"INCIDIS IN SCYLLAM, CUPIENS VITARE CHARYBDIM"

This celebrated Latin verse, which has become proverbial, has a very obscure authority, probably not known to many of your readers. It is from Gualtier de Lille, as has been remarked by Galeottus Martius and Paquier in their researches. This Gualtier flourished in the thirteenth century. The verse is extracted from a poem in ten books, called the "Alexandriad," and it is the 301st of the 5th book; it relates to the fate of Darius, who, flying from Alexander, fell into the hands of Bessus. It runs thus:— "— Quo flectis inertem Rex periture, fugam? Nescis, heu perdite, nescis, Quem fugias; hoste…