d enclose a Greek epigram of his own, on the same
interesting insect--not, we may presume, out of any wish to humble
Scala, but rather to instruct him; said epigram containing a lively
conceit about Venus, Cupid, and the _culex_, of a kind much tasted at
that period, founded partly on the zoological fact that the gnat, like
Venus, was born from the waters. Scala, in reply, begged to say that
his verses were never intended for a scholar with such delicate
olfactories as Politian, nearest of all living men to the perfection of
the ancients, and of a taste so fastidious that sturgeon itself must
seem insipid to him; defended his own verses, nevertheless, though
indeed they were written hastily, without correction, and intended as an
agreeable distraction during the summer heat to himself and such friends
as were satisfied with mediocrity, he, Scala, not being like some other
people, who courted publicity through the booksellers. For the rest, he
had barely enough Greek to make out the sense of the epigram so
graciously sent him, to say nothing of tasting its elegances; but--the
epigram was Politian's: what more need be said? Still, by way of
postscript, he feared that his incomparable friend's comparison of the
gnat to Venus, on account of its origin from the waters, was in many
ways ticklish. On the one hand, Venus might be offended; and on the
other, unless the poet intended an allusion to the doctrine of Thales,
that cold and damp origin seemed doubtful to Scala in the case of a
creature so fond of warmth; a fish were perhaps the better comparison,
or, when the power of flying was in question, an eagle, or indeed, when
the darkness was taken into consideration, a bat or an owl were a less
obscure and more apposite parallel, etcetera, etcetera. Here was a
great opportunity for Politian. He was not aware, he wrote, that when
he had Scala's verses placed before him, there was any question of
sturgeon, but rather of frogs and gudgeons: made short work with Scala's
defence of his own Latin, and mangled him terribly on the score of the
stupid criticisms he had ventured on the Greek epigram kindly forwarded
to him as a model. Wretched cavils, indeed! for as to the damp origin
of the gnat, there was the authority of Virgil himself, who had called
it the "_alumnus_ of the waters;" and as to what his dear dull friend
had to say about the fish, the eagle, and the rest, it was "nihil ad
rem;" for because the eagle could fly hi