EILEU FUGATI
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sin,--The misquotation in My poem Eheu Pugati, which you published on February 19th, was, of course, intentional fugaces can only mean "runaway," and would be inappro priate to two holy men, one of whom died a martyr. puga and fugo, on the other hand, are classical in the sense ol legal banishment : Cicero, Ovid and Tacitus use them in this sense.* Apparently one Orbilius differs from another. In my schooldays I sat at the feet of really great Horatian scholars; and the use of that well-worn tag, Eheu fugaces, merely because it is well-worn, would have made them very weary indeed. Misquotation may or may not be an art ; that is a matter of taste. But hackneyed quotation is always a vice, and doubly so when out of place.—! am, Sir, &c., S. V. F-G. P.S.—I suppose your correspondent realizes that dabor • the fifth verse is a misprint for dabat.
[A correspondent wrote recently that the above heading was an outrage against Latinity for which any schoolboy would be "swished." Here is the author's answer.– En Spectator.]
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