Latin Verse Composition

Gregory Griffin [pseudonym], ‘N° 28. On Translation’, The Microcosm, 2nd edn (Windsor: Published for C. Knight, 1788), pp. 320-28 (pp. 321-22 [Monday, 28 MAY 1787]):

   The composition of Latin verse has always been the characteristic of Eton; and though it has frequently been attacked as too superficial an accomplishment to be held up as the first object, it is certain, that without it, the elegances of the language are never to be attained; and the very pronunciation is often erroneous from ignorance of accent and quantity. The Archieves of our state are filled with the first efforts of expanding genius; and so profusely bountiful is this poetic mania, that there is not a cubic foot in father Thames, but is so ornamented with Naiads, as to force some of them up the neighbouring ditches, for the accommodation of the majority: nor a tree in our campus martius but has at least its brace of Dryads, though there is not a single oak among them. Nay, the learned compiler of the Musae Etonensis has, in his preface, purely for the amusement of passers by, crammed more poets of all sorts and sizes, into a bench, which a dozen starveling sonneteers might fill with ease, than any nine Muses in the world could take care of at once.

A Most Excellent Hobby

Harry C. Schnur, ‘Do-It-Yourself: How to Write Latin Verse’, The Classical Journal, 52.8 (1957), 353-57 (p. 353):

Writing Latin Verse demands compliance with certain fixed rules; it therefore challenges both intellect and imagination, very much like a chess problem, and provides a similar kind of satisfaction, with the added bonus of a modest feeling of creative achievement. This pursuit immensely increases our understanding of the Roman poets’ technique, difficulties and felicities: of meter, rhythm and sound. As a do-it-yourself hobby, moreover, it is both independent of the weather and much less costly than, say, collecting incunabula or Old Masters.