Notanda.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Binning, Hugh
The following Notes, by the Editor, ought to have been inserted at the foot of their respective pages.
Page 1, line 25
Nulla est tam facilis res, quin difficilis siet, Quam invitus facias—Terent. Heaut. iv, vi. 1
“There is nothing so easy, as not to become difficult should you do it unwillingly.”
P. 1, l. 35. Nam illud verum est M. Catonis oraculum, nihil agendo, homines male agere discunt. “For that is a true oracle of M. Cato—by doing nothing, men learn to do ill.”—Columel. lib. xi, cap. 1.
P. 5, last line. Ει γουν αηδων ημην, εποιουν τα της αηδονος, ει κυκνος, τα του κυκνου, νυν δε λογικος ειμι, ὑμνειν με δει τον θεον. “Were I a nightingale, I would perform the office of a nightingale, or a swan, that of a swan; but since I am a rational creature, it is right that I should celebrate the praises of God.”—Epictet. Dissert. lib. i, cap. 16.
P. 7, l. 53. Quidam vivere tunc incipiunt, cum desinendum est. Si hoc judicas mirum, adjiciam quod magis admireris, quidam ante vivere defecerunt, quam inciperent. “Some then begin to live when they are near the close of life. If you think this wonderful, I will add what you will wonder at still more, some have ceased to live before they have begun to live.”—Senec. Epist. xxiii.
P. 9, l. 18. Cicero represents the saying— Amicorum omnia communia (Friends have all things in common)—to be a Greek proverb—De Offic. lib. i, cap. xvi.
P. 12, l. 50. Ubi in contrarium ducit, ipsa velocitas majoris intervalli causa fit. “When it leads to an opposite direction, velocity becomes itself the cause of a wider separation.”—Senec. De Vita Beata, cap. i.
P. 13. l. 7. At hic, tritissima quæque via, et celeberrima, maxime decipit. “But here, every path that is most beaten, and most famous, deceives most.”—Ibid.
P. 13. l. 16.—pergentes, non qua eundum est, sed qua itur—“proceeding, not where we ought to go, but where others go.”—Ibid.
P. 15, l. 30.
Aut prodesse volunt, aut delectare—Hor. Ars Poet., v. 333.
“They wish either to improve or delight.”
P. 16, l. 6.
Omne tulit punctum, qui miscuit utile dulci—Id., v. 343.
“Profit and pleasure them to mix with art
Shall gain all votes.”—Francis Translation
P. 37, l. 4.
Pluris est oculatus testis unus quam auriti decem
Qui audiunt audita dicunt, qui vident plane sciunt—Plaut. Trucul. ii. vi. 8.
“One eye witness is worth more than ten witnesses who speak by hearsay. They who hear tell what they hear, they who see have a perfect knowledge of what occurs.”
P. 37, l. 50. The title πολυωνυμος (distinguished by many names) was often applied by the Greeks to the principal object of their idolatrous worship. Cleanthes begins his Hymn to Jove in this way,—
κυδιστ᾽ αθανατων πολυωνυμε
“Most illustrious of the immortals, having many names”
The Ethiopians believed that there was one God, who was the cause of all things, but they also reverenced another God, whom they supposed to be inferior to him, and to have no name (ανωνυμον)—;Strab. Geog. lib. xvii, p. 822.
P. 37, l. 52 Quid est Deus? Quod vides totum, et quod non vides totum.
“What is God? Every thing which you see, and every thing which you do not see.”—Senec. Nat. Quest., lib. i.
P. 38, l. 15 The author of the Asclepian Dialogue, uses unus omnia (one-all things) and Creator omnium (the Creator of all things,) as equivalent expressions—Cudworth's Intellectual System, vol. i. p. 346.
P. 55, l. 44 God was represented by some of the ancient philosophers to be “the soul of the world, and the soul of the souls of the world.”
P. 79, l. 4, and 8
Prudens futuri temporis exitum
Caliginosa nocte premit Deus,
Ridetque, si mortalis ultra
Fas trepidat—Hor. Carm. lib. iii. Ode 29.
"Future events wise Providence
Hath hid in night from human sense,
To narrow bounds our search confined
And laughs to see proud mortals try
To fathom deep eternity,