Small Latin, and less Greek.

Small Latin, and less Greek.

Egad, I think the interpreter is the hardest to be understood of
the two!

Egad, I think the interpreter is the hardest to be understood of
the two!

For though to smatter ends of Greek
Or Latin be the rhetoric
Of pedants counted, and vain-glorious,
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For though to smatter ends of Greek
Or Latin be the rhetoric
Of pedants counted, and vain-glorious,
To smatter French is meritorious.
- Samuel Butler (1),

Everything is Greek, when it is more shameful to be ignorant of
Latin.
[Lat., Omnia Graece!
read more

Everything is Greek, when it is more shameful to be ignorant of
Latin.
[Lat., Omnia Graece!
Cum sit turpe magis nostris nescire Latine.]

. . . Philologists, who chase
A painting syllable through time and space
Start it at home, read more

. . . Philologists, who chase
A painting syllable through time and space
Start it at home, and hunt it in the dark,
To Gaul, to Greece, and into Noah's Ark.

But to the purpose--for we cite our faults
That they may hold excused our lawless lives;
And read more

But to the purpose--for we cite our faults
That they may hold excused our lawless lives;
And partly, seeing you are beautified
With goodly shape, and by your own report
A linguist, and a man of such perfection
As we do in our quality much want--

Lash'd into Latin by the tingling rod.

Lash'd into Latin by the tingling rod.

A Babylonish dialect
Which learned pedants much affect.

A Babylonish dialect
Which learned pedants much affect.

He who is ignorant of foreign languages, knows not his own.
[Ger., Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt, weiss nichts read more

He who is ignorant of foreign languages, knows not his own.
[Ger., Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt, weiss nichts von seiner
eigenen.]