[It will be found in Pope's Imitations of Horace, Book ii. Satire i.:
"There St. John mingles with my friendly bowl
The feast of reason and the flow of soul.">[
Tu Autem.—In page 25. of "Hertfordshire," in Fuller's Worthies, there is a story of one Alexander Nequam, who, wishing to become a monk of St. Alban's, wrote thus to the abbot thereof:
"Si vis, veniam. Sin autem, tu autem."
To which the abbot replied:
"Si bonus sis, venias. Si Nequam, nequaquam."
Can any of your readers inform me of the meaning of "tu autem" in the first line? as I have been long puzzled.
This puts me in mind of a form which there was at Ch. Ch., Oxford, on "gaudy" days. Some junior students went to the "high table" to say a Latin grace, and when they had finished it, they were dismissed by the Dean saying "Tu autem;" on which, I remember, there was invariably a smile pervading the faces of those present, even that of the Dean himself, as no one seemed to know the meaning of the phrase. I believe that it was in my time an enigma to all. Can any of your ingenious readers solve me this?
H. C. K.