Colarbasius, a heretic of right heretical name, who lived in the second century, taught that the fulness of Christian perfection consisted in completely understanding the Greek alphabet*. The sect of the Colarbasians still exists in literature, and from the inordinate applause which is bestowed upon their branch of erudition, we might suppose that the perfection of human learning consisted in an accurate knowledge of the minutiae of Greek prosody."Colarbasius" is actually Colarbasus.
* St. Irenaeus, L. I, C. 11, quoted by Berulus.
"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
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Saturday, June 29, 2013
The Sect of the Colarbasians
[Robert Southey and Samuel Taylor Coleridge], Omniana, or Horae Otiosiores, Vol. II (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1812), pp. 234-235 (no. 228 = Greek Erudition):