[p. 83]
IX
[9arg] That the poet Caecilius used frons in the masculine gender, not by poetic license, but properly and by analogy.CORRECTLY and elegantly did Caecilius write this in his Changeling: 1
The worst of foes are these, of aspect gay (fronte hilaro),I chanced to quote these lines in a company of well educated young men, when we were speaking of a man of that kind. Thereupon one of a throng of grammarians who stood there with us, a man of no little repute, said: “What license and boldness Caecilius showed here in saying, fronte hilaro and not fronte hilara, and in not shrinking from so dreadful a solecism.” “Nay,” said I, “it is rather we who are as bold and free as possible in improperly and ignorantly failing to use frons in the masculine gender, when both the principle of regularity which is called analogy 2 and the authority of earlier writers indicate that we ought to say, not hanc frontem, but hunc frontem. Indeed, Marcus Cato in the first book of his Origins wrote as follows: 3 'On the following day in open combat, with straight front (aequo fronte) we fought with the enemy's legions with foot, horse and wings.' Also Cato again says 4 recto fronte in the same book.” But that half-educated grammarian said: “Away with your authorities, which I think you may perhaps have, but give me a reason, which you do not ”
Gloomy of heart, whom we can neither grasp Nor yet let go.
