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[28] Some transpositions are too long, as I have pointed out in previous books,1 while at times they involve faulty structure, although some writers actually aim at this vicious type of transposition, in order to create an appearance of freedom and license, as in the following phrases from Maecenas, sole et aurora rubent plurima;2 inter se sacra movit aqua fraxinos;3 ne exequias quidem unus inter miserrimos viderem meas.4 The worst feature in these examples, is that he plays pranks [p. 523] with his structure while dealing with a sad theme. It is, however,

1 Only, apparently, in VIII. ii. 14.

2 “They grow red in the sunlight and the fullness of dawn.” The meaning is uncertain, plurima might be neut. nom. plural.

3 “The sacred stream ran through the ash-grove.”

4 “May I never, alone amidst the most miserable of men, behold my own funeral rites.”

Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.

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