Volume 61 — HORÆ CATULLIANE.

LETTER TO EUSEBIUS.

My Dear Eusebius,—I have lately spent a few weeks with our old friend Gratian, at his delightful retreat in Devonshire, which he has planted, fenced, and cultivated, and made as much a part of himself in its every fit and aspect as his own easy coat. You see him in every thing, in the house and out of it. Cheerful, happy, kind, and best of men! Not an animal in his stall, or his homestead, but partakes of his temper. His horses neigh to you, his cows walk up to you, his pigs run to you, rather disappointed, for you have not his stick to rub their backs with. Rise in the early morning, when the dew is sparkling on the lawn, and his spaniel greets you, runs round and round you with a bark of joyous welcome; and even his cat will, as no other cat will, show you round the gravel walks. And thrice happy are all when their expected master appears, somewhat limping in his gait, (and how few, under his continual pain, would preserve his cheerfulness as he does!) Every creature looks up into his face as better than sunshine, and he forgets none. He has a good word for all, and often more than that in his pockets. The alms beggar, the Robin, is remembered and housed. There is his little freehold of wood raised some feet from the ground opposite the breakfast room window—an entrance both ways—there is he free to come and go, and always find a meal laid for him. Happy bird, he pays neither window-tax nor servant’s tax, and yet who enjoys more daylight, or is better served?

Our good old friend still goes on improving this and improving that—has his little farm and his garden all in the highest perfection. Nor is the least care bestowed on the greenhouse, and the little aviary adjoining; for here are objects of feminine pleasure, and he loves not himself so well as he does the mistress of all, the mother and the partner. O the terrestrial paradise, in which to wait old age, and still enjoy, and breathe to the last the sunshiny breath of heaven, and feel that all is blessed and blessing; for there is peace, and that is the true name for goodness within! You shall have, my dear Eusebius, no farther description. A drop-scene, however, is not amiss to any little conversational drama. You may shift it, if you like, occasionally to the small snug library—just such a one as you would have for such a retreat. Our excellent friend took less part in our talk than we could have wished; for it began generally at night, and his infirmity sent him to bed early. But in spite of a little remnant of influenza, I and the Curate often kept it up to a late hour, which you, Eusibius, will construe into an early one. Never mind; though, perhaps, it was whispered to his discredit that the Curate kept bad hours. Those, however, who knew the fact did not keep better, and so he thought all safe. How sweet and consoling is sometimes ignorance!

Now, the Curate—let me introduce you,—“My dear Eusebius, the Curate, a class man some year or two from Oxford—a true man, in a word, worthy of this introduction to you, Eusebius.” “Mr. Curate, my friend Eusebius; see, don’t trust to his gravity of years; it is quite deceptive, and the only deceit he has about him. He is Truth in sunshine and a fresh healthy breeze. So now you know each other.” I wish, Eusebius, this were not a passage out of an imaginary conversation. Wait but for the swallow, and you shall shake hands; and you, I know, will laugh merrily within ten minutes after; and a laugh from you is as good as a ticket upon your breast, “All is natural here;” and for the rest, let come what will, that is uppermost. There will be no restraint. I cannot forbear, Eusebius, writing to you now, early in this new year, paying you this compliment, that your real conversations resemble in much “Landor’s Imaginary,” which you tell me you so greatly admire. Full, indeed, are they, these last two volumes, his works, of beautiful thoughts set off with exquisitely appropriate eloquence. You are in a garden, and if you do not always recognise the fruit as legitimate, you are quite as well pleased to find it like Aladdin’s, and would willingly store all, as he did, in the bosom of your memory. Precious stones, bigger than plums and peaches, are good for sore eyes, and something more, though they have not the flavour of apricots.

We—that is, the Trio—had been reading one evening; or rather, our friend Gratian read to me and the Curate, the “Conversation with the Abbé Delille and W. L.” We loitered, too, in the reading, as we do when the country is of a pleasant aspect, to look about us and admire—and we interspersed our own little talk by the way. Our friend could not consent that Catullus should walk with, and even, as it should seem, take the lead of his favourite Horace. “Catullus and Horace,” says Landor, “will be read as long as Homer and Virgil, and more often, and by more readers.”

“If,” said the Curate, “Catullus were not nearly banished from our public schools and our universities.”

“As he deserves,” replied Gratian; “for although there is in him great elegance, yet is there much that should not be read; and his most beautiful and most powerful little poem, his ‘Atys,’ is in its very subject unfit for schoolboys.”

Curate.—Yes, if in the presence of a master; that makes the only difficulty. The poem itself is essentially chaste, and of a grand tragic action, and grave character—is in fact a serious poem, and as such any youth may read it to himself, scarcely to another. The very subject touches on that mystical, though natural sanctity that every uncorrupted man is conscious of in the temple of his own person. To impart a thought of it is a deterioration. But a master must not hear it; and even for a very inferior reason. He cannot be a critical instructor.

Gratian.—You are right: that was a deep observation of Juvenal; it gave the caution,

I have often thought that good masters have ever shown very great tact in reading the Classics, where there is so much, even in the purest, that it is best not to understand.

Aquilius. (I choose to give myself that name)—Or rather to pass lightly over, for you cannot help seeing it; put your foot across it, and not lengthways; as you would over a rut in a bad bit of road, which may nevertheless lead to a most delightful place at the end. I cannot but think the “Atys” to be a borrowed poem. It is quite Greek—unlike any thing Roman. What Roman ever expressed downright mad violent action? How much there is in it that reminds you of the story of Pentheus of Euripides. Both deny a deity, and both are punished by their own hands. But the resemblance is less in the characters than in the vivid pictures and rapidity of action; and the landscape glows like one fresh from Titian’s pencil. Our friend Landor, here, I see, calls the author “graceful.” He says of Virgil that he is not so “graceful as Catullus.”

Curate.—Grace, as separate from beauty, I suppose, means something lighter. It admits a feeling not quite in earnest, not so serious but it may be sported with.

Gratian.—It is a play, however, at which only genius is expert. It is many years since I read Catullus,—I confess I thought him rather a careless fellow, and that his Lesbia was but a doll to dress out in the tawdry ribbons of his verse.

Aquilius.—Whatever his Lesbia was, his verses are chaste; and if I find a Lesbia that is not as his verse, I think it a duty of charity to conclude there were two of the name; and we know that one Lesbia was a feigned name for Clodia.

Gratian.—That is not very complimentary to the constancy of Catullus.

Curate.—I am afraid we are speaking of a virtue that was not Roman. I have been reading Catullus very recently, and was so much pleased with his gracefulness, that I thought it no bad practice to translate one or two of his small pieces: as I translated I became more and more aware of the clear elegance of his diction.

Aquilius.—I have always been an admirer of Catullus; and as I think a little employment will dissipate the remaining imaginary symptoms of influenza, when our friend and host is indulging his pigs by rubbing their backs with the end of his stick, and extending his walk to admire his mangel-worzel, or talking to his horses, his dogs, or his cat, and learning their opinions upon things in general, (for he is persuaded they have opinions, and says he knows many of them, and intends one day to catalogue them;) or while he is beyond his own gates, (and whoever catches a sight of his limp and supporting stick, is sure to hasten pace or to slacken it, loving his familiar talk,) looking out for an object of human sociality, I will steal into his library—take down his Catullus, and try my hand, good master Curate, against you. We will be, or at least believe ourselves to be,

Gratian.—Ay, do; and as the shepherds were rewarded by their umpires of old, will I reward one or both with this stick. Shall I describe its worth and dignity after the manner of Homer, that it may be worthy of you, if you are “baculo digni;” but whatever Aquilius may say in its disparagement, it is not a bit the worse for its familiarity with my pig’s back. It is a good pig, and shall make bacon for the winner, which is the best lard he will get for his poetry. But I feel a warning hint, and must to bed—it is no longer with me the

The warning comes rather stronger upon bone and muscle. Heaven preserve you both from the pains of rheumatism in your old age. I suppose a troubled conscience, which they say never rests, is but the one turn more of the screw: so good night.

Our friend gone, we took down Catullus, and read with great pleasure many of his short pieces, agreeing with Landor as to the gracefulness of the poet, and resolved, if it be trifling, to trifle away some portion of our time in translating him, and with this resolve we parted for the night.

We did not, Eusebius, meet again for some days, the Curate being fully employed in his rounds of parochial visiting by day, and in preparation by night for his weekly duty. You must imagine you now see us after tea retired to the snug library. Gratian, some years the elder, resting, (if that word may be allowed to his pain,—if not to his pain, however, it shall be due to his patience) resting, I say, his whole person in his easy chair, and tapping pretty smartly with his stick the thigh from his hip to his leg, and then settling himself into the importance of a judge; but do not imagine you see us like two culprits about to be condemned for feloniously breaking into the house of one Catullus, and 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.

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,” “λαβὲ τὸ βυβλὶον.”

Gratian.—(Reads, “O Patrima Virgo,” &c.) Well, well—let it pass. The dedication won’t pay along 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.

Aquilius.—Here lies the difficulty:

Another edition has it:

Gratian.—Leave it to Œdipus—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—

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 little softer. Who would trust the tenderness of a Curate’s forefinger, case-hardened as it is with his weekly steel-pen work, and deadened by the nature of it, against all Lesbias and their sparrows. Lesbia’s forefinger was the very pattern of a forefinger, soft to touch as to feel—that did no work. I dare to say Shakspeare was thinking of such a one, when he said,

“The hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.”

There’s something playfully pretty, and lightly tender in this little piece; but I don’t see by what link of thought poor Atalanta is brought in, and thus stripped to the skin, as she was out-stripped in the race. Admitting the text emendable, may not there be supposed such a connexion as this,—that he wishes the bird would be his plaything, that he might lay it as an offering at her feet,—that she might take it, as did Atalanta the golden apple, and become herself the winner’s reward? Why should not I come in with an ad libitum movement? We, limping rheumaticists, have ever a spiteful desire to trip up the swift-footed. Now, then, for an old man’s limp against Atalanta’s speed.

Galatea won her lover by the apple. “Malo me Galatea petit.”

Curate.—A well thrown apple that golden pippin, grown doubtless from a pip dropt on Mount Ida, and hence the name. We shall not run against you, I perceive.

Gratian.—Don’t talk of golden pippins, or I shall mount my hobby, and go through the genealogy of my whole orchard, and good-bye to Catullus.

Curate.—If you give way to your imagination, you may invent a thousand meanings to the passage; but taking it as I find it, I would attach only this meaning to it,—that Catullus would say, “Lesbia’s favourite sparrow” would be as attractive to me as was the golden apple which was thrown in her way when she was racing, to Atalanta. She was to be married to the first youth who could outrun her, so that literally she was very much run after.

Gratian.—Run after, indeed! Her pursuer, Hippomanes, hadn’t my rheumatism (tapping his knee and leg with his stick) or she would have had the apple, and not him. You young men of modern days do not throw your golden apples, but look to pick up what you can. These old tales, or old fables, cast a shade of shame upon our unromantic days. There was a king’s daughter offered like a “handy-cap,” as if the worthy of mankind were a racing stud.

Aquilius.—But the lady was not so easily won after all; for there were three golden apples to be picked up: and a bold man was he that threw them, for if he lost, there was neither love nor mercy for him. The condition was worse than Sinbad’s. It is a strange story this of Atalanta and her lover, turned into lions by Cybele. The passage in Catullus being corrupt, there is probably an omission, for, as it is, the transition is very abrupt.

Gratian.—I see the golden apples running about in all directions, and am half asleep, and should be quite so but for this rheumatic hint that it is time to retire: so good-night.

Now you will conclude, Eusebius, that I and the Curate made a night and morning of it. On the present occasion, at least, it was not the case; we very soon parted.

The following morning, which for the season was freshly sunny, found us on a seat under a verandah near the breakfast room, and close to the aviary, from which we had a moment before come; and the Curate was then wringing his finger after the bites and pecks the bullfinch had given him, which Gratian told him, jocularly, was having a comment on the text at his finger’s end, and immediately asked for Catullus. The book was opened—and the Curate put his finger upon the “Death of Lesbia’s Sparrow,”—which he read as he had thus rendered it:—

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; 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 fer 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.

Aquilius.—

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

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 chief-mourners, 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.

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.” But 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

Curate.—If we have not, you remember that Juvenal has, and hit those eyes rather hard, considering whose they are. He, however, only meant the hit for Catullus:

Gratian.—Turbavit is “mitigated wo” again:

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?

Gratian.—Ah! well done, poor old timber-toe—laid up at last—no “mutile lignum,” 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 cock-chafer. 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 slave-market, 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 affectionate 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 a dignity and greatness in it of mighty charm.

Gratian.—I remember it well, and it is well remembered now: but here is the Curate with his paper in his hand: let us hear what he has to say.

Curate.—I have the worse chance with you, for you have poeticised the subject so much more largely than Catullus himself, that you will listen with less pleasure to my translation; but you shall have it.

Aquilius.—Stay for a moment: “the fleetest,” then she was one of a fleet, and sailed perhaps under convoy, and ought not to have outsailed the fleet—say quickest.

Gratian.—No interruption, or by this baculus! Go on, Mr. Curate.

Curate.—If you please, I’ll heave anchor again.

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 “coast-guard.”

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—so let me substitute this:—

Gratian.—Probatum est.—We have, however, run the vessel down. Let me see what comes next. Oh, “To Lesbia.” This is the old well-known 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 grave-airs, 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 them—that 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.”

This was pronounced with an 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. She 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 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,—

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,—

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.

Gratian.—Tale is an ambiguous word, “Kiss and tell” is not fair play—Tale, talley, number. I hope it will be so understood at first reading.—It reminds me of the critical controversy respecting a passage in “L’Allegro,”—

The unsusceptible critic maintained that the shepherd did but count, or take the tale of his sheep. Why not avoid the ambiguity thus—a hasty emendation.

Aquilius.—In the other sense, it will go sadly against him, if Miss Prate-apace should be a listener—she would like to have all the telling to herself.

Gratian.—Doubtless, and matter to tell of too—but, as I suppose that paper in your hand is your translation of this common-property bit of Latin, read it.

Aquilius.—Here it is.

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.

Gratian.—I think it may pass; but you have a word twice,—“day closed,” and “close our eyes.” Why not have it thus:—

“But our brief day once o’er,” or once pass’d,—yet it is not so good, as “closed.” I see in the note on “conturbabimus,” great stress is laid on the mischievous spell that envy was supposed to convey, like the “evil eye.” This does not make much for Catullus—for a good kiss in real earnest, not your kiss poetical, might bid defiance to every charm but its own.

Curate.—There is something of the same superstition in the piece but one following, “malâ fascinare lingua” alludes evidently to the εὐφημία of the Greeks,—the superstition of the evil eye and evil tongue. The very word invidere seems to have been adopted in its wider sense, from the particular superstition of the evil eye. The Neapolitans of the present day inherit, in full possession, both superstitions.

Gratian.—Nor are either quite out of England; and I can hardly think that a legacy left us by the Romans. There is something akin to the feeling in the dislike old country gossips show to having their likenesses taken. I have known a sketcher pelted for putting in a passing figure. And I have seen a servant girl, in the house of a friend, who, having never, until she came into his service, seen a portrait, could not be prevailed upon, for a long while, to go alone into a room where there were some family portraits. What comes next after all these kisses?

Aquilius.—More kisses.

Gratian.—Then you force a bad pun from me, and put my aching bones into an omni-bus, and it is as much as I can do to bear the shaking. Give your account of them, Aquilius.

Gratian.—Read that last again—for “my eyes,” I confess, were not as “curious” as they should have been, and were just closing as you came to the wooing.

Aquilius.—

Gratian.—Well, rubbing his eyes, I am quite awake now; let us have your version, Master Curate.

Gratian.—(After a pause, his eyes half closed,)

Very mu—si—cal—sooth—ing.

Aquilius.—See, you have set our host asleep; and, judging from his last words, his dream will not be unpleasant. We must not come to a sudden silence, or it will waken him. The murmur of the brook that invites sleep, is pledged to its continuance. The winds and the pattering rain, says the Roman elegiast, assist the sleeper.

We must not, however, proceed with our translations. Take up Landor’s Pentameron, and begin where you left off, when we first entered upon this discussion of Catullus. He seemed to give the preference to Catullus over Horace. Here is the page,—read on.

The Curate at once took the volume and read aloud.—The following passage arrested our attention:—

“In return for my suggestion, pray tell me what is the meaning of

“Petrarcha.—The moment I learn it you shall have it. Laborat trepidare! lympha rivo! fugax, too! Fugacity is not the action for hard work or labour.

“Boccaccio.—Since you cannot help me out, I must give up the conjecture, it seems, while it has cost me only half a century. Perhaps it may be curiosa felicitas.”

Aquilius—Stay there:—that criticism is new to me. I never even fancied there was a difficulty in the passage. Let us consider it a moment.

Curate.—Does he then think Horace not very choice in his words? for he seems to be severe upon the “curiosa felicitas.” Surely the diction of the Latin poets is all in all—For their ideas seem hard stereotyped,—uninterchangeable, the very reverse of the Greek, in whom you always find some unexpected turn, some new thought, thrown out beautifully in the rapidity of their conception—excepting in Sophocles—who, attending more to his diction, deals perhaps a little too much in common-place.

The object of the Latin poets should seem to have been to introduce gracefully, into their own language, what the Greeks had left them; and the nature of this labour quenched the fire of originality, if they had any.—It is hard, however, to deny them the fruits of this labour; and who was more happy in it than Horace?

Aquilius.—Surely, and the familiar love that all bear to Horace, confirms your opinion—the general opinion. Now, I cannot but think Horace happy in his choice of words, in this very passage of

Let me suggest a meaning, which to me is obvious enough, and I am surprised it should have escaped so acute and so profound a critic. Horace supposes his friend enjoying the landscape in remoto gramine, and there describes it accurately; and it is a favourite scene with him, which he often paints in words, with the introduction of the same imagery. Suppose, then, the scene to be in remoto gramine at Tiber, our modern Tivoli; where, as I presume, the water was always, as now, though not in exactly the same way, turned off from the Anio into cut channels; and such I take to be the meaning generally of rivers, a channel, not a river. And the Lympha here is appropriate; not the body of the stream, but a portion of its water. In this case, “obliquo” may express a new direction, and some obstacle in the turn the river takes, where the water would for a moment seem to labour, “laborare fugax,” expressing its desire to escape. May not, therefore, the first evident meaning be allowed to “trepidare,” to tremble, or undulate, showing the motion a rivulet assumes, just after it has turned the angle of its obstruction. “Obliquo,” may, too, mean the slope, such as would be in a garden at Tivoli, on the verge of the precipice. Possibly Horace generally uses “rivus” in this sense, “Puræ rivus aquæ.”—Then, again, describing the character of Tibur or Tivoli, he does not say the Anio; but “aquæ,” as in the other instance “Lympha.”

—“fertile,” being the effect of the irrigation, the purpose for which the aquæ are turned from the river; and this agrees well with the word præfluunt, as applied to irrigated gardens. Pliny thus uses the adjective præfluus: “Hortos esse habendos irriguos præfluo amne.” But there is one passage in Horace where this meaning is so distinctly given to rivers, and which is so characteristic of the very scene of Tibur, that to me it is conclusive.

Evidently channels, moveable and diverse at pleasure, for irrigation.

Nor would Horace use Lympha for a river, or be amenable to a charge of such tautology as this:—

Curate.—I fancy I now see the garden, where somewhat artificial planting had put together the “Pinus ingens albaque Populus,” to consociate, and form the shady arbour, where the wine and unguents are to be brought, and through which the rivus passes angularly, and doubtless with a view to the garden-beauty. It is a sketch from nature of some particular and favourite spot.

Aquilius.—Truly, in many places Horace delights to paint this one individual spot. We have in all, the wood, the waters from their higher banks, making falls such as to induce sleep, the garden with its shade, and its fountain, near the house, this continual “aquæ fons.” Such as was his “Fons Bandusiæ,” not fons a mere spring, but sanctified by architectural art, as well as feeling.

But listen to what he desired to possess, and did possess.

Is he describing his Sabine villa?—I have a sketch on its site—and there is now, whatever there may have been in his days, a high bank, over which the water still falls, (I believe from the Digentia) which by conduits supplied the house, and cattle returned from their labour, and the flocks. There is a small cascade filling a marble basin (the fountain) and thence flowing off through the garden. Perhaps he had in these descriptions one or two scenes in his mind’s eye much alike. A poet’s geography shifts its scenery ad libitum. But see what his Sabine farm was.

Curate.—I remember it.

But does he not in that passage make rivus a river?—

Aquilius.—The river was the Digentia, the cold Digentia.

It may be here a river, but not certainly. Do you suppose he went down in sight of the whole neighbourhood to bathe in the little river? for little river it is, and cold enough, too; for I have bathed in it, and can testify of its coldness. Would you take him, 1 say, down from his house to the river itself, when he had it conveyed to his own home by a rivus, or channel, and by a fons such as has been described, from which, without doubt, he was supplied with water enough for his hot and his cold baths? The gelidus Digentia rivus, I well know, and, as I said, bathed in it. A countryman seeing me, cried out, “Fa morir!” The Italians now (at least inland) never bathe; they have a perfect hydrophobia. Few even wash themselves. I asked a boy, whom we took about with us to carry our sketching materials, when he had last washed his face. He confessed he had never washed it, and that nobody did.

Curate.—We know Horace delighted in Tibur,—his “Tibur argeo, positum colono.” In the passage criticised in the Pentameron, I shall always see Tivoli, with its wood, its rocks, and cascatelle. He had the scene before him when he wrote,—

Tibur still; its rocks, woods, and rivus again; and perhaps the “nemus” was “Tiburni lucus.”

Aquilius.—Perhaps a line in this epistle from the lover of country to the lover of town, may throw some light on “obliquo” and “trepidare,” if indeed he has the scene in his eye.

Great indeed is the difference, whether the water passes through a leaden pipe, or by the rivers, a mere direction by a channel open to the sky, and whose bed is the rock.

But there is a passage which still more clearly, I think, marks the distinction between the rivus and the river. The poet invites Mæcenas to the country, and tells him,—

Now, if the shepherd had driven his flock to the river, all bleating and languid with heat, the bank of the river would scarcely have been taciturn; doubtless the shepherd sought the “fontem,” into which the water was conveyed, and under shade, a place not exposed to the sun, or the wind, as was the ripa, the river’s bank. And besides, in this passage, the rivos and the ripa are certainly spoken of as two separate places.

Here our friend and host began to mutter a little. He was evidently going over his model-farm, while we were at the Sabine. He now talked quicker—“John,” (so he always called his hind, his factotum,) “plant ’em a little farther apart, d’ye see, and trench up well.” “That’s the way.” “Now, John, d’ye know how—to clap an old head on young shoulders—why dig a trench the width of the spade, from the stem of an apple-tree, and fill up with good vegetable mould. First pollard your tree, John.” “That’s it, John.” This and more was said, with a few sleepy interruptions; he soon awoke, and said with an amusing indifference,—“Well, any more news of Catullus?”

Aquilius.—We left Catullus asleep some time ago, and thinking it probable that you and he might wake at the same time, we determined to wait for you both, and, in the meanwhile, we have been discussing a passage in Horace, of which, (for we will not now renew the discussion,) I will one day hear your opinion. A very favourite author, however, of yours, doubts the felicity of Horace in the choice of words.

Curate.—And in the structure of his sentences, and says, “How simple in comparison are Catullus and Lucretius.”

Gratian.—Indeed! now I think that is but finding one fault, for the choice of words and construction of sentences go pretty much together. An ill-constructed sentence can hardly have a good choice of words, for it is most probably unmusical, and that fault would make the choice a jumble. If the words were nonsense in Milton, the music of them would make you believe he could have used no other. They are breathed out so naturally; take the first line of Paradise Lost—it is in this manner perfect. Good words are, to good thoughts, what the stars are to the night, sunshine to the brook, flowers to the field, and foliage to the woods; clothing what is otherwise bare, giving glory to the dark, and to the great and spacious; investing the rugged with grace, and adding the vigour and motion of life to the inanimate, the motionless, and the solid. I must defend my friend Horace against all comers.

Is there a bad choice of words there? How insidiously the silent river indents the banks with its quiet water, and how true to nature! It is not your turbulent river that eats into the land, (it may overflow it,) but that ever heavy weight of the taciturn rivers, running not in a rocky bed, but through a deep soft soil.

Curate.—You are lucky in your quotation, for we were discussing some such matter. Horace is particularly happy in his river scenes. Did not he know the value of his own words—he thus speaks of them:

Aquilius.—Yes, but he speaks of them as immortal. “Ne credas interitura.” But if the “socianda chordis,” means they are to be set to music, I deny that music is

or there has long ago been a divorce. I am told, the more manifest the nonsense, the better the song.

Gratian.—Then I leave you to sing it, and reserve your sense and sense-verses for to-morrow. But it cannot be till the evening, for I must attend an agricultural meeting in the morning, some distance off. Would you believe it, I have to defend my own statement. A stupid fellow said publicly, that he would not believe that the produce of my Belgian carrots, which you saw, was 360 lbs. per land-yard, which is at the rate of 25 tons, 14 cwt. 1 qr. 4 lbs. per acre. There are people who will doubt every thing. You see they doubt what I say of my carrots, and what Horace says of his own words.—So, good-night.

This “good night,” Eusebius, was not the abrupt leave-taking which it may here appear. For our friend’s habit was to close the day not unthankful. We regularly retired to the dining-room, where the servants and family were assembled, and prayers were read. So that this “good-night” of our excellent host were but his last worldly and social words. And if devotion, and most kind feelings towards all creatures—man and beast—can ensure pleasant and healthful sleep, his pillow is a charm against comfortless dreams and rheumatic pains.

There we leave him—and if, Eusebius, you are amused with this our chat, you may look again for Noctes Catullianæ.

Postscript.—This should have gone to you, my dear Eusebius, two days ago, but by some accident it was left out of the post-bag. By the neglect, however, I am enabled to tell you that our friend the Curate is in trouble: the very trouble, too, which I foresaw. He came to us this morning with a very long face, and told us that yesterday, on going as usual to his parochial Sunday school, he was surprised that nearly all the bigger girls were absent; that the mistress of the school did not receive him with her usual respect; that the three maiden ladies, Lydia Prateapace, Clarissa Gadabout, and Barbara Brazenstare, were at the farther end of the room, affectedly busy with the children; that seeing him, they slightly acknowledged his presence, as Goldsmith well expresses it, by a “mutilated curtsey.” He approached them, and expressed his surprise at the absence of the elder children. Prateapace looked first down, then away from him, and said it was no business of hers to question their parents. Miss Gadabout added, that every body knew the reason. And Brazenstare looked him boldly in the face, and said, she supposed nobody knew so well as himself. Prateapace put in her word, that now he was come, there was no need of their presence, as there were not too many to teach. Upon which Gadabout cried, “Then let us be off: it is quite time we should.” And as they were moving off, Brazenstare turned round and asked him, mutteringly, if he intended to kiss the schoolmistress. Upon this, he went to some of the parents to inquire respecting the absence of their daughters, and little satisfaction could he get. They didn’t like to say—but people did say—indeed it was all about the township—that they were quite as well at home, for that they might learn more than the book taught—for that his honour had been reproved by good Mr. G. for too great familiarity.

So ends the matter, or rather such is the position of affairs at present—the Curate has come to consult what is to be done. I tell him, that if he knows what he is about, it will proceed with some violence, then an opposition, and end with offerings of bouquets, and perhaps the presentation of a piece of plate. Gratian tells him he hopes nothing so bad as that will come to pass—the Curate almost fears it will, and is vexed at his present awkward position.

You, Eusebius, already see enough mischief in it to delight you; you are, I know, laughing immoderately, and determine to write the inscription for the plate in perspective. Adieu, ever yours. Aquilius.

Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh.

Footnotes:

[1] See No. CCCLXXIII, page 555.

[2] See next page.

[3]

Form 25 (a.)

Weekly Out-Door Relief List, for the quarter ending 18 , District. Relieving Officer.

Ordinary. Medical. Casual. Name of the Pauper, and Wife if any. When Born. If not residing in Parish, where resident. No. of the Class in the Quarterly Abstract. For what Period Relief ordered, and date of order. 1st. Week. 2d to 13th Week.

Classes. Able-bodied. Unclassified.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 8 & 9 Unemployed. Employed. In Money. In Kind. In Money. In Kind.

M F M F M F Ch F Ch F Ch F F Ch M F Ch M F M F Ch M F Ch

s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d.

Totals.

It is possible that a union maybe found in which the number of poor are so few, as to allow of the four orders of poor—the Ordinary, the Medical, the Casual, and the Unclassified—to be contained in one book; but in general it would be necessary to separate them and to appropriate a book to each order; and there are parishes so large, and in which certain classes of poor abound, as to require separate books for those particular cases.

[4] Elia

[5] If the reader will refer again to the form of “Relief List,” he will perceive that there are three general divisions, named severally, ordinary, medical, and casual. These terms were preserved, because they are well known in actual practice, rather than because they express a really broad distinction. The ordinary relief list is supposed to contain all those recipients of relief who are likely to continue chargeable for a long period. But the distinction attempted to be drawn between those who may require relief for a long and those who require it for a short period only, depends upon circumstances too vague and variable to be of any practical utility. These objections are not applicable to the generic term “medical.”

[6] A tradesman is not a shopkeeper, but a mechanic who is skilled in his particular branch of industry.

[7] In other words, that he will be condemned to slavery, and employed on the public works in wheeling a barrow.

[8] The belief in hard men, i.e. of men whose skins were impervious to a musket or pistol ball, was extremely prevalent during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They could be killed only by a silver bullet. Fitzgerald, the notorious duellist and murderer, in the middle of the last century, was said to have been a hard man.—See Thoms’ Anecdotes and Traditions, printed for the Camden Society, p. 111.

[9] It must be borne in mind that the priests here alluded to are Danish.

[10] Junker (pronounced Yunker,) the title given to a son of noble family. Fröken (dimin. of Frue, madam, lady; Ger. Fräulein) is the corresponding title of a young lady of rank.

[11] Madam, applied strictly to ladies of rank only.

[12] The Nisse of the Scandinavian nations is, in many respects, the counterpart of the Scottish Brownie, while, in others, he occasionally resembles the Devonian and Cornish Pixie and Portune. He is described as clad in gray, with a pointed red cap. Having once taken up his abode with a family, it is not easy to dislodge him, as is evident from the following anecdote:—A man, whose patience was exhausted by the mischievous pranks of a Nisse that dwelt in his house, resolved on changing his habitation, and leaving his troublesome guest to himself. Having packed his last cart-load of chattels, he chanced to go to the back of his cart, to see whether all was safe, when, to his dismay, the Nisse popped his head out of a tub, and with a loud laugh, said, “See, we flit to-day,” (See, idag flytte vi.)—Thiele, Danske Folkesagn, i. p. 134, and Athenæum, No. 991.

There are also ship Nisses, whose functions consist in shadowing out, as it were, by night all the work that is to be performed the following day,—to weigh or cast anchor, to hoist or lower the sails, to furl or reef them—all which operations are forerunners of a storm. For the duty even of a swabber, he does not consider himself too high, but washes the deck most delicately clean. Some well-informed persons maintain that this spiritus navalis, or nautical goblin, proves himself of kindred race with the house or land Nisse by his roguish pranks. Sometimes he turns the vane, sometimes extinguishes the light in the binnacle, plagues the ship’s dog, and if there chance to be a passenger on board who cannot bear the sea, the rogue will appear before him with heart-rending grimaces retching in the bucket. If the ship is doomed to perish, he jumps overboard in the night, and either enters another vessel or swims to land.

[13] According to the Germanic nations, the devil has a horse’s, not a cloven foot.

[14] In the original, “Ole Luköje,” i.e., Olave Shut-eye, a personage as well known by name to the children of Denmark, as the dustman is to those of England.

[15] She was no doubt habited en Amazone, as was the fashion in Denmark about the date to which our story refers. At a much later period, Matilda (sister of our George III.) Queen of Christian VII. rode in a garb nearly resembling a man’s.

[16] Viz. a fox, in allusion to Mikkel’s surname of Foxtail.

[17] Two places of public resort and great beauty in the neighbourhood of Copenhagen. On St. John’s (Hans’) eve, the former place is thronged with the inhabitants of the capital and vicinity, for the purpose of drinking the waters of a well held in great esteem.

[18] Reise nach Java, und Ausflüge nach den Inseln Madura und St. Helena. Von Dr. Eduard Selberg. Oldenburg and Amsterdam: 1846.

[19] Trade and Travel in the Far East. London: 1846.

[20] Notes to “Peveril of the Peak.”

[21] Notes to “Oliver Newman.”

[22] Trial of Charles I. and the Regicides, which I see referred to in “Oliver Newman,” but I have not the book myself.

[23] London Times of that date.

[24] State Trials, ii. 389.

[25] Somers’ Tracts, vi. 339.

[26] Carlyle and Clarendon.

[27] Carlyle.

[28] Carlyle.

[29] Clarendon, iii. 590.

[30] Percy’s Reliques, 121.

[31] Fasti Oxon. ii. 79.

[32] Letters and Speeches, &c. by Carlyle.

[33] Fasti Oxon. ii. 79.

[34] Carlyle.

[35] Fasti Oxon, ii. p. 79. Anno 1649.

[36] Evelyn’s Memoirs, i. 308.

[37] Notes to Peveril of the Peak.

[38] Sir Thomas Herbert’s Two Last Years, p. 189.

[39] State Trials, ii. 886.

[40] Lives of the Queens, vol. viii.

[41] Holmes’ American Annals.

[42] Isaiah xvi. 3.

[43] Rev. xi. 8.

[44] Rev. xiii. 18.

[45] Holmes’ American Annals, in Ann. Also, Notes to “Oliver Newman.”

[46] Gatherings from Spain, by Richard Ford. London, 1846. An Overland Journey to Lisbon, &c., by T. M. Hughes. London, 1847.

Transcriber’s Notes

The Table of Contents does not appear in the original. It has been generated by the transcriber as an aid to the reader.

Printer’s inconsistencies in hyphenation have been retained.

Greek variants have been standardized.