Page:The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, A Roman Slave.djvu/9



the Edinburgh Review was established, the following motto was proposed for it:

which Sydney Smith thus wittily renders: "we cultivate literature upon a little oatmeal." "But, says Smith, this was too near the truth to be admitted, and so we took our present grave motto from Publius Syrus, of whom none of us, I am sure, had ever read a single line." The motto adopted to which he refers, reads as follows:

This sentiment perhaps expressed the purpose of the Reviewers better than any other that could have been found—which was to bring to the trial of the public judgement, certain institutions of England, which if but once put on trial would most surely be condemned. Years since, I sought in vain for a copy of the work form which that motto was drawn, and when later I learned from the above statement of Smith, that neither Jeffrey, Murray, Brougham, nor himself, had read a single line of Publius Syrus, I was surprised to discover what a reputation for learning and extensive erudition a man might acquire by an apt quotation from an inaccessible author. When still later a copy of Syrus came into my hands, it seemed strange that a writer of such wit and acuteness should not have been a great favorite with each of the Reviewers. That he was not, I could only account