A LEARNED PROTEST.
Respectissime Punchi!
Facilis ascensus Parnassi sed revocare gradum.
"It's very easy to be a Poet, but you must have recourse to your gradus."
Tu habes admissum, olim, Latinas litteras in tuis columnis. Memini unum Tommium scribentem de Etone (istâ super-ratâ scholâ) et nunc forsitan accipies hanc contributionem antiqui Westminsterensis? Semper ego auditor tantum (Juvenalis) quum nobilis ars Latinorum versorum est attacta? Non pro Josepho! Volo nunc intrare meam protestationem contra aliqua verba Baronis Bramwell, alterâ die.
Baro dixit (Anglicè, quia, imagino, non noscit Latinum) ut "he never got any good from the Latin verses he was obliged to write when a boy, and if a boy is to be made a poet, he had better begin in his own language." Dixit quoque, "it may be knowledge to know the names of those who killed Becket (sic), and the precise date, but it is not wisdom or useful." (Quare, viâ, "Becket," et non "Sanctus Tommius à Becket, proprium nomen? Quid cheekum! Vel forte dicerem, quæ bucca! Vocabimusne Baronem Bramwell in futuro "Bramwell" simpliciter; vel, ut omittit "à," potius "Bram'l"?)
Quoto has Philistinas deliverationes de "Tempora," et Editor "Temporum" propriissime scribit, "We should for our part (pro nostrâ portione) venture to doubt whether some of Lord Bramwell's (peto veniam, Bram'l's) remarkable keenness of mind is not to be accounted for by the drilling which his Latin verses gave him—by the habit of twisting and turning (habitus contorquendi et vertendi) and adjusting thoughts and phrases which that old-fashioned exercise implies." Bene!
Sum ipse nunc Undergraduatus, et abandonavi Classicas linguas pro Scientiâ. Sed retineo meum Latinum—ut tu vides—et invenio id facile esse excellens in chemicis odoribus et in Cicerone simul.
Cogito ut Britannicus Publicus debet noscere quam multum bonum Latini versus sunt ad pueros.
1. Imprimis, illi ducunt ad usum Gradûs ad Parnassum; et, interrogo, quis liber potest comparare cum eo vel in elegantiâ styli, vel in copiositate verborum, vel in vero genio auctoris? Sum inclinatus cogitare ut auctor erat, in realitate, Baconius ipse; et si ita, id est alium exemplum quomodo Latini versus auxiliant homines scandere ad nobilissimas positiones in Statu.
2. Secundo loco, docent fraternum amorem inter pueros; quia quum unus socius est stumpatus pro verbo, alius donat illi correctum tippum, sub rosâ.
3. Tertium quid (non quid tobacconis!—Vide effectum, "habitûs contorquendi et vertendi"!)—Versus elevant mentem, et associant nos cum grandibus auctoribus præteriti, ut Ovidio, Tibullo, et Careyo. Quomodo possum noscere, nisi per "Gradum," ut Amor est "dulcis, blandus, jucundus, suavis," et eodem tempore "flagrans, acer, fervidus, indomitus, vigilans," etc.?
4. Quarto, discimus synonymos, sic utiles ad publicos homines (non homines publicanos, intelligis! "Habitus contorquendi" iterum). Si Magister Gladstone non fecisset Latinos versus ut juvenis, non posset nunc donare viginti differentia nomina pro unâ re.
Finaliter, si Latini versus sunt missi ad Jerichonem, ubi erit Ludus Westminsterensis in futuro? Nullum alium argumentum est necessarium.
Maneo tuus,
Anti-bramwellius Academicus.
A Correspondent draws Mr. Punch's attention to an advertisement in a Cheltenham paper, from which this is an extract:—
"Quince Jam.—Prepared from Quinces, supposed by many to be the 'Forbidden Fruit.' This hitherto almost unknown luxury is much appreciated by those who have tried it."
Hasn't the enterprising and, of course, very old-established firm which advertises this luxury any recommendation in writing from "The fairest of her daughters," Eve? If so, let them produce the papyrus.
The last Christmas Cards to arrive, are Taylor Foot's "Merry Thoughts," &c., from Poland Street,—they're behind time; so very slow a-foot in coming. As practical jokes, the mince-pie cards are uncommonly good, and indeed the sham may be substituted for the real, by a mince pi-ous fraud allowable at Christmas time.
