[Footnote 2: See Horace, _Sat_. I. 10, 82; Servius on _Ecl_. IX. 7; Berne
Scholia on _Ecl_. VIII. 6.]

That is the trait surely that accounts for Horace's outburst of
admiration.

Animae quales neque candidiores
Terra tulit.

The seventh is an epigram mildly twitting Varius for his insistence upon
pure diction. The crusade for purity of speech had been given a new
impetus a decade before by the Atticists, and we may here infer that
Varius, the quondam friend of Catullus, was considered the guardian of
that tradition. Vergil, despite his devotion to neat technique, may have
had his misgivings about rules that in the end endanger the freedom of
the poet. His early work ranged very widely in its experiments in style,
and Horace's _Ars Poetica_ written many years later shows that Vergil had
to the very end been criticized by the extremists for taking liberties
with the language. The epigram begins as though it were an erotic poem in
the style of Philodemus. Then, having used the Greek word _pothos_, he
checks himself as though dreading a frown from Varius, and substitutes
the Latin word _puer_,

Scilicet hoc fraude, Vari dulcissime, dicam:
"Dispeream, nisi me perdidit iste pothos."
Sin autem praecepta vetant me dicere, sane
Non dicam, sed: "me perdidit iste puer."

For the comprehension of the personal allusions in the sixth and twelfth