POPE, PETRONIUS, AND HIS TRANSLATORS

The vindication of Pope from the charge of borrowing his well-known sentiment—"*Worth* makes a man," &c.—from Petronius, is not so completely made out by "P.C.S.S." as it might be; for surely there is a sufficient similitude of idea, if not of expression, between the couplet of Pope and the sentence of Petronius, as given in all four of the translations cited by him (No. 23. p. 362.) —"The *heart* makes the man," &c.—to warrant a notion that the one was suggested by the other. But the surmise of plagiarism originates in a misconception of the terms employed by the Latin author—*virtus*, *fruga…