[To TEE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."'
SIR,—I15 it too late, or too soon, to remember that some men of letters have seen nothing to admire in the phrase of
Petronius P Dr. Joseph Walton, in his " Essay on the Genius 'and Writings of Pope;" said : — "His character of Horace, however celebrated, and so often quoted as to become nauseous, Horatii curiosa felicitas,' is surely a very unclessical inversion ; for he ought to have called it the happy carefulness of Horace rather than his careful happiness."
So; too, Lander, in " The Pentameron," makes Petrarca say—
"'Was there ever such an unhappy (not to say absurd) expres- sten P' And this- from the man who wrote the most beautiful sentence in. all Latinity."
Petrarca goes on to quote the lines :— " Gvatias ago languori tuo, quo diutius sub umbra voluptatis lusimue."
Oriental Club, lianover Square, W.
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