And Suidas, one of those grammarians, could not be ignorant of this; for he cites the very same epitaph, and calls it ἐλεγεῖον. The case is no more than this: in the old times they generally made their epitaphs in a single distich, hexameter and pentameter; whence in process of time an epitaph at large came to be called ἐλεγεῖον. The ancients, says the Scholiast upon Apollonius Rhodius, used ἐλεγεία for inscriptions upon tombs. Τὰ ἐλεγεία, says Lycurgus the orator, τὰ ἐπιγεγραμμένα ἐν τοῖς μνημείοις. But what advantage is this now to Mr B. and his Phalaris? An ἐλεγεῖον of all hexameters is as remote from a lyric song, as if it was mixed with pentameters. So that ἐλεγεῖον and μέλος cannot yet be used for the same copy of verses, but by that privilege of making solecisms, that Mr B. would vindicate to princes.
But his next proof perhaps may be better; for a nightingale, he says, in Aristophanes's aves, is said to sing ἔλεγοι, and by and by those very ἔλεγοι are called μέλη. This indeed carries both surprise and demonstration along with it. What a strange reach of fancy has our Examiner? Who but he could ever have
