"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 Li…