Codex Louaniensis, or L, the best MS. of Caesar in the British Museum (Add. MSS. 10,084), which is assigned to the eleventh century, has been collated by Alfred Holder for his edition of the Bellum ciuile and by Mr. R. L. A. Du Pontet for his edition of the Bellum Alexandrinum and the Bellum Africanum; but for the Bellum Gallicum no collation has hitherto been available. Last year I made one, which I sent to Dr. Meusel. He urged me to publish it, remarking that it would be very useful, as ‘wir haben nun ein sichereres Urteil über die Familie φ.’ Relying upon Holder's collation, he had described L in his own edition of the Bellum ciuile (1906, p. viii) as ‘a twin-brother of Ashburnhamianus’ (S); and so it is in the Bellum ciuile, but, as he acknowledged after reading my collation, not in the Bellum Gallicum. The first folio, comprising i, I–6, §3 (… bono animo in), is by a later hand. The MS. is described in the Catalogue thus: ‘c. Jvlii Caesaris commentariorum libri. Desinit cum verbis “res eis suppeteret” in libro de Bello Africano, cap. 33. Codex membranaceus, sec. XL, sed folium primum a manu recentiori suppletum est. Folio [10,084.].’

The object of the following paper is to examine in detail the relations between the contents of the poem called the Culex and the acknowledged writings of Virgil. The reader will find that these relations are more numerous and far more intimate than has hitherto been pointed out. They seem to warrant an inference as to the authorship of the poem, which in itself may claim high probability, and which when combined with the external evidence appears to the present writer to reach the level of a practical certainty. In what follows, all statements as to the readings of the manuscripts are based upon Professor A. E. Housman's paper on The Apparatus Criticus of the Culex(Cambridge Philological Society Transactions, Vol. VI, Part I, 1908), unless other authorities are expressly cited. I have followed Professor Ellis's text, except where Professor Housman's evidence makes some other reading more probable.

ὡς … ⋯ξειργ⋯σατο of MSS. is generally corrected to the third person plural, but it would be more like Thucydides to ⋯ξε⋯ργαστο write: this would then be another instance of the corruption of pluperfects, such as into ἠγγ⋯λλετο and the like, of which many instances are given by Cobet in Nov. Lect. 422, Var. Lect. 253. In the old edition of Poppo, 1826, vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 297, ⋯ξ⋯πγαστο is given as contained in Cod. Bas. ex emend., but it is not noticed by Poppo-Stahl or recent editors. Ως with the pluperfect is Thucydidean: Mr. Marchant on ii. 59 refers to iii. 23, 1; 26, 4; 27, 1; 69, 2. See the remarks of Poppo in vol. i. part ii. p. 44 sq. on this MS.

No tragic poet uses the phrase μ⋯νος πν⋯ουσαν, except Aeschylus, who employs it in describing the Erinyes, not a Greek maiden. Similarly Homer of his ‘Mut-schnaubende’ heroes and of the savage steeds of Diomed. Hence, in the Sophoclean passage, some scribe may have mistaken the familiar ΜΕΝΟCΠΝΕΟΤCΑΝ for the more unusual ΜΕΝΕΙCΙCΤΝΟΤCΑΝ. Initial C attached itself to the preceding word, and ΤΝΟΤCΑΝ became ΠΝΟΤCΑΝ, which was promptly changed to πν⋯ουσαν.

Munro adopts the emendations veris for Veneris (1. 737) and Zephyrus for Zephyri (1. 708), making Zephyrus the ‘winged harbinger of Spring.’ As to the order of the procession, Munro takes one view in his translation and another in his notes: according to the latter it is ‘Zephyrus, Spring, Venus, Flora,’ the flowers springing up where Spring, Venus, and Zephyrus have trodden: according to the translation it is ‘Flora, Zephyrus, Spring, Venus.’ Duff, in his edition, adheres to the MSS. reading as printed above: Veneris praenuntius pennatus is Cupid, and the order of the procession is ‘Zephyrus, Flora (his wife), Cupid, Spring and Venus (or Venus and Spring).’ With this reading and interpretation, which are probably right, quibus goes in construction with praespargens: Munro, reading Zephyrus, takes quibus with uestigia propter, ‘in whose tracks’ (perhaps with praespargens as well), so that with his reading his note is right and his translation—‘along the path they tread mother Flora straws all the way before them’—is wrong, or at least not so probable, as quibus propter uestigia would be more naturally said of one following behind.

The passage is thought to refer to the efforts of the Macedonians to honour the memory of their dead king. Who are meant by reges is not at all clear, and summa nituntur opum ui, as we may infer from other passages where the same or a similar expression is used, can hardly refer to anything but the labour of the hands. Probably we ought to read regis, i.e. Philippi. The lines will then refer to the work of the people.

It must have been shortly after I entered college in my middle ̓teens that I first heard of the grammatical doctrine that psychological opposites take the same construction. As a mnemonic, alone, the doctrine is immensely worth while and practically helps with categories like (damnare)(absoluere, meminisse)(obliuisci, cedere)(resistere, similis)(alienus (dissiniilis)—which rouses a literary interest by recalling Thackeray's use of different to as a counter term to equal to, similar to, like to. And, to get back to grammar, for English folk it clarifies prope ab to counter it with procul ab. By the doctrine of opposites we clarify even so elusive a matter as the ‘subjunctive of repudiation’ which I once sought to explain by partial obliquity (Cl. Rev. XI. 344 sq.), not mistaking therein, I am fain to believe, the valuable stylistic note of echo. In this subjunctive I now see a clear opposite to the concessive. It is a survival, on the cold page, of a speech form that owed its meaning to the speaker's mood (⋯ ψυχικ⋯ δι⋯θεσις, the pitch of his voice, all the things that manifest and betray emotion, and so far forth is ‘polemic’ It is often introduced by ut, utne, egone ut, where ut is exclamatory and interrogative at once, and the tone converts the concessive to an anticoncessive, indicating repudiation, disavowal.