—Your correspondent on Gray's plagiarisms (Vol. iii., p. 445.) quotes Davenant and Prior as having both forestalled his idea with regard to sorrow, that—
"Where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise."
I long since noted these lines as parallel to—
Φρονῶ δ', ἃ πάσχω· καὶ τόδ' οὐ σμικρὸν κακόν·
τὸ μὴ εἰδέναι γὰρ ἡδονὴν ἔχει τινὰ
νοσοῦντα· κέρδος δ' ἐν κακοῖς ἀγνωσία.
Euripid. Frag. Antiop. xiii.
In the next page of "NOTES AND QUERIES," Q. E. D. reasonably defends the expression "Thamesini littoris hospes." The exact distinction between littus and ripa is marked indeed by Ovid, where he says of the rivers:
"In mare perveniunt partim, campoque recepta