POPE AND PETRONIUS.
I have read "Mr. RICH'S" letter with great interest, and I willingly allow that he has combated my charge of plagiarism against Pope, and discussed the subject generally with equal fairness and ability. "But yet," I think that he wanders a little from the point when he says, "the surmise of the plagiarism originates in a misconception of the terms employed by the Latin author, especially corcillum." Now the question, in my opinion, turns not so much on what Petronius said, as on what Pope read; i.e. not on the meaning that Petronius gave to the word (corcillum), but on that which Pope attributed to it. I cannot, without further proof, give him credit for having read the words as critically and correctly as "Mr. R." has done. I believe that he looked on it merely as a simple derivative of cor, and therefore rendered it "worth," i.e. a moral, not a mental quality.
C. FORBES.