'I plead not guilty to[68]----

'Having thus, I hope, cleared myself of the charge brought against me, I
presume you will not be displeased if I escape the punishment which you
have decreed for me unheard. If you have discharged the arrows of
criticism against an innocent man, you must rejoice to find they have
missed him, or have not been pointed so as to wound him.

'To talk no longer in allegory, I am, with all deference, going to offer
a few observations in defence of my Latin, which you have found fault
with.

'You think I should have used _spei primae_, instead of _spei alterae_.
_Spes_ is, indeed, often used to express something on which we have a
future dependence, as in Virg. Eclog. i. l. 14,

".... _modo namque gemellos_
Spem _gregis ah silice in nuda connixa reliquit_."

and in Georg. iii. l. 473,

"Spemque _gregemque simul_,"

for the lambs and the sheep. Yet it is also used to express any thing on
which we have a present dependence, and is well applied to a man of
distinguished influence, our support, our refuge, our _praesidium_, as
Horace calls Maecenas. So, AEneid xii. l. 57, Queen Amata addresses her
son-in-law Turnus:--"Spes _tu nunc una_:" and he was then no future
hope, for she adds,