a more public life. He entered the service of the court and was knighted by James I in 1618,4 and his achievements included, in 1635, the founding of the Musaeum Minervae, an academy for young noblemen. Kynaston seems to have valued his own self-image as scholar and courtier, and indeed he projects this image onto Chaucer, going to great lengths to prove that Chaucer had been an intimate of the king and an esquire of the body.5 Although there is relatively sparse biographical evidence for Kynaston's continuing relationship with his alma mater after his departure for London, the very fact that Kynaston arranged for the publication of his Amorum Troili in Oxford helps demonstrate some continuing connection to the university and its scholars.As promised in the preface printed alongside the Amorum Troili, Kynaston went on to complete a five-book translation of Chaucer's poem, which, although never published, survives in a single manuscript with Kynaston's Latin translation of Robert Henryson's Testament of Cresseid.6 Throughout, this manuscript is replete with copious notes and glosses, a beguiling combination of history, natural philosophy, and personal anecdote. John Urry drew upon it for his posthumous 1721 edition of Chaucer, and Kynaston's achievement in his translation of Troilus has been masterfully elucidated more recently by Richard Beadle, who rightly rehabilitates Kynaston as a major figure in the history of English editing.7 But as well as delving with almost philological detail into Chaucer's Middle English to create the base-text of his translation, Kynaston also trims the later books, somewhat flattening the presentation of Criseyde, and eliminating the poem's final reference to the Virgin Mary. This last shift may be another example of the typical post-Reformation tendency to present Chaucer as proto-Protestant in his affinities. …

EUCLIDEAN FAIRNESS AND EFFICIENCY

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries. --Winston Churchill Fairness and efficiency are often irreconcilable. The ancients knew it all too well, as shown by Solomon's fair division of the baby. Economists have long been repeating this. Indeed, one scholar, despite reading this article twice, still did not find anything in it to be surprising, curious, or funny. (1) Yet, this basic fact of life is still unclear to many a wise man. Ptolemy's Dilemma. The problem we are supposing may be most completely given in the form of the one that is said to have haunted I, King of Egypt. He wished to construct his Temple of the Muses (the famous Library) in the city of Alexandria. Alexandria had three neighborhoods along its coast: Rhakotis, the Jewish Quarter, and the Port, as shown by the map in Figure 1. The inhabitants of each neighborhood wished the Temple to be built in their respective neighborhood. When summoned the wisest men of Egypt, they presented a fair solution: the Temple shall be built equally close to each neighborhood. It is at that time that Euclid presented the King with the manuscript we report below. It showed the King the location of the fair temple: a swamp, ten miles outside of Alexandria. [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] Not surprisingly, for those familiar with mathematical works of that age, the manuscript is dry. The figure therein has no obvious description or axes, perhaps because a Cartesian coordinate system was invented 19 centuries after Euclid's work. The results in the manuscript are merely stated, with no intuition, no motivation, no technical footnotes, and no reference to empirical stylized facts. Previous literature is completely ignored too (though we argue this might be somewhat excusable). As a result, its implications might not be so apparent to our modern minds. Ptolemy [himself] once asked [Euclid] if there was in geometry a way shorter than that of the elements; he replied that there was no royal road to geometry. (2) [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Three individuals have bliss policies A, B, and C that form a triangle. DEFINITION 1 (Fairness). A policy F is fair if AF, BF, and CF are equal. DEFINITION 2 (Efficiency). A policy E is efficient if it falls within the triangle ABC. Notions of fairness and efficiency coincide with utility equality and Pareto efficiency if individual preferences are represented by Euclidean loss functions. PROPOSITION 1. The fair policy is the center of the circle that circumscribes the triangle ABC. Proof. Follows from the definition of fairness and Euclid's Elements, Book IV, Proposition 5, about a given triangle to circumscribe a circle. PROPOSITION 2. The fair policy is efficient if and only if the triangle ABC is acute-angled. Proof. Follows from the definition of efficiency and Euclid's Elements, Book IV, Proposition 5, Porism, that, when the center of the circle falls within the triangle, the angle ABC is less than a right angle; and when the center of the circle falls outside the triangle, the angle ABC is greater than a right angle. …

Dryden, Benserade, and Marvell

That which the French Poet said of the Temple of Love, may be as well apply'd to the Temple of the Muses. The words, as near as I can remember them, were these: La jeunesse a mauvaise grace. N'ayant pas adore dans le temple d'Amour: Il faut qu'il entre, & pour le sage Si ce nI']est son vray sejour C'est un giste sur son passage. [The young man is awkward, until he has worshipped in the Temple of Love. He must go in: and if for the wise it is no permanent abode, it is (at least) a stage on his journey.]

Reviews

Of the historic Library of Alexandria not so much as a stone remains and archaeological surveys and excavations have produced no clues to the configuration, evolution through time, or the fate of the Great Library and the associated Mouseion (Temple of the Muses). Professor El‐Abbadi has examined a large number of old and modern texts and has constructed an account of the scholarship of the period, and assembled whatever evidence is available to throw light on the Library of Alexandria and the way in which it acquired its stock. Concerning its final fate he concludes that it was destroyed by fire in AD 48 as an indirect result of Caesar's attack on Alexandria.

Anatomy in Alexandria in the third century B.C.

The most striking advances in the knowledge of human anatomy and physiology that the world had ever known—or was to know until the seventeenth century A.D.—took place in Hellenistic Alexandria. The city was founded in 331 B.C. by Alexander the Great. After the tatter's death in 323 B.C. and the subsequent dissolution of his empire, it became the capital of one of his generals, Ptolemy, son of Lagus, who established the Ptolemaic dynasty there. The first Ptolemy, subsequently named Soter (the Saviour), and his son Ptolemy Philadelphus (who succeeded him in 285 B.C.), became immensely enriched by their exploitation of Egypt and raised the city to a position of great wealth and magnificence. Anxious to enhance both their own reputation and the prestige of the kingdom, they sought to rival the cultural and scientific achievements not only of other Hellenistic rulers but even of Athens herself. Their patronage of the arts and sciences, coupled with their establishment of the Museum (an institute for literary studies and scientific research as well as a temple of the Muses), together with the Library, made the city the centre of Hellenistic culture. Philosophers, mathematicians, astronomers, artists, poets and physicians were all encouraged to come and work there.