Proud Rhodes, and every land that lay Where first her leafy crown was stirred By winds that swept Cytorian rocks. For all, she says, was known to you, How oft she bore, when winds were light, Nor was there need for her to make Now all is o'er-grown old, in rest GRATIAN.-Ah! well done, poor old timber-toe-laid up at last-no "mutile liguum," that's clear enough. I hope she had a soft berth, and lay evenly in it. It is quite uncomfortable to see a poor thing, though it be little more than decayed ribs, with hard rock piercing them here and there, and the creature labouring still to keep the life in and weather out of her unsupported sides and bottom, and looking piteously to be moved off those jutting points that pin her down in pain, as boys serve a cockchafer. He is a hard man that does not animate inanimate things. He is out of nature's kin. All sailors love their ships, and they are glorious. Catullus is more to my humour here than in his love-lines on Lesbia. She could get another lover, and if truth be told, and that by Catullus himself, did; but his poor boat! If captured and taken to the slavemarket, she would not find a bidder. Well, well, it is pleasanter to see her laid up high and dry, with now and then her master's and owner's affec tionate eye upon her, than to look at the broom at her mast head. Catullus knew the wood she came from, and how it grew-it had vitality, and he never can believe it quite gone. AQUILIUS.There is a poem by Turner on this subject. GRATIAN. By Turner?-what Turner? - You don't mean, "The Fallacies of Hope" Turner? AQUILIUS. The same - but I should be sorry indeed, to see a vessel built after the measure of his verses. She would require too nice an adjustment of ballast. I doubt if she would bear a rough sea. The poem I speak of was written with his palette's pen. It was the towing in the old Temeraire to be broken up. There she was, on the waters, as her own element, a Leviathan still, a history of "battle and of breeze"behind her the night coming in, sun setting, and in glory too. Her days are over, and she is towed in to her last anchorage. The feeling of the picture was touching, and there was Strangers, this bark you see doth say, She cites, as witness to her word, And Savage Pontus' billowy race. That which is now a shallop here, Upon the topmost ridge it stood, Pontic Amastris, says the bark, She dipped her blades, a maiden launch, Through seas that plied their utmost force. Each sheet before the wind. She came To this clear inlet, still the same, The bribes which, under doubtful skies, Her deeds are done, her tale is told, For those were feats of bygone strength; In secret peace she now grows old, And dedicates herself at length, Twin-brother Castor, at thy shrine, And Castor's brother twin, at thine. GRATIAN.-Hand me the book. I thought so that "audaciously forgot" is your audacious interpolation. She does not forget her vows, for she never made any. You bring her back, good Master Curate, not a little in the sulks, like a runaway wife, that had forgotten her vows, and remembered all her audacity. We see her reluctantly taken in tow-looking like a profligate, weary, and voyage worn, buffeted and beaten by more storms than she likes to tell of. You must alter audaciously. AQUILIUS. And I object to bribes; it is a satire upon the underwriters. CURATE. The underwriters ? AQUILIUS.—Yes, the "Littoralibus Diis;" what were they but an insurance company, with their chief temple, some Roman "Lloyd's," and offices in every sea-port? CURATE. Or perhaps the "Littoralibus Diis," referred to a coastguard." GRATIAN.-Worse and worse, for that would imply that they took bribes, and that she was an old smuggler. Keep to the original, and if you will modernize Catullus, you must merely say, she was so safe a boat that the owner did not think it worth while to insure. CURATE. The learned themselves dispute as to the identity of the " Dii Littorales." In the notes, I find they are said to be Glaucus, Nereus, Melicerta, Neptune, Thetis, and others; but in the notes to Statius, you will find Gevartius bids the aforesaid learned tell that to the marines. He knows better. I remember his words, "Sed male illi marinos et littorales deos confundunt. Littorales enim potissimum Dii Cælestes erant, Pallas, Apollo, Hercules, &c., unde illi potius apud Catullum sunt intelligendi." GRATIAN. She might have been doubly insured; for besides Glaucus, Neptune, Thetis, and Co., there was the company registered by Gevartius. CURATE.-I have looked again at the passage, and think I have not quite given the meaning of "novissimo." I doubt if it does mean remote it more likely means the last voyage "Twas her last voyage, from far sea, GRATIAN. Probatum est. - We have, however, run the vessel down. Let me see what comes next. Oh, "To Lesbia." This is the old wellknown deliciously elegant little piece that I remember we were wont to try our luck with in our youth; and many a translation of it may yet be found among half-forgotten trifles. We are, some of us, it is true, a little out of this cherry-season of kissing - there is a time for all things, and so there was a time for that. It is pleasant still to trifle with the subject: even the wise Socrates played with it in one of his dialogues, and so may we, innocently enough. Though there be some greybeards, (no, I am wrong, they are not greybeards, but graveairs, and they, more shame to them, with scarcely a beard at all,) that would open the book here, and shut it again in haste, and look as if they had just come out of the cave of Trophonius. That is not a healthy and honest purity. AQUILIUS.-But these do not object to a little professional kissing. GRATIAN. More shame to themthat is the worst of all, but pass on; here is nothing but a little harmless play. Yet I don't see why the young poet, (you know he died at thirty,) should mock his elders in "rumoresque senum severiorum," these "sayings of severe old men." Why should old men be severe? O' my conscience, I believe they are far less severe than the young. Had I been present when the poet indited this to his Lesbia, I might just have ventured to hint to him thus :-"My dear friend, you have had enough, perhaps too much of kissing; my advice is, that you keep it to yourself, and tell it to no one; and don't despise the words of us old men, and mine are words of advice, that if not married already, after all this kissing, you take her, your Lesbia, to wife, as soon as you conveniently can." an She This was pronounced with amusingly affected gravity. I and the Curate assumed the submissive. We were, as I told you, Eusebius, sitting under the verandah, and very near the breakfast room; the window of which (down to the ground) was open. While our good old friend and host was thus Socratically lecturing, I saw a ribbon catch the air, and float out towards us a little from the window then appeared half a bonnet, inclined on one side, and downwards, as of one endeavouring to catch sounds more clearly. Seeing that it continued in this position, as soon as my friend had uttered the last words, I walked hastily towards the room, and saw the no very prepossessing countenance of a lady, whose privilege it is to be called young. blushed, or rather reddened, and boldly came forward, and addressed our friend, that she had come to see some of the family on a little business for the visiting and other societies," and seeing us so enjoying ourselves out of doors, she could not but come forward to pay her respects, adding, with a look at the Curate, whom she evidently thought to be under reproof, that she hoped she had not arrived mal-apropos. Our friend introduced her thus,-Ah, my dear Miss Lydia Prate-apace, is that you?-glad to see you. But (retaining his assumed gravity,) you are not safe here: there has been too much kissing, and too much talk about it, for one of your known rectitude to hear. Dear me, said she, you don't say so: then I shall bid good-day; and with an inquisitive look at me, and an awful one at the Curate, she very nimbly tripped off. You will be sure to hear of that again, said I to the Curate. He laughed incredulous, in his innocency. Not unlikely, upon my word, said Gratian; for I see them there trotting down the church-path, Lydia 66 Prate-apace, and her friend Clarissa Gadabout; so look to yourself, Mr. Curate. But we have had enough for the present. I must just take a look at my mangel, and my orchard, which you must know is my piggery. Good-bye for the present. In the evening we meet again in the library, and let Catullus be of our company. It was time to change our quarters; for the little spaniel, knowing the hour his master would visit his stock, and intending as usual to accompany him, just then ran in to us, and jumping about and barking, gave us no rest for further discussion. You must now, my dear Eusebius, behold us in the library as before.-G. reads,― "Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus, Rumoresque senum severiorum." Ah, that's where we were; I remember we did not like the senum severiorum. CURATE.-We!! G.-Yes, we; for the veriest youth that shoots an arrow at old age, is but shooting at himself some ten or a dozen paces off. I remember, when a boy, being pleased with a translation of this by Langhorne; but I only remember two stanzas, and cannot but think he left out the "soles occidere et redire possunt ;" if so, he did wrong; and I opine that he vulgarised and removed all grace from it by the word "pleasure." Life and love, Catullus means to say, are commensurate; but "pleasure" is a wilful and wanton intrusion. If I remember, his lines are,— "Lesbia, live to love and pleasure, Careless what the grave may say; When each moment is a treasure, Why should lovers lose a day? Give me then a thousand kissesTwice ten thousand more bestow; Till the sum of endless blisses, Neither we nor envy know." Catullus himself might as well have omitted the "malus invidere." Why should he trouble his head about the matter-envied or not? but now, Mr. Curate, let us hear your version. CURATE.-AD LESBIAM. Love we, live we, Lesbia, proving We'll live and love while yet 'tis ours, We'll laugh them down as none the clearest. For suns will set again to rise, But our brief day once closed-we slumber And one dark night shall both encumber. A thousand kisses then bestow; Ten thousand more,-ten thousand blisses, - We may have made mistakes and misses. Then let our lips the full amount CURATE.-I protest against this as a translation. There is addition. Catullus says nothing of "mistakes and misses." AQUILIUS.-I maintain it is implied in conturbabimus illa:" it shows they had given up all idea of counting correctly. |