[2]
Authority as a rule we
derive from orators and historians. For poets, owing
to the necessities of metre, are allowed a certain
licence except in cases where they deliberately
choose one of two expressions, when both are metrically possible, as for instance in imo de stirpe recisum
and aeriae quo congessere palumbes or silice in nuda1 and the like. The judgment of a supreme orator
is placed on the same level as reason, and even error
brings no disgrace, if it result from treading in the
footsteps of such distinguished guides.
1 Aen. xii. 208: “cutaway from the lowest root.” Ecl. iii. 69: “where airy doves have made their nest.” Ecl. i. 15: “on the naked rock.” Stirps, palumbes and silex are usually masculine.
Quintilian. With an English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1920.
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