PKODUCED BY MAN. 781 



as a Constantinople monk of the fourteenth century was sure to 

 blunder, ' reaping,' as Mr. Philip Smith has remarked apropos of 

 his edition of the Anthology, ' the reward which often crowns the 

 labours of bad editors who undertake great works ;' and the words 

 of Julius appear, 1. c.j in the following Greek dress : Tiav €t6os h'k 

 bivbpov Trap" avrot?, ws h ttj FaAarta, 7rX?)i; (^r)yov re Kat irevKrjs, 

 (f)V€Tai. Evelyn, speaking of the fir (p. 139, 1. c.), uses the follow- 

 ing words : ' which with this so common tree (the beech) the 

 great Caesar denies to be found in Britain; .... but certainly 

 from a grand mistake, or rather, for that he had not travelled much 

 up into the country.' Hasted (1. c), in 1771, translates the words 

 thus : ^ This island has every kind of tree the same as Gaul except 

 the fir and the beech.' Some scholars hold still that this is the 

 right way of translating the words. But my friend Mr. J. P. 

 Muirhead, the author of the Life of James Watt, pointed out to 

 me that praeter, in the language of Julius, does by no means always 

 mean except, but means sometimes simply besides. For example, 

 when 1 Ariovistus stipulates that Caesar and he should meet and 

 confer on horseback, each bringing ten assessors with him, Caesar's 

 words run thus : ' Ariovistus, ut ex equis colloquerentur, et praeter 

 se, denos ut ad colloquium adducerent, postulavit.^ And we may 

 learn from this single passage that it is as well to be quite sure of 

 an author's meaning before we impute ' a grand mistake' to him, 

 especially if he happen to be really a grand man. I may add that 

 Cicero, in a single passage in the same connection as one which I 

 shall have to refer to shortly for another purpose 2, uses the word 

 praeler in both the senses, ecccept and besides. His words, telling us 

 how Verres bestowed himself, somni, vini, stupri, plenus, run thus : 

 ' Vir accumberet nemo _praeter (except) ipsum et praetextatum 

 filium ; tametsi recte dixerim sine ecccep)tione virum quum isti essent 

 neminem fuisse .... Mulieres autem nuptae nobiles jpraeter (be- 

 sides) unam minorem Isidori filiam, &c., &c. Erat Pippa quaedam 

 uxor .... Erat et Nice foemina.-' My own natural history studies 

 had familiarised me with the line of Plautus, Stich. iii. 460 : — 

 * Mustela murem ut abstulit 'p'aeter pedes ' — 



and should have shown me that the local meaning of praeter is 

 also its general meaning, and that it retains the idea of ' by the 



1 De Bello Gallico, i. 43. 



2 In Verrem, Act. ii. lib, v. 31. 



