15 AUGUST 1903, Page 17

CLASSICAL QUOTATIONS.

[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—The words gotorov Fir OLT are taken from the first Olympic ode of Pindar, and were proverbial even at the time he wrote, although, of course, not with the meaning they would convey to a temperance meeting. The use of the quota- tion on the pediment of the Bath Pump Room was suggested by the witty Dr. Henry Harington, Mayor of the city in 1793, although it has often been objected that this is not justified by the context. But such pedantic limitation can scarcely be proved, I think, to be a rule of classical any more than of Shakespearian quotation. "Bernardus vales, colles Bene- dictus amabat, oppida Franciscus," is a very familiar endeavour to describe in an epigram the sites which the three Orders chose for their houses: the Cistercians in the valleys, the Benedictines on the hillsides, where their churches should be a constant call to prayer, while the Franciscans went where they could preach to their fellow-men. Strictly speaking, it is not, of course, a classical quotation.—I am, Sir, &c.,