may revive them again. It is something to
be near a scholar now and then, for no one knows who once crosses his
path, but that he too may be noted down, to be borne by an anecdote
across stormy centuries, into ages all unlike our own. No man ever yet
died out of a printed book.

Many a happy thought dashed off by a modern writer, is only the adroit
plagiarism of an old joke, 'But oh, the Latin!' says Heinrich Heine, in
describing his boyish sorrows to a lady--'Madame, you can really have no
idea of what a mess it is. The Romans would never have found time to
conquer the world, if they had been first obliged to learn Latin. Lucky
dogs! they already knew in their cradles the nouns ending in _im_.' This
is a very adroit theft from the _Epistolarum Obscurorum Virorum_,
attributed to Von Huetten and others, in which a stupid monk, having
argued with Erasmus, writes as follows to his master:

'Then our host, who is a good scholar, began to talk of poetry, and
greatly praised JULIUS CAESAR in his writings and deeds. Now when I
heard this I was specially delighted that I had read so much, and
that I had heard you lecture on poetry in Cologne, and I said:
'Since you speak of poetry, I can no longer keep quiet, and I tell
you plainly that I do not believe that CAESAR wrote those
commentaries; and I strengthened my assertion with this argument:
'He who has his business in war and in constant labors, cannot
learn Latin. Now, CAESAR was always in wars or in great toils,
therefore he could not be erudite, or learn Latin.' I think,
however, that SUETONIUS wrote those Commentaries, for I never saw
any writer whose style so much resembles that of CAESAR, as does
that of SUETONIUS.'

Who has not heard the story of the hackney coachman, who, at the end of
the day, was wont to divide his gains into 'half for master and half for
me,' when the whole should have been given to the proprietor? Or of the
American public functionary, who said that his annual gains were 'one
thousand dollars salary, besides the cheatage and stealage?' Both seem
to me to be foreshadowed in the following '_Sacerdotis jocus non
illepidus_';

'A certain priest named FYSILINUS who begged for a convent of Saint
Sebastian, being asked what his annual salary was, replied: 'Twenty
gold crowns!' 'Little enough!' answered the other. To which
FYSILINUS replied: 'Various, however, are the