Cato, the grammarian, a defender of Lucilius. {149a}
"Cato grammaticus, Latina syren,
Qui solus legit, et facit poetas."
Quintilian of the same heresy, but rejected. {149b}
Horace, his judgment of Choerillus defended against Joseph Scaliger.
{149c} And of Laberius against Julius. {149d}
But chiefly his opinion of Plautus {149e} vindicated against many
that are offended, and say it is a hard censure upon the parent of
all conceit and sharpness. And they wish it had not fallen from so
great a master and censor in the art, whose bondmen knew better how
to judge of Plautus than any that dare patronise the family of
learning in this age; who could not be ignorant of the judgment of
the times in which he lived, when poetry and the Latin language were
at the height; especially being a man so conversant and inwardly
familiar with the censures of great men that did discourse of these
things daily amongst themselves. Again, a man so gracious and in
high favour with the Emperor, as Augustus often called him his witty
manling (for the littleness of his stature), and, if we may trust
antiquity, had designed him for a secretary of estate, and invited
him to the palace, which he modestly prayed off and refused.
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