says Eunius; and in another place he has given us,—­

“In templis isdem;”

but eisdem would be more regular; but yet it would not have been so musical:  and iisdem would have sounded ill.  But custom has sanctioned our departing from strict rules for the sake of euphony; and I should prefer saying pomeridianas quadrigas to postmeridianas, and mehercule to mehercules.  Non scire already appears a barbarism; nescire is sweeter.  The word meridiem itself, why is it not medidiem?

I suppose because it sounded worse.  There is one preposition, abs, which has now only an existence in account books; but in all other conversation of every sort is changed:  for we say amovit, and abegit, and abstulit, so that you cannot now tell whether ab is the correct form or abs.  What shall we say if even abfugit has seemed inadmissible, and if men have discarded abfer and preferred aufer? and that preposition is found in no word whatever except these two verbs.  There were the words noti, and navi, and nari, and when in was forced to be prefixed to them, it seemed more musical to say ignoti, ignavi, ignari, than to adhere to the strict rules.  Men say ex usu and republica, because in the one phrase a vowel followed the preposition, and in the other there would have been great harshness if you had not removed the consonant, as in exegit, edixit, effecit, extulit, edidit.  And sometimes the preposition has sustained an alteration, regulated by the first letter of the verb to which it is added, as suffugit, summutavit, sustulit.

XLVIII.  What are we to say of compound words?  How neat is it to say insipientem, not insapientem; iniquum, not incequum; tricipitem, not tricapitem; concisum, not concoesum! and, because of this last instance, some people wish also to say pertisum; but the same fashion which regulates the other changes, has not sanctioned this one.  But what can be more elegant than this, which is not caused by nature, but by some regular usage?—­we say inclytus, with the first letter short; insanus, with the first letter long; inkumanus, with a short letter; infelix, with a long one:  and, not to detain you with many examples, in those words in which the first letters are those which occur in sapiente and felice, it is used long; in all others it is short.  And so, too, we have composuit, consuevit, concrvpuit, confecit.  Consult the truth, it will reprove you; refer the matter to your ears, they will sanction the usage.  Why so?  Because they will say that that sound is the most agreeable one to them; and an oration ought to consult that which gives pleasure to the ears.  Moreover, I myself, as I knew that our ancestors spoke so as