“When we went in to Denison, some one or two members of the class (a large one) did their piece well; to my flat amazement most of them stumbled over the easiest lines. When we came to the first lyrics,Φοῖβ’; ἀδικεῖς αὖ τιμὰς ἐνέρων, the tutor put the question, ‘What metre is this?’ It went the round, no one had any idea; it came to me, and I remember the trembling excitement with which I answered, ‘Anapestic dimeter.’ So much information was not far to fetch, for Monk had a note on the metre of the passage, and most of the class had Monk, but they had not read the Latin note. Denison gave me a look as much as to say, ‘Who the devil are you?’ He had evidently not been accustomed in his class to meet with such profound learning. I do not remember in the whole course of the term that Denison made a single remark on the two plays, Alcestis and Hippolytus, that did not come from Monk’s notes.”
– Mark Pattison, Memoirs (London: Macmillan and Co. 1885) pp. 65-6
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