Page:Letters, sentences and maxims.djvu/173

 Augustan age; and therefore can write no other; whereas the pedant has read much more bad Latin than good; and consequently writes so too. He looks upon the best classical books as books for schoolboys, and consequently below him, but pores over fragments of obscure authors, treasures up the obsolete words which he meets with there, and uses them upon all occasions, to show his reading at the expense of his judgment. Plautus is his favorite author, not for the sake of the wit and the vis comica of his comedies; but upon account of the many obsolete words and the cant of low characters, which are to be met with nowhere else. He will rather use olli than illi, optumé than optimé, and any bad word, rather than any good one, provided he can but prove that, strictly speaking, it is Latin; that is, that it was written by a Roman. [Sept. 27, 1748.]

—I must now say something as to the matter of the lecture; in which I confess there is one doctrine laid down that surprises me; it is this: "Quum vero hostis sit lenta citave morte omnia dira nobis minitans quocunque bellantibus negotium est, parum sane interfuerit quo modo eum obruere et interficere satagamus si ferociam exuere cunctetur. Ergo venono quoque uti fas est," etc., whereas I cannot conceive that the use