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Such was now the rage for poetical composition in the Roman capital, that Horace describes it in the following terms: Mutavit mentem populus levis, et calet uno Scribendi studio: pueri patresque severi Fronde comas vincti coenant, et carmina dictant. Epist. ii. 1.
All the arts and tricks I have been mentioning are rendered superfluous if the author really has any brains; for that allows him to show himself as he is, and confirms to all time Horace's maxim that good sense is the source and origin of good style: Scribendi recte sapere est et principium et fons.
All the arts I have cited above are superfluous if the writer really possesses any intellect, for it allows a man to show himself as he is and verifies for all time what Horace said: Scribendi recte sapere est et principium et fons.
Harte's to acknowledge; so that this letter is the effect of that 'scribendi cacoethes, which my fears, my hopes, and my doubts, concerning you give me.
One, a panegyric on Messalla, by an unknown author, is without any poetical merit, and only interesting as an average specimen of the amateur verse of the time when, in the phrase of Horace Populus calet uno Scribendi studio; pueri patresque severi Fronde comas vincti cenant et carmina dictant.
But in his old age he had fallen a prey to the cacoethes scribendi; he insisted upon having his say about everything, yet his stock of ideas had long since run out. So he became the bogey of the Weimar-Jena people. The Xenia assailed him with frank brutality, thus: What is beyond your reach is bad, you think in your blindness, Yet whatever you touch, that you cover with dirt.
If the reader will turn back to the end of the fourth number of these papers, he will find certain lines entitled, "Cacoethes Scribendi." They were said to have been taken from the usual receptacle of the verses which are contributed by The Teacups, and, though the fact was not mentioned, were of my own composition.
On the contrary, one may represent true wit by the description which Aristaenetus makes of a fine woman: "When she is dressed she is beautiful: when she is undressed she is beautiful;" or, as Mercerus has translated it more emphatically, Induitur, formosa est: exuitur, ipsa forma est. Fifth Paper. Scribendi recte sapere est et principium, et fons. HOR., Ars Poet. 309.
I gie ye up fra' this moment; the letting out o' ink is like the letting out o' waters, or the eating o' opium, or the getting up at public meetings. When a man begins he canna stop. There's nae mair enslaving lust o' the flesh under the heaven than that same furor scribendi, as the Latins hae it."
But, with those exceptions, the dean had it all his own way; and he could not be expected to forego his own literary labours for my sake; so, through all that glaring summer, and sad foggy autumn, and nipping winter, I had to get my bread as I best could by my pen. Mackaye grumbled at my writing so much, and so fast, and sneered about the furor scribendi. But it was hardly fair upon me.
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