ery
easy Thing, how this Verse is to be scann'd.

_Ex Graecis bonis Latinas fecit non bonas._

Scan it upon your Fingers.

_Hi._ I think that according to the Custom of the Antients _s_ is to be
cut off, so that there be an _Anapaestus_ in the second Place.

_Eu._ I should agree to it, but that the Ablative Case ends in _is_, and
is long by Nature. Therefore though the Consonant should be taken away,
yet nevertheless a long Vowel remains.

_Hi._ You say right.

_Cr._ If any unlearned Person or Stranger should come in, he would
certainly think we were bringing up again among ourselves the
Countrymens Play of holding up our Fingers (_dimicatione digitorum_,
_i.e._ the Play of Love).

_Le._ As far as I see, we scan it upon our Fingers to no Purpose. Do you
help us out if you can.

_Eu._ To see how small a Matter sometimes puzzles Men, though they be
good Scholars! The Preposition _ex_ belongs to the End of the foregoing
Verse.

_Qui bene vertendo, et eas describendo male, ex
Graecis bonis Latinas fecit non bonas._

Thus there is no Scruple.

_Le._ It is so, by the Muses. Since we have begun to scan upon our
Fingers, I desire that somebody would put this Verse out of _Andria_
into its Feet.

Sine invidia laudem invenias, et amicos pares.

For I have often tri'd and could do no good on't.

_Le. Sine in_ is an Iambic, _vidia_ an Anapaestus, _Laudem in_ is a
Spondee, _venias_ an Anapaestus, _et ami_ another Anapaestus.

_Ca._ You have five Feet already, and there are three Syllables yet
behind, the first of which is long; so that thou canst neither make it
an _Iambic_ nor a _Tribrach._

_Le._ Indeed you say true. We are aground; who shall help us off?

_Eu._ No Body can do it better than he that brought us into it. Well,
_Carinus_, if thou canst say any Thing to the Matter, don't conceal it
from your poor sincere Friends.

_Ca._ If my Memory does not fail me, I think I have read something of
this Nature in _Priscian_, who says, that among the Latin Comedians _v_
Consonant is cut off as well as the Vowel, as oftentimes in this Word
_enimvero;_ so that the part _enime_ makes an Anapaestus.

_Le._ Then scan it for us.

_Ca._ I'll do it. _Sine inidi_ is a proseleusmatic Foot, unless you had
rather have it cut off _i_ by Syneresis, as when _Virgil_ puts _aureo_
at the End of an heroick Verse for _auro._ But if you please let there
be a Tribrach in the first Place, _a lau_ is a Spon