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The Bock Pipit is included in Professor Ansted's list, but marked as only occurring in Guernsey. All the Rock Pipits I have seen in the Channel Islands have been the common form, Anthus obscurus; I have never seen one of the rufous-breasted examples which occur in Scandinavia and the Baltic, and have by some been separated as a distinct species under the name of Anthus rupestris.
But enough of this, for there is truth in the old saying: 'Si brevis esse volo, obscurus fio', and I believe that, without offending against modesty, I can apply to myself the following words of my dear Virgil: 'Nec sum adeo informis: nuper me in littore vidi Cum placidum ventis staret mare.
It is not for a moment to be supposed that there was any covert intention here, but the incident illustrates the value to rubric-makers of the Horatian warning Brevis esse labor o, obscurus fio. Passing by the Proper Sentences for special Days and Seasons, against which no serious complaint has been entered, we come to the proposed short alternative for the Declaration of Absolution.
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.
The solitaires, Myadestes, or fly-catching thrushes, are natives of the West Indies and Mexico, with one branch in the Rocky Mountains. My bird was M. obscurus, and came from Mexico. I found him in a New York bird-store, where he looked about as much at home among the shrieking and singing mob of parrots and canaries as a poet among a howling rabble of the "great unwashed."
The Meadow Pipit is resident and breeds in all the Islands, but is by no means so numerous as the Tree Pipit is during the summer. I think, however, its numbers are slightly increased in the autumn, about the time of the departure of the Tree Pipits, by migrants. It is included by Professor Ansted in his list, but marked as occurring only in Guernsey. ROCK PIPIT. Anthus obscurus, Latham.
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."
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!
Thus has the folly of my parents condemned me to spend in flattery and attendance those years in which I might have been qualified to place myself above hope or fear. I am arrived at manhood without any useful art, or generous sentiment; and, if the old woman should likewise at last deceive me, am in danger at once of beggary and ignorance. I am, &c. No. 199. Decolor, obscurus, vilis.
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.
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