{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_28921/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_28921","id":"gutenberg_28921","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/28921","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Epigrams -- History and criticism"],"text":"Produced by Chris Curnow, Joseph Cooper, Richard J. Shiffer\nand the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at\nhttps://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n[Transcriber's Note: Every effort has been made to replicate this text\nas faithfully as possible, including obsolete and variant spellings\nand other inconsistencies. Text that has been changed to correct an\nobvious error is noted at the end of this ebook.]\n\n\n  The Augustan Reprint Society\n\n\n\n\n  _An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in Which From Settled\n  Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting\n  Epigrams_\n\n\n  by Pierre Nicole\n\n\n  Translated by J. V. Cunningham\n\n\n  Publication Number 24\n  (Series IV, No. 5)\n\n\n  Los Angeles\n  William Andrews Clark Memorial Library\n  University of California\n  1950\n\n\nGENERAL EDITORS\n\n  H. RICHARD ARCHER, _Clark Memorial Library_\n  RICHARD C. BOYS, _University of Michigan_\n  EDWARD NILES HOOKER, _University of California, Los Angeles_\n  H. T. SWEDENBERG, JR., _University of California, Los Angeles_\n\n\n_ASSISTANT EDITORS_\n\n  W. EARL BRITTON, _University of Michigan_\n  JOHN LOFTIS, _University of California, Los Angeles_\n\n\n_ADVISORY EDITORS_\n\n  EMMETT L. AVERY, _State College of Washington_\n  BENJAMIN BOYCE, _University of Nebraska_\n  LOUIS I. BREDVOLD, _University of Michigan_\n  CLEANTH BROOKS, _Yale University_\n  JAMES L. CLIFFORD, _Columbia University_\n  ARTHUR FRIEDMAN, _University of Chicago_\n  SAMUEL H. MONK, _University of Minnesota_\n  ERNEST MOSSNER, _University of Texas_\n  JAMES SUTHERLAND, _Queen Mary College, London_\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nThe following essay forms the introduction to a famous anthology of\nthe seventeenth century, the _Epigrammatum delectus_, a Port-Royal\ntextbook published at Paris in 1659.[1] The essay was twice translated\ninto French in the same century, but the use of the text in France did\nnot survive, apparently, the downfall of the Port-Royal movement. It\nwas, however, later adopted by Eton College, where it was used in the\nsixth form.[2] The text went through thirteen English editions between\n1683 and 1762. The author of the essay, and a collaborator with Claude\nLancelot in making the selections for the anthology, was Pierre\nNicole, who began teaching in the Little Schools around 1646. It has\nbeen said that the essay was written at that time.[3]\n\nThe scope of the anthology is indicated on the title page, which I\ntranslate: _A selection of epigrams carefully chosen from the whole\nrange of ancient and modern poets, and so on. With an essay on true\nand apparent beauty, in which from settled principles is rendered the\ngrounds for choosing and rejecting epigrams. There are added the best\nsententiae of the ancient poets, chosen sparingly and with severe\njudgement. With shorter sententiae, or proverbs, Latin, Greek,\nSpanish, and Italian, drawn both from the chief authors of those\nlanguages and from everyday speech_.\n\nThe essay is preceded by a preface in which the origin, purpose and\nmethod of the anthology is explained. The two ends of instruction, we\nare told,[4] are learning and character, and of these the latter is\nthe more important. But there are many books, and especially books of\nepigrams, that are quite filthy and obscene. Young people are led by\ncuriosity to read these, and losing all chastity of mind enter upon a\nprogressive corruption of life. It would be best if they could be kept\nwholly from such books; but there is a good deal in them of genuine\nprofit and literary merit, which makes it difficult to keep them\nwholly out of the hands of youth. Therefore the editor undertook to\nexpurgate the epigrammatists, especially Catullus and Martial. He was\nhorrified when he read over their works, but he found some good among\nthe bad, as in vipers not everything is poisonous but some things even\nuseful to health. His primary purpose, then, was to protect the good\nyoung man from being harmed and to leave him no excuse for wishing to\nhave or peruse such books since the good in them had already been\nextracted for him.\n\nThe difficulty then arose of making the selection serve the purposes\nboth of morality and of judgement. The editor could either gather\ntogether all the epigrams that were not obscene, or he could choose\nonly the best. He took in fact both ways: he preserved everything of\nCatullus and Martial except the cheapest odds and ends and filthiest\nobscenities, and he applied strict standards of judgement to the rest\nso that, unless an epigram had literary merit or contained something\nworth knowing, he felt there was no reason to burden the book with it.\n\nNevertheless, some middling epigrams found entrance into the\nanthology--he confesses the fact so the reader will not look for\nexcellence without flaw. The reasons were, first, that the complete\nperfection he was looking for is seldom or never attained. Hence, if\nhe had admitted only those epigrams in which there was nothing to\ncensure, the task would not have been one of selecting some but rather\nof rejecting almost all. Again, in epigrams dealing with memorable\nevents or in praise of famous men, sometimes he looked to the profit\nof the work rather than to its polish, as in Ausonius' quatrains on\nthe Caesars. Finally, he will not deny that chance has played its part\nagainst his will. As a judge after a series of severe sentences will\ngive a lighter one to a man no less guilty than the others, so after\nrejecting a great number of epigrams by some writer a sense of pity\narose and a distaste with severity of judgement; then if anything that\nseemed pointed turned up, though no better than what was rejected, he\ncould not bear to see it discarded. This has occasionally happened,\nbut hardly ever without a warning note to the reader.\n\nHe admits that some, perhaps quite excellent, epigrams have escaped\nhim, either because he never read them or because he was at the moment\nof reading less attentive. But the paucity or lack of selections from\na given writer should not be taken as an indication of ignorance or\nindiligence in that case. Rather, he confidently professes to have\nexerted the greatest patience and industry--patience, since so many\nwere so bad. His hope was by his trouble to free others from so much\ntrouble. With this in mind he read countless authors of different ages\nand countries, a total of around 50,000 epigrams, from most of which\nnothing at all was worth excerpting. There is no point in\nmemorializing the names of the bad, except to note in passing that he\nfound hardly anything so inept as the _Delitiae_, as they call them,\nof the German poets[5]--in this connection he gives special mention to\nthe book of Lancinus Curtius[6], which contains 2,000 epigrams.\n\nHe found some fairly tolerable epigrams in other books, which\nnevertheless he excluded, for what is lacking in distinction is better\nnot known at all than learned at the expense of better things, not to\nspeak of its being a burden to the mind which gradually will lose the\nability to judge excellence, and so, becoming accustomed to\nmediocrity, will be unable to attempt anything higher. There is no\nmore useful motto for a man in quest of solid learning than Grotius'\nline: \"Not to know some things is a large part of wisdom.\"[7]\n\nThe editor added to the epigrams a collection of sententiae since the\ntwo forms are quite cognate, the sententia being a kind of shorter\nepigram, for the principal part of an epigram, the conclusion, usually\nconsists in a sententia. It is true that such collections have come in\nbad repute, and not wholly unjustly, but the thing itself is worth\ndoing. For what is our aim in reading books except to nourish and\nfashion judgement? and what better serves this end than sententiae,\nwhich furnish as it were the premises and axioms by which one is able\nto form a just and true judgement on most of the duties and affairs of\nhuman life? Hence he extracted these gems from the huge pile of\ntrifles in which they lay mixed. Perhaps they please less in isolation\nthan when one runs across them as he reads, and for this reason such\nanthologizing should be contemned. But it would be precious to refuse\na great accession of profit because of a small dimunition of pleasure.\n\nThe editor thought that in many cases the selections should not be\npublished without notes, for epigrams have often some obscurity in\nthem and their whole charm is lost unless the light that would\nilluminate it is at hand. The notes to the selections from Martial are\npretty largely taken from Farnaby. Elsewhere the editor has supplied\nnotes sparingly, at those points where the reader might be stuck. He\nhas also changed the titles of a good many pieces, especially where\nthe original involved the name of some fictitious or base person. The\npurpose of a title is to recall the whole piece to memory or to\nfacilitate finding it in an index. Why, then, title an epigram _To\nGargilianus_ or _Cecilianus_, which gives no idea of what the epigram\nis about? The editor, therefore, has substituted titles which express\nas well as possible the force of the poem, a difficult task especially\nwhen the meaning is compact, as only one who has tried it knows.\n\nBut that out of the brevity of this book the reader may get that\nability in judgement, which above all should be cultivated, the editor\nthought it worth while to prefix to the anthology an exposition of the\nnorms of judgement used in selecting the epigrams. He drew these norms\nnot merely from his own wit or from the authorities of Antiquity, but\nfrom the conversation of learned men experienced in civilized life.\nHence the reader will find here their judgements, not the editor's,\nand will, if he is unbiased, perceive how just and accurate they are.\n\nThe preface is then followed by the essay. The principles of the\nessay, as Nicole asserted above in the preface, are not peculiarly his\nown but those of the group with which he was associated. They are the\nprinciples, for example, of the _Port-Royal logic_: particularly 1),\n\"one of the most important rules of true rhetoric,\" \"_that there is\nnothing beautiful except that which is true_; which would take away\nfrom discourse a multitude of vain ornaments and false thoughts;\" and\n2) the doctrine that \"the figurative style commonly expresses, with\nthe things, the emotions which we experience in conceiving or speaking\nof them,\" and hence in the light of the adjustment of feeling to the\nsituation \"we may judge the use which ought to be made of it, and what\nare the subjects to which it is adapted.\"[8]\n\nThe purpose of the book is to serve morality and to promote\njudgement.[9] To this end the editor provides a check list of the\nbetter epigrams, and affixes an asterisk to designate the best.[10]\nSeventeen pieces are given the highest rating: thirteen of Martial's\n(1.8, 1.21, 1.33, 2.5, 3.44, 3.46, 4.56, 4.69, 5.10, 5.13, 8.69,\n10.53, and 12.13); the re-written epigram ascribed to Seneca and\ndiscussed in the notes to the essay (note 32); Claudian on Archimedes'\nsphere;[11] Boethius, _De cons. phil._ 1.m.4; and one modern poem,\nBuchanan's dedication of the _Paraphrase of the psalms_ to Mary, Queen\nof Scots.[12]\n\n                                   _J. V. Cunningham_\n                                   _The University of Chicago_\n\n\nNOTES\n\n[1] This paragraph is based largely on James Hutton, _The Greek\nanthology in France_, \"Cornell studies in classical philology,\" XXVIII\n(1946), p. 192, and _The Greek anthology in Italy_, \"Cornell studies\nin English,\" XXIII (1935), pp. 69-70.\n\n[2] Sir H. C. Maxwell Lyte, _A history of Eton college_, London, 1911,\n4th ed., p. 311.\n\n[3] Nigel Abercrombie, _The origins of Jansenism_, Oxford, 1936, p.\n246; no authority is there cited.\n\n[4] The following paragraphs contain an abbreviated and paraphrastic\ntranslation of the preface.\n\n[5] Janus Gruter, _Delitiae poetarum germanorum_, 6 v., Frankfort,\n1612.\n\n[6] See Georg Ellinger, _Geschichte der neulateinischen literatur\nDeutschlands_, I, \"Italien und der Deutsche humanismus,\" Berlin, 1929,\npp. 115-7.\n\n[7] The last line of an epigram on learned ignorance, _Poemata_,\nLeyden, 1637, pp. 331-2, printed in the _Delectus_, p. 399.\n\n[8] _The Port-Royal logic_, tr. Thomas Spencer Baynes, 8th ed.,\nEdinburgh, n.d., Discourse 2, p. 17; Part 3. 20, p. 286; and 1. 14, p.\n90.\n\n[9] _Ibid._, Discourse 1, p. 1, \"Thus the main object of our attention\nshould be, to form our judgement, and render it as exact as possible;\nand to this end, the greater part of our studies ought to tend.\"\n\n[10] Lipsius had suggested some such procedure (Justus Lipsius,\n_Epist. quaest._, 1.5, _Opera omnia_, Antwerp, 1637, I, p. 143): \"He\nwould do a service to the world of letters who would make a selection\nof Martial's epigrams in the fashion of the old critics and would\naffix a mark of praise to the good and of blame to the bad.\"\n\n[11] Shorter poems 51, _Claudian_, ed. Maurice Platnauer, 2 v., \"Loeb\nclassical library,\" London, 1922, II, 278-81.\n\n[12] _Poemata_, Amsterdam, 1687, p. 1; not in _Opera omnia_, Leyden,\n1725.\n\n\n\n\nAN ESSAY ON TRUE AND APPARENT BEAUTY IN WHICH FROM SETTLED PRINCIPLES\nIS RENDERED THE GROUNDS FOR CHOOSING AND REJECTING EPIGRAMS.\n\n\n_Why men's judgments on beauty differ so much._\n\nI should say that the reason why even learned men differ so widely and\ndisplay so great a range of opinion in judging the excellence of\nparticular writers is that practically no one looks to reason and\nweighs the matter in the light of true and settled principles. Indeed\neveryone in the act of judging embraces a hastily conceived opinion\nand follows his impressions without reflection or judgment. Thus it is\nthat few have made any attempt so far to arrive at an exact knowledge\nof the nature of true beauty, by which in the last analysis all else\nmust be determined; rather, each has immediately pronounced that to be\nbeautiful which affected him with some sort of pleasure. Yet there is\nno norm of judgment more misleading or more variable, for a false and\nadulterate beauty will give pleasure to minds imbued with deformed\nopinions whom a true and solid beauty often cannot affect. It follows\nthere is nothing so ugly that it will not please someone or other, and\nnothing on the other hand so absolutely beautiful that it will not\ndisplease someone. Farmers will be found to dance to absurd songs, and\nwhole theaters time and again roar at the tasteless jokes of the\nactors. Similarly, there are a good many who find little or no delight\nin Vergil or Terence, though there is nothing in the world of letters\nmore polished--such is the power of custom and preconceived opinion to\nimpart or preclude delight. Consequently, if we wish to dissociate\nourselves from the fickle mob of opinions, we must have recourse to\nreason, which is single, fixed, and simple. We must discover by her\naid that true and genuine figure of beauty with which is marked\nwhatever is truly beautiful and finished, and from which whatever\ndeparts is justly called ugly and repugnant to taste.\n\nReason leads us directly to nature and establishes that to be\ngenerally beautiful which accords both with the nature of the thing\nitself and with our own. For example, if an object that is excessive\nor defective in some part is thought ugly, it is because it diverges\nfrom nature which demands a completeness in the parts and despises\nexcess. Almost everything that is judged to be ugly is so judged for\nthe same reason: you will always observe that there is here some flaw\nat variance with a rightly constituted nature. Nevertheless, for an\nobject to be declared beautiful it is not enough that it answer to its\nown nature; it must also be congruent with ours. For our nature, being\ninvariable both in the soul and in the body endowed with senses, has\ndefinite inclinations and aversions by which it is either attracted or\nestranged. Thus our eye is moved with pleasure by certain colors, our\near is drawn by a certain kind of sounds; one thing delights the soul,\none repels it, each in the measure that it corresponds or is repugnant\nto our ways of feeling. However, what is meant by nature here is not\nany nature at all, since some are misshapen, perverse, and corrupt.\nWhat is meant is a nature corrected and well-ordered from whose\ninclinations must arise the judgement of beauty and charm.\n\nHowever, the essence of true beauty is such that it is not fugitive,\nchangeable, or of one time, but rather invariable, fixed, persistent\nand such as pleases all times equally. And although there may be found\nsome men of so corrupt a nature that they despise beauty, nevertheless\nthey are but few. And even these may be recalled to truth by reason,\nsince false beauty though it may for a while have its admirers cannot\nlong hold them, for nature itself which cannot be erased will\ngradually beget in them a distaste for it. For, as Cicero so notably\nsays, time that erases the fictions of opinion only confirms the\njudgements of nature.[1]\n\nIf we may apply this maxim to literature we may say that that is truly\nbeautiful which agrees both with the nature of things themselves and\nwith the inclinations of our senses and of our soul. And since in a\nwork of literature one takes account of sound, diction, and idea, the\nagreement of all these with nature in its two aspects is required for\nbeauty. Hence we will take these up one by one, beginning with sound.\n\n\nON SOUND\n\n_How seldom it charms in echoing the sense, how commonly by sweetness.\nIts natural measure in the ear._\n\nWe have assigned the first division of natural beauty to sound, which\nwe distinguish from diction in that propriety and force of meaning are\nlooked to in this; in sound it is the pleasantness or harshness that\nis regarded, flattering or offending the ear, or it is a kind of\nimitation of the subject-matter--sad things recited tearfully, excited\nrapidly, or harsh harshly. This is common enough in the spoken word;\nin writing, however, with which we are chiefly concerned here, it is\nuncommon, though Vergil sometimes quite happily represents the sound\nof things themselves, their swiftness and slowness, in the sound of\nhis verse. When you hear, for example, the well-known _procumbit humi\nbos_, do you not seem to hear the blunt sound of the falling bull? Or\nwhen you read the line _Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula\ncampum_,[2] doesn't the sound of running horses strike your ears? But\nthis effect, as I said, is uncommon, and hardly to be found in any\nother poet than Vergil. Thus the chief potentiality of sound, and the\nmost common, lies in charming the ear. It is a slight beauty, yet it\nis of nature, and for this reason especially agreeable to all classes\nof people. For there is scarcely any person so uneducated as not to\nbe naturally displeased at what is incomplete and botched, or not to\nperceive what is full, ordered, and defined. Hence Cicero says justly\nin the _Orator_:\n\n     The ear, or the soul at the injunction of the ears, possesses a\n     natural way of measuring sounds, by this judges some longer, some\n     shorter, and ever anticipates the completion of a measure. It\n     feels hurt when a rhythm is maimed or curtailed as if it had been\n     defrauded of due payment. It dislikes even more whatever is\n     prolonged and runs on beyond the proper bounds, since too much is\n     more offensive than too little. Not that everyone knows the\n     metrical feet, or understands anything about rhythm, or is aware\n     of what offends him, or where, or why; it is rather that nature\n     has set in our ears a power of judging the length and brevity of\n     sound, as also the acute and grave accent of words.[3]\n\n\n_Pleasantness of sound is justly exacted of poets. The harshness of\nmany poets, particularly the German. Some are too melodious._\n\nHence it is that anyone who wishes to conform to nature must\nnecessarily strive for pleasantness of sound. This is the more justly\nexacted of poets since poetry itself is nothing other than measured\nlanguage, bound into fixed numbers and feet, for the purpose of\ncharming the ear. Consequently, those poets are justly censured who\nrest content with rounding off their words in six feet and altogether\nneglect to accommodate the ear. A good many epigrammatists are\nconstant offenders in this kind, especially those who have rendered\nthe Greek Anthology in Latin and the German poets.\n\nFor example, who can tolerate this German epigram?\n\n    He who made all that nothing was of nothing,\n    Who'll make that nothing that now something is,\n    Made you who nothing were what you now are\n    From nothing, will make nothing what you are--\n    Yes, or if something, being but sin from sin,\n    From sin must form something for heaven fit.\n\nAgain, what is harsher than this epigram?\n\n    You from your soul could not but know mine that\n    That gave up in your ghost but just now his:\n    As soul is known from soul so is your ghost\n    Known to the Muses by my muse that's yours.\n\nOr than this distich?\n\n    Forward, nor turn from the old path one bit:\n    This that you are I while I live shall be.[4]\n\nBut just as it is a considerable fault in diction wholly to neglect\nthe pleasure of the ear, since verse, as we said, was devised to\nflatter it, so on the other hand those writers make a grievous mistake\nwho have an immoderate regard for the ear, and pay no attention to the\nthought so long as they are satisfied with the sound. Out of such\nconcern we get tuneful trifles and verses empty of substance. Writers\nwho have by an attentive consideration of the poets achieved the\nfaculty of poetic diction and rhythm quite often fall into this error.\nThey abound in choice phrases and so are in effect content to smooth\nover the commonplace with a not indecorous make-up. You can see this\nin many poems and epigrams of Buchanan, Borbonius, and Barleius. If\nthe reader is not quite attentive such poems will often deceive him,\nbut being re-read and examined they beget a kind of distaste because\nof the thinness of the matter. Consequently, we have looked carefully\nfor this fault, and have eliminated many poems that are melodious in\nthis way and have nothing inside.\n\n\n_How diction should be suited to subject-matter._\n\nWe come now to the question of conforming the diction and\nsubject-matter to nature, in which, as was said above, nature must be\nconsidered in its double aspect: namely, in relation to the subjects\nof which we speak, and in relation to the audience by whom we are\nheard or read.\n\nThe agreement of words and subject consists in this: that lofty words\nshould be fitted to lofty subjects, and lowly to lowly. It is true, of\ncourse, that every kind of writing demands simplicity, but the\nsimplicity meant is such as does not exclude sublimity or vehemence.\nIn fact, it is no less faulty to treat high and weighty subjects in a\nslight and unassuming style than it is to treat what is slight and\nunassuming in a high and weighty style. In both of these ways one\ndeparts from that agreement with nature in which, we have said, beauty\nresides. Therefore, not every piece of writing admits the rhetorical\nfigures and ornaments, and likewise not every one excludes them. The\nanswer lies wholly in whether there is throughout a complete harmony\nbetween diction and subject.\n\nIn addition, I wish you would carefully observe something that few\ndo--namely, when you temper your diction to the subject, to regard it\nnot only as it is in itself or in the mind of the writer, but also as\nit has been formed by your speech in the minds of your audience. Thus,\nthe reader is assumed to be unacquainted with what you have to say at\nthe beginning of a work, and hence you must use simple language to\ninitiate him into your lines of thought. Afterwards you may build upon\nthis foundation what you can. It follows that if you are to speak of\nsome outrageous crime, you should not inveigh against it with a\ncomparable violence of diction until your audience has achieved such a\nnotion of the crime as will not be at odds with such force and\nviolence.\n\nThus Vergil begins in the best way with simple diction:\n\n    Arms and the man I sing who first from Troy\n    Banished by fate came to the Italian shore.\n\nAnd Homer, too, who was praised for this by Horace:\n\n    Speak to me, Muse, of him, when Troy had fallen,\n    Who saw the ways of many and their cities.\n\nBut Statius begins badly, and sweeps the reader away too suddenly in\nthese verses:\n\n    Fraternal arms, and alternate rule by hate\n    Profane contested, and the guilt of Thebes\n    I sing, moved by the fiery Muse.\n\nClaudian is even more at fault, and thrusts these bombastic lines on\nour unprepared attention:\n\n    The horses of Hell's rapist, the stars blown\n    By the Taenarian chariot, chambers dark\n    Of lower Juno ...\n\nBut this rule should particularly be observed in the use of\nadjectives, which are always ill-joined with their noun when they\ndisaccord with the impression the reader has in his mind. I have seen\nthe opening of Lucan censured on this point:\n\n    Wars through Emathian fields, wars worse than civil,\n    And crime made legal is my song.\n\nThe critics urge that the epithet _worse than civil_ could justly be\nemployed after the depiction of the slaughter at Pharsalia, but that\nhere it is out of order and suddenly attacks the reader who was\nthinking of no such thing. It offends against the precept of Horace:\n\n    Not smoke from brightness is his aim, but light\n    He gives from smoke.[5]\n\n\n_In what way diction should answer to man's inner nature. First, the\ngrounds of the natural disaffection with unusual diction: how far this\nshould be observed._\n\nBut it is not sufficient that diction answer to the subject-matter\nunless it also answers to the nature of man, in which may be discerned\na kind of aversion to obsolete, low, and inappropriate words. I prefer\nto call this aversion a natural one rather than a result of opinion,\nthough it is in a way based on opinion. For although the feeling that\na particular word is more in common use and more civilized than\nanother is purely a matter of men's judgement, nevertheless it is as\nnatural to be displeased by the unusual and inappropriate as it is to\nbe pleased with the usual and proper. Whatever is contrary to reason\noffends by the very fact that it is seen to lack reason. Certainly, to\nleave aside familiar terms and to search out unusual ones is wholly\nforeign to reason. However, there is added to this natural source of\noffense another that proceeds from opinion. Since such words are\ncommonly condemned, there is associated with them a certain distaste\nand contempt such that it is scarcely possible to pronounce them\nwithout immediately arousing the associated feelings.\n\nConsequently, the intelligent writer will willingly comply with usage\nso as not to give grounds for displeasure--whether this displeasure\nsprings from nature or opinion. Though he is aware that usage is\nunstable and changes day by day, nevertheless he will prefer rather to\nplease at one time than never. He will be careful, however, in his\nwritten work not to make use of the current jargon, especially of the\nFrench court and women's circles, or of any locutions that are not yet\ngenerally received. For the life of such expressions is too short to\nbe bound into a lasting work--not to speak of the detestable\naffectation which detracts from the weight and dignity of the writing.\n\nTo conclude, there is a beauty and charm in propriety and elegance of\ndiction which is not to be scorned, though it is but of a time, and,\nsince it rests on opinion, by which usage is determined, will pass\naway with a change of opinion. Hence those who write not for an age\nbut for all time should try to attain something else, something that\nhas no admixture of opinion: Such is the agreement of words with\nnature, which we will now explain.\n\n\n_The inner and more intimate agreement of words and nature._\n\nIf one wishes to look deeply into the nature of the human mind and to\nsearch out its inner sources of delight, he will find there something\nof strength conjoined with something of weakness, and out of this\ncircumstance arises variety and irregularity. The mind's vexation with\na continual relaxation derives from its strength, while from its\nweakness stems the fact that it cannot bear a continual straining.\nHence it is that nothing pleases the human mind very long, nothing\nthat is all of one piece. So in music it rejects a wholly perfect\nharmony, and for this reason musicians deliberately intercalate\ndiscordant sounds--what are technically called dissonances. So,\nfinally, it happens that physical exercise, even if it was at first\nundertaken for pleasure, becomes a torture when continued without\ninterruption.\n\nThis point has its pertinence to literature, the more so since in that\nfield nature reveals the greatest delicacy and cannot long endure what\nis lofty and excited. Yet on the other hand, whatever creeps close to\nearth and never lifts its head is, if it be prolonged, wearisome. To\nstand, to rest, to rise up, to be thrown down, this is what every\nreader or listener desires, and from this derives the driving\nnecessity for variety, for the mingling of the majestic and slight,\nexcited and calm, high and low. But it may seem that this\nconsideration has little pertinence to the epigram, which is brief and\nso in less need of variety. However, I need not apologize for\nintroducing these more general considerations since others of more\nimmediate pertinence to the course of our discussion are derived from\nthem, and particularly the question of the discriminate use of\nmetaphors, which are of considerable effect in adorning or vitiating\npoetry.\n\nFor if we consider attentively why men are pleased with metaphors we\nwill find no other reason than that already stated: the weakness of\nnature which is wearied by the inflexibility of truth and plain\nstatement and must be refreshed by an admixture of metaphors which\ndepart somewhat from the truth. This gives the clue to the proper and\nlegitimate use of metaphors; they are to be employed specifically, as\nmusicians employ discordant sounds, to relieve the distaste of perfect\nharmony. But how frequently and at what point they should be\nintroduced is a matter of considerable caution and skill. One warning\nwill suffice for the present: that metaphors, hyperboles, and whatever\nvaries from the plain and natural way of saying something should not\nbe sought for their own sakes but as a kind of relief for nauseated\nnature. They are to be accepted on grounds of necessity, and\nconsequently a good deal of moderation must be observed in their use.\nThus Quintilian rightly says, \"A sparing and opportune use of these\nfigures gives lustre to speech; frequent use obscures and fills with\ndisgust.\"[6] You will discover this fault often in many epigrams,\nespecially in those of contemporary writers as I shall show by several\nexamples later on. However, lest this doctrine should issue in too\nstrict an austerity of diction, it should be noted that only those\nexpressions are to be taken as metaphors that are remote from ordinary\nusage and offer the mind a double idea. Hence if a metaphor is so\ncommonplace that it no longer has a figurative connotation and\nsuggests nothing other than the notion itself for which it is used,\nthen it should be numbered among proper rather than metaphorical\nexpressions and does not fall in that class of tropes whose too\nfrequent use is here censured.\n\n\n_On a too metaphorical style. Certain epigrams rejected for this\nreason._\n\nThough poets are granted a greater indulgence in the use of tropes,\nnevertheless they have their own mean, or, as Cicero says, their own\nmodesty, and there is ever an especial ornament to be derived from\nsimplicity. Consequently those writers stray pretty far from beauty\nfor whom, as it were, all nature plays the ham to the point that they\nsay nothing in an ordinary way, imagine nothing in the way in which it\nis perceived outside of poems, but instead elevate, debase, alter, and\nclothe everything in a theatrical mask. For this reason we have\nexcluded from this anthology a number of epigrams as too metaphorical:\nfor example, these two by Daniel Heinsius, a man otherwise eminent in\nscholarship and letters:\n\n    Driver of light, courier of the bright pole,\n    Surveyor of the sky, and hour-divider,\n    Servant of time, circler perpetual,\n    Cleanser of earth, disperser of the clouds,\n    Ever your chariot, fiery four-in-hand,\n    You curb fast; you who bear on the bright day\n    Steal from the world once more your countenance\n    And of your glowing hair conceal the flame;\n    Tomorrow from the arms of Tethys you\n    Return once more: but night has sealed my sun.\n\nBy my _sun_ he means Douza. And again:\n\n    Sweet children of the night, brothers of fire,\n    Small cohorts, citizens of the fiery pole,\n    Who wandering through the cloudless fields of air\n    Lead the soft choruses with a light foot\n    When our tired bodies are stretched softly out\n    And gentle sleep invades our conquered sense,\n    Why now as then through the enamelled halls\n    From the recesses, still, and the clear windows\n    Of the gold arch bear off his hallowed face?\n    Farewell, at last; you shall not see your Douza.[7]\n\nIn these epigrams, apart from the metaphors heaped up _ad nauseam_,\nand each of them harsh and absurd, a keen critic has noted another\nfault: namely, that nothing is more distant from the spirit of a man\ngrieving and mourning for the death of a friend--and this is what\nHeinsius intended to depict--than such a wantonness of epithets. And\nso much for diction.\n\n\n_Truth, the primary virtue of ideas. How great a fault there is in\nuntruth. Thence, of false epigrams._\n\nWe take up now the question of ideas, and postulate again that these\ntoo must conform both to the subject and to men's character. Ideas\nagree with the subject if they are true, if they are appropriate, and\nif they so to speak get into the insides of the thing. They are in\naccord with men's character if they fit in with natural aversions or\ndesires.\n\nThe primary virtue of ideas is truth. Whatever is false is at variance\nwith external reality, nor is there any beauty in falsity except in so\nfar as it pretends to truth. From this you may gather that truth is\nthe source of beauty, falsity of ugliness. The latter, in fact, is out\nof keeping not only with reality but also with human nature. For we\npossess an innate love of truth and an aversion to falsehood, so that\nwhat delights us when it seems to be true becomes disagreeable and\nunpleasant when its falseness is made manifest. This principle applies\nto those learned men whom we have mentioned several times now, and has\nled to the exclusion from this anthology of many epigrams in which the\npoint rests on a falsehood: for example, there is the well-known one\nby Grotius, though simply as a poem it is noble enough:\n\n\n_On Joan of Arc, who is called \"La pucelle d'Orleans\"_\n\n    French Amazon of never-dying fame,\n    Virgin untouched by men and by men feared,\n    Nor Venus in her eyes nor young Desire\n    But Mars and Terror and the bloody Weird--\n    France owes the Salic Law to her alone,\n    And hers is the true king on the true throne.\n    Let none lament her death who was all fire\n    And never, or by fire alone, should die.[8]\n\nI have ventured to cite this that the reader may see quite clearly\nwhat is involved in this kind of falsehood and how much it is\nrepugnant to nature: namely, that something is alleged the contrary of\nwhich might as plausibly be affirmed. For Grotius might have written\nno less foolishly:\n\n    Justly lament her death: she who was fire\n    Should not by fire but by cold water die.\n\nActually, if we wish to get to the bottom of this fault we will find\nthat men are not led to it by nature but driven to it by lack of\nskill. For they would not fly to the refuge of falsehood for any other\nreason than that they are not vigorous enough to elicit beauty from\nthe subject itself. Truth, indeed, is limited and defined, but the\nrealm of lies is unlimited and undefined. Hence the one offers\ndifficulties for invention, the other is obvious and easy, and for\nthat reason also is to be scorned.\n\nMoreover, falsehood occurs not only in propositions but also in the\ndelineation of feeling, as, for instance, when feelings are ascribed\nto a character other than those which nature and the subject-matter\ndemand. You will find this fault in an epigram by Vulteius, which was\nfor this reason rejected:\n\n    I viewed one day the marble stone\n    That hides a man in sin well-known.\n    I sighed and said, \"What is the point\n    Of such expense? This tomb might serve\n    To house kings and the blood of kings\n    That now conceals a villainous corpse.\"\n    I burst in tears that copiously\n    Flowed from my eyes down both my cheeks.\n    A stander-by took me to task\n    In some such words, I think, as these:\n    \"Aren't you ashamed, be who you may,\n    To mourn the burial of this plague?\"\n    But I replied, \"My tears are shed\n    For the lost tomb, not his lost head.\"[9]\n\nIt was surely foreign to nature to represent a man weeping copiously\nbecause a villain and scoundrel had been buried in a noble tomb, for\nthe funeral honors paid to scoundrels excite anger and indignation\nrather than pity and tears. The poet, consequently, adopted an\nerroneous feeling when he wept where he should have been angry and\nwrathful.\n\n\n_On mythological epigrams._\n\nUntruth, then, is a considerable fault, one that is quite widespread\nand one that embraces many sub-divisions. Under this category falls\nespecially the use of mythological propositions, the common vehicle of\npoets when they have nothing to say. We have rejected many epigrams\nthat are faulty in this kind, as, for example, Grotius on the Emperor\nRudolph, which is too crowded with myths:\n\n    Not Mars alone has favored you, Invincible,\n    At whom as enemy barbarian standards shake,\n    But the Divine Community with gifts adore you,\n    And with this in especial from the wife of Zephyr:\n    She to the Dutch Apelles did perpetual spring\n    Ordain, and meadows living by the painter's hand.\n    Alcinous' charm is annual, and Adonis' gardens,\n    Nor do the Pharian roses bloom long in that air;\n    Antique Pomona of Semiramis has boasted,\n    And yet deep winter climbs the summit of her roof.\n    How shall your honors fail? The garlands that you wear\n    Beseem Imperial triumph, which time may not touch.[10]\n\nI know there are other things to be censured in this epigram, but I\nnote here only that one fault which it was quoted to illustrate.\n\n\n_On puns._\n\nTo the same general category may be referred most puns, the point of\nwhich usually rises from some untruth. For example, in Sannazaro's\nwell-known epigram:\n\n    Happy has built twin bridges on the Seine:\n    Happy the Seine may call her Pontifex.[11]\n\nIf you take _Pontifex_ in the sense of \"builder of bridges\" the\nthought is true, but pointless; consequently, for there to be a point\nthe word _Pontifex_ must be taken in the sense of \"Bishop\", and in\nthis sense it will be false that the Pontifex is happy. Similarly, in\nanother epigram of some reputation:\n\n    They say you're treating Cosma for his deafness,\n    And that you promised, French, a definite cure;\n    But you can't bring it off for all your deftness:\n    He'll hear ill of himself while tongues endure.[12]\n\nTake _audire_ as referring to the sense of hearing and the thought is\nfalse, since that physical defect is curable; take it as referring to\na good reputation, and the thought will again be false and inept, for\nit is false and inept that a doctor will labor in vain to cure a\ndefect of the ears because he cannot medicine to a diseased\nreputation.\n\nAll puns are embarrassed by such faults, while on the other hand their\ncharm is quite thin, or rather nonexistent. Formerly, it is true, in\nan earlier age there was some praise for that kind of thing, and so\nCicero and Quintilian are said to have derived polished witticisms\nfrom the device of double-meaning; now, however, it is rightly held in\ngreat contempt, so much so that men of taste not only do not hunt for\npuns but even avoid them. They are, one must admit, more bearable, or\nat least less objectionable when they come spontaneously; but anyone\nwho brings out ones he has thought up or indicates that he himself is\npleased with them is quite properly judged to be inexperienced in\nsociety. Hence it is that epigrams whose elegance is derived from puns\nare held of no account. For since verses are only composed by labor\nand diligence he is justly considered to be a weak and narrow spirit\nwho wastes time in fitting such trivial wit into verse. One should\nadd, too, that there is another disadvantage in puns, that they are so\nimbedded in their own language that they cannot be translated into\nanother. For these reasons we have admitted few punning epigrams into\nthis anthology, and those only as examples of a faulty kind.\n\n\n_On hyperbolical ideas._\n\nIn the category of false ideas must be reckoned the hyperbolical.\nThese are not false in a given word, for we dealt with this above, but\nfalse in the whole train of thought. Of this kind is that epigram of\nAusonius, the absurdity of which is unbearable:\n\n    Riding in state, as on an elephant,\n    Faustus fell backwards off a silly ant;\n    Abandoned, tortured to the point of death\n    By the sharp hooves, his soul stayed on his breath\n    And his voice broke: \"Envy,\" he cried, \"begone!\n    Laugh not at my fall! So fell Phaethon.\"[13]\n\nAusonius was imitating in this epigram the Greeks, who were quite open\nto this sort of bad imitation, as may be seen in their Anthology which\nis stuffed full of such hyperboles. A good many fall into the same\nfault either because their talent is weak or because they write for\nthe unskilled--a consideration which should move those who have no\ncompunction about reading, let alone praising, the silly tales of\nRabelais which are filled with stupid hyperboles.\n\n\n_On debatable and controvertible ideas._\n\nFurthermore, debatable and double-edged ideas, about which the reader\nis in doubt whether they be false or true, fall under the same\ncategory of falseness. For this doubtfulness, since it takes away all\npleasure, removes also the beauty. For this reason I have never\napproved the conclusion of Martial's epigram:\n\n    Equal the crime of Antony and Photinus:\n    This sword and that severed a sacred head--\n    The one head laurelled for your triumphs, Rome!\n    The other eloquent when you would speak.\n    Yet Antony's case was worse than was Photinus':\n    One for his master moved, one for himself.[14]\n\nThe reader is bothered by a sort of quiet annoyance that the poet\nshould so confidently take a dubious idea for a certain one. He might\neasily argue against the poet that on the contrary it seemed to him\nthat a man who commits a crime for his master is more at fault than\none who commits it for himself, and he could support his position with\nrational arguments. For one who sins for his own advantage is driven\nto his deed by such emotions as rage, lust, and fear, and these as\nthey diminish the power of willing in like measure diminish the\nmagnitude of the offence. But one who effects a crime at another's\nbehest comes coldly to the deed, a fact that convicts him of a far\ngreater depravity. One could allege these and similar lines of\nargument against Martial's position, and could reverse the sense of\nhis distich so that it read no less irrationally:\n\n    Yet Antony's case was better than Photinus':\n    One for his master moved, one for himself.\n\nHence this whole category of controvertible ideas lacks literary merit\nand should be studiously avoided by those who aim at beauty, which in\nthe last analysis is to be found in truth alone, and in truth of such\na sort that as soon as it is proposed the reader recognises as true\nand accepts it.\n\n\n_The second virtue of ideas, that they should agree with the inner\nnature of the subject; and thence on ideas foreign and accidental to\nthe subject._\n\nThe second virtue of ideas with respect to the subject-matter is that\nthey should agree with its inner nature: that is, that they should be\nelicited out of the very inners of the subject and not far-fetched or\ndrawn from external accidents which are only the accompaniments of\nthings. By this rule we have been delivered from numerous frigid\nepigrams, of which I subjoin a few examples:\n\nForeign and far-fetched is Owen's on a lyre:\n\n    That there is concord in so diverse chords\n    Discordant mankind some excuse affords.[15]\n\nAs if nothing were more pertinent for making men ashamed of their\ndiscords than the concord of strings on a lyre.\n\nFrom concomitant accidents, and not from the very heart of the subject\nitself, is drawn this epigram of Germanicus Caesar, though the verses\nare otherwise sufficiently polished:\n\n    The Thracian boy at play on the stiff ice\n    Of Hebrus broke the waters with his weight\n    And the swift current carried him away,\n    Except that a smooth sherd cut off his head.\n    The childless mother as she burned it said:\n    \"This for the flames I bore, that for the waves.\"[16]\n\nCertainly the mother had a deeper and more native cause of grief than\nthat her son was destroyed partly by water and partly by fire; she\nwould have grieved no less had he perished wholly in water or wholly\nin fire. The whole reason for grief, then, ought not be sought in such\na slight circumstance, which was an accompaniment of and not the\ngrounds for grief.\n\nNegative descriptions labor under the same fault, namely those in\nwhich are enumerated not what the endowments of the subject are but\nwhat they are not. This is justly censured in one of Barlaeus'\nepigrams, which is in other respects quite polished:\n\n    Of royal Bourbon blood, by whose aid once\n    Belgium believed that God inclined to her;\n    For sceptered fathers famed, more famed for war,\n    And by Astraea's doom of rare renown;\n    Whom War as general, Peace lauds unarmed,\n    To whom so many lands and seas are slaves;\n    Neither the fleece drinking barbarian dye\n    I send you, nor Sidonian artifice,\n    Nor Indian ivory, Dalmatian stone,\n    Nor the choice incense that delights grave Jove,\n    Nor warring eagles, no, nor cities stormed,\n    Nor plundered canvas from the conquered sea;\n    Louis, I give you Christ as King and Lord,\n    Titles not foreign to the ones you bear:\n    For I would send you, greatest of all kings,\n    Than which I cannot more, I send you God.[17]\n\nSurely it is a long way around to enumerate what you will not give the\nKing in order to make clear how slight your gift is. Besides, the\nconclusion is harsh in that a book about Christ is called God and\nChrist, as if Christ and a book about him were the same thing. But\nthis is a commonplace absurdity of what one may call the dedicatory\n_genre_, in which writers almost always speak of their book as if\nthere were no difference between the book itself and its subject:\nthus, if they write about Caesar or Cato, \"Caesar and Cato,\" they\nsay, \"prostrate themselves before you;\" If about Cicero, \"Look,\" they\nsay, \"Cicero addresses you and takes you as patron:\" all of which are\ncorrectly to be reckoned in the category of false statements.\n\n\n_In what way ideas are to be made agreeable to men's character. On\navoiding offense; and, first, on obscenity._\n\nThe harmony of idea and subject is a matter fairly easy to understand,\nbut the attuning of idea and men's character is more difficult to\ngrasp and requires more painstaking treatment. For in this inquiry the\nwhole scope of human nature must be thoroughly examined, and our\nsilent inclinations and aversions must be laid open so that we will\nknow how to avoid the one and comply with the other. For it cannot be\nthat anything should please that offends nature, or anything displease\nthat complies with natural inclinations. We will touch briefly on some\nof these points, but only on those that suffice to our purposes.\n\nIn the first place, there is in the nature of man an aversion to the\nshameful and the obscene, and this the more powerful in the best and\nwell-educated natures. All obscene ideas offend this sense of shame to\nsuch an extent that they are regarded as alien to nature, ugly, and\nuncivilised. Nor does it matter that some corrupt souls laugh at them.\nFor civilization, as we have said, does not consist in agreement with\na corrupt, but with a virtuous and moral, nature. Consequently,\nabsolutely nothing of this kind is to be found in the conversation of\nrespectable men, and is only resorted to by those who lack any feeling\nfor Christianity as well as for genuine society and civilization.\n\nTherefore we have excluded all shameful and licentious epigrams not\nonly in deference to morals and religion but also to good taste and\ncivilization. Of this Catullus and Martial in Antiquity witness that\nthey had no perception at all, for they filled up their works with a\ngood deal of ill-bred filth, and on that account must be regarded not\nonly as dissolute but also as vulgar, uncultivated, and, to use\nCatullus' own phrase, \"goat-milkers and ditch-diggers.\"[18]\n\n\n_On the cheap subject-matter of some epigrams._\n\nBut it is not only faulty and unpolished to offer the reader a\nshameful and obscene picture but also in general to depict whatever is\ncheap, ugly, and unwelcome. Hence those epigrams cannot be regarded as\nbeautiful and polished whose subject is a toothless hag, a poetaster\nwith a threadbare cloak, a rank old goat, a filthy nose, or a glutton\nvomiting on the table--all of which are a fertile ground of jokes for\nactors--since ugliness of that sort can never be redeemed by the\npoint.\n\nFor this reason we have admitted none of such kind in the epigrams of\nMartial which we have subjoined to this treatise, and a good many\nepigrams that we have run across we have put aside, such as Buchanan's\nin which he depicts the unattractive and unpleasant picture of a lank\nold man:\n\n    While Naevolus yells he can outbellow Stentor,\n    And roars and roars, \"All men are animals,\"\n    He has slipped by almost his ninetieth year\n    And bent senility shakes his weak step.\n    Now three hairs only cling to his smooth head,\n    And he sees what a night-owl sees at dawn.\n    The snot is dripping from his frosty nose,\n    And stringed saliva falls on his wet breast--\n    Not an odd tooth in his defenceless gums,\n    Not an old ape so engraved with wrinkles.\n    Naevolus, for shame leave this frivolity\n    And no more cry, \"All men,\" since you are none.[19]\n\nAgain, the baseness of the subject and the hardly pleasant or\ncivilized image of a hanging man is a fault in this epigram of\nSannazaro's, although it has an element of humor:\n\n    In your desire to learn your fortune, sir,\n    You questioned every tripod, every rune;\n    \"You'll stand out above gods and men,\" at last\n    Answered the god in truth-revealing voice.\n    What arrogance you drew from this! You were\n    Immediately lord of the universe.\n    Now you ascend the cross. God was no cheat:\n    The whole world lies spread out beneath your feet.[20]\n\nThis is fairly respectable and merely low. But the cynical license of\nMartial and Catullus, by which they speak of many things that are not\nsimply morally foul but such as decent society demands be removed from\nsight and hearing, must be regarded as altogether shameless and\nvulgar. For this reason men of taste never mention favorably Catullus'\n_Annales Volusi cacata charta_, or Martial's\n\n    et desiderio coacta ventris\n    gutta pallia non fefellit una[21]\n\nAnd there are many others a good deal more despicable which cannot be\nadduced even as examples of a fault. Assuredly Antiquity was too\nforbearing toward this sort of thing, and I have often wondered how\nCicero could have been tolerated in the Roman Senate when he inveighed\nagainst Piso:\n\n     Do you not remember, blank, when I came to see you about the\n     fifth hour with Gaius Piso, you were coming out of some dirty\n     shack, slippers on your feet and your face and beard covered; and\n     when you breathed on us that low tavern air from your fetid\n     mouth, you apologized on grounds of ill health, saying that you\n     were taking a kind of wine treatment? When we had accepted your\n     explanation--what else could we do?--we stood a while in the\n     smell and fume of the joints you patronize until you kicked us\n     out by the impudence of your answers and the stench of your\n     belches.[22]\n\n\n_On spiteful epigrams._\n\nMen with some gentleness of nature have an inborn hatred of spite,\nespecially of such as mocks bodily flaws or reversals of fortune, or,\nfinally, anything that happens beyond the individual's responsibility.\nFor, since no man feels himself free of such strokes of chance, he\nwill not take it easily when they are torn down and laughed at. The\nVergilian Dido spoke with human feeling when she said: _Not unaware of\nill I learned to aid misfortune._[23] and the good will of the reader\nrises quietly in her favor. Likewise, Seneca says nicely: _It is not\nwitty to be spiteful._[24] On the other hand they act inhumanely who\ntriumph over misfortune and upbraid what was not guiltily effected, to\nsuch an extent that they arouse a feeling of aversion and alienation\nin the hearts of their readers.\n\nAccordingly we have admitted only a few of this kind, and have\nrejected a great many, as, for example, Owen's frigid and spiteful\nepigram:\n\n    Look, not a hair remains on your bright skull.\n    The hairs on your inconstant brow are null.\n    With every last hair lost behind, ahead,\n    What has the bald man left to lose? His head.[25]\n\nNor do we greatly care for many of the same kind in Martial, which\nnevertheless were not omitted for the reasons given above.[26]\n\n\n_On wordy epigrams._\n\nIt would be a long task to assemble all the natural aversions,\nnevertheless we may add a few more which have removed a whole host of\nepigrams from this anthology. Beyond those already mentioned, nature\nfinds distasteful long circumlocutions and the piling up of a single\npoint with varying phrase; for nature burns with a desire to find out,\never hastens to the conclusion, and is impatient at being detained by\nmuch talk unless there is a special reward. Consequently wordy\nepigrams beget a good deal of loathing, especially those that do not\nsufficiently balance their length with the magnitude of the idea. Some\nof Martial's are burdened with this fault; sometimes they accumulate\ntoo many commonplace compliments or are too petty in enumeration. For\nexample, in this epigram to what point are so many trite similes piled\nup?\n\n    Her voice was sweeter than the aged swan,\n    None would prefer the Eastern pearl before her,\n    Or the new-polished tooth of Indic beasts,\n    Or the first snow, lilies untouched by hand;\n    She who breathed fragrance of the Paestan rose,\n    Compared with whom the peacock was but dull,\n    The squirrel uncharming, and unrare the phoenix,\n    Erotion, is still warm on a new pyre.[27]\n\nSimilarly, why in another well-known epigram is the same idea repeated\nagain and again?\n\n    Oh not unvalued object of my love,\n    Flaccus, the darling of Antenor's hearth,\n    Forego Pierian songs, the sisters' dances:\n    No girl among them ever gave a dime.\n    Phoebus is nought; Minerva has the cash,\n    Is shrewd, is only usurer to the gods.\n    What's there in Bacchus' ivy? The black tree\n    Of Pallas bends with mottled leaves and weight.\n    On Helicon there's only water, wreaths,\n    The divine lyres, and profitless applause.\n    Why do you dream of Cirrha, bare Permessis?\n    The forum is more Roman and more rich.\n    There the coins clink, but round the sterile chairs\n    And desks of poets only kisses rustle.[28]\n\nIn the same way that nature is displeased with wordiness, she is\ndispleased with ideas that are too commonplace, for it is a kind of\nloquacity to bubble on with the commonplace and trite, since it is the\npurpose of speech to reveal what isn't known, not to repeat what is\nknown and worn-out. Countless epigrams have been excluded from this\nselection for this fault, but since there is nothing more common I\nwill omit offering examples.\n\n\n_On trifling wit, and plays on words._\n\nNot a little displeasing, also, is an assiduity in trifling which\nwithdraws the mind from solid subject-matter out of which true beauty\nsprings. Plays on words, puns and other playing around of that kind,\nunless they come to the judgement of the pen within the bounds of art,\nare not so much figures of speech as faults of style, and in those\nepigrams where the point rests solely in these there is nothing\nthinner, especially when they are so peculiar to one language that\nthey cannot be translated into another. On this basis we have passed\nover such frivolous witticisms as Owen's:\n\n    Rope ends the robber, death is his last haul;\n    The gallows gets the gangster--if not all,\n    If many get away, God gives no hope:\n    It's an odd thief dies with no coffin rope.[29]\n\nA little more humorous is that of another poet on the Swiss killed at\nnight, though it too is faulty:\n\n    Annihilated in night snow by a nut stick,\n    I snow, night, nut, now, and annihilation know.[30]\n\n\n_In what way natural inclinations are to be gratified._\n\nWe must carefully avoid all these natural sources of aversion and no\nless gratify natural inclinations if we wish to attain that beauty we\naim at. For self-love is so strong in men that they can hear nothing\nwith pleasure unless it flatters them with their own feelings. For\nwhich reason those epigrams have correctly been judged best that\npenetrate deeper into those feelings and present to the reader's mind\nan idea recognised not only by the interior light but also by the\ninterior feeling as quite true, so that he can be seduced into\nembracing it: for example, Martial's:\n\n    I scorn the fame purchased with easy blood\n    And praise the man who can be praised alive.[31]\n\nFor, since everyone hates death and longs for praise and glory, there\nis no one who would not be glad if he could be praised without dying.\nAnother example is that of the old poet:\n\n    Put high disdain, deciduous hope put by:\n    Live with yourself who with yourself must die.[32]\n\nFor nature has, as Quintilian said, a kind of elevation intolerant of\nanything above it[33] that fawns on anyone who bids it be contemptuous\nof a pride in riches.\n\nThis much on the general sources of beauty and ugliness will be\nsufficient for passing judgement on any _genre_ of poems.\nNevertheless, this should be adapted to the particular nature, laws,\nand principles of the epigram, and so it will not be out of point to\nadd a few remarks on the epigram itself.\n\n\n_The origin of the name epigram. Its definition, form, and laws._\n\n\"Epigram\", as Scaliger observes, is the same thing as \"inscription\";\nbut since there are inscriptions of a good many things the former word\nhas been applied to short poems inasmuch as epigrams of that sort used\nto be inscribed on monuments and statues;[34] and from this the word\nhas been extended generally to short poems. The epigram is defined,\nthen, as a short poem directly pointing out some thing, person, or\ndeed.[35]\n\nThere are those who locate its formal principle in the serious or\nwitty idea that forms the conclusion, and so insist on this that they\ndeny anything is an epigram that lacks such a conclusion.[36] But this\nis an error. There are some epigrams, and highly cultivated ones, that\nhave an equable elevation throughout and nothing of especial note in\nthe conclusion, as in this of a contemporary writer:\n\n    That on insurgent serpents breathing peace,\n    On unplumed eagles trembling, on tame pards,\n    And lions whose low necks accept the yoke,\n    Louis looks out, sublime on a bronze horse,\n    Nor fingers shaped this nor the craftsman's forge\n    But worth and God's fortune accomplished it.\n    The armed venger of faith, trustee of peace,\n    Ordained, for all to reverence, this, and bade\n    Rise in the royal place the reverend bronze,\n    That, the long perils past of civil strife,\n    And enemies subdued by prosperous arms,\n    Louis should ever triumph in the master city.[37]\n\nAgain, in some epigrams there is a straightforward neatness and a\ngentle and dry humor that pleases, as may be seen in some of Catullus'\nepigrams which we have put in this anthology.\n\nSome go to the contrary extreme and not only do not require such\nconclusions but even scorn them. These are for the most part the\noutrageous lovers of Catullus who, as long as they finish off some\nlimp little dirge in hendecasyllabics, feel that they are marvellously\ncharming and polished, although there is nothing more empty than such\nverses or nothing easier to do if a man has acquired a little practice\nin Latin.\n\nHow little effort, for instance, shall we imagine the conclusion of\nthis epigram cost Borbonius, fashioned as it is according to the model\nof Catullus?\n\n    Wherefore come, O Roman muses,\n    Full of honey and of graces,\n    Learned verses of good Pino;\n    I embrace you, just Camenae,\n    All day long I read you gladly\n    In this mortifying season,\n    Time of tears and time of penance,\n    Harsh and troublesome, by Jupiter![38]\n\nYou can see where the perverse imitation of Catullus has conducted a\nChristian, in other respects devout, so that in discussing a Christian\nfast day he had no fear of using the profane name of Jove. But,\nleaving this aside, what is more inept than the verse _Harsh and\ntroublesome, by Jupiter!_, however Catullan. Nevertheless, Borbonius\nthought his epigram concluded elegantly in that line because he found\nin Catullus a similar one.[39] But, leaving aside such spiritless\nimitators, one can truly affirm of those ideas that conclude epigrams\nthat there is a good deal of elegance in them when they are themselves\ndistinguished and nicely cohere with the preceding chain of thought.\nFor, since nothing so sticks in the reader's mind as the conclusion,\nwhat is better than to put there what especially you want to fix in\nhis soul. Consequently, those epigrams are rightly censured as faulty\nthat go in the order of anti-climax or in which the conclusion is sort\nof added on or appended to the rest and does not neatly develop out of\nthe preceding verses. This fault is discernible in the following\nepigram, though in other respects it is distinguished:\n\n    You that a stranger in mid-Rome seek Rome\n    And can find nothing in mid-Rome of Rome,\n    Behold this mass of walls, these abrupt rocks,\n    Where the vast theatre lies overwhelmed.\n    Here, here is Rome! Look how the very corpse\n    Of greatness still imperiously breathes threats!\n    The world she conquered, strove herself to conquer,\n    Conquered that nothing be unconquered by her.\n    Now conqueror Rome's interred in conquered Rome,\n    And the same Rome conquered and conqueror.\n    Still Tiber stays, witness of Roman fame,\n    Still Tiber flows on swift waves to the sea.\n    Learn hence what Fortune can: the unmoved falls,\n    And the ever-moving will remain forever.[40]\n\nThe last four verses are completely unnecessary and contain a frigid\npoint by which the lustre of the preceding is dimmed.\n\n\n_The material of epigrams; thence the division into different kinds.\nThe first kind and the second._\n\nThe material of epigrams comprises any subject and anything that can\nbe said on it--in fact, there are as many kinds of epigrams as there\nare kinds of things that can be said. We will notice here particularly\nthose kinds from which the special powers of each can be understood.\n\nThere is, then, a kind of epigram that is elevated, weighty, sublime,\npursuing a noble subject in noble lines and concluding with a noble\nsentiment. Such is Martial's on Scaevola:\n\n    That hand that sought a king and found a slave\n    Was thrust to burn up in the sacred fire:\n    So cruel a portent the good enemy\n    Appalled, who bade him carried from the fire.\n    The hand the regicide endured to burn,\n    The king could not endure to see it done.\n    Greater the glory of the hand deceived!\n    Had it not erred it had accomplished less.[41]\n\nOf the same sort are Grotius' epigrams on Ostend and on the sailing\ncarriages, and Barclay's on Margaret of Valois.[42]\n\nThere is another sort somewhat lower in style but weighty and\nprofitable in idea: for example, that truly distinguished one of\nMartial:\n\n    In that you follow the strict rules of Cato\n    And yet are willing to remain alive\n    And will not run bare-breasted on the sword\n    You do exactly as I'd have you do:\n    I scorn the fame purchased with easy blood\n    And praise the man who can be praised alive.[43]\n\nAnd this:\n\n    In private she mourns not the late-lamented;\n    If someone's by her tears leap forth on call.\n    Sorrow, my dear, is not so easily rented.\n    They are true tears that without witness fall.[44]\n\nAnd that genuinely golden epigram:\n\n    That I now call you by your name\n    Who used to call you sir and master,\n    You needn't think it impudence.\n    I bought myself with all I had.\n    He ought to sir a sir and master\n    Who's not himself, and wants to have\n    Whatever sirs and masters want.\n    Who can get by without a slave\n    Can get by, too, without a master.[45]\n\nHowever, of all kinds of epigram that kind is generally thought to be\nmost properly epigrammatic which is distinguished by a witty and\ningenious turn that deeply penetrates the soul. Martial excels in this\nkind, as in this one:\n\n    You serve the best wines always, my dear sir,\n    And yet they say your wines are not so good.\n    They say you are four times a widower.\n    They say ... A drink? I don't believe I would.[46]\n\nand in this:\n\n    Though you send presents to old men and widows\n    Why should I call you, sir, munificent?\n    There's nothing lower, dirtier than you only\n    Who can denominate enticements gifts.\n    These are the sly hooks for the greedy fish,\n    These are the clever baits for the wild beasts.\n    I will instruct you what it is to give\n    If you are ignorant: give, sir, to me. [47]\n\nSome are lower in style but witty and pleasant, and have a glowing\nsimplicity, as can be illustrated by another of Martial's:\n\n    \"An epic epigram,\" I heard you say.\n    Others have written them, and so I may.\n    \"But this one is too long.\" Others are too.\n    You want them short? I'll write two lines for you:\n      _As for long epigrams let us agree\n      They may be skipped by you, written by me._[48]\n\nAnd, indeed, of all the special capabilities of the epigram none is\nmore difficult to realise or more rarely achieved than the adroit\nhandling, the suitable and easy unfolding, of the subject so that\nnothing is redundant, nothing wanting, nothing out of order, obscure,\nor tangled up in verbiage, and yet at the same time nothing too\nunexpected, nothing not adequately prepared for. Martial is\npre-eminent in this; he develops his subjects so aptly, clearly, and\nperceptively that he obtains for ideas of no special note otherwise a\ngood deal of distinction by the charm of the handling. For example,\nwhat could be more resourcefully developed than this epigram?\n\n    Believe me, sir, I'd like to spend whole days,\n    Yes, and whole evenings in your company,\n    But the two miles between your house and mine\n    Are four miles when I go there to come back.\n    You're seldom home, and when you are deny it,\n    Engrossed with business or with yourself.\n    Now, I don't mind the two mile trip to see you;\n    What I do mind is going four to not to.[49]\n\nAnd what would the following epigram be if it had not been perfected\nand prepared for by the handling?\n\n    That no one meets you willingly,\n    That where you come they go, that vast\n    Areas of silence circle you--\n    Why so? you ask. Too much the bard.\n    This makes it terribly, terribly hard.\n    Who would put up with what I do?\n    You read verse if I stand or sit;\n    You read it if I run or sing;\n    And in the baths you read me verse;\n    I try the pool, and swim in verse;\n    I haste to dine, you go my way;\n    I order, and you read me out;\n    Worn out, I take my rest with verse.\n    You want to know what harm you do?\n    Just, upright, harmless, you're a pest.[50]\n\nThe conclusion is pleasantly witty, but the special charm of the poem\nderives from the preceding enumeration.\n\nThis finishes the account of what we looked to in selecting these\nepigrams. You will find what else is pertinent to this book in the\npreface.\n\n\n\n\n_Notes_\n\nI have silently emended a few passages; otherwise the text translated\nis that of _Epigrammatum Delectus_, Paris, 1659. It is regrettable\nthat the Latin text, at least of the poems cited, could not be printed\nwith the translation.\n\n[1] _De nat. deor._ 2.2.5\n\n[2] _Aen._ 5.481 and 8.596\n\n[3] 177-8, 173\n\n[4] All three passages are from epigrams by Gaspar Conrad in Janus\nGruter, _Delitiae poetarum germanorum_, 6 v., Frankfort, 1612: II,\n1065-6, lines 1-6 of a twelve line epigram, \"In symbolum Iacobi\nMonavi\"; II, 1077, the concluding lines of an eight line epigram, \"Ad\nValentinum Maternum\"; and II, 1079, the concluding couplet of a six\nline epigram, \"Ad Georgum Menhadum Philophilum.\" The second passage is\nhardly construable.\n\n[5] _Ars. poet._ 141-2, the paraphrase of Homer, and 143-4. The other\nquotations in this passage are from the opening of the _Aeneid_,\n_Thebaid_, _Rape of Proserpine_, and the _Pharsalia_.\n\n[6] _Inst. orat._ 8.6.14\n\n[7] \"Manes Dousici,\" IV \"Ad solem\" and V \"Ad sidera,\" _Poemata_,\nLeyden, 1613, p. 166. Nicole reads _tandem_ for _rursus_ in the last\nline of the second poem. Douza is the younger Janus Douza (1571-1596).\n\nNicole's criticism of these poems is just but superficial. The\ndifficulty with such poems lies in the method, which consists in the\nestablishment by amplification of one pole, followed by the briefest\nstatement of the contrary pole. But the latter is of personal concern\nand is the essential subject of the poem. Thus the subject is\ndeliberately avoided for the greater part of the poem, and hence there\nis in the amplification no principle of order to control the detail\nand its accumulation. This accounts for the features Nicole censures;\nhowever, he himself makes a similar point below in condemning negative\ndescriptions.\n\n[8] I have been unable to find this among Grotius' poems.\n\n[9] Joannes Vulteius (c.1510-1542), \"De ignobili Aruerno in sepulchro\nnobili posito,\" _Hendecasyllaborum libri iv_, Paris, 1538, Ni., p. 97.\n\n[10] \"Ad Rudolphum Imp. florum picturae dedicatio,\" _Poemata_, Leyden,\n1637, p. 326.\n\n[11] Epig. 1.50, \"De Jucundo architecto,\" _Poemata_, Pavia, 1719, p.\n189.\n\n[12] I have been unable to identify this epigram.\n\n[13] A translation of _Anth. Pal._ 11.104 and printed as Ausonius in\nthe Renaissance, but probably by Girogio Merula (c.1424-1494): see\nJames Hutton, _The Greek Anthology In Italy to the year 1800_,\n\"Cornell Studies in English,\" XXIII (1935), pp. 23-4, 102-5, and\nAusonius, _Opuscula_, ed. Rudolphus Peiper, Leipzig, 1886, p. 428. The\nyounger Scaliger strongly condemns this epigram on the same grounds:\nJoseph Scaliger, _Ausoniarum lectionum libri ii_, 2.20, Heidelberg,\n1688, p. 204.\n\n[14] 3.66\n\n[15] Epig. libri tres, ad D. Mariam Neville, 2.211. _Epigrammata_,\nAmsterdam, 1647, p. 47. Translated by Thomas Harvey, _John Owen's\nLatin Epigrams_, London, 1677, p. 36: \"Sith th' Harps discording\nStrings concording be, / Is't not a shame for men to disagree?\" and by\nThomas Pecke, _Parnassi puerperium_, London, 1659: \"Can there be many\nstrings; and yet no Jars? / And are not men asham'd of dismal wars?\"\n\n[16] Nicole's text follows what are now regarded as inferior mss: see\nGermanious Caesar, _Aratea_, ed. Alfred Breysig, 2nd. ed., Leipzig,\n1899, p. 58. The poem corresponds to _Anth. Pal._ 7.542. Nicole's\ncomment recalls Dr. Johnson on Gray's cat.\n\n[17] The dedicatory poem, addressed to Louis XIII, to Caspar Barlaeus'\n_Poematum editio nova_, Leyden, 1631, sig.*8.\n\n[18] 22.10\n\n[19] Epig. 1.25, _Opera Omnia_, 2 v., Leyden, 1725, II, 365. Nicole's\ntext presents several variants and cuts the next to the last couplet,\nwhich I translate: \"Already at the tomb, He beats the gates / Of Dis,\nand Libertina waits his torches.\"\n\n[20] Epig. 3.5, _op. cit._, p. 233.\n\n[21] Catullus 36 and Martial 1.109. 10-11\n\n[22] _Pis._ 13\n\n[23] _Aen._ 1.630\n\n[24] _Anthologia Latina_, ed. Alexander Riese, 412.17, Leipzig, 1894,\nI, 1, p.319. The epigram, from which this phrase is quoted, was\nascribed to Seneca by Pithoeus.\n\n[25] Epig.... ad ... Neville, 2.126, _op. cit._, p. 38. Harvey, p. 36,\ntranslates: \"Lo, not an hair thine heads bald Crown doth crown: / Thy\nFaithless Front hath not one hair thine own: / Before, Behind thine\nhair's blown off with Blast, / What's left thee to be lost? thine Head\nat last.\"\n\n[26] In the preface, _Delectus_, Paris, 1659, ch. 2. The problem was\nwhether to print a large collection of epigrams, rejecting merely the\nobscene ones, or to choose only the best. A middle way was taken for\nthese reasons: 1) there are so few first-class epigrams that a reader\nwho had his own opinions might think the selection too choosy; 2) the\nbest shines out only in comparison with what is not so good, and\nexamples of vice are as useful as examples of virtue, since judgement\nin large measure consists in knowing what to avoid; 3) finally and\nprincipally, the curiosity of young men would not be sufficiently\nsatisfied by the selection if they knew that a good many witty and\npolished epigrams were to be found elsewhere. Since it was especially\nnecessary to keep youth from the unspeakable filth of Catullus and\nMartial, who are at the same time the best writers, everything of\ntheirs is included except the cheapest odds and ends and filthiest\nobscenities. For the writers after Martial stricter standards were\napplied, for the book would have grown beyond bounds if everything\ntolerable had been admitted.\n\n[27] Martial 5.37, 1, 4-6, 9, 12-14. The lines that Nicole cuts\ncontain only more of the same.\n\n[28] Martial 1.76\n\n[29] Epig. libri tres ad Henricum ... ded. 1.67, _op. cit._, p. 131.\n\n[30] Unidentified. The text reads: \"In nive nocte vagans nuceo cado\nstipite nectus, / Sic mihi nix, nox, nux, nex fuit ante diem.\"\n\n[31] 1.8. 5-6.\n\n[32] The conclusion of an epigram of ten lines, ascribed to Seneca in\n_Delectus_, pp. 326-7. Lines 1-8 correspond to _Anth. Lat._, _op.\ncit._, 407. 5-12. The younger Scaliger had begun a new epigram with\nline 5, as also with lines 9 and 11 (ed., Vergil, _Appendix, cum\nsupplemento_ ..., Lyons, 1572, pp. 196-7.) The concluding sententia,\nhowever, which Nicole quotes here and praises later in the notes to\nthe anthology, is from the conclusion of the next epigram, _Anth.\nLat._, 408. 7-8, which is a response to the preceding one. But the\nfirst two-thirds of the couplet has been rewritten with the aid of\nsomething like a _Gradus ad Parnassum_. The ms reads, \"nunc et reges\ntantum fuge! vivere doctus / uni vive tibi nam moriare tibi.\" Nicole\nreads, \"Mitte superba pati fastidia, spemque caducam / Despice: vive\ntibi, nam moriere tibi.\" _superba pati fastidia_ corresponds to\nVergil, _Ecl._ 2.15; _spem ... caducam_ to Ovid, _Epist._ 15 (sive 16,\n\"Paris Helenae\"). 169 (sive 171).\n\nThe epigram as it stands in the anthology, then, is a result of\nScaliger's disintegration of _Anth. Lat._ 407, which suggested\nbeginning with line 5 and adding 408. 7-8 from the responsory poem.\nBut this couplet is subjected to improvement to adjust it to the\nsense, to sustain the level of feeling, and to enhance the sententious\npoint. Thus, with the aid of phrases from Vergil and Ovid, using\n_mitte_ and _despice_ as fillers and helpers, the epigram is concluded\n\"with a noble, exalted and true thought,\" as the editor says in the\nnotes.\n\n[33] _Inst. orat._ 11.1.16.\n\n[34] J. C. Scaliger, _Poeticas libri vii_, 3.125, 5th. ed., 1607, p.\n389.\n\n[35] _loc. cit._, p. 390: \"An epigram, therefore, is a short poem\ndirectly pointing out some thing, person, or deed, or deducing\nsomething from premises. This definition includes also the principle\nof division--so let no one condemn it as prolix.\" Nicole, however,\nuses only the first half of the definition, since he rejects the\nprinciple of division.\n\n[36] _loc. cit._: \"Brevity is a property; point the soul and, so to\nspeak, the form.\" For a full account of the Renaissance theory of the\nepigram and the contemporary controversies, see Hutton, _op. cit._,\npp. 55-73, and _The Greek Anthology in France and in the Latin writers\nof the Netherlands to the year 1800_, \"Cornell studies in classical\nphilology,\" XXVIII (1946), _passim_.\n\n[37] Anon., \"In statuam equestrem Ludouici XIII positam Parisiis in\ncirco regali,\" _Delectus_, pp. 409-10.\n\n[38] Nicolas Borbon, the younger, _Poematia exposita_, Paris, 1630,\npp. 144-5, the concluding lines (lines 23-30) of an epigram, \"In\nversus v.c. Iacobi Pinonis.\"\n\n[39] Catullus 1.7\n\n[40] Ianus Vitalis Panomitanus (c.1485-1560), \"Antiquae Romae ruinae\nillustres,\" _Delectus_, p. 366; see also _Delitiae delitiarum_, ed.\nAb. Wright, Oxford, 1637, p. 104, with textual variants.\n\n[41] 1.21\n\n[42] _Delectus_, pp. 396-7, 399-400, and 405. See Grotius, _op. cit._,\npp. 341-2, and 383.\n\n[43] 1.8\n\n[44] 1.33\n\n[45] 2.68\n\n[46] 4.69\n\n[47] 4.56\n\n[48] 6.65\n\n[49] 2.5\n\n[50] 3.44. 1-5, 9-18. The lines cut, 6-8, read in translation: \"No\ntigress wild for her lost cubs, / No viper burned by the noon sun, /\nNo scorpion begets such fear.\" In line 11, line 8 of the translation,\nNicole reads _canenti_ for the received _cacanti_. The latter reading\nwill yield in translation a rhyme with the preceding line.\n\n\n\n\n_The Editors of_ THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY\n\n_are pleased to announce that_\n\nTHE WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY\n\n_of The University of California, Los Angeles_\n\nwill become the publisher of the Augustan Reprints in May, 1949. The\neditorial policy of the Society will continue unchanged. As in the\npast, the editors will strive to furnish members inexpensive reprints\nof rare seventeenth and eighteenth century works.\n\nAll correspondence concerning subscriptions in the United States and\nCanada should be addressed to the William Andrews Clark Memorial\nLibrary, 2205 West Adams Blvd., Los Angeles 7, California.\nCorrespondence concerning editorial matters may be addressed to any of\nthe general editors. Membership fee continues $2.50 per year ($2.75 in\nGreat Britain and the continent). British and European subscribers\nshould address B. H. Blackwell, Broad Street, Oxford, England.\n\n\nPublications for the fourth year (1949-1950)\n\n(_At least six items will be printed in the main from the following\nlist_)\n\n\nSERIES IV: MEN, MANNERS, AND CRITICS\n\n  John Dryden, _His Majesties Declaration Defended_\n  (1681)\n  Daniel Defoe (?), _Vindication of the Press_ (1718)\n  _Critical Remarks on Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa,\n  and Pamela_ (1754)\n\n\nSERIES V: DRAMA\n\n  Thomas Southerne, _Oroonoko_ (1696)\n  Mrs. Centlivre, _The Busie Body_ (1709)\n  Charles Johnson, _Caelia_ (1733)\n  Charles Macklin, _Man of the World_ (1781)\n\n\nSERIES VI: POETRY AND LANGUAGE\n\n  Andre Dacier, _Essay on Lyric Poetry_\n  _Poems_ by Thomas Sprat\n  _Poems_ by the Earl of Dorset\n  Samuel Johnson, _Vanity of Human Wishes_ (1749),\n  and one of the 1750 _Rambler_ papers.\n\n\nEXTRA SERIES:\n\n  Lewis Theobald, _Preface to Shakespeare's Works_\n  (1733)\n\n  A few copies of the early publications of the Society\n  are still available at the original rate.\n\nGENERAL EDITORS\n\n  H. RICHARD ARCHER,\n  William Andrews Clark Memorial Library\n\n  R. C. BOYS, University of Michigan\n\n  E. N. HOOKER, University of California, Los Angeles\n\n  H. T. SWEDENBERG, JR.,\n  University of California, Los Angeles\n\n---------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n  TO THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY\n  _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_\n  _2205 West Adams Blvd., Los Angeles 7, California_\n\n  AS MEMBERSHIP FEE I enclose for:\n\n  _Name_ _______________________________\n\n  _Address_  ___________________________\n\n  The fourth year                                               $ 2.50\n  The third and fourth year                                       5.00\n  The second, third and fourth year                               7.50\n  The first, second, third, and fourth year                      10.00\n\n[Add $.25 for each year if ordering from Great Britain or the\ncontinent]\n\nMake check or money order payable to THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF\nCALIFORNIA.\n\n_Note: All income of the Society is devoted to defraying cost of\nprinting and mailing._\n\n\n\n\nPUBLICATIONS OF THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY\n\nFirst Year (1946-1947)\n\n     1. Richard Blackmore's _Essay upon Wit_ (1716), and Addison's\n     _Freeholder_ No. 45 (1716). (I, 1)\n\n     2. Samuel Cobb's _Of Poetry and Discourse on Criticism_ (1707).\n     (II, 1)\n\n     3. _Letter to A. H. Esq.; concerning the Stage_ (1698), and\n     Richard Willis's _Occasional Paper No. IX_ (1698). (III, 1)\n\n     4. _Essay on Wit_ (1748), together with Characters by Flecknoe,\n     and Joseph Warton's _Adventurer_ Nos. 127 and 133. (I, 2)\n\n     5. Samuel Wesley's _Epistle to a Friend Concerning Poetry_ (1700)\n     and _Essay on Heroic Poetry_ (1693). (II, 2)\n\n     6. _Representation of the Impiety and Immorality of the Stage_\n     (1704) and _Some Thoughts Concerning the Stage_ (1704). (III, 2)\n\n\nSecond Year (1947-1948)\n\n     7. John Gay's _The Present State of Wit_ (1711); and a section on\n     Wit from _The English Theophrastus_ (1702). (I, 3)\n\n     8. Rapin's _De Carmine Pastorali_, translated by Creech (1684).\n     (II, 3)\n\n     9. T. Hanmer's (?) _Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet_\n     (1736). (III, 3)\n\n     10. Corbyn Morris' _Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of\n     Wit, etc._ (1744). (I, 4)\n\n     11. Thomas Purney's _Discourse on the Pastoral_ (1717). (II, 4)\n\n     12. Essays on the Stage, selected, with an Introduction by Joseph\n     Wood Krutch. (III, 4)\n\n\nThird Year (1948-1949)\n\n     13. Sir John Falstaff (pseud.), _The Theatre_ (1720). (IV, 1)\n\n     14 Edward Moore's _The Gamester_ (1753). (V, 1)\n\n     15. John Oldmixon's _Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter to Harley_\n     (1712); and Arthur Mainwaring's _The British Academy_ (1712).\n     (VI, 1)\n\n     16. Nevil Payne's _Fatal Jealousy_ (1673). (V, 2)\n\n     17. Nicholas Rowe's _Some Account of the Life of Mr. William\n     Shakespear_ (1709). (Extra Series, 1)\n\n     18. Aaron Hill's Preface to _The Creation_; and Thomas Brereton's\n     Preface to _Esther_. (IV, 2)\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTranscriber's Notes:\n\nOn p. 23, a letter was missing in one of the words; it was changed as\nfollows:\n\n  From: \"when they are  orn down and laughed at.\"\n  To:   \"when they are torn down and laughed at.\"\n\nOn p. 35, footnote #24, removed the repeated word \"is\":\n\n  From: \"from which this phrase is is quoted\"\n  To:   \"from which this phrase is quoted\"","title":"An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":13903}