Page:Juvenal and Persius by G. G. Ramsay.djvu/11

Rh gross, it is always repulsive, never alluring or prurient, in its tone.

I have found it advisable to add summaries to the Satires both of Juvenal and Persius, so as to make clear in every case the course of the argument. Juvenal's rhetorical exuberance frequently carries him away from his subject, and leads him into irrelevancies; while Persius, in his love for recondite phrasing and rapid transitions, sometimes leaves the reader embarrassed as to his main purpose. Juvenal's sixth Satire, to whose merits so little attention has been paid in English editions, has been treated somewhat more fully than the rest.

The text of both the Juvenal and the Persius is based upon Bücheler's text of 1893, which, as Mr. Duff points out, was the first to give a full and trustworthy account of the readings of P (the Codex Pithoeanus). Any variation from that text is mentioned in the notes, together with a statement of the authority on which it has been adopted. Bücheler's edition was re-edited in 1910, with but few changes, by Dr. F. Leo. The most important of these changes is that he now recognises as genuine the passage discovered in 1899 by Mr. E. O. Winstedt in the Bodleian MS.

G. G. RAMSAY.



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