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And as another says: "Non est, ut putas, virtus, pater, Timere vitam; sed malis ingentibus Obstare, nec se vertere, ac retro dare." Or as this: "Rebus in adversis facile est contemnere mortem Fortius ille facit, qui miser esse potest."
He notes the stages and points to which his plans have reached; he indicates, with a favourite quotation or apophthegm "Plus ultra" "ausus vana contemnere" "aditus non nisi sub persona infantis" soon to be familiar to the world in his published writings the lines of argument, sometimes alternative ones, which were before him; he draws out schemes of inquiry, specimen tables, distinctions and classifications about the subject of Motion, in English interlarded with Latin, or in Latin interlarded with English, of his characteristic and practical sort; he notes the various sources from which he might look for help and co-operation "of learned men beyond the seas" "to begin first in France to print it" "laying for a place to command wits and pens;" he has his eye on rich and childless bishops, on the enforced idleness of State prisoners in the Tower, like Northumberland and Raleigh, on the great schools and universities, where he might perhaps get hold of some college for "Inventors" as we should say, for the endowment of research.
This is what is to be examined, and by that you are to judge of the vast differences betwixt man and man. Is he: "Sapiens, sibique imperiosus, Quern neque pauperies, neque mors, neque vincula terrent; Responsare cupidinibus, contemnere honores Fortis; et in seipso totus teres atque rotundus, Externi ne quid valeat per laeve morari; In quem manca ruit semper fortuna?"
XX. 72 Senectutis autem nullus est certus terminus, recteque in ea vivitur, quoad munus offici exsequi et tueri possit mortemque contemnere, ex quo fit ut animosior etiam senectus sit quam adulescentia et fortior.
SPRETA ET CONTEMPTA: the first word is much the stronger of the two; spernere is καταφρονειν, 'to scorn'; contemnere ολιγωρεισθαι, 'to make light of', 'hold of no account'. Contemnere is often no stronger in sense than omittere, 'to pass by, neglect'. Cf. 65 contemni, despici. OPTIMUS QUISQUE: see A. 93, c; G. 305; H. 458, 1. Insomnia, ae is found only in poetry and late prose. Cf. also Cic.
It is not very likely, thank God, that we should see either. But the radical, we think, runs as much danger as the aristocrat. As to our friend the Westminster Reviewer, he, it must be owned, has as good a right as any man on his side, "Antoni gladios contemnere."
"Aude, hospes, contemnere opes, et te quoque dignum Finge Deo . . . " For my part, I am lost in the admiration of it. I contemn the world when I think on it, and myself when I translate it.
Very little is wanting but some one ausus contemnere vana; and when the future Thucydides or the future Carlyle sets to work, he will be freed, by the labour of others, alike from the paucity of materials that a little weakened Thucydides, and from the brute mass of them that embittered the life of Carlyle. Not so much is to be said of the remaining divisions or departments individually.
Here a truly illuminating result was attained by the simple device of using the indicative for the conditional mood as in Juvenal's famous comment on Cicero's second Philippic: Antoni gladios potuit contemnere si sic omnia dixisset.
"The absurdity of making hay at Christmas you yourself seem sensible of: you say your sister will laugh; and so indeed she well may! The Latins have an expression for a contemptuous kind of laughter, 'naso contemnere adunco'; that is, to laugh with a crooked nose. She may laugh at you in the manner of the ancients if she thinks fit.
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