in the Composition of Nouns and Adjectives. 75 
commentators, misled by the authority of GexLxrvs, interpreted 
vepallida “ very pale.” Brnriey fell foul of the word itself, pro- 
nounced it naught, and proposed to read “ ne pallida.”’ Later 
commentators and editors read “ vel pallida,” to the ruin of the 
sense and spirit of the whole passage, which is subjoined in a 
note *. The scholar who will read the whole attentively, cannot 
fail seeing that the clause is not an alternative, but a necessary 
consequence of “ vir rure recurrat.” BrntTiLey’s emendation 
does not destroy the sense, although it does the spirit of the pas- 
sage. It retards the almost simultaneous occurrence of the se- 
veral incidents, and assigns an epithet by no means felicitous to 
the offending dame. Whoever will compare a passage in the 
Augustus of Surronius ¢ with Juvenat’s line, 
“* Vexatasque comas vultusque auresque calentes,” 
and with another in the Nero of Surronrus {, must needs con- 
fess, that the “ curiosa felicitas” so deservedly ascribed to Ho- 
RacE, must have sadly deserted him, had he applied “ pallida” 
to a culprit so circumstanced, however great her alarm. The 
old reading was undoubtedly the right one, and its signification 
is parum pallida, “ flushed,” and far from being cool and pale 
enough to face her husband. 
* “ Nec vereor, ne, dum futuo, vir rure recurrat, 
Janua frangantur, latret canis, undique magno 
Pulsa domus strepitu resonet, vepallida lecto 
Desiliat mulier, miseram se conscia clamet.” 
Hor. Sat. lib. i. sat. 2. ver. 126. et seq. 
+ “ Marcus Antoninus objecit foeminam in cubiculum obductam, rursus in 
convivium, rubentibus auriculis, incomtiore capillo reductam.” 
{ “ Egressus triclinio cum maxime placitam sevocasset, paulo post, recentibus 
adhuc lascivie notis, reversus.” 
K 2 
