stealing therefrom sundry articles of plate, which we had melted down in our own crucibles, and which were no longer, therefore, to be recognised as his, but by evidence against us. All translators show a bold front; for if they come short of the meed of originality, they shift off from them the modesty of responsibility, and unblushingly ascribe all faults to their author. We were therefore easy enough, and ready to make as free with our Rhadamanthus as with our

Catullus. Not to be too long — thus commenced our talk.

AQUILIUS. The first piece Catullus offers is his dedication-it is to an author to whom I owe a grudge, and perhaps we all of us do. He has caused us some tears, and more visible marks, and I confess something like an aversion to his concise style. It is to Cornelius Nepos. How much more like a modern dedication, than one of Dryden's day, both as to length and matter.

AD CORNELIUM NEPOTEM.

This little-book-and somewhat light-
"Tis polished well, and smoothly bright,
To whom shall I now dedicate?
To you, Cornelius, wont to rate
My trifling wares at highest worth.

E'en then, when boldly you stepped forth,
First of Italians to compose,

In three short books of nervous prose,
All age's annals-work of nice
Research, and studiously concise.
Such as it is receive-and look
With usual favour on my book;
And grant, O queen of wits and sages,
Motherless Virgin, these my pages
May pass from this to future ages.

CURATE.-Queen of wits and sages, -"O Patrima Virgo"-is that translating?

GRATIAN.-That's right-have at

him!

AQUILIUS.-To be sure it is. What English reader would know else that Minerva was meant by "Motherless Virgin?" he would have to go back to the story of Jupiter beating her out of his own brains. So as he is not familiar with the creed, as one of it, I let him into the secret of it at once; and thus out comes the book from the "Minerva Press," 3 σε λαβὲ τὸ βυβλίον.” GRATIAN. (Reads, "O Patrima

Virgo," &c.) Well, well-let it pass. The dedication won't pay a long reckoning. We must not look too nicely into the mouth of the book-let it speak for itself. Now, Mr. Curate, what have you?

CURATE.-I didn't trouble myself with such a dedication, but passed on to "Ad Passerem Lesbiæ."

GRATIAN.-More attractive metal. CURATE. Not at all attractive; for there is considerable difficulty, and as I suppose a corrupted text, before we reach six lines. Here I let the bird loose.

Sparrow, minion of my dear,
Little animated toy,
Whom the fair delights to bear
In her bosom lapt in joy.

Whom she teases and displeases,
With her white forefinger's end,

Thus inviting savage biting
From her tiny feather'd friend.

Image burning of my yearning,

When at fondness she would play ;

Thus she takes her aught that makes her
Pensive moments glide away.

"Tis a balm for her soft sorrow,
Tranquillising beauty's breast;
Would I might her plaything borrow,
So to lull my cares to rest.

I would prize it, as the maiden
Prized the golden apple thrown,
Which displacing her in racing,
Loosed at last her virgin zone.

AQUILIUS.-Here lies the difficulty:
"Quum desiderio meo nitenti
Carum nescio quid lubet jocari,
(Ut solatiolum sui doloris
Credunt,quum gravis acquiescet ardor.")

Another edition has it:
"Credo ut gravis acquiescat ardor."
GRATIAN.-Leave it to Edipus -

make sense of it, and we must not be too nice.

AQUILIUS.-Well, then, it possibly means, that she passes off the pain of the bite with a little coquetry and action, as we move about a limb pretty briskly when it tingles.

GRATIAN.-O, the cunning-argumentum ad hominem.

AQUILIUS. Thus I venture

AD PASSEREM LESBLE.

Little sparrow, gentle sparrow,
Whom my Lesbia loveth so;

Her sweet playmate, whom she petteth,
And she letteth

To her bosom come and go.

Loving there to hold thee ever,
Her forefinger to thy bill,
Oft she pulleth and provoketh ;
And she mocketh,

Till you bite her harder still.

Then new beauty glistening o'er her,
Pain'd and blushing doth she feign,
Some sweet play of love's excesses,
And caresses

More to soothe or hide her pain.

Would thou wert my pretty birdie,
Plaything-playmate unto me,
Knowing when her loss doth grieve me,
To relieve me,

For she seeks relief from thee.

Birdie, thou shouldst be such treasure
As the golden apple thrown,
Was to Atalanta, spying

Which in flying,

Cost the loosening of her zone.

CURATE. That may be a possible translation of the difficulty, if the text be somewhat amended; but who ever heard of a hurt from the peck of a sparrow?

GRATIAN.-I'll take you into our aviary to-morrow, and you shall try on your own rough-work finger the peck of a bullfinch; and I think you may grant that Lesbia's finger was a

Birdie, be my plaything, go-
At her flying feet be thrown;-
Like the golden apple, woo her,
Atalanta's wise pursuer
Cast and won her for his own;
Pretty birdie aid me so.

and the Curate put his finger upon the which he read as he had thus rendered "Death of Lesbia's Sparrow,"

it:

DE PASSERE MORTUO LESBIÆ.

Ye Graces, and ye Cupids, mourn,
And all that's graceful, woman born,
My sweet one's sparrow dead!
Smitten by death's fatal arrow

Lies my darling's darling sparrow !
As the eyes in her sweet head

She did love him, and he knew her
As my fair one knows her mother;
He was sweet as honey to her,
In her lap for ever sitting,
Hither thither round her flitting,
To his mistress and no other
He address'd his twittering tale.
Now adown death's darksome vale
He is gone to seek a bourn

Whence they tell us none return.
Plague upon you, dark and narrow
Shades of Orcus, without pity
Swallowing every thing that's pretty-
As ye took the pretty sparrow.
Wo's the day that you lie dead!
Little wretch, 'tis all your doing
That my fair one's eyes are red,
Swoln and red with tearful rueing.

AQUILIUS.-It would be childish to blame the poor bird for the crime of dying, as if he had died out of spite; when, if the truth could be told, perhaps the cat killed him. (At this moment, Gratian's favourite cat rubbed herself against his legs, first her face and head, and then her back, and looked up to him, as if begging him to plead for her race; and he did so, and spoke kindly to her, and said, pussey would not kill any bird though he should trust her in the aviary; AQUILIUS.

and she, as if she knew what he said, walked off to it, and rubbed her face against the wires, and returned to us again.) Well, I continued, I don't see why the bird should be called wretch for that; and factum male means to express misfortune, not fault. So let the malefactum be the Curate's, and treat him accordingly.

GRATIAN.-Come, let us see your bird. Perhaps it may be necessary to kill two with one stone. But I forget-the bird is dead already.

DE PASSERE MORTUO LESBIÆ.

Ye Cupids, every Queen of Love,
Whate'er hath heart or beauty, shed
Your floods of tears, now hang the head-
My darling's sparrow, pet, and dove,
Is dead that bird she prized above
Her own sweet eyes, is dead, is dead.

That little bird, that honey bird,

As fair child knows her mother, knew
His own own mistress; and he, too,
From her sweet bosom never stirred,
As prompt at every look and word,
He to that nest of softness flew.

But archly pert and debonnair,

Still further in he fondly nestled,

For her alone piped, chirped, and whistled.
But he has reached that dismal where,

Whose dreary path none ever dare

Retrace, with whom death once hath wrestled.

O Orcus' unrequiting shade,

Devouring all the good, the dear,

Couldst thou not spare one birdling here?
Alas, poor thing! for thou hast made
Her eyes, how loved, with grief o'erweighed,
Grow red, and gush with many a tear.

CURATE. Is that translating?
Look at the first line of the original

Lugete, o Veneres, Cupidinesque.

You have acted the undertaker to the sorrow, dressed it out, and protracted it, and set it afloat upon a river of wo, with Queens of Love as chiefmourners, hanging out their weepers. AQUILIUS.-Yes, for the Zephyrs to blow. They are light, airy, graceful. They did not come from the first room of the mourning institution, where the soft-slippered man in black gently, and bowing low as he shows his grief-items, whispers, "Much in vogue for deep affliction." The Queens of Love pass on to "the mitigated wo department," and I hope you will confess they have put on their sorrow with grace and taste.

But

GRATIAN. That's good"the mitigated wo department. But there's a department in these establishments farther on still. There is a little glass door, generally left half open, where there is a most delicate show of "orange blossoms." my good worthy Curate, I don't blame our friend for this little enlargement, because, if it is not in the words of the original, it is every bit of it in the tune and melody of the verses. See how it swells out in full flow in "venustiorum," stays but a moment, and is off again without stop

to "puellæ," and that again is repeated ere grief can be said to take any rest. I shall acquit the translator as I would the landscape painter, who, seeing how flowing a line of easy and graceful beauty pervades all nature, and is indeed her great characteristic, rather aims to realise that, than laboriously to dot in every leaf and flower. Characteristic expression is every thing. I am not quite satisfied that either of you have hit the

Flendo turgiduli rubent ocelli.

CURATE. If we have not, you remember that Juvenal has, and hit whose they are. those eyes rather hard, considering He, however, only

meant the hit for Catullus :

nec tibi, cujus Turbavit nitídos extinctus passer ocellos. GRATIAN.-Turbavit is "mitigated wo" again:

Unlike the Lesbias of our modern years,
Who for a sparrow's death dissolve in tears.

AQUILIUS.Satire is like a flail, an ugly weapon in a crowd, and hits more than it aims at. I won't allow the blow to be a true hit on Catullus. But let us pass on; there is a vessel waiting for us, though we should be loth to trust to her sheathing, no longer sea-worthy. Our poet now addresses his yacht. Are there many of the "Club " who would write better verses on theirs?

DE PHASELO, QUO IN PATRIAM REVECTUS ET.

This bark that now, my friends, you see,
Asserts she once was far more swift

Than other craft, whate'er the tree
Might ply the oar or sailyard shift,
She passed them all on every sea.

She asked the Cyclad Isles to say

Can they deny-rough Adria's shore,