Institutio Oratoria
Quintilian
Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.
For words are not cut to suit metrical feet, and are therefore transferred from place to place to form the most suitable combinations, just as in the case of unhewn stones their very irregularity is the means of suggesting what other stones they will best fit and what will supply them with the surest resting-place. On the other hand, the happiest effects of language are produced when it is found possible to employ the natural order, apt connexion and appropriate rhythm.
Some transpositions are too long, as I have pointed out in previous books, [*](Only, apparently, in VIII. ii. 14.) while at times they involve faulty structure, although some writers actually aim at this vicious type of transposition, in order to create an appearance of freedom and license, as in the following phrases from Maecenas, sole et aurora rubent plurima ; [*](They grow red in the sunlight and the fullness of dawn. The meaning is uncertain, plurima might be neut. nom. plural. ) inter se sacra movit aqua fraxinos ; [*](The sacred stream ran through the ash-grove.) ne exequias quidem unus inter miserrimos viderem meas. [*](May I never, alone amidst the most miserable of men, behold my own funeral rites.) The worst feature in these examples, is that he plays pranks