would seem to show that this writer was viewed with considerable esteem in mediæval times. Latterly his work has been virtually unknown.

   Robert Burton, for the rest, cites Sævius Nicanor in the 1620 edition of

    The Anatomy of Melancholy

   (this passage was subsequently remodeled) in terms which have the unintended merit of conveying a very fair notion of the old Grammarian's literary ethics:—

   "As a good housewife out of divers fleeces weaves one piece of cloth (saith Sævius Nicanor), I have laboriously collected this Cento out of divers Writers, and that

    sine injuria

   , I have wronged no authors, but given every man his own; which Sosimenes so much commends in Nicanor, he stole not whole verses, pages, tracts, as some do nowadays, concealing their Authors' names, but still said this was Cleophantus', that Philistion's, that Mnesides', so said Julius Bassus, so Timaristus, thus far Ophelion: I cite and quote mine own Authors (which howsoever some illiterate scribblers account pedantical, as a cloak of ignorance and opposite to their affected fine style, I must and will use)

    sumpsi, non surripui

   , and what Varro

    de re rustica

   speaks of bees,

    minime malificæ quod nullius opus vellicantes faciunt deterius

   , I can say of myself no less heartily than Sosimenes his laud of Nicanor."

   Nec caput habentia, nec caudam

   Pre-eminently the most engaging feature of a topic which pure chance and impure idiocy have of late conspired to pull about in the public prints,—I mean the question of "indecency" in writing,—is the patent ease with which this topic may be disposed of. Since time's beginning, every age has had its literary taboos, selecting certain things—more or less arbitrarily, but usually some natural function—as the things which must not be written about. To violate any such taboo so long as it 

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