note 1: Ackermann reads "Sardinian." It is not certain whether
the adjective employed is [Greek: sardanios] or [Greek: sardanikos]. I
suspect that Oriphyles here makes an intentional play upon the words.]

He is quoted by Macrobius, whereas divers references to Nicanor in _La
Haulte Histoire de Jurgen_ would seem to show that this writer was
viewed with considerable esteem in mediaeval times. Latterly his work
has been virtually unknown.

Robert Burton, for the rest, cites Saevius Nicanor in the 1620 edition
of _The Anatomy of Melancholy_ (this passage was subsequently
remodeled) in terms which have the unintended merit of conveying a
very fair notion of the old Grammarian's literary ethics:--

"As a good housewife out of divers fleeces weaves one piece of cloth
(saith Saevius Nicanor), I have laboriously collected this Cento out of
divers Writers, and that _sine injuria_, I have wronged no authors,
but given every man his own; which Sosimenes so much commends in
Nicanor, he stole not whole verses, pages, tracts, as some do
nowadays, concealing their Authors' names, but still said this was
Cleophantus', that Philistion's, that Mnesides', so said Julius
Bassus, so Timaristus, thus far Ophelion: I cite and quote mine own
Authors (which howsoever some illiterate scribblers account
pedantical, as a cloak of ignorance and opposite to their affected
fine style, I must and will use) _sumpsi, non surripui_, and what
Varro _de re rustica_ speaks of bees, _minime malificae quod nullius
opus vellicantes faciunt deterius_, I can say of myself no less
heartily than Sosimenes his laud of Nicanor."

PROLEGOMENA

_Nec caput habentia, nec caudam_

"I had a little husband, no bigger than my thumb,
I put him in my pint-pot, and there I bid him drum."

Pre-eminently the most engaging feature of a topic which pure chance
and impure idiocy have of late conspired to pull about in the public
prints,--I mean the question of "indecency" in writing,--is the patent
ease with which this topic may be disposed of. Since time's beginning,
every age has had its literary taboos, selecting certain things--more
or less arbitrarily, but usually some natural function--as the things
which must not be written about. To violate any such taboo so long as
it stays prevalent is to be "indecent": and that seems absolutely all
there is to say concerning this topic, apart from furnishing some
impressive historical illustration....

The most