* * * * *
"INCIDIS IN SCYLLAM, CUPIENS VITARE CHARYBDIM."
I should be sorry to see this fine old _proverb in metaphor_ passed over
with no better notice than that which seems to have been assigned to it
in Boswell's _Johnson_.
Erasmophilos, a correspondent of the _Gentleman's Magazine_ in 1774,
quotes a passage from Dr. Jortin's _Life of Erasmus_, vol. ii. p. 151.,
which supplies the following particulars, viz.:--
1. That the line was first discovered by Galeottus Martius of Narni,
A.D. 1476.
2. That it is in lib. v. 301. of the "Alexandreis," a poem in _ten_
books, by Philippe Gualtier (commonly called "de Chatillon," though in
reality a native of Lille, in Flanders).