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Thereon I rise and wait on him; to be brief- -brevis esse laboro, as we said lang syne his lordship would have me to be of his backers in private rencontre with four gentlemen of the King's Musketeers. Concerning the cause of this duello, I may well say teterrima causa. She was, indeed, as current rumour had it, the light o'love or belle amie of Monsieur d'Artagnan, his lordship's adversary.
Farther, my language has nothing in it that is facile and polished; 'tis rough, free, and irregular, and as such pleases, if not my judgment, at all events my inclination, but I very well perceive that I sometimes give myself too much rein, and that by endeavouring to avoid art and affectation I fall into the other inconvenience: "Brevis esse laboro, Obscurus fio." Hor., Art.
The obscure passages is often affected, brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio; the desire of expressing perhaps a common idea with sententious and oracular brevity: alas! how fatal has been the imitation of Montesquieu!
JOHNSON. 'To a man of mere animal life, you can urge no argument against going to America, but that it will be some time before he will get the earth to produce. But a man of any intellectual enjoyment will not easily go and immerse himself and his posterity for ages in barbarism. He and my lord spoke highly of Homer. JOHNSON. 'He had all the learning of his age. Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.
In imitating this conciseness, he is the happiest instance of a writer illustrating the Horatian adage of "striving to be brief, and becoming obscure": "Brevis esse laboro, Obscurus fio."
"I grieve to be obscure," he answered; "brevis esse laboro, the old story. But, as you say Miss Burnside is sleeping, and as, when she wakens, she may be feverish, will you kindly carry these oranges and leave them on a plate by her bedside? They are Jaffa oranges, and finer fruit, Alice, my dear, I have seldom tasted! After that, go to Cavendish Square, and leave this note at the doctor's."
"Verum est pro te, it's thrue for you," says his Riv'rence, forgetting the idyim ov the Latin phwraseology in a manner. "Prava est tua Latinitas, domine," says the Pope, finding fault like wid his etymology. "Parva culpa mihi," "small blame to me, that's," says his Riv'rence, "nam multum laboro in partibus interioribus," says he the dear man! that never was at a loss for an excuse!
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