which means, IN A GOOD HOUR; an expression which, by the superstition of
it, appears to be low and vulgar. I looked for it: and at last I found
that it is once or twice made use of in Plautus, upon the strength of
which this learned pedant thrusts it into his preface. Whenever you write
Latin, remember that every word or phrase which you make use of, but
cannot find in Caesar, Cicero, Livy, Horace, Virgil; and Ovid, is bad,
illiberal Latin, though it may have been written by a Roman.

I must now say something as to the matter of the "Lecture," in which I
confess there is one doctrine laid down that surprises me: It is this,
'Quum vero hostis sit lenta citave morte omnia dira nobis minitans
quocunque bellantibus negotium est; parum sane interfuerit quo modo eum
obruere et interficere satagamus, si ferociam exuere cunctetur. Ergo
veneno quoque uti fas est', etc., whereas I cannot conceive that the use
of poison can, upon any account, come within the lawful means of
self-defense. Force may, without doubt, be justly repelled by force, but
not by treachery and fraud; for I do not call the stratagems of war, such
as ambuscades, masked batteries, false attacks, etc., frauds or
treachery: They are mutually to be expected and guarded against; but
poisoned arrows, poisoned waters, or poison administered to your enemy
(which can only be done by treachery), I have always heard, read, and
thought, to be unlawful and infamous means of defense, be your danger
ever so great: But 'si ferociam exuere cunctetur'; must I rather die than
poison this enemy? Yes, certainly, much rather die than do a base or
criminal action; nor can I be sure, beforehand, that this enemy may not,
in the last moment, 'ferociam exuere'. But the public lawyers, now, seem
to me rather to warp the law, in order to authorize, than to check, those
unlawful proceedings of princes and states; which, by being become
common, appear less criminal, though custom can never alter the nature of
good and ill.

Pray let no quibbles of lawyers, no refinements of casuists, break into
the plain notions of right and wrong, which every man's right reason and
plain common sense suggest to him. To do as you would be done by, is the
plain, sure, and undisputed rule of morality and justice. Stick to that;
and be convinced that whatever breaks into it, in any degree, however
speciously it may be turned, and however puzzling it may be to answer it,
is, notwithstanding, false in itself,