Silius Italicus doesn’t have much of a Nachleben, but here’s a translation of Punica 2.217-221 from The Complete Works of Henry Fielding, Esq., edited by James P. Browne (London, 1903), Volume XI, page 155:

            A Simile from Silius Italicus

Aut ubi cecropius formidine nubis aquosae
Sparsa super flores examina tollit Hymettos;
Ad dulces ceras et odori corticis antra,
Mellis apes gravidæ properant, densoque volatu
Raucum connexæ glomerant ad limina murmur.

Or when th’ Hymettian shepherd, struck with fear
Of wat’ry clouds thick gather’d in the air,
Collects to waxen cells the scatter’d bees
Home from the sweetest flowers, and verdant trees;
Loaded with honey to the hive they fly,
And humming murmurs buzz along the sky.

InstaPundit links to a story from the Knoxville News about Tina, a Shire breed horse claimed to be the world’s tallest. The dubious historical claim is half a sentence: “Shires date to the Trojan War . . . .” What possible evidence could support that claim?

Some quotations from The Guilty River (1886):

1. The hero’s stepmother describes their Member of Parliament, who has been unlucky in love (VI):

“. . . quite broken-hearted about Lady Lena; gone away to America to shoot bears.”

2. The hero on himself (VII):

The habits that I had contracted, among my student friends in Germany, made tobacco and beer necessary accompaniments to the process of thinking. I had nearly exhausted my cigar, my jug, and my thoughts, when I saw two men approaching me from the end of the terrace.

3. The (very handsome, and deaf) villain addresses the heroine (XIII):

“Are you one of the few women who dislike an ugly man? Women in general, I can tell you, prefer ugly men. A handsome man matches them on their own ground, and they don’t like that. ‘We are so fond of our ugly husbands; they set us off to such advantage.’ Oh, I don’t report what they say; I speak the language in which they think.”

4. The hero again (XVII):

When the detective police force encounters intelligence instead of stupidity, in seven cases out of ten the detective police force is beaten.

Here are two more quotations from A Rogue’s Life (1856), which I read a few weeks ago:

5. The rogue-narrator lists the principal categories of “professedly hard-hearted persons” who will be uninterested in the story of his love for the heroine (VII):

. . . monks, misogynists, political economists . . .

6. One of the more surprising bits of A Rogue’s Life was the parenthetical description of “a frugal curate’s dinner” (XII):

. . . bit of fish, two chops, mashed potatoes, semolina pudding, half-pint of sherry . . .

That seems like quite a lot for one frugal meal. Perhaps the chops were very small.

Colby Cosh writes: “I guess I’m the only news editor alive who isn’t busy reading about horcruxes.” I haven’t read the books or seen the movies, and have no plans to do either, but shouldn’t that be ‘horcruces’?

The theory taught in graduate schools of modern literature is like mortadella: it’s expensive, imported, beautifully packaged, made with loving care by experts who have devoted their lives to their work and do it very well . . . but it’s still bologna.