And here arises a question as to the learning of compositions when unaccompanied with music, I mean, prose compositions.

They are a dangerous species of literature.

Speak then, O guardians of the law, and tell us what we shall do about them.

'You seem to be in a difficulty.' Yes; it is difficult to go against the opinion of all the world.

'But have we not often already done so ?' Very true.
And you imply that the road which we are taking, though disagreeable to many, is approved by those whose judgment is most worth having.
'Certainly.' Then I would first observe that we have many poets, comic as well as tragic, with whose compositions, as people say, youth are to be imbued and saturated.