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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in
+which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams, by Pierre Nicole
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams
+
+Author: Pierre Nicole
+
+Translator: J V Cunningham
+
+Release Date: May 22, 2009 [EBook #28921]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAY ON TRUE AND APPARENT BEAUTY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Chris Curnow, Joseph Cooper, Richard J. Shiffer
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's Note: Every effort has been made to replicate this text
+as faithfully as possible, including obsolete and variant spellings
+and other inconsistencies. Text that has been changed to correct an
+obvious error is noted at the end of this ebook.]
+
+
+ The Augustan Reprint Society
+
+
+
+
+ _An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in Which From Settled
+ Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting
+ Epigrams_
+
+
+ by Pierre Nicole
+
+
+ Translated by J. V. Cunningham
+
+
+ Publication Number 24
+ (Series IV, No. 5)
+
+
+ Los Angeles
+ William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
+ University of California
+ 1950
+
+
+GENERAL EDITORS
+
+ H. RICHARD ARCHER, _Clark Memorial Library_
+ RICHARD C. BOYS, _University of Michigan_
+ EDWARD NILES HOOKER, _University of California, Los Angeles_
+ H. T. SWEDENBERG, JR., _University of California, Los Angeles_
+
+
+_ASSISTANT EDITORS_
+
+ W. EARL BRITTON, _University of Michigan_
+ JOHN LOFTIS, _University of California, Los Angeles_
+
+
+_ADVISORY EDITORS_
+
+ EMMETT L. AVERY, _State College of Washington_
+ BENJAMIN BOYCE, _University of Nebraska_
+ LOUIS I. BREDVOLD, _University of Michigan_
+ CLEANTH BROOKS, _Yale University_
+ JAMES L. CLIFFORD, _Columbia University_
+ ARTHUR FRIEDMAN, _University of Chicago_
+ SAMUEL H. MONK, _University of Minnesota_
+ ERNEST MOSSNER, _University of Texas_
+ JAMES SUTHERLAND, _Queen Mary College, London_
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+The following essay forms the introduction to a famous anthology of
+the seventeenth century, the _Epigrammatum delectus_, a Port-Royal
+textbook published at Paris in 1659.[1] The essay was twice translated
+into French in the same century, but the use of the text in France did
+not survive, apparently, the downfall of the Port-Royal movement. It
+was, however, later adopted by Eton College, where it was used in the
+sixth form.[2] The text went through thirteen English editions between
+1683 and 1762. The author of the essay, and a collaborator with Claude
+Lancelot in making the selections for the anthology, was Pierre
+Nicole, who began teaching in the Little Schools around 1646. It has
+been said that the essay was written at that time.[3]
+
+The scope of the anthology is indicated on the title page, which I
+translate: _A selection of epigrams carefully chosen from the whole
+range of ancient and modern poets, and so on. With an essay on true
+and apparent beauty, in which from settled principles is rendered the
+grounds for choosing and rejecting epigrams. There are added the best
+sententiae of the ancient poets, chosen sparingly and with severe
+judgement. With shorter sententiae, or proverbs, Latin, Greek,
+Spanish, and Italian, drawn both from the chief authors of those
+languages and from everyday speech_.
+
+The essay is preceded by a preface in which the origin, purpose and
+method of the anthology is explained. The two ends of instruction, we
+are told,[4] are learning and character, and of these the latter is
+the more important. But there are many books, and especially books of
+epigrams, that are quite filthy and obscene. Young people are led by
+curiosity to read these, and losing all chastity of mind enter upon a
+progressive corruption of life. It would be best if they could be kept
+wholly from such books; but there is a good deal in them of genuine
+profit and literary merit, which makes it difficult to keep them
+wholly out of the hands of youth. Therefore the editor undertook to
+expurgate the epigrammatists, especially Catullus and Martial. He was
+horrified when he read over their works, but he found some good among
+the bad, as in vipers not everything is poisonous but some things even
+useful to health. His primary purpose, then, was to protect the good
+young man from being harmed and to leave him no excuse for wishing to
+have or peruse such books since the good in them had already been
+extracted for him.
+
+The difficulty then arose of making the selection serve the purposes
+both of morality and of judgement. The editor could either gather
+together all the epigrams that were not obscene, or he could choose
+only the best. He took in fact both ways: he preserved everything of
+Catullus and Martial except the cheapest odds and ends and filthiest
+obscenities, and he applied strict standards of judgement to the rest
+so that, unless an epigram had literary merit or contained something
+worth knowing, he felt there was no reason to burden the book with it.
+
+Nevertheless, some middling epigrams found entrance into the
+anthology--he confesses the fact so the reader will not look for
+excellence without flaw. The reasons were, first, that the complete
+perfection he was looking for is seldom or never attained. Hence, if
+he had admitted only those epigrams in which there was nothing to
+censure, the task would not have been one of selecting some but rather
+of rejecting almost all. Again, in epigrams dealing with memorable
+events or in praise of famous men, sometimes he looked to the profit
+of the work rather than to its polish, as in Ausonius' quatrains on
+the Caesars. Finally, he will not deny that chance has played its part
+against his will. As a judge after a series of severe sentences will
+give a lighter one to a man no less guilty than the others, so after
+rejecting a great number of epigrams by some writer a sense of pity
+arose and a distaste with severity of judgement; then if anything that
+seemed pointed turned up, though no better than what was rejected, he
+could not bear to see it discarded. This has occasionally happened,
+but hardly ever without a warning note to the reader.
+
+He admits that some, perhaps quite excellent, epigrams have escaped
+him, either because he never read them or because he was at the moment
+of reading less attentive. But the paucity or lack of selections from
+a given writer should not be taken as an indication of ignorance or
+indiligence in that case. Rather, he confidently professes to have
+exerted the greatest patience and industry--patience, since so many
+were so bad. His hope was by his trouble to free others from so much
+trouble. With this in mind he read countless authors of different ages
+and countries, a total of around 50,000 epigrams, from most of which
+nothing at all was worth excerpting. There is no point in
+memorializing the names of the bad, except to note in passing that he
+found hardly anything so inept as the _Delitiae_, as they call them,
+of the German poets[5]--in this connection he gives special mention to
+the book of Lancinus Curtius[6], which contains 2,000 epigrams.
+
+He found some fairly tolerable epigrams in other books, which
+nevertheless he excluded, for what is lacking in distinction is better
+not known at all than learned at the expense of better things, not to
+speak of its being a burden to the mind which gradually will lose the
+ability to judge excellence, and so, becoming accustomed to
+mediocrity, will be unable to attempt anything higher. There is no
+more useful motto for a man in quest of solid learning than Grotius'
+line: "Not to know some things is a large part of wisdom."[7]
+
+The editor added to the epigrams a collection of sententiae since the
+two forms are quite cognate, the sententia being a kind of shorter
+epigram, for the principal part of an epigram, the conclusion, usually
+consists in a sententia. It is true that such collections have come in
+bad repute, and not wholly unjustly, but the thing itself is worth
+doing. For what is our aim in reading books except to nourish and
+fashion judgement? and what better serves this end than sententiae,
+which furnish as it were the premises and axioms by which one is able
+to form a just and true judgement on most of the duties and affairs of
+human life? Hence he extracted these gems from the huge pile of
+trifles in which they lay mixed. Perhaps they please less in isolation
+than when one runs across them as he reads, and for this reason such
+anthologizing should be contemned. But it would be precious to refuse
+a great accession of profit because of a small dimunition of pleasure.
+
+The editor thought that in many cases the selections should not be
+published without notes, for epigrams have often some obscurity in
+them and their whole charm is lost unless the light that would
+illuminate it is at hand. The notes to the selections from Martial are
+pretty largely taken from Farnaby. Elsewhere the editor has supplied
+notes sparingly, at those points where the reader might be stuck. He
+has also changed the titles of a good many pieces, especially where
+the original involved the name of some fictitious or base person. The
+purpose of a title is to recall the whole piece to memory or to
+facilitate finding it in an index. Why, then, title an epigram _To
+Gargilianus_ or _Cecilianus_, which gives no idea of what the epigram
+is about? The editor, therefore, has substituted titles which express
+as well as possible the force of the poem, a difficult task especially
+when the meaning is compact, as only one who has tried it knows.
+
+But that out of the brevity of this book the reader may get that
+ability in judgement, which above all should be cultivated, the editor
+thought it worth while to prefix to the anthology an exposition of the
+norms of judgement used in selecting the epigrams. He drew these norms
+not merely from his own wit or from the authorities of Antiquity, but
+from the conversation of learned men experienced in civilized life.
+Hence the reader will find here their judgements, not the editor's,
+and will, if he is unbiased, perceive how just and accurate they are.
+
+The preface is then followed by the essay. The principles of the
+essay, as Nicole asserted above in the preface, are not peculiarly his
+own but those of the group with which he was associated. They are the
+principles, for example, of the _Port-Royal logic_: particularly 1),
+"one of the most important rules of true rhetoric," "_that there is
+nothing beautiful except that which is true_; which would take away
+from discourse a multitude of vain ornaments and false thoughts;" and
+2) the doctrine that "the figurative style commonly expresses, with
+the things, the emotions which we experience in conceiving or speaking
+of them," and hence in the light of the adjustment of feeling to the
+situation "we may judge the use which ought to be made of it, and what
+are the subjects to which it is adapted."[8]
+
+The purpose of the book is to serve morality and to promote
+judgement.[9] To this end the editor provides a check list of the
+better epigrams, and affixes an asterisk to designate the best.[10]
+Seventeen pieces are given the highest rating: thirteen of Martial's
+(1.8, 1.21, 1.33, 2.5, 3.44, 3.46, 4.56, 4.69, 5.10, 5.13, 8.69,
+10.53, and 12.13); the re-written epigram ascribed to Seneca and
+discussed in the notes to the essay (note 32); Claudian on Archimedes'
+sphere;[11] Boethius, _De cons. phil._ 1.m.4; and one modern poem,
+Buchanan's dedication of the _Paraphrase of the psalms_ to Mary, Queen
+of Scots.[12]
+
+ _J. V. Cunningham_
+ _The University of Chicago_
+
+
+NOTES
+
+[1] This paragraph is based largely on James Hutton, _The Greek
+anthology in France_, "Cornell studies in classical philology," XXVIII
+(1946), p. 192, and _The Greek anthology in Italy_, "Cornell studies
+in English," XXIII (1935), pp. 69-70.
+
+[2] Sir H. C. Maxwell Lyte, _A history of Eton college_, London, 1911,
+4th ed., p. 311.
+
+[3] Nigel Abercrombie, _The origins of Jansenism_, Oxford, 1936, p.
+246; no authority is there cited.
+
+[4] The following paragraphs contain an abbreviated and paraphrastic
+translation of the preface.
+
+[5] Janus Gruter, _Delitiae poetarum germanorum_, 6 v., Frankfort,
+1612.
+
+[6] See Georg Ellinger, _Geschichte der neulateinischen literatur
+Deutschlands_, I, "Italien und der Deutsche humanismus," Berlin, 1929,
+pp. 115-7.
+
+[7] The last line of an epigram on learned ignorance, _Poemata_,
+Leyden, 1637, pp. 331-2, printed in the _Delectus_, p. 399.
+
+[8] _The Port-Royal logic_, tr. Thomas Spencer Baynes, 8th ed.,
+Edinburgh, n.d., Discourse 2, p. 17; Part 3. 20, p. 286; and 1. 14, p.
+90.
+
+[9] _Ibid._, Discourse 1, p. 1, "Thus the main object of our attention
+should be, to form our judgement, and render it as exact as possible;
+and to this end, the greater part of our studies ought to tend."
+
+[10] Lipsius had suggested some such procedure (Justus Lipsius,
+_Epist. quaest._, 1.5, _Opera omnia_, Antwerp, 1637, I, p. 143): "He
+would do a service to the world of letters who would make a selection
+of Martial's epigrams in the fashion of the old critics and would
+affix a mark of praise to the good and of blame to the bad."
+
+[11] Shorter poems 51, _Claudian_, ed. Maurice Platnauer, 2 v., "Loeb
+classical library," London, 1922, II, 278-81.
+
+[12] _Poemata_, Amsterdam, 1687, p. 1; not in _Opera omnia_, Leyden,
+1725.
+
+
+
+
+AN ESSAY ON TRUE AND APPARENT BEAUTY IN WHICH FROM SETTLED PRINCIPLES
+IS RENDERED THE GROUNDS FOR CHOOSING AND REJECTING EPIGRAMS.
+
+
+_Why men's judgments on beauty differ so much._
+
+I should say that the reason why even learned men differ so widely and
+display so great a range of opinion in judging the excellence of
+particular writers is that practically no one looks to reason and
+weighs the matter in the light of true and settled principles. Indeed
+everyone in the act of judging embraces a hastily conceived opinion
+and follows his impressions without reflection or judgment. Thus it is
+that few have made any attempt so far to arrive at an exact knowledge
+of the nature of true beauty, by which in the last analysis all else
+must be determined; rather, each has immediately pronounced that to be
+beautiful which affected him with some sort of pleasure. Yet there is
+no norm of judgment more misleading or more variable, for a false and
+adulterate beauty will give pleasure to minds imbued with deformed
+opinions whom a true and solid beauty often cannot affect. It follows
+there is nothing so ugly that it will not please someone or other, and
+nothing on the other hand so absolutely beautiful that it will not
+displease someone. Farmers will be found to dance to absurd songs, and
+whole theaters time and again roar at the tasteless jokes of the
+actors. Similarly, there are a good many who find little or no delight
+in Vergil or Terence, though there is nothing in the world of letters
+more polished--such is the power of custom and preconceived opinion to
+impart or preclude delight. Consequently, if we wish to dissociate
+ourselves from the fickle mob of opinions, we must have recourse to
+reason, which is single, fixed, and simple. We must discover by her
+aid that true and genuine figure of beauty with which is marked
+whatever is truly beautiful and finished, and from which whatever
+departs is justly called ugly and repugnant to taste.
+
+Reason leads us directly to nature and establishes that to be
+generally beautiful which accords both with the nature of the thing
+itself and with our own. For example, if an object that is excessive
+or defective in some part is thought ugly, it is because it diverges
+from nature which demands a completeness in the parts and despises
+excess. Almost everything that is judged to be ugly is so judged for
+the same reason: you will always observe that there is here some flaw
+at variance with a rightly constituted nature. Nevertheless, for an
+object to be declared beautiful it is not enough that it answer to its
+own nature; it must also be congruent with ours. For our nature, being
+invariable both in the soul and in the body endowed with senses, has
+definite inclinations and aversions by which it is either attracted or
+estranged. Thus our eye is moved with pleasure by certain colors, our
+ear is drawn by a certain kind of sounds; one thing delights the soul,
+one repels it, each in the measure that it corresponds or is repugnant
+to our ways of feeling. However, what is meant by nature here is not
+any nature at all, since some are misshapen, perverse, and corrupt.
+What is meant is a nature corrected and well-ordered from whose
+inclinations must arise the judgement of beauty and charm.
+
+However, the essence of true beauty is such that it is not fugitive,
+changeable, or of one time, but rather invariable, fixed, persistent
+and such as pleases all times equally. And although there may be found
+some men of so corrupt a nature that they despise beauty, nevertheless
+they are but few. And even these may be recalled to truth by reason,
+since false beauty though it may for a while have its admirers cannot
+long hold them, for nature itself which cannot be erased will
+gradually beget in them a distaste for it. For, as Cicero so notably
+says, time that erases the fictions of opinion only confirms the
+judgements of nature.[1]
+
+If we may apply this maxim to literature we may say that that is truly
+beautiful which agrees both with the nature of things themselves and
+with the inclinations of our senses and of our soul. And since in a
+work of literature one takes account of sound, diction, and idea, the
+agreement of all these with nature in its two aspects is required for
+beauty. Hence we will take these up one by one, beginning with sound.
+
+
+ON SOUND
+
+_How seldom it charms in echoing the sense, how commonly by sweetness.
+Its natural measure in the ear._
+
+We have assigned the first division of natural beauty to sound, which
+we distinguish from diction in that propriety and force of meaning are
+looked to in this; in sound it is the pleasantness or harshness that
+is regarded, flattering or offending the ear, or it is a kind of
+imitation of the subject-matter--sad things recited tearfully, excited
+rapidly, or harsh harshly. This is common enough in the spoken word;
+in writing, however, with which we are chiefly concerned here, it is
+uncommon, though Vergil sometimes quite happily represents the sound
+of things themselves, their swiftness and slowness, in the sound of
+his verse. When you hear, for example, the well-known _procumbit humi
+bos_, do you not seem to hear the blunt sound of the falling bull? Or
+when you read the line _Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula
+campum_,[2] doesn't the sound of running horses strike your ears? But
+this effect, as I said, is uncommon, and hardly to be found in any
+other poet than Vergil. Thus the chief potentiality of sound, and the
+most common, lies in charming the ear. It is a slight beauty, yet it
+is of nature, and for this reason especially agreeable to all classes
+of people. For there is scarcely any person so uneducated as not to
+be naturally displeased at what is incomplete and botched, or not to
+perceive what is full, ordered, and defined. Hence Cicero says justly
+in the _Orator_:
+
+ The ear, or the soul at the injunction of the ears, possesses a
+ natural way of measuring sounds, by this judges some longer, some
+ shorter, and ever anticipates the completion of a measure. It
+ feels hurt when a rhythm is maimed or curtailed as if it had been
+ defrauded of due payment. It dislikes even more whatever is
+ prolonged and runs on beyond the proper bounds, since too much is
+ more offensive than too little. Not that everyone knows the
+ metrical feet, or understands anything about rhythm, or is aware
+ of what offends him, or where, or why; it is rather that nature
+ has set in our ears a power of judging the length and brevity of
+ sound, as also the acute and grave accent of words.[3]
+
+
+_Pleasantness of sound is justly exacted of poets. The harshness of
+many poets, particularly the German. Some are too melodious._
+
+Hence it is that anyone who wishes to conform to nature must
+necessarily strive for pleasantness of sound. This is the more justly
+exacted of poets since poetry itself is nothing other than measured
+language, bound into fixed numbers and feet, for the purpose of
+charming the ear. Consequently, those poets are justly censured who
+rest content with rounding off their words in six feet and altogether
+neglect to accommodate the ear. A good many epigrammatists are
+constant offenders in this kind, especially those who have rendered
+the Greek Anthology in Latin and the German poets.
+
+For example, who can tolerate this German epigram?
+
+ He who made all that nothing was of nothing,
+ Who'll make that nothing that now something is,
+ Made you who nothing were what you now are
+ From nothing, will make nothing what you are--
+ Yes, or if something, being but sin from sin,
+ From sin must form something for heaven fit.
+
+Again, what is harsher than this epigram?
+
+ You from your soul could not but know mine that
+ That gave up in your ghost but just now his:
+ As soul is known from soul so is your ghost
+ Known to the Muses by my muse that's yours.
+
+Or than this distich?
+
+ Forward, nor turn from the old path one bit:
+ This that you are I while I live shall be.[4]
+
+But just as it is a considerable fault in diction wholly to neglect
+the pleasure of the ear, since verse, as we said, was devised to
+flatter it, so on the other hand those writers make a grievous mistake
+who have an immoderate regard for the ear, and pay no attention to the
+thought so long as they are satisfied with the sound. Out of such
+concern we get tuneful trifles and verses empty of substance. Writers
+who have by an attentive consideration of the poets achieved the
+faculty of poetic diction and rhythm quite often fall into this error.
+They abound in choice phrases and so are in effect content to smooth
+over the commonplace with a not indecorous make-up. You can see this
+in many poems and epigrams of Buchanan, Borbonius, and Barleius. If
+the reader is not quite attentive such poems will often deceive him,
+but being re-read and examined they beget a kind of distaste because
+of the thinness of the matter. Consequently, we have looked carefully
+for this fault, and have eliminated many poems that are melodious in
+this way and have nothing inside.
+
+
+_How diction should be suited to subject-matter._
+
+We come now to the question of conforming the diction and
+subject-matter to nature, in which, as was said above, nature must be
+considered in its double aspect: namely, in relation to the subjects
+of which we speak, and in relation to the audience by whom we are
+heard or read.
+
+The agreement of words and subject consists in this: that lofty words
+should be fitted to lofty subjects, and lowly to lowly. It is true, of
+course, that every kind of writing demands simplicity, but the
+simplicity meant is such as does not exclude sublimity or vehemence.
+In fact, it is no less faulty to treat high and weighty subjects in a
+slight and unassuming style than it is to treat what is slight and
+unassuming in a high and weighty style. In both of these ways one
+departs from that agreement with nature in which, we have said, beauty
+resides. Therefore, not every piece of writing admits the rhetorical
+figures and ornaments, and likewise not every one excludes them. The
+answer lies wholly in whether there is throughout a complete harmony
+between diction and subject.
+
+In addition, I wish you would carefully observe something that few
+do--namely, when you temper your diction to the subject, to regard it
+not only as it is in itself or in the mind of the writer, but also as
+it has been formed by your speech in the minds of your audience. Thus,
+the reader is assumed to be unacquainted with what you have to say at
+the beginning of a work, and hence you must use simple language to
+initiate him into your lines of thought. Afterwards you may build upon
+this foundation what you can. It follows that if you are to speak of
+some outrageous crime, you should not inveigh against it with a
+comparable violence of diction until your audience has achieved such a
+notion of the crime as will not be at odds with such force and
+violence.
+
+Thus Vergil begins in the best way with simple diction:
+
+ Arms and the man I sing who first from Troy
+ Banished by fate came to the Italian shore.
+
+And Homer, too, who was praised for this by Horace:
+
+ Speak to me, Muse, of him, when Troy had fallen,
+ Who saw the ways of many and their cities.
+
+But Statius begins badly, and sweeps the reader away too suddenly in
+these verses:
+
+ Fraternal arms, and alternate rule by hate
+ Profane contested, and the guilt of Thebes
+ I sing, moved by the fiery Muse.
+
+Claudian is even more at fault, and thrusts these bombastic lines on
+our unprepared attention:
+
+ The horses of Hell's rapist, the stars blown
+ By the Taenarian chariot, chambers dark
+ Of lower Juno ...
+
+But this rule should particularly be observed in the use of
+adjectives, which are always ill-joined with their noun when they
+disaccord with the impression the reader has in his mind. I have seen
+the opening of Lucan censured on this point:
+
+ Wars through Emathian fields, wars worse than civil,
+ And crime made legal is my song.
+
+The critics urge that the epithet _worse than civil_ could justly be
+employed after the depiction of the slaughter at Pharsalia, but that
+here it is out of order and suddenly attacks the reader who was
+thinking of no such thing. It offends against the precept of Horace:
+
+ Not smoke from brightness is his aim, but light
+ He gives from smoke.[5]
+
+
+_In what way diction should answer to man's inner nature. First, the
+grounds of the natural disaffection with unusual diction: how far this
+should be observed._
+
+But it is not sufficient that diction answer to the subject-matter
+unless it also answers to the nature of man, in which may be discerned
+a kind of aversion to obsolete, low, and inappropriate words. I prefer
+to call this aversion a natural one rather than a result of opinion,
+though it is in a way based on opinion. For although the feeling that
+a particular word is more in common use and more civilized than
+another is purely a matter of men's judgement, nevertheless it is as
+natural to be displeased by the unusual and inappropriate as it is to
+be pleased with the usual and proper. Whatever is contrary to reason
+offends by the very fact that it is seen to lack reason. Certainly, to
+leave aside familiar terms and to search out unusual ones is wholly
+foreign to reason. However, there is added to this natural source of
+offense another that proceeds from opinion. Since such words are
+commonly condemned, there is associated with them a certain distaste
+and contempt such that it is scarcely possible to pronounce them
+without immediately arousing the associated feelings.
+
+Consequently, the intelligent writer will willingly comply with usage
+so as not to give grounds for displeasure--whether this displeasure
+springs from nature or opinion. Though he is aware that usage is
+unstable and changes day by day, nevertheless he will prefer rather to
+please at one time than never. He will be careful, however, in his
+written work not to make use of the current jargon, especially of the
+French court and women's circles, or of any locutions that are not yet
+generally received. For the life of such expressions is too short to
+be bound into a lasting work--not to speak of the detestable
+affectation which detracts from the weight and dignity of the writing.
+
+To conclude, there is a beauty and charm in propriety and elegance of
+diction which is not to be scorned, though it is but of a time, and,
+since it rests on opinion, by which usage is determined, will pass
+away with a change of opinion. Hence those who write not for an age
+but for all time should try to attain something else, something that
+has no admixture of opinion: Such is the agreement of words with
+nature, which we will now explain.
+
+
+_The inner and more intimate agreement of words and nature._
+
+If one wishes to look deeply into the nature of the human mind and to
+search out its inner sources of delight, he will find there something
+of strength conjoined with something of weakness, and out of this
+circumstance arises variety and irregularity. The mind's vexation with
+a continual relaxation derives from its strength, while from its
+weakness stems the fact that it cannot bear a continual straining.
+Hence it is that nothing pleases the human mind very long, nothing
+that is all of one piece. So in music it rejects a wholly perfect
+harmony, and for this reason musicians deliberately intercalate
+discordant sounds--what are technically called dissonances. So,
+finally, it happens that physical exercise, even if it was at first
+undertaken for pleasure, becomes a torture when continued without
+interruption.
+
+This point has its pertinence to literature, the more so since in that
+field nature reveals the greatest delicacy and cannot long endure what
+is lofty and excited. Yet on the other hand, whatever creeps close to
+earth and never lifts its head is, if it be prolonged, wearisome. To
+stand, to rest, to rise up, to be thrown down, this is what every
+reader or listener desires, and from this derives the driving
+necessity for variety, for the mingling of the majestic and slight,
+excited and calm, high and low. But it may seem that this
+consideration has little pertinence to the epigram, which is brief and
+so in less need of variety. However, I need not apologize for
+introducing these more general considerations since others of more
+immediate pertinence to the course of our discussion are derived from
+them, and particularly the question of the discriminate use of
+metaphors, which are of considerable effect in adorning or vitiating
+poetry.
+
+For if we consider attentively why men are pleased with metaphors we
+will find no other reason than that already stated: the weakness of
+nature which is wearied by the inflexibility of truth and plain
+statement and must be refreshed by an admixture of metaphors which
+depart somewhat from the truth. This gives the clue to the proper and
+legitimate use of metaphors; they are to be employed specifically, as
+musicians employ discordant sounds, to relieve the distaste of perfect
+harmony. But how frequently and at what point they should be
+introduced is a matter of considerable caution and skill. One warning
+will suffice for the present: that metaphors, hyperboles, and whatever
+varies from the plain and natural way of saying something should not
+be sought for their own sakes but as a kind of relief for nauseated
+nature. They are to be accepted on grounds of necessity, and
+consequently a good deal of moderation must be observed in their use.
+Thus Quintilian rightly says, "A sparing and opportune use of these
+figures gives lustre to speech; frequent use obscures and fills with
+disgust."[6] You will discover this fault often in many epigrams,
+especially in those of contemporary writers as I shall show by several
+examples later on. However, lest this doctrine should issue in too
+strict an austerity of diction, it should be noted that only those
+expressions are to be taken as metaphors that are remote from ordinary
+usage and offer the mind a double idea. Hence if a metaphor is so
+commonplace that it no longer has a figurative connotation and
+suggests nothing other than the notion itself for which it is used,
+then it should be numbered among proper rather than metaphorical
+expressions and does not fall in that class of tropes whose too
+frequent use is here censured.
+
+
+_On a too metaphorical style. Certain epigrams rejected for this
+reason._
+
+Though poets are granted a greater indulgence in the use of tropes,
+nevertheless they have their own mean, or, as Cicero says, their own
+modesty, and there is ever an especial ornament to be derived from
+simplicity. Consequently those writers stray pretty far from beauty
+for whom, as it were, all nature plays the ham to the point that they
+say nothing in an ordinary way, imagine nothing in the way in which it
+is perceived outside of poems, but instead elevate, debase, alter, and
+clothe everything in a theatrical mask. For this reason we have
+excluded from this anthology a number of epigrams as too metaphorical:
+for example, these two by Daniel Heinsius, a man otherwise eminent in
+scholarship and letters:
+
+ Driver of light, courier of the bright pole,
+ Surveyor of the sky, and hour-divider,
+ Servant of time, circler perpetual,
+ Cleanser of earth, disperser of the clouds,
+ Ever your chariot, fiery four-in-hand,
+ You curb fast; you who bear on the bright day
+ Steal from the world once more your countenance
+ And of your glowing hair conceal the flame;
+ Tomorrow from the arms of Tethys you
+ Return once more: but night has sealed my sun.
+
+By my _sun_ he means Douza. And again:
+
+ Sweet children of the night, brothers of fire,
+ Small cohorts, citizens of the fiery pole,
+ Who wandering through the cloudless fields of air
+ Lead the soft choruses with a light foot
+ When our tired bodies are stretched softly out
+ And gentle sleep invades our conquered sense,
+ Why now as then through the enamelled halls
+ From the recesses, still, and the clear windows
+ Of the gold arch bear off his hallowed face?
+ Farewell, at last; you shall not see your Douza.[7]
+
+In these epigrams, apart from the metaphors heaped up _ad nauseam_,
+and each of them harsh and absurd, a keen critic has noted another
+fault: namely, that nothing is more distant from the spirit of a man
+grieving and mourning for the death of a friend--and this is what
+Heinsius intended to depict--than such a wantonness of epithets. And
+so much for diction.
+
+
+_Truth, the primary virtue of ideas. How great a fault there is in
+untruth. Thence, of false epigrams._
+
+We take up now the question of ideas, and postulate again that these
+too must conform both to the subject and to men's character. Ideas
+agree with the subject if they are true, if they are appropriate, and
+if they so to speak get into the insides of the thing. They are in
+accord with men's character if they fit in with natural aversions or
+desires.
+
+The primary virtue of ideas is truth. Whatever is false is at variance
+with external reality, nor is there any beauty in falsity except in so
+far as it pretends to truth. From this you may gather that truth is
+the source of beauty, falsity of ugliness. The latter, in fact, is out
+of keeping not only with reality but also with human nature. For we
+possess an innate love of truth and an aversion to falsehood, so that
+what delights us when it seems to be true becomes disagreeable and
+unpleasant when its falseness is made manifest. This principle applies
+to those learned men whom we have mentioned several times now, and has
+led to the exclusion from this anthology of many epigrams in which the
+point rests on a falsehood: for example, there is the well-known one
+by Grotius, though simply as a poem it is noble enough:
+
+
+_On Joan of Arc, who is called "La pucelle d'Orleans"_
+
+ French Amazon of never-dying fame,
+ Virgin untouched by men and by men feared,
+ Nor Venus in her eyes nor young Desire
+ But Mars and Terror and the bloody Weird--
+ France owes the Salic Law to her alone,
+ And hers is the true king on the true throne.
+ Let none lament her death who was all fire
+ And never, or by fire alone, should die.[8]
+
+I have ventured to cite this that the reader may see quite clearly
+what is involved in this kind of falsehood and how much it is
+repugnant to nature: namely, that something is alleged the contrary of
+which might as plausibly be affirmed. For Grotius might have written
+no less foolishly:
+
+ Justly lament her death: she who was fire
+ Should not by fire but by cold water die.
+
+Actually, if we wish to get to the bottom of this fault we will find
+that men are not led to it by nature but driven to it by lack of
+skill. For they would not fly to the refuge of falsehood for any other
+reason than that they are not vigorous enough to elicit beauty from
+the subject itself. Truth, indeed, is limited and defined, but the
+realm of lies is unlimited and undefined. Hence the one offers
+difficulties for invention, the other is obvious and easy, and for
+that reason also is to be scorned.
+
+Moreover, falsehood occurs not only in propositions but also in the
+delineation of feeling, as, for instance, when feelings are ascribed
+to a character other than those which nature and the subject-matter
+demand. You will find this fault in an epigram by Vulteius, which was
+for this reason rejected:
+
+ I viewed one day the marble stone
+ That hides a man in sin well-known.
+ I sighed and said, "What is the point
+ Of such expense? This tomb might serve
+ To house kings and the blood of kings
+ That now conceals a villainous corpse."
+ I burst in tears that copiously
+ Flowed from my eyes down both my cheeks.
+ A stander-by took me to task
+ In some such words, I think, as these:
+ "Aren't you ashamed, be who you may,
+ To mourn the burial of this plague?"
+ But I replied, "My tears are shed
+ For the lost tomb, not his lost head."[9]
+
+It was surely foreign to nature to represent a man weeping copiously
+because a villain and scoundrel had been buried in a noble tomb, for
+the funeral honors paid to scoundrels excite anger and indignation
+rather than pity and tears. The poet, consequently, adopted an
+erroneous feeling when he wept where he should have been angry and
+wrathful.
+
+
+_On mythological epigrams._
+
+Untruth, then, is a considerable fault, one that is quite widespread
+and one that embraces many sub-divisions. Under this category falls
+especially the use of mythological propositions, the common vehicle of
+poets when they have nothing to say. We have rejected many epigrams
+that are faulty in this kind, as, for example, Grotius on the Emperor
+Rudolph, which is too crowded with myths:
+
+ Not Mars alone has favored you, Invincible,
+ At whom as enemy barbarian standards shake,
+ But the Divine Community with gifts adore you,
+ And with this in especial from the wife of Zephyr:
+ She to the Dutch Apelles did perpetual spring
+ Ordain, and meadows living by the painter's hand.
+ Alcinous' charm is annual, and Adonis' gardens,
+ Nor do the Pharian roses bloom long in that air;
+ Antique Pomona of Semiramis has boasted,
+ And yet deep winter climbs the summit of her roof.
+ How shall your honors fail? The garlands that you wear
+ Beseem Imperial triumph, which time may not touch.[10]
+
+I know there are other things to be censured in this epigram, but I
+note here only that one fault which it was quoted to illustrate.
+
+
+_On puns._
+
+To the same general category may be referred most puns, the point of
+which usually rises from some untruth. For example, in Sannazaro's
+well-known epigram:
+
+ Happy has built twin bridges on the Seine:
+ Happy the Seine may call her Pontifex.[11]
+
+If you take _Pontifex_ in the sense of "builder of bridges" the
+thought is true, but pointless; consequently, for there to be a point
+the word _Pontifex_ must be taken in the sense of "Bishop", and in
+this sense it will be false that the Pontifex is happy. Similarly, in
+another epigram of some reputation:
+
+ They say you're treating Cosma for his deafness,
+ And that you promised, French, a definite cure;
+ But you can't bring it off for all your deftness:
+ He'll hear ill of himself while tongues endure.[12]
+
+Take _audire_ as referring to the sense of hearing and the thought is
+false, since that physical defect is curable; take it as referring to
+a good reputation, and the thought will again be false and inept, for
+it is false and inept that a doctor will labor in vain to cure a
+defect of the ears because he cannot medicine to a diseased
+reputation.
+
+All puns are embarrassed by such faults, while on the other hand their
+charm is quite thin, or rather nonexistent. Formerly, it is true, in
+an earlier age there was some praise for that kind of thing, and so
+Cicero and Quintilian are said to have derived polished witticisms
+from the device of double-meaning; now, however, it is rightly held in
+great contempt, so much so that men of taste not only do not hunt for
+puns but even avoid them. They are, one must admit, more bearable, or
+at least less objectionable when they come spontaneously; but anyone
+who brings out ones he has thought up or indicates that he himself is
+pleased with them is quite properly judged to be inexperienced in
+society. Hence it is that epigrams whose elegance is derived from puns
+are held of no account. For since verses are only composed by labor
+and diligence he is justly considered to be a weak and narrow spirit
+who wastes time in fitting such trivial wit into verse. One should
+add, too, that there is another disadvantage in puns, that they are so
+imbedded in their own language that they cannot be translated into
+another. For these reasons we have admitted few punning epigrams into
+this anthology, and those only as examples of a faulty kind.
+
+
+_On hyperbolical ideas._
+
+In the category of false ideas must be reckoned the hyperbolical.
+These are not false in a given word, for we dealt with this above, but
+false in the whole train of thought. Of this kind is that epigram of
+Ausonius, the absurdity of which is unbearable:
+
+ Riding in state, as on an elephant,
+ Faustus fell backwards off a silly ant;
+ Abandoned, tortured to the point of death
+ By the sharp hooves, his soul stayed on his breath
+ And his voice broke: "Envy," he cried, "begone!
+ Laugh not at my fall! So fell Phaethon."[13]
+
+Ausonius was imitating in this epigram the Greeks, who were quite open
+to this sort of bad imitation, as may be seen in their Anthology which
+is stuffed full of such hyperboles. A good many fall into the same
+fault either because their talent is weak or because they write for
+the unskilled--a consideration which should move those who have no
+compunction about reading, let alone praising, the silly tales of
+Rabelais which are filled with stupid hyperboles.
+
+
+_On debatable and controvertible ideas._
+
+Furthermore, debatable and double-edged ideas, about which the reader
+is in doubt whether they be false or true, fall under the same
+category of falseness. For this doubtfulness, since it takes away all
+pleasure, removes also the beauty. For this reason I have never
+approved the conclusion of Martial's epigram:
+
+ Equal the crime of Antony and Photinus:
+ This sword and that severed a sacred head--
+ The one head laurelled for your triumphs, Rome!
+ The other eloquent when you would speak.
+ Yet Antony's case was worse than was Photinus':
+ One for his master moved, one for himself.[14]
+
+The reader is bothered by a sort of quiet annoyance that the poet
+should so confidently take a dubious idea for a certain one. He might
+easily argue against the poet that on the contrary it seemed to him
+that a man who commits a crime for his master is more at fault than
+one who commits it for himself, and he could support his position with
+rational arguments. For one who sins for his own advantage is driven
+to his deed by such emotions as rage, lust, and fear, and these as
+they diminish the power of willing in like measure diminish the
+magnitude of the offence. But one who effects a crime at another's
+behest comes coldly to the deed, a fact that convicts him of a far
+greater depravity. One could allege these and similar lines of
+argument against Martial's position, and could reverse the sense of
+his distich so that it read no less irrationally:
+
+ Yet Antony's case was better than Photinus':
+ One for his master moved, one for himself.
+
+Hence this whole category of controvertible ideas lacks literary merit
+and should be studiously avoided by those who aim at beauty, which in
+the last analysis is to be found in truth alone, and in truth of such
+a sort that as soon as it is proposed the reader recognises as true
+and accepts it.
+
+
+_The second virtue of ideas, that they should agree with the inner
+nature of the subject; and thence on ideas foreign and accidental to
+the subject._
+
+The second virtue of ideas with respect to the subject-matter is that
+they should agree with its inner nature: that is, that they should be
+elicited out of the very inners of the subject and not far-fetched or
+drawn from external accidents which are only the accompaniments of
+things. By this rule we have been delivered from numerous frigid
+epigrams, of which I subjoin a few examples:
+
+Foreign and far-fetched is Owen's on a lyre:
+
+ That there is concord in so diverse chords
+ Discordant mankind some excuse affords.[15]
+
+As if nothing were more pertinent for making men ashamed of their
+discords than the concord of strings on a lyre.
+
+From concomitant accidents, and not from the very heart of the subject
+itself, is drawn this epigram of Germanicus Caesar, though the verses
+are otherwise sufficiently polished:
+
+ The Thracian boy at play on the stiff ice
+ Of Hebrus broke the waters with his weight
+ And the swift current carried him away,
+ Except that a smooth sherd cut off his head.
+ The childless mother as she burned it said:
+ "This for the flames I bore, that for the waves."[16]
+
+Certainly the mother had a deeper and more native cause of grief than
+that her son was destroyed partly by water and partly by fire; she
+would have grieved no less had he perished wholly in water or wholly
+in fire. The whole reason for grief, then, ought not be sought in such
+a slight circumstance, which was an accompaniment of and not the
+grounds for grief.
+
+Negative descriptions labor under the same fault, namely those in
+which are enumerated not what the endowments of the subject are but
+what they are not. This is justly censured in one of Barlaeus'
+epigrams, which is in other respects quite polished:
+
+ Of royal Bourbon blood, by whose aid once
+ Belgium believed that God inclined to her;
+ For sceptered fathers famed, more famed for war,
+ And by Astraea's doom of rare renown;
+ Whom War as general, Peace lauds unarmed,
+ To whom so many lands and seas are slaves;
+ Neither the fleece drinking barbarian dye
+ I send you, nor Sidonian artifice,
+ Nor Indian ivory, Dalmatian stone,
+ Nor the choice incense that delights grave Jove,
+ Nor warring eagles, no, nor cities stormed,
+ Nor plundered canvas from the conquered sea;
+ Louis, I give you Christ as King and Lord,
+ Titles not foreign to the ones you bear:
+ For I would send you, greatest of all kings,
+ Than which I cannot more, I send you God.[17]
+
+Surely it is a long way around to enumerate what you will not give the
+King in order to make clear how slight your gift is. Besides, the
+conclusion is harsh in that a book about Christ is called God and
+Christ, as if Christ and a book about him were the same thing. But
+this is a commonplace absurdity of what one may call the dedicatory
+_genre_, in which writers almost always speak of their book as if
+there were no difference between the book itself and its subject:
+thus, if they write about Caesar or Cato, "Caesar and Cato," they
+say, "prostrate themselves before you;" If about Cicero, "Look," they
+say, "Cicero addresses you and takes you as patron:" all of which are
+correctly to be reckoned in the category of false statements.
+
+
+_In what way ideas are to be made agreeable to men's character. On
+avoiding offense; and, first, on obscenity._
+
+The harmony of idea and subject is a matter fairly easy to understand,
+but the attuning of idea and men's character is more difficult to
+grasp and requires more painstaking treatment. For in this inquiry the
+whole scope of human nature must be thoroughly examined, and our
+silent inclinations and aversions must be laid open so that we will
+know how to avoid the one and comply with the other. For it cannot be
+that anything should please that offends nature, or anything displease
+that complies with natural inclinations. We will touch briefly on some
+of these points, but only on those that suffice to our purposes.
+
+In the first place, there is in the nature of man an aversion to the
+shameful and the obscene, and this the more powerful in the best and
+well-educated natures. All obscene ideas offend this sense of shame to
+such an extent that they are regarded as alien to nature, ugly, and
+uncivilised. Nor does it matter that some corrupt souls laugh at them.
+For civilization, as we have said, does not consist in agreement with
+a corrupt, but with a virtuous and moral, nature. Consequently,
+absolutely nothing of this kind is to be found in the conversation of
+respectable men, and is only resorted to by those who lack any feeling
+for Christianity as well as for genuine society and civilization.
+
+Therefore we have excluded all shameful and licentious epigrams not
+only in deference to morals and religion but also to good taste and
+civilization. Of this Catullus and Martial in Antiquity witness that
+they had no perception at all, for they filled up their works with a
+good deal of ill-bred filth, and on that account must be regarded not
+only as dissolute but also as vulgar, uncultivated, and, to use
+Catullus' own phrase, "goat-milkers and ditch-diggers."[18]
+
+
+_On the cheap subject-matter of some epigrams._
+
+But it is not only faulty and unpolished to offer the reader a
+shameful and obscene picture but also in general to depict whatever is
+cheap, ugly, and unwelcome. Hence those epigrams cannot be regarded as
+beautiful and polished whose subject is a toothless hag, a poetaster
+with a threadbare cloak, a rank old goat, a filthy nose, or a glutton
+vomiting on the table--all of which are a fertile ground of jokes for
+actors--since ugliness of that sort can never be redeemed by the
+point.
+
+For this reason we have admitted none of such kind in the epigrams of
+Martial which we have subjoined to this treatise, and a good many
+epigrams that we have run across we have put aside, such as Buchanan's
+in which he depicts the unattractive and unpleasant picture of a lank
+old man:
+
+ While Naevolus yells he can outbellow Stentor,
+ And roars and roars, "All men are animals,"
+ He has slipped by almost his ninetieth year
+ And bent senility shakes his weak step.
+ Now three hairs only cling to his smooth head,
+ And he sees what a night-owl sees at dawn.
+ The snot is dripping from his frosty nose,
+ And stringed saliva falls on his wet breast--
+ Not an odd tooth in his defenceless gums,
+ Not an old ape so engraved with wrinkles.
+ Naevolus, for shame leave this frivolity
+ And no more cry, "All men," since you are none.[19]
+
+Again, the baseness of the subject and the hardly pleasant or
+civilized image of a hanging man is a fault in this epigram of
+Sannazaro's, although it has an element of humor:
+
+ In your desire to learn your fortune, sir,
+ You questioned every tripod, every rune;
+ "You'll stand out above gods and men," at last
+ Answered the god in truth-revealing voice.
+ What arrogance you drew from this! You were
+ Immediately lord of the universe.
+ Now you ascend the cross. God was no cheat:
+ The whole world lies spread out beneath your feet.[20]
+
+This is fairly respectable and merely low. But the cynical license of
+Martial and Catullus, by which they speak of many things that are not
+simply morally foul but such as decent society demands be removed from
+sight and hearing, must be regarded as altogether shameless and
+vulgar. For this reason men of taste never mention favorably Catullus'
+_Annales Volusi cacata charta_, or Martial's
+
+ et desiderio coacta ventris
+ gutta pallia non fefellit una[21]
+
+And there are many others a good deal more despicable which cannot be
+adduced even as examples of a fault. Assuredly Antiquity was too
+forbearing toward this sort of thing, and I have often wondered how
+Cicero could have been tolerated in the Roman Senate when he inveighed
+against Piso:
+
+ Do you not remember, blank, when I came to see you about the
+ fifth hour with Gaius Piso, you were coming out of some dirty
+ shack, slippers on your feet and your face and beard covered; and
+ when you breathed on us that low tavern air from your fetid
+ mouth, you apologized on grounds of ill health, saying that you
+ were taking a kind of wine treatment? When we had accepted your
+ explanation--what else could we do?--we stood a while in the
+ smell and fume of the joints you patronize until you kicked us
+ out by the impudence of your answers and the stench of your
+ belches.[22]
+
+
+_On spiteful epigrams._
+
+Men with some gentleness of nature have an inborn hatred of spite,
+especially of such as mocks bodily flaws or reversals of fortune, or,
+finally, anything that happens beyond the individual's responsibility.
+For, since no man feels himself free of such strokes of chance, he
+will not take it easily when they are torn down and laughed at. The
+Vergilian Dido spoke with human feeling when she said: _Not unaware of
+ill I learned to aid misfortune._[23] and the good will of the reader
+rises quietly in her favor. Likewise, Seneca says nicely: _It is not
+witty to be spiteful._[24] On the other hand they act inhumanely who
+triumph over misfortune and upbraid what was not guiltily effected, to
+such an extent that they arouse a feeling of aversion and alienation
+in the hearts of their readers.
+
+Accordingly we have admitted only a few of this kind, and have
+rejected a great many, as, for example, Owen's frigid and spiteful
+epigram:
+
+ Look, not a hair remains on your bright skull.
+ The hairs on your inconstant brow are null.
+ With every last hair lost behind, ahead,
+ What has the bald man left to lose? His head.[25]
+
+Nor do we greatly care for many of the same kind in Martial, which
+nevertheless were not omitted for the reasons given above.[26]
+
+
+_On wordy epigrams._
+
+It would be a long task to assemble all the natural aversions,
+nevertheless we may add a few more which have removed a whole host of
+epigrams from this anthology. Beyond those already mentioned, nature
+finds distasteful long circumlocutions and the piling up of a single
+point with varying phrase; for nature burns with a desire to find out,
+ever hastens to the conclusion, and is impatient at being detained by
+much talk unless there is a special reward. Consequently wordy
+epigrams beget a good deal of loathing, especially those that do not
+sufficiently balance their length with the magnitude of the idea. Some
+of Martial's are burdened with this fault; sometimes they accumulate
+too many commonplace compliments or are too petty in enumeration. For
+example, in this epigram to what point are so many trite similes piled
+up?
+
+ Her voice was sweeter than the agëd swan,
+ None would prefer the Eastern pearl before her,
+ Or the new-polished tooth of Indic beasts,
+ Or the first snow, lilies untouched by hand;
+ She who breathed fragrance of the Paestan rose,
+ Compared with whom the peacock was but dull,
+ The squirrel uncharming, and unrare the phoenix,
+ Erotion, is still warm on a new pyre.[27]
+
+Similarly, why in another well-known epigram is the same idea repeated
+again and again?
+
+ Oh not unvalued object of my love,
+ Flaccus, the darling of Antenor's hearth,
+ Forego Pierian songs, the sisters' dances:
+ No girl among them ever gave a dime.
+ Phoebus is nought; Minerva has the cash,
+ Is shrewd, is only usurer to the gods.
+ What's there in Bacchus' ivy? The black tree
+ Of Pallas bends with mottled leaves and weight.
+ On Helicon there's only water, wreaths,
+ The divine lyres, and profitless applause.
+ Why do you dream of Cirrha, bare Permessis?
+ The forum is more Roman and more rich.
+ There the coins clink, but round the sterile chairs
+ And desks of poets only kisses rustle.[28]
+
+In the same way that nature is displeased with wordiness, she is
+displeased with ideas that are too commonplace, for it is a kind of
+loquacity to bubble on with the commonplace and trite, since it is the
+purpose of speech to reveal what isn't known, not to repeat what is
+known and worn-out. Countless epigrams have been excluded from this
+selection for this fault, but since there is nothing more common I
+will omit offering examples.
+
+
+_On trifling wit, and plays on words._
+
+Not a little displeasing, also, is an assiduity in trifling which
+withdraws the mind from solid subject-matter out of which true beauty
+springs. Plays on words, puns and other playing around of that kind,
+unless they come to the judgement of the pen within the bounds of art,
+are not so much figures of speech as faults of style, and in those
+epigrams where the point rests solely in these there is nothing
+thinner, especially when they are so peculiar to one language that
+they cannot be translated into another. On this basis we have passed
+over such frivolous witticisms as Owen's:
+
+ Rope ends the robber, death is his last haul;
+ The gallows gets the gangster--if not all,
+ If many get away, God gives no hope:
+ It's an odd thief dies with no coffin rope.[29]
+
+A little more humorous is that of another poet on the Swiss killed at
+night, though it too is faulty:
+
+ Annihilated in night snow by a nut stick,
+ I snow, night, nut, now, and annihilation know.[30]
+
+
+_In what way natural inclinations are to be gratified._
+
+We must carefully avoid all these natural sources of aversion and no
+less gratify natural inclinations if we wish to attain that beauty we
+aim at. For self-love is so strong in men that they can hear nothing
+with pleasure unless it flatters them with their own feelings. For
+which reason those epigrams have correctly been judged best that
+penetrate deeper into those feelings and present to the reader's mind
+an idea recognised not only by the interior light but also by the
+interior feeling as quite true, so that he can be seduced into
+embracing it: for example, Martial's:
+
+ I scorn the fame purchased with easy blood
+ And praise the man who can be praised alive.[31]
+
+For, since everyone hates death and longs for praise and glory, there
+is no one who would not be glad if he could be praised without dying.
+Another example is that of the old poet:
+
+ Put high disdain, deciduous hope put by:
+ Live with yourself who with yourself must die.[32]
+
+For nature has, as Quintilian said, a kind of elevation intolerant of
+anything above it[33] that fawns on anyone who bids it be contemptuous
+of a pride in riches.
+
+This much on the general sources of beauty and ugliness will be
+sufficient for passing judgement on any _genre_ of poems.
+Nevertheless, this should be adapted to the particular nature, laws,
+and principles of the epigram, and so it will not be out of point to
+add a few remarks on the epigram itself.
+
+
+_The origin of the name epigram. Its definition, form, and laws._
+
+"Epigram", as Scaliger observes, is the same thing as "inscription";
+but since there are inscriptions of a good many things the former word
+has been applied to short poems inasmuch as epigrams of that sort used
+to be inscribed on monuments and statues;[34] and from this the word
+has been extended generally to short poems. The epigram is defined,
+then, as a short poem directly pointing out some thing, person, or
+deed.[35]
+
+There are those who locate its formal principle in the serious or
+witty idea that forms the conclusion, and so insist on this that they
+deny anything is an epigram that lacks such a conclusion.[36] But this
+is an error. There are some epigrams, and highly cultivated ones, that
+have an equable elevation throughout and nothing of especial note in
+the conclusion, as in this of a contemporary writer:
+
+ That on insurgent serpents breathing peace,
+ On unplumed eagles trembling, on tame pards,
+ And lions whose low necks accept the yoke,
+ Louis looks out, sublime on a bronze horse,
+ Nor fingers shaped this nor the craftsman's forge
+ But worth and God's fortune accomplished it.
+ The armed venger of faith, trustee of peace,
+ Ordained, for all to reverence, this, and bade
+ Rise in the royal place the reverend bronze,
+ That, the long perils past of civil strife,
+ And enemies subdued by prosperous arms,
+ Louis should ever triumph in the master city.[37]
+
+Again, in some epigrams there is a straightforward neatness and a
+gentle and dry humor that pleases, as may be seen in some of Catullus'
+epigrams which we have put in this anthology.
+
+Some go to the contrary extreme and not only do not require such
+conclusions but even scorn them. These are for the most part the
+outrageous lovers of Catullus who, as long as they finish off some
+limp little dirge in hendecasyllabics, feel that they are marvellously
+charming and polished, although there is nothing more empty than such
+verses or nothing easier to do if a man has acquired a little practice
+in Latin.
+
+How little effort, for instance, shall we imagine the conclusion of
+this epigram cost Borbonius, fashioned as it is according to the model
+of Catullus?
+
+ Wherefore come, O Roman muses,
+ Full of honey and of graces,
+ Learned verses of good Pino;
+ I embrace you, just Camenae,
+ All day long I read you gladly
+ In this mortifying season,
+ Time of tears and time of penance,
+ Harsh and troublesome, by Jupiter![38]
+
+You can see where the perverse imitation of Catullus has conducted a
+Christian, in other respects devout, so that in discussing a Christian
+fast day he had no fear of using the profane name of Jove. But,
+leaving this aside, what is more inept than the verse _Harsh and
+troublesome, by Jupiter!_, however Catullan. Nevertheless, Borbonius
+thought his epigram concluded elegantly in that line because he found
+in Catullus a similar one.[39] But, leaving aside such spiritless
+imitators, one can truly affirm of those ideas that conclude epigrams
+that there is a good deal of elegance in them when they are themselves
+distinguished and nicely cohere with the preceding chain of thought.
+For, since nothing so sticks in the reader's mind as the conclusion,
+what is better than to put there what especially you want to fix in
+his soul. Consequently, those epigrams are rightly censured as faulty
+that go in the order of anti-climax or in which the conclusion is sort
+of added on or appended to the rest and does not neatly develop out of
+the preceding verses. This fault is discernible in the following
+epigram, though in other respects it is distinguished:
+
+ You that a stranger in mid-Rome seek Rome
+ And can find nothing in mid-Rome of Rome,
+ Behold this mass of walls, these abrupt rocks,
+ Where the vast theatre lies overwhelmed.
+ Here, here is Rome! Look how the very corpse
+ Of greatness still imperiously breathes threats!
+ The world she conquered, strove herself to conquer,
+ Conquered that nothing be unconquered by her.
+ Now conqueror Rome's interred in conquered Rome,
+ And the same Rome conquered and conqueror.
+ Still Tiber stays, witness of Roman fame,
+ Still Tiber flows on swift waves to the sea.
+ Learn hence what Fortune can: the unmoved falls,
+ And the ever-moving will remain forever.[40]
+
+The last four verses are completely unnecessary and contain a frigid
+point by which the lustre of the preceding is dimmed.
+
+
+_The material of epigrams; thence the division into different kinds.
+The first kind and the second._
+
+The material of epigrams comprises any subject and anything that can
+be said on it--in fact, there are as many kinds of epigrams as there
+are kinds of things that can be said. We will notice here particularly
+those kinds from which the special powers of each can be understood.
+
+There is, then, a kind of epigram that is elevated, weighty, sublime,
+pursuing a noble subject in noble lines and concluding with a noble
+sentiment. Such is Martial's on Scaevola:
+
+ That hand that sought a king and found a slave
+ Was thrust to burn up in the sacred fire:
+ So cruel a portent the good enemy
+ Appalled, who bade him carried from the fire.
+ The hand the regicide endured to burn,
+ The king could not endure to see it done.
+ Greater the glory of the hand deceived!
+ Had it not erred it had accomplished less.[41]
+
+Of the same sort are Grotius' epigrams on Ostend and on the sailing
+carriages, and Barclay's on Margaret of Valois.[42]
+
+There is another sort somewhat lower in style but weighty and
+profitable in idea: for example, that truly distinguished one of
+Martial:
+
+ In that you follow the strict rules of Cato
+ And yet are willing to remain alive
+ And will not run bare-breasted on the sword
+ You do exactly as I'd have you do:
+ I scorn the fame purchased with easy blood
+ And praise the man who can be praised alive.[43]
+
+And this:
+
+ In private she mourns not the late-lamented;
+ If someone's by her tears leap forth on call.
+ Sorrow, my dear, is not so easily rented.
+ They are true tears that without witness fall.[44]
+
+And that genuinely golden epigram:
+
+ That I now call you by your name
+ Who used to call you sir and master,
+ You needn't think it impudence.
+ I bought myself with all I had.
+ He ought to sir a sir and master
+ Who's not himself, and wants to have
+ Whatever sirs and masters want.
+ Who can get by without a slave
+ Can get by, too, without a master.[45]
+
+However, of all kinds of epigram that kind is generally thought to be
+most properly epigrammatic which is distinguished by a witty and
+ingenious turn that deeply penetrates the soul. Martial excels in this
+kind, as in this one:
+
+ You serve the best wines always, my dear sir,
+ And yet they say your wines are not so good.
+ They say you are four times a widower.
+ They say ... A drink? I don't believe I would.[46]
+
+and in this:
+
+ Though you send presents to old men and widows
+ Why should I call you, sir, munificent?
+ There's nothing lower, dirtier than you only
+ Who can denominate enticements gifts.
+ These are the sly hooks for the greedy fish,
+ These are the clever baits for the wild beasts.
+ I will instruct you what it is to give
+ If you are ignorant: give, sir, to me. [47]
+
+Some are lower in style but witty and pleasant, and have a glowing
+simplicity, as can be illustrated by another of Martial's:
+
+ "An epic epigram," I heard you say.
+ Others have written them, and so I may.
+ "But this one is too long." Others are too.
+ You want them short? I'll write two lines for you:
+ _As for long epigrams let us agree
+ They may be skipped by you, written by me._[48]
+
+And, indeed, of all the special capabilities of the epigram none is
+more difficult to realise or more rarely achieved than the adroit
+handling, the suitable and easy unfolding, of the subject so that
+nothing is redundant, nothing wanting, nothing out of order, obscure,
+or tangled up in verbiage, and yet at the same time nothing too
+unexpected, nothing not adequately prepared for. Martial is
+pre-eminent in this; he develops his subjects so aptly, clearly, and
+perceptively that he obtains for ideas of no special note otherwise a
+good deal of distinction by the charm of the handling. For example,
+what could be more resourcefully developed than this epigram?
+
+ Believe me, sir, I'd like to spend whole days,
+ Yes, and whole evenings in your company,
+ But the two miles between your house and mine
+ Are four miles when I go there to come back.
+ You're seldom home, and when you are deny it,
+ Engrossed with business or with yourself.
+ Now, I don't mind the two mile trip to see you;
+ What I do mind is going four to not to.[49]
+
+And what would the following epigram be if it had not been perfected
+and prepared for by the handling?
+
+ That no one meets you willingly,
+ That where you come they go, that vast
+ Areas of silence circle you--
+ Why so? you ask. Too much the bard.
+ This makes it terribly, terribly hard.
+ Who would put up with what I do?
+ You read verse if I stand or sit;
+ You read it if I run or sing;
+ And in the baths you read me verse;
+ I try the pool, and swim in verse;
+ I haste to dine, you go my way;
+ I order, and you read me out;
+ Worn out, I take my rest with verse.
+ You want to know what harm you do?
+ Just, upright, harmless, you're a pest.[50]
+
+The conclusion is pleasantly witty, but the special charm of the poem
+derives from the preceding enumeration.
+
+This finishes the account of what we looked to in selecting these
+epigrams. You will find what else is pertinent to this book in the
+preface.
+
+
+
+
+_Notes_
+
+I have silently emended a few passages; otherwise the text translated
+is that of _Epigrammatum Delectus_, Paris, 1659. It is regrettable
+that the Latin text, at least of the poems cited, could not be printed
+with the translation.
+
+[1] _De nat. deor._ 2.2.5
+
+[2] _Aen._ 5.481 and 8.596
+
+[3] 177-8, 173
+
+[4] All three passages are from epigrams by Gaspar Conrad in Janus
+Gruter, _Delitiae poetarum germanorum_, 6 v., Frankfort, 1612: II,
+1065-6, lines 1-6 of a twelve line epigram, "In symbolum Iacobi
+Monavi"; II, 1077, the concluding lines of an eight line epigram, "Ad
+Valentinum Maternum"; and II, 1079, the concluding couplet of a six
+line epigram, "Ad Georgum Menhadum Philophilum." The second passage is
+hardly construable.
+
+[5] _Ars. poet._ 141-2, the paraphrase of Homer, and 143-4. The other
+quotations in this passage are from the opening of the _Aeneid_,
+_Thebaid_, _Rape of Proserpine_, and the _Pharsalia_.
+
+[6] _Inst. orat._ 8.6.14
+
+[7] "Manes Dousici," IV "Ad solem" and V "Ad sidera," _Poemata_,
+Leyden, 1613, p. 166. Nicole reads _tandem_ for _rursus_ in the last
+line of the second poem. Douza is the younger Janus Douza (1571-1596).
+
+Nicole's criticism of these poems is just but superficial. The
+difficulty with such poems lies in the method, which consists in the
+establishment by amplification of one pole, followed by the briefest
+statement of the contrary pole. But the latter is of personal concern
+and is the essential subject of the poem. Thus the subject is
+deliberately avoided for the greater part of the poem, and hence there
+is in the amplification no principle of order to control the detail
+and its accumulation. This accounts for the features Nicole censures;
+however, he himself makes a similar point below in condemning negative
+descriptions.
+
+[8] I have been unable to find this among Grotius' poems.
+
+[9] Joannes Vulteius (c.1510-1542), "De ignobili Aruerno in sepulchro
+nobili posito," _Hendecasyllaborum libri iv_, Paris, 1538, Ni., p. 97.
+
+[10] "Ad Rudolphum Imp. florum picturae dedicatio," _Poemata_, Leyden,
+1637, p. 326.
+
+[11] Epig. 1.50, "De Jucundo architecto," _Poemata_, Pavia, 1719, p.
+189.
+
+[12] I have been unable to identify this epigram.
+
+[13] A translation of _Anth. Pal._ 11.104 and printed as Ausonius in
+the Renaissance, but probably by Girogio Merula (c.1424-1494): see
+James Hutton, _The Greek Anthology In Italy to the year 1800_,
+"Cornell Studies in English," XXIII (1935), pp. 23-4, 102-5, and
+Ausonius, _Opuscula_, ed. Rudolphus Peiper, Leipzig, 1886, p. 428. The
+younger Scaliger strongly condemns this epigram on the same grounds:
+Joseph Scaliger, _Ausoniarum lectionum libri ii_, 2.20, Heidelberg,
+1688, p. 204.
+
+[14] 3.66
+
+[15] Epig. libri tres, ad D. Mariam Neville, 2.211. _Epigrammata_,
+Amsterdam, 1647, p. 47. Translated by Thomas Harvey, _John Owen's
+Latin Epigrams_, London, 1677, p. 36: "Sith th' Harps discording
+Strings concording be, / Is't not a shame for men to disagree?" and by
+Thomas Pecke, _Parnassi puerperium_, London, 1659: "Can there be many
+strings; and yet no Jars? / And are not men asham'd of dismal wars?"
+
+[16] Nicole's text follows what are now regarded as inferior mss: see
+Germanious Caesar, _Aratea_, ed. Alfred Breysig, 2nd. ed., Leipzig,
+1899, p. 58. The poem corresponds to _Anth. Pal._ 7.542. Nicole's
+comment recalls Dr. Johnson on Gray's cat.
+
+[17] The dedicatory poem, addressed to Louis XIII, to Caspar Barlaeus'
+_Poematum editio nova_, Leyden, 1631, sig.*8.
+
+[18] 22.10
+
+[19] Epig. 1.25, _Opera Omnia_, 2 v., Leyden, 1725, II, 365. Nicole's
+text presents several variants and cuts the next to the last couplet,
+which I translate: "Already at the tomb, He beats the gates / Of Dis,
+and Libertina waits his torches."
+
+[20] Epig. 3.5, _op. cit._, p. 233.
+
+[21] Catullus 36 and Martial 1.109. 10-11
+
+[22] _Pis._ 13
+
+[23] _Aen._ 1.630
+
+[24] _Anthologia Latina_, ed. Alexander Riese, 412.17, Leipzig, 1894,
+I, 1, p.319. The epigram, from which this phrase is quoted, was
+ascribed to Seneca by Pithoeus.
+
+[25] Epig.... ad ... Neville, 2.126, _op. cit._, p. 38. Harvey, p. 36,
+translates: "Lo, not an hair thine heads bald Crown doth crown: / Thy
+Faithless Front hath not one hair thine own: / Before, Behind thine
+hair's blown off with Blast, / What's left thee to be lost? thine Head
+at last."
+
+[26] In the preface, _Delectus_, Paris, 1659, ch. 2. The problem was
+whether to print a large collection of epigrams, rejecting merely the
+obscene ones, or to choose only the best. A middle way was taken for
+these reasons: 1) there are so few first-class epigrams that a reader
+who had his own opinions might think the selection too choosy; 2) the
+best shines out only in comparison with what is not so good, and
+examples of vice are as useful as examples of virtue, since judgement
+in large measure consists in knowing what to avoid; 3) finally and
+principally, the curiosity of young men would not be sufficiently
+satisfied by the selection if they knew that a good many witty and
+polished epigrams were to be found elsewhere. Since it was especially
+necessary to keep youth from the unspeakable filth of Catullus and
+Martial, who are at the same time the best writers, everything of
+theirs is included except the cheapest odds and ends and filthiest
+obscenities. For the writers after Martial stricter standards were
+applied, for the book would have grown beyond bounds if everything
+tolerable had been admitted.
+
+[27] Martial 5.37, 1, 4-6, 9, 12-14. The lines that Nicole cuts
+contain only more of the same.
+
+[28] Martial 1.76
+
+[29] Epig. libri tres ad Henricum ... ded. 1.67, _op. cit._, p. 131.
+
+[30] Unidentified. The text reads: "In nive nocte vagans nuceo cado
+stipite nectus, / Sic mihi nix, nox, nux, nex fuit ante diem."
+
+[31] 1.8. 5-6.
+
+[32] The conclusion of an epigram of ten lines, ascribed to Seneca in
+_Delectus_, pp. 326-7. Lines 1-8 correspond to _Anth. Lat._, _op.
+cit._, 407. 5-12. The younger Scaliger had begun a new epigram with
+line 5, as also with lines 9 and 11 (ed., Vergil, _Appendix, cum
+supplemento_ ..., Lyons, 1572, pp. 196-7.) The concluding sententia,
+however, which Nicole quotes here and praises later in the notes to
+the anthology, is from the conclusion of the next epigram, _Anth.
+Lat._, 408. 7-8, which is a response to the preceding one. But the
+first two-thirds of the couplet has been rewritten with the aid of
+something like a _Gradus ad Parnassum_. The ms reads, "nunc et reges
+tantum fuge! vivere doctus / uni vive tibi nam moriare tibi." Nicole
+reads, "Mitte superba pati fastidia, spemque caducam / Despice: vive
+tibi, nam moriere tibi." _superba pati fastidia_ corresponds to
+Vergil, _Ecl._ 2.15; _spem ... caducam_ to Ovid, _Epist._ 15 (sive 16,
+"Paris Helenae"). 169 (sive 171).
+
+The epigram as it stands in the anthology, then, is a result of
+Scaliger's disintegration of _Anth. Lat._ 407, which suggested
+beginning with line 5 and adding 408. 7-8 from the responsory poem.
+But this couplet is subjected to improvement to adjust it to the
+sense, to sustain the level of feeling, and to enhance the sententious
+point. Thus, with the aid of phrases from Vergil and Ovid, using
+_mitte_ and _despice_ as fillers and helpers, the epigram is concluded
+"with a noble, exalted and true thought," as the editor says in the
+notes.
+
+[33] _Inst. orat._ 11.1.16.
+
+[34] J. C. Scaliger, _Poeticas libri vii_, 3.125, 5th. ed., 1607, p.
+389.
+
+[35] _loc. cit._, p. 390: "An epigram, therefore, is a short poem
+directly pointing out some thing, person, or deed, or deducing
+something from premises. This definition includes also the principle
+of division--so let no one condemn it as prolix." Nicole, however,
+uses only the first half of the definition, since he rejects the
+principle of division.
+
+[36] _loc. cit._: "Brevity is a property; point the soul and, so to
+speak, the form." For a full account of the Renaissance theory of the
+epigram and the contemporary controversies, see Hutton, _op. cit._,
+pp. 55-73, and _The Greek Anthology in France and in the Latin writers
+of the Netherlands to the year 1800_, "Cornell studies in classical
+philology," XXVIII (1946), _passim_.
+
+[37] Anon., "In statuam equestrem Ludouici XIII positam Parisiis in
+circo regali," _Delectus_, pp. 409-10.
+
+[38] Nicolas Borbon, the younger, _Poematia exposita_, Paris, 1630,
+pp. 144-5, the concluding lines (lines 23-30) of an epigram, "In
+versus v.c. Iacobi Pinonis."
+
+[39] Catullus 1.7
+
+[40] Ianus Vitalis Panomitanus (c.1485-1560), "Antiquae Romae ruinae
+illustres," _Delectus_, p. 366; see also _Delitiae delitiarum_, ed.
+Ab. Wright, Oxford, 1637, p. 104, with textual variants.
+
+[41] 1.21
+
+[42] _Delectus_, pp. 396-7, 399-400, and 405. See Grotius, _op. cit._,
+pp. 341-2, and 383.
+
+[43] 1.8
+
+[44] 1.33
+
+[45] 2.68
+
+[46] 4.69
+
+[47] 4.56
+
+[48] 6.65
+
+[49] 2.5
+
+[50] 3.44. 1-5, 9-18. The lines cut, 6-8, read in translation: "No
+tigress wild for her lost cubs, / No viper burned by the noon sun, /
+No scorpion begets such fear." In line 11, line 8 of the translation,
+Nicole reads _canenti_ for the received _cacanti_. The latter reading
+will yield in translation a rhyme with the preceding line.
+
+
+
+
+_The Editors of_ THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY
+
+_are pleased to announce that_
+
+THE WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY
+
+_of The University of California, Los Angeles_
+
+will become the publisher of the Augustan Reprints in May, 1949. The
+editorial policy of the Society will continue unchanged. As in the
+past, the editors will strive to furnish members inexpensive reprints
+of rare seventeenth and eighteenth century works.
+
+All correspondence concerning subscriptions in the United States and
+Canada should be addressed to the William Andrews Clark Memorial
+Library, 2205 West Adams Blvd., Los Angeles 7, California.
+Correspondence concerning editorial matters may be addressed to any of
+the general editors. Membership fee continues $2.50 per year ($2.75 in
+Great Britain and the continent). British and European subscribers
+should address B. H. Blackwell, Broad Street, Oxford, England.
+
+
+Publications for the fourth year (1949-1950)
+
+(_At least six items will be printed in the main from the following
+list_)
+
+
+SERIES IV: MEN, MANNERS, AND CRITICS
+
+ John Dryden, _His Majesties Declaration Defended_
+ (1681)
+ Daniel Defoe (?), _Vindication of the Press_ (1718)
+ _Critical Remarks on Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa,
+ and Pamela_ (1754)
+
+
+SERIES V: DRAMA
+
+ Thomas Southerne, _Oroonoko_ (1696)
+ Mrs. Centlivre, _The Busie Body_ (1709)
+ Charles Johnson, _Caelia_ (1733)
+ Charles Macklin, _Man of the World_ (1781)
+
+
+SERIES VI: POETRY AND LANGUAGE
+
+ Andre Dacier, _Essay on Lyric Poetry_
+ _Poems_ by Thomas Sprat
+ _Poems_ by the Earl of Dorset
+ Samuel Johnson, _Vanity of Human Wishes_ (1749),
+ and one of the 1750 _Rambler_ papers.
+
+
+EXTRA SERIES:
+
+ Lewis Theobald, _Preface to Shakespeare's Works_
+ (1733)
+
+ A few copies of the early publications of the Society
+ are still available at the original rate.
+
+GENERAL EDITORS
+
+ H. RICHARD ARCHER,
+ William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
+
+ R. C. BOYS, University of Michigan
+
+ E. N. HOOKER, University of California, Los Angeles
+
+ H. T. SWEDENBERG, JR.,
+ University of California, Los Angeles
+
+---------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+ TO THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY
+ _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_
+ _2205 West Adams Blvd., Los Angeles 7, California_
+
+ AS MEMBERSHIP FEE I enclose for:
+
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+
+ _Address_ ___________________________
+
+ The fourth year $ 2.50
+ The third and fourth year 5.00
+ The second, third and fourth year 7.50
+ The first, second, third, and fourth year 10.00
+
+[Add $.25 for each year if ordering from Great Britain or the
+continent]
+
+Make check or money order payable to THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF
+CALIFORNIA.
+
+_Note: All income of the Society is devoted to defraying cost of
+printing and mailing._
+
+
+
+
+PUBLICATIONS OF THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY
+
+First Year (1946-1947)
+
+ 1. Richard Blackmore's _Essay upon Wit_ (1716), and Addison's
+ _Freeholder_ No. 45 (1716). (I, 1)
+
+ 2. Samuel Cobb's _Of Poetry and Discourse on Criticism_ (1707).
+ (II, 1)
+
+ 3. _Letter to A. H. Esq.; concerning the Stage_ (1698), and
+ Richard Willis's _Occasional Paper No. IX_ (1698). (III, 1)
+
+ 4. _Essay on Wit_ (1748), together with Characters by Flecknoe,
+ and Joseph Warton's _Adventurer_ Nos. 127 and 133. (I, 2)
+
+ 5. Samuel Wesley's _Epistle to a Friend Concerning Poetry_ (1700)
+ and _Essay on Heroic Poetry_ (1693). (II, 2)
+
+ 6. _Representation of the Impiety and Immorality of the Stage_
+ (1704) and _Some Thoughts Concerning the Stage_ (1704). (III, 2)
+
+
+Second Year (1947-1948)
+
+ 7. John Gay's _The Present State of Wit_ (1711); and a section on
+ Wit from _The English Theophrastus_ (1702). (I, 3)
+
+ 8. Rapin's _De Carmine Pastorali_, translated by Creech (1684).
+ (II, 3)
+
+ 9. T. Hanmer's (?) _Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet_
+ (1736). (III, 3)
+
+ 10. Corbyn Morris' _Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of
+ Wit, etc._ (1744). (I, 4)
+
+ 11. Thomas Purney's _Discourse on the Pastoral_ (1717). (II, 4)
+
+ 12. Essays on the Stage, selected, with an Introduction by Joseph
+ Wood Krutch. (III, 4)
+
+
+Third Year (1948-1949)
+
+ 13. Sir John Falstaff (pseud.), _The Theatre_ (1720). (IV, 1)
+
+ 14 Edward Moore's _The Gamester_ (1753). (V, 1)
+
+ 15. John Oldmixon's _Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter to Harley_
+ (1712); and Arthur Mainwaring's _The British Academy_ (1712).
+ (VI, 1)
+
+ 16. Nevil Payne's _Fatal Jealousy_ (1673). (V, 2)
+
+ 17. Nicholas Rowe's _Some Account of the Life of Mr. William
+ Shakespear_ (1709). (Extra Series, 1)
+
+ 18. Aaron Hill's Preface to _The Creation_; and Thomas Brereton's
+ Preface to _Esther_. (IV, 2)
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+On p. 23, a letter was missing in one of the words; it was changed as
+follows:
+
+ From: "when they are orn down and laughed at."
+ To: "when they are torn down and laughed at."
+
+On p. 35, footnote #24, removed the repeated word "is":
+
+ From: "from which this phrase is is quoted"
+ To: "from which this phrase is quoted"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty
+in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams, by Pierre Nicole
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAY ON TRUE AND APPARENT BEAUTY ***
+
+***** This file should be named 28921-8.txt or 28921-8.zip *****
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