[20]
If that
were so Horace1 would never have said that nature
had granted Vergil the gift of being facetus in song.
I think that the term is rather applied to a certain
grace and polished elegance. This is the meaning
which it bears in Cicero's letters, where he quotes
the words of Brutus,2 “In truth her feet are graceful
and soft as she goes delicately on her way.” This
meaning suits the passage in Horace,3 to which I
have already made reference, “To Vergil gave a soft
and graceful wit.”
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1921.
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