pen to have
the Company of so many learned Guests at my Table, I won't let 'em go
away without learning something of 'em. There is a Place in the Prologue
of _Eunuchus_ that puzzles many. For most Copies have it thus:

_Sic existimet, sciat,
Responsum, non dictum esse, quid laesit prior,
Qui bene vertendo, et ects describendo male, &c.

Let him so esteem or know, that it is an Answer, not a common Saying;
because he first did the Injury, who by well translating and ill
describing them, &c._

In these Words I want a witty Sense, and such as is worthy of _Terence_.
For he did not therefore do the Wrong first, because he translated the
_Greek_ Comedies badly, but because he had found Fault with _Terence's._

Eu. According to the old Proverb, _He that sings worst let him begin
first._ When I was at _London_ in _Thomas Linacre's_ House, who is a Man
tho' well skill'd in all Manner of Philosophy, yet he is very ready in
all Criticisms in Grammar, he shew'd me a Book of great Antiquity which
had it thus:

_Sic existimet, stiat,
Responsum, non dictum esse, quale sit prius
Qui bene vertendo, et eas describendo male,
Ex Graecis bonis Latinas fecit non bonas:
Idem Menandri Phasma nunc nuper dedit._

The Sentence is so to be ordered, that _quale sit_ may shew that an
Example of that which is spoken before is to be subjoin'd. He threatened
that he would again find Fault with something in his Comedies who had
found Fault with him, and he here denies that it ought to seem a
Reproach but an Answer. He that provokes begins the Quarrel; he that
being provok'd, replies, only makes his Defence or Answer. He promises
to give an Example thereof, _quale sit_, being the same with [Greek:
oion] in _Greek_, and _quod genus, veluti_, or _videlicet_, or _puta_ in
Latin. Then afterwards he brings a reproof, wherein the Adverb _prius_
hath Relation to another Adverb, as it were a contrary one, which
follows, _viz. nuper_ even as the Pronoun _qui_ answers to the Word
_idem_. For he altogether explodes the old Comedies of _Lavinius_,
because they were now lost out of the Memory of Men. In those which he
had lately published, he sets down the certain Places. I think that this
is the proper Reading, and the true Sense of the Comedian: If the chief
and ordinary Poets dissent not from it.

_Gu._ We are all entirely of your Opinion.

_Eu._ But I again desire to be inform'd by you of one small and v