On a Latin play about Richard III by the master of Caius College, Cambridge (1579):

. . . Legge’s was a poverty-stricken mind; his Latin versification might crimson the cheek of a preparatory schoolboy, and but for the sad fact that by the time they have read sufficiently to write on English literature, scholars have only too often lost the gift, unhappily for their readers, of knowing what is boring and what is not, this fatuous production of a shallow pedant would have been treated with as little respect as it deserves.

(F. L. Lucas, Seneca and Elizabethan Tragedy, 1922, page 97)

He adds a footnote on the last word:

It may be added that John Palmer of St John’s who took the part of Richard “had his head so possest with a prince-like humour” that he behaved like a potentate ever after, and died in prison as a result of his regal prodigalities.

I just read Animal Farm for the first time in 40+ years. I don’t often laugh out loud while reading books (as opposed to blogs), but half of one sentence made me ‘LOL’. In Chapter II, the victorious animals inspect the human house, and Orwell notes: “Some hams hanging in the kitchen were taken out for burial, . . .”

Elaine Fantham’s new translation of Seneca: Selected Letters (Oxford World Classics, 2010) is described on the back cover as “the largest selection of Seneca’s letters currently available” (in translation, that is). The Note on the Text (xxxv-xxxvi) is more specific: “The present selection of 80 letters comprises nearly two-thirds of the collection”. It goes on to list 80 letters, book by book. However, if I have counted correctly, one of those listed (105) is not included in the translation, while eight more (49, 59, 70, 75, 80, 103, 112, and 115) are translated but not listed. So “nearly two-thirds” should be “more than two-thirds” (87 of 124).

I have updated my List of Commentaries on the Epistulae Morales to include Fantham’s selection. Unlike Inwood’s, her brief end-notes do not constitute anything like a commentary, so I have put her selection in a separate column. It is interesting to see which letters get the most, and least, attention. If my data are accurate, there are still 15 wallflowers waiting for some scholarly affection: 13, 17, 20, 30, 32, 45, 69, 74, 81, 89, 98, 102, 105, 109, and 111.

As always, I will be very glad to hear of any corrections or additions to my list. As my bibliography shows, a trickle of commentaries and other works has become a torrent, so I have probably missed something. Since the earliest selection (Summers) was first published in 1910, I have also renamed the page ‘One Hundred Years of Commentaries on Seneca’s Epistulae Morales‘.