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[21]
Such abuses occur chiefly in
connexion with fabulous stories and are sometimes
carried to ludicrous or even scandalous extremes:
for in such cases the more unscrupulous commentator
has such full scope for invention, that he can tell lies
[p. 157]
to his heart's content about whole books and authors
without fear of detection: for what never existed
can obviously never be found, whereas if the subject
is familiar the careful investigator will often detect
the fraud. Consequently I shall count it a merit in
a teacher of literature that there should be some
things which he does not know.
IX. I have now finished with two of the
departments, with which teachers of literature profess to deal, namely the art of speaking correctly
and the interpretation of authors; the former they
call nethodicē, the latter historiē We must however
add to their activities instruction in certain rudiments
of oratory for the benefit of those who are not yet
ripe for the schools of rhetoric.
Quintilian. With an English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1920.
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