Feb 12. 1850.
* * * * *
"Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow;
The rest is all but leather and prunello."
_Essay on Man_, Epistle IV. 203.
Will your correspondent "P.C.S.S." (No. 13), evidently a critical reader
of Pope, and probably rich in the possession of various editions of his
works, kindly inform me whether any commentator on the poet has traced
the well-known lines that I have quoted to the "Corcillum est, quod
homines facit, cætera quisquilia omnia" of Petronius Arbiter, cap. 75.?
Pope had certainly both read and admired the _Satyricon_, for he
says:--
"Fancy and art in gay Petronius please,
The scholar's learning with the courtier's ease."
_Essay on Criticism_, sect. 3
I find no note on the lines either in the edition of Warton, 9 vols.
8vo., London, 1797, or in Cary's royal 8vo., London, 1839; but the
similarity strikes me as curious, and deserving further examination.