firstly Boileau: "Il est difficile de trailer des sujets qui sont à la portée de tout le monde d'une maniere qui vous les rende propres, ce qui s'appelle s'approprier un sujet par le tour qu'on y donne." 2dly, Batteux: "Mais il est bien difficile de donner des traits propres et individuels aux etres purement possibles." 3dly, Dacier: "Il est difficile de traiter convenablement ces caractères que tout le monde peut inventer." Mr. Sévigné's opinion and translation, consisting of some thirty pages, I omit, particularly as Mr. Grouvelle observes, "La chose est bien remarquable, aucune de ces diverses interpretations ne parait être la veritable." But, by way of comfort, it seems, fifty years afterwards, "Le lumineux Dumarsais" made his appearance, to set Horace on his legs again, "dissiper tous les nuages, et concilier tous les dissentiments;" and I suppose some fifty years hence, somebody, still more luminous, will doubtless start up and demolish Dumarsais and his system on this weighty affair, as if he were no better than Ptolemy or Copernicus and comments of no more consequence than astronomical calculations. I am happy to say, "la longueur de la dissertation" of Mr. D. prevents Mr. G. from saying any more on the matter. A better poet than Boileau, and at least as good a scholar as Mr. de Sévigné, has said, "A little learning is a dangerous thing." And by the above extract, it appears that a good deal may be rendered as useless to the Proprietors. [Byron chose the words in question, Difficile,' etc., as a motto for the first five cantos of 'Don Juan']