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Nay, you have an Horace there as well as an Augustus; I need not name Voltaire, 'qui nil molitur inept? as Horace himself said of another poet. I have lately read over all his works that are published, though I had read them more than once before. I was induced to this by his 'Siecle de Louis XIV', which I have yet read but four times.

Nay, you have an Horace there as well as an Augustus; I need not name Voltaire, 'qui nil molitur inept? as Horace himself said of another poet. I have lately read over all his works that are published, though I had read them more than once before. I was induced to this by his 'Siecle de Louis XIV', which I have yet read but four times.

I admire him most exceedingly; and, whether as an epic, dramatic, or lyric poet, or prose-writer, I think I justly apply to him the 'Nil molitur inepte'. I long to read his own correct edition of 'Les Annales de l'Empire', of which the 'Abrege Chronologique de l'Histoire Universelle', which I have read, is, I suppose, a stolen and imperfect part; however, imperfect as it is, it has explained to me that chaos of history, of seven hundred years more clearly than any other book had done before.

I admire him most exceedingly; and, whether as an epic, dramatic, or lyric poet, or prose-writer, I think I justly apply to him the 'Nil molitur inepte'. I long to read his own correct edition of 'Les Annales de l'Empire', of which the 'Abrege Chronologique de l'Histoire Universelle', which I have read, is, I suppose, a stolen and imperfect part; however, imperfect as it is, it has explained to me that chaos of history, of seven hundred years more clearly than any other book had done before.

However, here again we have the Homer qui nil molitur inepte, who addressed a people of known habits. Yet quare as a matter of some moment for Homeric disputes were these habits of Ionian colonies, or exclusively of Greece Proper? But enough of the repulsive features in Greek travelling. We, for our part, have endeavored to meet them with remedies both good and novel.

If he is a poet, “nil molitur ineptè.” If he is an orator, then too he speaks, not onlydistinctèandsplendidè,” but alsoaptè.” His page is the lucid mirror of his mind and life— “Quo fit, ut omnis Votivâ pateat veluti descripta tabellâ Vita senis.”

In the Homeric sense, as allusive to the hurling of the ponderous chermadion, the figure is correct and expressive. And here, as everywhere, we see the Horatian parenthesis upon Homer, as one, qui nil molitur inepte, who never speaks vaguely, never wants a reason, and never loses sight of a reality, amply sustained.