Chapter X: Part 10

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:--

DE PASSERE MORTUO LESBIAE.

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; 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.--

DE PASSERE MORTUO LESBIAE.

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 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 "puellae,"--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 those eyes rather hard, considering whose they are. He, however, only meant the hit for Catullus:

nec tibi, cujus
Turbavit nitidos 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 EST.

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,
Proud Rhodes, and every land that lay
Where savage Thracia's tempests roar--
She asked her native Pontic bay--

Where first her leafy crown was stirred
By winds that swept Cytorian rocks.
(Through rustling leaves her voice was heard.)
And you, Cytorus, crowned with box,
And you, Amastris, hear the word.

For all, she says, was known to you,
And still is known. For on your top
She first took root and proudly grew,
Till severed trunk and branches drop,
And keel and oars thy waves embue.

How oft she bore, when winds were light,
Her master over sea and strait,
Stemmed currents strong, and tacked to right
Or left, and bravely held the weight
Of breeze that strained her canvass tight.

Nor was there need for her to make
Or costly vows, or incense burn;
Or sea-shore gods her guides to take
On her last voyage, last return,
From sea-ward to this limpid lake.

Now all is o'er--grown old, in rest
She waits decay--with homage due,
And grateful thought, and prayer addressed,
She dedicates herself to you,
Twin stars, twin gods, twin brothers blest.

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.

DEDICATIO PHASELI.

Strangers, the bark you see, doth say
Of ships the fleetest far was she.

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.

Strangers, this bark you see doth say,
Of ships the fleetest far was she:
And that she passed and flew away
From every hull that ploughed the sea,
That fought against, or used the gale
With hand-like oar or wing-like sail.

She cites, as witness to her word,
The frowning Adriatic strand;
The Cyclades which rocks engird,
And noted Rhodus' distant land;
Propontis and unkindly Thrace,
And Savage Pontus' billowy race.

That which is now a shallop here,
Was once a tract of tressed wood,
Its foliage was Cytorus' gear,
Upon the topmost ridge it stood,
And when the morning breeze awoke
Its whistling leaves the silence broke.

Pontic Amastris, says the bark,
Box-overgrown Cytorus, you
Know me by each familiar mark,
And testify the tale is true.
She says you saw her earliest birth
Upon your nursing mountain-earth,

She dipped her blades, a maiden launch,
First in your waves, and bent her course
Thence, ever to her master staunch,
Through seas that plied their utmost force.
If right or left the breeze did strike,
Or gentle Jove did strain alike,

Each sheet before the wind. She came
From that remotest ocean-spot
To this clear inlet, still the same,
And yet audaciously forgot
The bribes which, under doubtful skies,
Are vowed to sea-side deities.

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 "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 Caelestes 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:--

She came,
'Twas her last voyage, from far sea,
To this clear inlet-home, the same
Good bark and true, and proudly free
From vows which under doubtful skies,
Are made to sea-side Deities.

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,--

"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 kisses--
Twice 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
Love in living, life in loving,
For all the saws of sages caring
Not one single penny's paring.
Suns can rise again from setting,
But our short light,
Once sunk in night,
Sleeps a slumber all forgetting:
Give me then a thousand kisses,
Still a hundred little blisses--
Yet a thousand--yet five score,
Yet a thousand, hundred more.
Then, when we have made too many
Thousands, we'll confound them all,
So as not to know of any
Number, either great or small;
Or lest some caitiff grudge our blisses
When he knows the tale of kisses----

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,"--

"And every shepherd tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in the dale."

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.

"Knowing our amount of kisses."

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.

AD LESBIAM.

We'll live and love while yet 'tis ours,
To live and love, my Lesbia, dearest,
And when old greybeard saws thou hearest,
(Since joy is but the present hour's,)
We'll laugh them down as none the clearest.

For suns will set again to rise,
But our brief day once closed--we slumber
Long nights, long days--too long to number;--
Perpetual sleep shall close our eyes,
And one dark night shall both encumber.

A thousand kisses then bestow;
Ten thousand more,--ten thousand blisses,--
And when we've counted million kisses--
Begin again,--for, Lesbia, know,
We way have made mistakes and misses.

Then let our lips the full amount
Commingle so, in one delusion,
Blending beginning with conclusion,
Nor we, nor envy's self can count
How many in the sweet confusion.

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, "mala fascinare lingua" alludes evidently to the euphemia 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.

AQUILIUS.--AD LESBIAM.

How many kisses will suffice,
You ask me, Lesbia,--ask a lover!
Go bid him count the sands;--discover,
Even to a very grain precise,
How many lie in heaps, or hover,
When gusty winds the sand hills stir
About the benzoin-bearing plain,
Between Jove's Cyrenean fane,
And Battus' sacred sepulchre.

How many stars, in stillest night,
On loving thefts look down approving,--
So many kisses should requite
Catullus, ah too madly loving.--
Ye curious eyes, be closed in slumber,
That would be spies upon our wooing,
That there be none to note the number,
Nor tongue to babble of our doing.

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.--

That there be none to note the number,
Nor tongue to babble of our doing.

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

CURATE.--AD LESBIAM.

Dost bid me, my Lesbia,
A number define,
To fill me, and glut me
With kisses of thine?

When equal thy kisses
The atoms of sand,
By spicy Cyrene
On Lybia's strand,

The sand grains extending
From Ammon's hot shrine,
To the tomb of old Battus,
That land-mark divine.

Or count me the star-lights
That see from above,
In still night, the thievings
Of mortals in love.

Thus canst thou, my Lesbia,
A number assign,
To glut thy mad lover
With kisses of thine.

A number the prying
To reckon may spare;
And gossips, unlucky,
Give up in despair.

GRATIAN.--(After a pause, his eyes half closed,)

"Give up in despair."

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.

Aut gelidas hibernus aquas eum fuderit auster
Securum somnos imbre juvante sequi.

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

Obliquo laborat
Lympha fugax trepidare rivo.

"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

obliquo laborat,
Lympha fugax trepidare rivo.

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, "Purae rivus aquae."--Then, again, describing the character of Tibur or Tivoli, he does not say the Anio; but "aquae," as in the other instance "Lympha."

"Sed quae Tibur aquae fertile praefluunt,"

--"fertile," being the effect of the _irrigation_, the purpose for which the aquae are turned from the river; and this agrees well with the word _praefluunt_, as applied to irrigated gardens. Pliny thus uses the adjective praefluus: "Hortos esse habendos _irriguos praefluo 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.

"et uda
_Mobilibus_ pomarea rivis."

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:--

"Labuntur _altis interim ripis aquae_,
Quaeruntur in sylvis aves,
_Fontesque Lymphis_ obstrepunt manantibus,
Somnos quod inortet leves."

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.

Quo Pinus ingens albaque Populus
Umbram _hospitalem_ consociare amant
Ramis, et obliquo laborat
Lympha fugax trepidare rivo.

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 "aquae fons." Such as was his "Fons Bandusiae," not _fons_ a mere spring, but sanctified by architectural art, as well as feeling.

"Fies nobilium tu quoque fontium,
Me dicente cavis impositam illicem
Saxis, unde loquaces
_Lymphae_ desiliunt tuae."

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

"Hoc erat in votis, modus agri non ita magnus,
Hortus ubi, et tecto vicinus jugis aquae fons,
Et paulum sylvae super his foret."

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.

"Scribetur tibi forma loquaciter, et situs agri."

But does he not in that passage make _rivus_ a river?--

"Fons etiam rivo dare nomen idoneus, ut nec
Frigidior Thracam, nec purior ambiat Hebrus."

AQUILIUS.--The river was the Digentia, the cold Digentia.

"Me quoties reficit gelidus Digentia rivus."

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,--

"ego laudo ruris amaeni
_Rivos_; et museo circumlita saxa, nemusque."

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.

"Purior in vicis aqua tendit rumpere plumbum,
Quam que _per pronum_ trepidat cum murmure _rivum_."

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 Maecenas to the country, and tells him,--

"Jam pastor umbras cum grege languido
_Rivumque_ fessus querit, et horridi
Dumeta Silvani, caretque
_Ripa_ vagis taciturna ventis."

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.

"--rura, quae Liris quieta
Mordet aqua, taciturnus amnis."

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:

"Verba loquor socianda chordis."

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

"Married to immortal verse,"

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 Catullianae.

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

Ordinary. Medical. Casual.

Classes Able-bodied.
Unclassified.

------ ---------- ------
U p p
n l E l
e o m o
m y - y
8 - e e
1 2 3 4 5 7 8 9 & d d.
6 8
--- --- ------ ---- ---- ------ ------ --- ------ -----
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
-+- -+- -+-+-- -+-- -+-- -+-+-- -+-+-- -+- -+-+-- -+-+--
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

18 , District. Relieving Officer.

Ordinary Medical. Casual.

F R a
o e n
I i N i r l d 1st 2d to
f n o n i Week. 13th
. w e d Week.
n P t h f a ----------- -----------
o a r o h A a t |
N p w t r e f e b t o e |
a a i i s s r |
m u f W r s i C Q t P d o I I |
e p e h e h d l u r e e f n I n | I
e e s , e a a a r r n | n
o r i n i n s r c i e o M M |
f , f d w t s t t o d r o K o | K
b i h . e . d , d n i n | i
t a a o n e r e e n e | n
h n n r g r l r y d y | d
e d y n e y . . . . | .
----- ---- ----- ----- ------ ----- ----- -----+-----
| 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. Froeken (_dimin. of_ Frue, _madam_, _lady_; Ger. Fraeulein) 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 _Athenaeum_, 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 Lukoeje," _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 Ausfluege 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:

Passages in italics are indicated by _underscore_.

Superscripted letters are shown in {brackets}.

The original text includes Greek characters. For this text version these letters have been replaced with transliterations.

Due to their width, tables have been split in half.

The first page of this issue is 261.

The following misprints have been corrected:
"deterimental" corrected to "detrimental" (page 285)
"architectue" corrected to "architecture" (page 335)
"appearrance" corrected to "appearance" (page 336
"assocation" corrected to "association" (page 369)
"banches" corrected to "branches" (page 369)
"Frauelein" corrected to "Fraeulein" (page 373)
"triflle" corrected to "trifle" (page 376)

Other than the corrections listed above, printer's inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation usage have been retained.