I74
The Dunciad.
Book IV.
'Tis true, on Words is still our whole debate,
220 Disputes of Me or Te,[R 1] of aut or at,
To sound or sink in cano, O or A,
Or give up Cicero to C or K.[R 2]
Let Freind affect to speak as Terence spoke,
And Alsop never but like Horace joke:[R 3]
225 For me, what Virgil, Pliny may deny,
Manilius or Solinus[R 4] shall supply:
For Attic Phrase in Plato let them seek,
I poach in Suidas for unlicens'd Greek.[R 5]
In ancient Sense if any needs will deal,
230 Be sure I give them Fragments, not a Meal;
What Gellius or Stobæus hash'd before,
Or chew'd by blind old Scholiasts o'er and o'er.
220 Disputes of Me or Te,[R 1] of aut or at,
To sound or sink in cano, O or A,
Or give up Cicero to C or K.[R 2]
Let Freind affect to speak as Terence spoke,
And Alsop never but like Horace joke:[R 3]
225 For me, what Virgil, Pliny may deny,
Manilius or Solinus[R 4] shall supply:
For Attic Phrase in Plato let them seek,
I poach in Suidas for unlicens'd Greek.[R 5]
In ancient Sense if any needs will deal,
230 Be sure I give them Fragments, not a Meal;
What Gellius or Stobæus hash'd before,
Or chew'd by blind old Scholiasts o'er and o'er.
Remarks
- ↑ Ver. 220. of Me or Te,] It was a serious dispute, about which the learned were much divided, and some treatises written: Had it been about Meura or Tuum it could not be more contested, than whether at the end of the first Ode of Horace, to read, Me doctarum hederæ præmia frontium, or, Te doctarum hederæ—
- ↑ Ver. 222. Or give up Cicero to C or K.] Grammatical disputes about the manner of pronouncing Cicero's name in Greek. It is a dispute whether in Latin the name of Hermagoras should end in as or a. Quintilian quotes Cicero as writing it Hermagora, which Bentley rejects, and says Quintilian must be mistaken, Cicero could not write it so, and that in this case he would not believe Cicero himself. These are his very words: Ego vero Ciceronem ita scripsisse ne Ciceroni quidem affirmanti crediderim.–Epist. ad Mill. in fin. Frag. Menand. et Phil.
- ↑ Ver. 223, 224. Freind, — Alsop] Dr. Robert Freind, master of Westminster school, and canon of Christ-church—Dr. Anthony Alsop, a happy imitator of the Horatian style.
- ↑ Ver. 226. Manilius or Solinus] Some Critics having had it in their choice to comment either on Virgil or Manilius, Pliny or Solinus, have chosen the worse author, the more freely to display their critical capacity.
- ↑ Ver. 228, &c. Suidas, Gellius, Stobæus] The first a Dictionary-writer, a collector of impertinent facts and barbarous words; the second a minute Critic;
