?■"» S. VI. 131., July 3. '58.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



become sensible of the existence of the proper 

 passages. Being lately engaged in reading (for 

 amusement only, and therefore with attention), 

 the Ciceronianus, I found a passage which might 

 well have become the stock-quotation, the stereo- 

 typed specimen, of this very witty but rather prolix 

 satire ; the product of a day in which the manual 

 was a thick folio, and the squib a not very thin 

 octavo. 



If Addison and Erasmus had changed times 

 and places, they would probably have taken each 

 other's parts as nearly as this could have been 

 done. Erasmus was the gentlemanly satirist of 

 his day : would that he could have written one 

 truly posthumous work to lash the thousand pun- 

 sters who made epigrams which they called epi- 

 taphs, by help of the word Desideriiis ! Perhaps 

 the following is the least objectionable : — 



" Fatalis series nobis invidit Erasmura, 

 Sed Desiderium toUere noa potuit." 



For myself I prefer the following, though the 

 (|uality is matched by the quantity : — 



" Hie jacet Erasmus, qui quondam bonus erat vius, 

 Rodere qui solitus, roditur a vermibus." 



The Ciceronianus, as is well known, is a dialogue 

 in ridicule of the affectation current among scho- 

 lars of using no word nor idiom except such as 

 had been used by Cicero. The learned world was 

 making a desperate effort to paganise itself. A 

 cardinal would njt read the Vulgate, for fear of 

 injury to his Latimty. Men altered their names : 

 many a devout Petei- looked like a heathen under 

 the form Petreius ; and Johannes Paulus Parisius 

 got rid of all likeness to a Christian by transpo- 

 sition into Aulus Janus Parrhasius. Theological 

 terms were gradually disappearing among a class 

 of theological writers ; and it was becoming rather 

 difficult to know whether Christ or Jupiter was 

 their lawgiver. The satire of Erasmus is thrown 

 over every aspect of the question. It is frequently 

 sparkling wit ; and, but for its fearful length and 

 consequent dilution, would have been reprinted 

 for two centuries at least. The preface is dated 

 February, 1528 ; and in that year I believe it 

 was published. 



As may be supposed, the absurdity of Christian 

 writers tindina all their theological words in 

 Cicero is made very prominent. Erasmus asks 

 how the following is to, be rendered from Cicero's 

 writings : — 



" Jesus Christus, Verbum et Filius iieterni Patris, juxta 

 prophetias venit in munJum, ac factus homo, sponle se 

 in mortem tradidit, ac redemit Ecclesiam suam, offen- 

 sique Patris iram avertit a nobis, eique nos reconciliavit, 

 ut per gratiam fidei justificati et a tvrannide liberati, 

 inseramur Ecclesiae, et in Ecclesias coniniuiiione perseve- 

 rantes, post banc vitam consequaniur regnum coelorum." 



Erasmus then answers his own question as 

 follows : — 

 " Optimi Maximique Jovis interpres ao filius, serva- 



tor, Rex, juxta vatum responsa, ex Oh'nipo devolavit in 

 terras, et bominis assuiiipta tigura, sese pro salute Kei- 

 publicie sponte devovit Diis Manibus, atque ita concionera, 

 sive civitatem, sive Rempublicam suam asseruit in liber- 

 tatem, ac Jovis Optimi Maximi vibratum in nostra capita 

 fuhflen restinxit, nosque cum illo redegit in gratiam, ut 

 persuasionis muniticentia ad innocentiara reparati, et a 

 sycopbantiB dominatu manumissi, cooptemur in civitatem, 

 et in Reipublicaj societate perseverantes, quum fata nos 

 evocarint ex hac vita, in Deorum immortalium consortio 

 rerum summa potiamur." 



In his concluding remarks, Erasmus cuts the 

 ground from under his opponents in the following 

 manner : — 



"Nee videbitur uUius sermo venustus, qui non congruit 

 personas, nee rebus est accoramodatus, monstrosus etiam 

 qui res pietatis tractat verbis impiorum, quique materiam 

 Ohristianani Paganicis nugis contaminat. Quod si quid 

 hie veniiB datur adolescenti«, ne sibi sumat idem juris 

 aetas provectior. Qui sic est Ciceronianus, ut parura sit 

 Christianus, is ne Ciceronianus quidem est, quod non dicit 

 apte, non penitus intelligit ea de quibus loquitur, non af- 

 ficitur his ex animo de ^ibus verba facit. Postremo 

 non eodem ornatu tractat res suie professionis, quibus 

 Cicero tractavit arguraenta suorum temporum." 



There was an affectation of a different kind 

 which prevailed in the Universities thirty years 

 ago, and, for aught I know, may do so still. The 

 young writers ibrgot that there is no language 

 which consists entirely of its own isms ; and that 

 plum-pudding is not a congeries of the little fruits 

 from which it takes its name. They tried to write 

 a Latin consisting of nothing but Latinisms. It 

 was said that Vatliek was detected as not the 

 work of a Frenchman, by the excessive pxirity 

 of its French. No such thing : it was detected 

 by its redundance of Gallicisms. The amateur 

 carpenter always uses too much glue. 



Many years ago, a friend of mine, then an old 

 man, told me that he was accustomed in his youth 

 to play the following trick upon great scholars. 

 He found a few consecutive sentences in Cicero, 

 for which no one need look long, in which the 

 idioms are all as much English as Latin, and the 

 words run very nearly in the same order in both 

 languages. These he translated into English, and 

 showed the whole to the scholar, representing the 

 Latin as his own rendering of the English. " Oli ! 

 my dear friend," the scholar would say, " this is 

 not Latin ! this is English rendered word by 

 word ; nothing can be more bald ! " My friend 

 would then humblj' request his victim to mend it, 

 which would be done on the spot ; so that the 

 amended Sanscrit, or whatever it ought to be 

 called, would have been fit to go into a prize 

 essay at Oxford or Cambridge. Cicero was tiien 

 produced, and the poor scholar was brought to a 

 sense of his situation. Query, whether it would 

 not be a good thing to found prizes in the Uni- 

 versities for the best essays which, being very near 

 to English, should be written in defensible Latin. 



A. Ds MOBOAN. 



