Page:The poems of Gaius Valerius Catullus - Francis Warre Cornish.djvu/13

 x (Lucretius, Introduction to Notes I. p. 37), which discourage accurate classification. The object in view is either to reproduce as far as is possible the original spelling of the poet's time, or to work towards a conventional orthography, to take the place of the convention which was established by the scholars of the revival of letters instead of the mediaeval convention, and maintained its ground almost to our own time. I have adopted the latter alternative, as I should accept the conventional orthography of to-day if I were editing the text of an Elizabethan or Caroline author. And I see no reason why a license which is taken by modern editors in the case of Caesar and Cicero may not on the same ground be used in the case of Catullus. After all, accurrei-e scribas d ne an c, non est quod quaeras atque labores. It is not easy for an editor to apportion the amount of obligation due to the many scholars on whose work he has constructed his own: but I cannot pass over without a grateful reference the names of H. A. J. Munro, Professor Robinson Ellis, Dr Postgate, Aemilius Baehrens and his editor, K. P. Schulze. My best thanks are due to my friends Mr F. H. Rawlins, Mr H. V. Macnaghten, and Mr A. B. Ramsay for much valuable help, and for the great trouble they have taken in looking through the proof sheets. F. W. C. The Cloisters, College, Dt. 1903.