University of Virginia Library

LETTER XXXVIII.

I thank you for your letter, but not for your translation.
It bears every mark of the hand of negligence, and I
beg that I may receive no more of such careless and hurried
performances. "Nonum prematur in annum," is the maxim
of the great Roman critic. I do not see, therefore, why
you should not keep your compositions at least half as many
days; instead of sending me what you have just scribbled off,
in a hurry, without time, perhaps, to read it over once; for
I observe that the post mark and date of your letter are the
same. It is hard to say whether the Latin or English be most
defective. We have "volente" for volentes; "obliquam"
for obliquum; "ratæ" for rotæ, &c.; besides many words
written in an indistinct character, well adapted to conceal inaccuracies
of termination. "Junctamq. aquitonibus arcton"—"and
the bear join to it on the north," is neither
the sense, nor is it grammar: joined to what? polem austratem?
By no means; but exactly the reverse. We do not
say "tracks of the wheels;" "track of the wheel" is the
coachman's phrase. But the worst is yet to come. "Ut-

que ferant ÆQUOS et cœlum and terra calores;" and as
heaven and earth enjoy (or receive) equal heat, which you
render "and as both heaven and earth are nourished by the
warmth of the horses." Equos for æquos; but there is no
such adjective as equus. It makes, if I forget not, equinus.
Can you believe, too, that you have made an English word
of aram? (to satisfy you I enclose the original,) thus: a ram.
A ram, too, of all the animals in the world, is, it seems, feminine;
"pressAmq. aram," says Ovid; but he, perchance,
did not understand Latin. In your next, I flatter myself
that you will give me a proof of what you allege in one of
your late letters, "that you have grown more attentive than
formerly." In this expectation, I remain