My ideal commentary on a Latin author would quote exclusively from Latin Greek and English authors (other tongues if I knew enough) and never mention a modern author (other than Pauly Wissowa and Thes.) except where one has an obligation to acknowledge — grossly unprofessional conduct.
"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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Friday, December 08, 2017
Ideal Commentary
Excerpt from a letter written by R.A.B. Mynors, quoted in Wendell Clausen, "Sir Roger Aubrey Baskerville Mynors: 28 July 1903, Wiltshire, England, 17 October 1989, Hereford, England," Vergilius 35 (1989) 3-7 (at 6):