The verses of Virgil, while he was yet living, were
claimed by an impostor; and a certain Fidentinus mendaciously
usurped the works of Martial, whom Martial thus deservedly
rebuked:
"The book you read is, Fidentinus! mine,
Though read so badly, 't well may pass for thine!"
What marvel, then, if when our authors are dead clerical apes use
us to make broad their phylacteries, since even while they are
alive they try to seize us as soon as we are published? Ah! how
often ye pretend that we who are ancient are but lately born, and
try to pass us off as sons who are really fathers, calling us who
have made you clerks the production of your studies. Indeed, we
derived our origin from Athens, though we are now supposed to be
from Rome; for Carmentis was always the pilferer of Cadmus, and
we who were but lately born in England, will to-morrow be born
again in Paris; and thence being carried to Bologna, will obtain
an Italian origin, based upon no affinity of blood. Alas! how ye
commit us to treacherous copyists to be written, how corruptly ye
read us and kill us by medication, while ye supposed ye were
correcting us with pious zeal. Oftentimes we have to endure
barbarous interpreters, and those who are ignorant of foreign
idioms presume to translate us from one language into another;
and thus all propriety of speech is lost and our sense is
shamefully mutilated contrary to the meaning of the author!
Truly noble would have been the condition of books if it had not
been for the presumption of the tower of Babel, if but one kind
of speech had been transmitted by the whole human race.
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