CICERO.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:9
Sin,—When I read (in your review of Mr. Yorke Fausset's
• edition of the " Pro Cluentio") that Cicero "afterwards boasted to Quintilian " how he had thrown dust in the eyes of the jury in the Cluentius case, my first impulse was to exclaim, in the language of a bygone generation, " The doose he did !" But reflection showed me the right inference,—namely, that your !reviewer shares, with one or two others, access to information about Cicero which has not reached the world at large. It is -not many months since your well-informed contemporary, the Saturday Review, ascribed to him the famous phrase, Felix .opportunitate mortis, which, as we all know, and the context, Indeed, shows, was first applied to Julius Agricola. In the light of these discoveries, Juvenal's Antoni gladios potuit .contemnere gains a new meaning. Well might he despise Antony's swordsmen, if he knew that he would live to " boast " to Quintilian and panegyrise Agricola !
May I turn to another point ? Your correspondents on the word " snybbe " seem to have overlooked the locus classicus .for the word : Chaucer, " Prologue," line 523.—I am, Sir, &c., A. J. BUTLER.
[Mr. A. J. Butler is so clever, that we can hardly regret that the printer, or possibly the reviewer, left out " according."— En. Spectator.]
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