{ 53} _In pistrinum_. In the pounding-mill (usually worked by horses or asses).
{ 55} _The old song of Percy and Douglas_, Chevy Chase in its first form.
{ 57} Epistles I. ii. 4. Better than Chrysippus and Crantor. They were both philosophers, Chrysippus a subtle stoic, Crantor the first commentator upon Plato.
{ 60} Cornelius Agrippa’s book, “De Incertitudine et Vanitate Scientiarum et Artium,” was first published in 1532; Erasmus’s “Moriæ Encomium” was written in a week, in 1510, and went in a few months through seven editions.
{ 62} The first of these sentences is from Horace (Epistle I. xviii. 69): “Fly from the inquisitive man, for he is a babbler.” The second, “While each pleases himself we are a credulous crowd,” seems to be varied from Ovid (Fasti, iv. 311):—
“Conscia mens recti famæ mendacia risit: Sed nos in vitium credula turba sumus.”
A mind conscious of right laughs at the falsehoods of fame but towards vice we are a credulous crowd.
{ 66} _That poetry is the mother of lies_.
{ 67} _That poetry is the nurse of abuse_, _infecting us with wanton and pestilent desires_.
{ 68} _Rampire_, rampart, the Old French form of “rempart,” was “rempar,” from “remparer,” to fortify.
{ 69} “I give him free leave to be foolish.” A variation from the line (Sat. I. i. 63), “Quid facias illi? jubeas miserum esse libenter.”
{ 70} _That Plato banished poets from his ideal Republic_.
{ 71} Which authority certain barbarous and insipid writers would wrest into meaning that poets were to be thrust out of a state.
{ 72} Ion is a rhapsodist, in dialogue with Socrates, who cannot understand why it is that his thoughts flow abundantly when he talks of Homer. “I can explain,” says Socrates; “your talent in expounding Homer is not an art acquired by system and method, otherwise it would have been applicable to other poets besides. It is a special gift, imparted to you by Divine power and inspiration. The like is true of the poet you expound. His genius does not spring from art, system, or method: it is a special gift emanating from the inspiration of the Muses. A poet is light, airy, holy person, who cannot compose verses at all so long as his reason remains within him. The Muses take away his reason, substituting in place of it their own divine inspiration and special impulse . . . Like prophets and deliverers of oracles, these poets have their reason taken away, and become the servants of the gods. It is not they who, bereft of their reason, speak in such sublime strains, it is the god who speaks to us, and speaks through them.” George Grote, from whose volumes on Plato I quote this translation of the passage, placed “Ion” among the genuine dialogues of Plato.