Note 1014 — Chapter XXXVIII · ROD NOT EMPLOYED IN SPITE OF CLOSE INTERCOURSE WITH EGYPT— REASONS SUGGESTED FOR ABSENCE
Reading edition
In a letter to A. Dalziel, Sept. 3, 1803, Porson states that these lines were an effort made to English an epigram by an Etonian friend, in imitation of Phocylides’s saw (Strabo, X. p. 487):
καὶ τόδε φωκυλίδου. Λέριοι κακοί, οὐχ ὁ μέν, ὃς δ’ οὔ, πάντες, πλὴν Προκλέους· καὶ Προκλέης Λέριος.