LONDON,September 27,O.S.1748.
DEAR BOY:I have received your Latin "Lecture upon War,"which though it is not exactly the same Latin that Caesar,Cicero,Horace,Virgil,and Ovid spoke,is,however,as good Latin as the erudite Germans speak or write.I have always observed that the most learned people,that is,those who have read the most Latin,write the worst;and that distinguishes the Latin of gentleman scholar from that of a pedant.
A gentleman has,probably,read no other Latin than that of the Augustan age;and therefore can write no other,whereas the pedant has read much more bad Latin than good,and consequently writes so too.He looks upon the best classical books,as books for school-boys,and consequently below him;but pores over fragments of obscure authors,treasures up the obsolete words which he meets with there,and uses them upon all occasions to show his reading at the expense of his judgment.Plautus is his favorite author,not for the sake of the wit and the vis comica of his comedies,but upon account of the many obsolete words,and the cant of low characters,which are to be met with nowhere else.He will rather use 'olli'than 'illi','optume'than 'optima',and any bad word rather than any good one,provided he can but prove,that strictly speaking,it is Latin;that is,that it was written by a Roman.By this rule,I might now write to you in the language of Chaucer or Spenser,and assert that Iwrote English,because it was English in their days;but I should be a most affected puppy if I did so,and you would not understand three words of my letter.All these,and such like affected peculiarities,are the characteristics of learned coxcombs and pedants,and are carefully avoided by all men of sense.
I dipped accidentally,the other day,into Pitiscus's preface to his "Lexicon,"where I found a word that puzzled me,and which I did not remember ever to have met with before.It is the adverb 'praefiscine',which means,IN A GOOD HOUR;an expression which,by the superstition of it,appears to be low and vulgar.I looked for it:and at last I found that it is once or twice made use of in Plautus,upon the strength of which this learned pedant thrusts it into his preface.Whenever you write Latin,remember that every word or phrase which you make use of,but cannot find in Caesar,Cicero,Livy,Horace,Virgil;and Ovid,is bad,illiberal Latin,though it may have been written by a Roman.
I must now say something as to the matter of the "Lecture,"in which Iconfess there is one doctrine laid down that surprises me:It is this,'Quum vero hostis sit lenta citave morte omnia dira nobis minitans quocunque bellantibus negotium est;parum sane interfuerit quo modo eum obruere et interficere satagamus,si ferociam exuere cunctetur.Ergo veneno quoque uti fas est',etc.,whereas I cannot conceive that the use of poison can,upon any account,come within the lawful means of self-defense.Force may,without doubt,be justly repelled by force,but not by treachery and fraud;for I do not call the stratagems of war,such as ambuscades,masked batteries,false attacks,etc.,frauds or treachery:
They are mutually to be expected and guarded against;but poisoned arrows,poisoned waters,or poison administered to your enemy (which can only be done by treachery),I have always heard,read,and thought,to be unlawful and infamous means of defense,be your danger ever so great:But 'si ferociam exuere cunctetur';must I rather die than poison this enemy?
Yes,certainly,much rather die than do a base or criminal action;nor can I be sure,beforehand,that this enemy may not,in the last moment,'ferociam exuere'.But the public lawyers,now,seem to me rather to warp the law,in order to authorize,than to check,those unlawful proceedings of princes and states;which,by being become common,appear less criminal,though custom can never alter the nature of good and ill.