I Choose the word metrical rather than prosodical, to make it plain at the outset that I am not concerned with the rule in Priscian—not of Priscian, for its irrelevance is sufficient proof of that—G.L.K. II p. 82 7–9 ‘gnus quoque uel gna uel gnum terminantia longam habent uocalem paenultimam, ut regnum stagnum benignus malignus abiegnus priuignus Pelignus’, still less with the illegitimate inference sometimes drawn from it, that this pair of consonants, like ns and nf, lengthened a short vowel whenever they followed it. The present dispute is not about vowels but about syllables; the power of gn to make position, as they say, like st or x, and so to impede the flow of verse.

The Plato MS. designated by Bekker as Ω and by Burnet as O escaped the investigation of editors of the text of Plato for nearly a century, because it was wrongly cited by Bekker as Vat. 796. Finally, in 1908 Rabe published an account of the missing MS., which he had discovered in the Vatican library listed as Vat. gr. 1. Until its rediscovery the opinion of Jordan prevailed that it was a comparatively late MS., copied from A (Parisinus graecus, 1807). It actually belongs, however, to the late ninth or early tenth century—i.e. it is of almost equal age with A and B.

It has become a standing reproach upon Plato's treatment of poetry in the Republic that he forgets or misrepresents in the tenth book what he said in the third.

According to the earlier discussion, poetry is required to perform important services in the ideal state; its subject-matter will make the young familiar with true doctrines (376 sqq.); its style will reflect the qualities proper to the character of guardian, and therefore—by the principle of imitation—induce and confirm such qualities in the souls of young and old (392c sqq.). Poetry, like all other forms of art, must train the young to love and resemble the beauty of truth (τῷ καλῷ λόγῳ, 401d), so that when reason develops, they will recognize it as an old friend (402).

The histories of literature tell us that these three poets were out of favour with scholars during the second and third centuries and the first half of the fourth. Lucan and Statius certainly had a vogue in the first: Suetonius studied Lucan at school (Vita Lucani ‘Poemata eius etiam praelegi memini’), and Statius (Theb. XII. 814–5) can say to his book:

‘Iam te magnanimus dignatur noscere Caesar

Itala iam studio discit memoratque iuuentus.’

In my last paper, C.Q., January, 1927, I stated briefly that v. 349 should stand in immediate sequence to v. 351. Few, I think, will refuse assent to this. But more than this may be learnt from the line in its new position:

τοῖα πλωρ' ὡς εἔ τις ραισι δρνσ βανοι.

Perhaps the most important contribution to the history of Greek philosophy that has been made during the last twenty years is to be found in the work under-taken by Professors Burnet and A. E. Taylor in reconstructing the personality of the historical Socrates. There is, by this time, fairly general agreement that it is not to Xenophon's Memorabilia but to Plato's dialogues that we must go if we are to attempt to understand what Socrates meant for his own age and for all time. But Socrates' gain has been Plato's loss. We are compelled to deny to Plato any power of really original thinking until at least his fortieth year. He is, indeed, still left in possession of supreme literary and dramatic genius; but all that he wrote, down to and including the Republic, is not the fruit of his own thought, but the careful record of the thought of Socrates.

In an article entitled ‘Some Facts about our Oldest Latin Manuscripts,’ which appeared in this journal, the present writer put together a group of forty-seven MSS. which had this one feature in common, that each page or each column of a page they contained began with a large letter, regardless of whether that letter occurred in the middle of a sentence, or even in the middle of a word. It so happened that the list thus drawn up was composed almost entirely of very ancient MSS.; indeed, it contained a very large proportion of the oldest MSS. extant. In the circumstances it seemed useful to note down the behaviour of these MSS. with respect to four other features—namely, the manner of indicating the omission of m and n at the end of lines, the use of running titles in the top margin, the size and arrangement of the written space, and the manner of signing quires.