Note 42 — CHAP. VII.

Our Doctor of the Sorbonne and Abbé Boileau (whose meaning is here faithfully laid before the reader) speaks with much confidence of the proofs he derives in support of his opinion, from the above Latin lines, which he adds he thinks he has done well and wisely to produce; and I have postponed to the end of his argument, to make any remark upon the subject, in order to let him enjoy his triumph a little longer. However, his whole reasoning is no more than a quibble on the sense of the word flagrum; which, indeed signifies a whip, but also signifies a lustful passion: both come from the verb flagrare, to burn; and flagrare amore, to burn with love: hence the word flagrans delictum, which is said of a Man who is caught in the act of debauching another Man’s wife, or as some Civilians express it, alienam Uxorem subagitans: from the above expression the French have made the words flagrant délit, which have the same meaning; and they say of a Man under the above circumstances, that he is caught en flagrant délit. The real meaning of the Latin lines above-quoted, is, therefore, that Christians ought to be free, not from every kind of flagellation, but from lustful passions. Those lines, it may be observed, together with the quibble contained in them, of which our Author has availed himself to support his private opinion, are in the same taste with the other productions of Monks, during the times of the middle age, and of the general decay of literature, when finding out quibbles and puns, and succeeding in composing acrostics, anagrams, and other difficiles nugæ, engrossed the whole ambition of Versificators: though, to say the truth, worse lines than the above have been written in that kind of style.