Chapter XII: Part 12

The word _Præsertim_, in this beautiful passage, affords an illustration of what has been remarked above, that the kind of philosophical analysis employed by Lucretius gives great force to his moral reflections. He seems, as it were, to be weighing his words; and, which is the only solid foundation of just confidence, to be cautious of asserting anything which experience would not fully confirm. One thing very remarkable in this great poet is, the admirable clearness and closeness of his reasoning. He repeatedly values himself not a little on the circumstance, that, with an intractable subject, and a language not yet accommodated to philosophical discussions, and scanty in terms of physical as well as metaphysical science, he was able to give so much clearness to his argument(451); which object it is generally admitted he has accomplished, with little or no sacrifice of pure Latinity(452). As a proof at once of the perspicuity and closeness of his reasoning, and the fertility of his mind in inventing arguments, there might be given his long discussion, in the third book, on the materiality of the human soul, and its incapability of surviving the ruin of the corporeal frame. Never were the arguments for materialism marshalled with such skill—never were the diseases of the mind, and the decay of memory and understanding, so pathetically urged, so eloquently expressed. The following quotation contains a specimen of the lucid and logical reasoning of this philosophic poet; and the two first verses, perhaps, after all that has been written, comprehend the whole that is metaphysically or physiologically known upon the subject:

“Præterea, gigni pariter cum corpore, et unà
Crescere sentimus, pariterque senescere, mentem.
Nam, velut infirmo pueri, teneroque, vagantur
Corpore, sic animi sequitur sententia tenuis;
Inde, ubi robustis adolevit viribus ætas,
Consilium quoque majus, et auctior est animî vis.
Post, ubi jam validis quassatum est viribus ævi
Corpus, et obtusis ceciderunt viribus artus,
Claudicat ingenium, delirat linguaque mensque;
Omnia deficiunt, atque uno tempore desunt:
Ergo, dissolvi quoque convenit omnem animäi
Naturam, ceu fumus in altas aëris auras;
Quandoquidem gigni pariter, pariterque videmus
Crescere; et, ut docui, simul, ævo fessa, fatisci.”—III. 446.

Lucretius having, by many arguments, endeavoured to establish the mortality of the soul, proceeds to exhort against a dread of death. The fear of that “last tremendous blow,” appears to have harassed, and sometimes overwhelmed, the minds of the Romans(453). To them, life presented a scene of high duties and honourable labours; and they contemplated, in a long futurity, the distant completion of their serious and lofty aims. They were not yet habituated to regard life as a banquet or recreation, from which they were cheerfully to rise, in due time, sated with the feast prepared for them; nor had they been accustomed to associate death with those softening ideas of indolence and slumber, with which it was the design of Lucretius to connect it. He accordingly represents it as a privation of all sense,—as undisturbed by tumult or terror, by grief or pain,—as a tranquil sleep, and an everlasting repose. How sublime is the following passage, in which, to illustrate his argument, that the long night of the grave can be no more painful than the eternity before our birth, he introduces the war with Carthage; and what a picture does it convey of the energy and might of the combatants!

“Nil igitur Mors est, ad nos neque pertinet hilum,
Quandoquidem natura animi mortalis habetur.
Et, velut ante acto nil tempore sensimus ægrî,
Ad confligundum venientibus undique Pœnis;
Omnia quum, belli trepido concussa tumultu,
Horrida contremuere sub altis ætheris auris:
In dubioque fuere, utrorum ad regna cadundum
Omnibus humanis esset, terràque, màrique.
Sic, ubi non erimus, quum corporis atque animäi
Discidium fuerit, quibus e sumus uniter apti;
Scilicet haud nobis quidquam, qui non erimus tum,
Accidere omnino poterit, sensumque movere:
Non si terra mari miscebitur, et mare cœlo.”—III, 842.

From this admirable passage till the close of the third book there is an union of philosophy, of majesty, and pathos, which hardly ever has been equalled. The incapacity of the highest power and wisdom, as exhibited in so many instances, to exempt from the common lot of man, the farewell which we must bid to the sweetest domestic enjoyments, and the magnificent _prosopopœia_ of Nature to her children, rebuking their regrets, and the injustice of their complaints, are altogether exceedingly solemn, and affecting, and sublime.

The two leading tenets of Epicurus concerning the formation of the world and the mortality of the soul, are established by Lucretius in the first three books. A great proportion of the fourth book may be considered as episodical. Having explained the nature of primordial atoms, and of the soul, which is formed from the finest of them, he announces, that there are certain images (_rerum simulacra_,) or effluvia, which are constantly thrown off from the surface of whatever exists. On this hypothesis he accounts for all our external senses; and he applies it also to the theory of dreams, in which whatever images have amused the senses during day most readily recur. Mankind being prone to love, of all the phantoms which rush on our imagination during night, none return so frequently as the forms of the fair. This leads Lucretius to enlarge on the mischievous effects of illicit love; and nothing can be finer than the various moral considerations which he enforces, to warn us against the snares of guilty passion. It must, however, be confessed, that his description of what he seems to consider as the physical evils and imperfect fruition of sensual love, forms the most glowing picture ever presented of its delights. But he has atoned for his violation of decorum, by a few beautiful lines on connubial happiness at the conclusion of the book:

“Nam facit ipsa suis interdum femina factis,
Morigerisque modis et mundo corpore culta,
Ut facile assuescat secum vir degere vitam.
Quod super est, consuetudo concinnat amorem;
Nam, leviter quamvis, quod crebro tunditur ictu,
Vincitur id longo spatio tamen, atque labascit:
Nonne vides, etiam guttas, in saxa cadenteis,
Humoris longo in spacio pertundere saxa?”—IV. 1273.

The principal subject of the fifth book—a composition unrivalled in energy and richness of language, in full and genuine sublimity—is the origin and laws of the visible world, with those of its inhabitants. The poet presents us with a grand picture of Chaos, and the most magnificent account of the creation that ever flowed from human pen. In his representation of primeval life and manners, he exhibits the discomfort of this early stage of society by a single passage of most wild and powerful imagery,—in which he describes a savage, in the early ages of the world, when men were yet contending with beasts for possession of the earth, flying through the woods, with loud shrieks, in a stormy night, from the pursuit of some ravenous animal, which had invaded the cavern where he sought a temporary shelter and repose:

—— “Sæcla ferarum
Infestam miseris faciebant sæpe quietem;
Ejecteique domo, fugiebant saxea tecta
Setigeri suis adventu, validique leonis;
Atque intempestâ cedebant nocte, paventes,
Hospitibus sævis instrata cubilia fronde.”—V. 980.

One is naturally led to compare the whole of Lucretius’ description of primeval society, and the origin of man, with Ovid’s _Four Ages of the World_, which commence his _Metamorphoses_, and which, philosophically considered, certainly exhibit the most wonderful of all metamorphoses. In his sketch of the Golden Age, he has selected the favourable circumstances alluded to by Lucretius—exemption from war and sea voyages, and spontaneous production of fruits by the earth. There is also a beautiful view of early life and manners in one of the elegies of Tibullus(454); and Thomson, in his picture of what he calls the “prime of days,” has combined the descriptions of Ovid and the elegiac bard. Most of the poets, however, who have painted the Golden Age, and Ovid in particular, have represented mankind as growing more vicious and unhappy with advance of time—Lucretius, more philosophically, as constantly improving. He has fixed on connubial love as the first great softener of the human breast; and neither Thomson nor Milton has described with more tenderness, truth, and purity, the joys of domestic union. He follows the progressive improvement of mankind occasioned by their subjection to the bonds of civil society and government; and the book concludes with an account of the origin of the fine arts, particularly music, in the course of which many impressive descriptions occur, and many delicious scenes are unfolded:

“At liquidas avium voces imitarier ore
Ante fuit multo, quam lævia carmina cantu
Concelebrare homines possent, aureisque juvare.
Et zephyri, cava per calamorum, sibila primum
Agrestes docuere cavas inflare cicutas.
Inde minutatim dulces didicere querelas
Tibia quas fundit, digitis pulsata canentûm,
Avia per nemora ac sylvas saltusque reperta,
Per loca pastorum deserta, atque otia dia.”—V. 1378.

In consequence of their ignorance and superstitions, the Roman people were rendered perpetual slaves of the most idle and unfounded terrors. In order to counteract these popular prejudices, and to heal the constant disquietudes that accompanied them, Lucretius proceeds, in the sixth book, to account for a variety of extraordinary phænomena both in the heavens and on the earth, which, at first view, seemed to deviate from the usual laws of nature:—

“Sunt tempestates et fulmina clara canenda.”

Having discussed the various theories formed to account for electricity, water-spouts, hurricanes, the rainbow, and volcanoes, he lastly considers the origin of pestilential and endemic disorders. This introduces the celebrated account of the plague, which ravaged Athens during the Peloponnesian war, with which Lucretius concludes this book, and his magnificent poem. “In this narrative,” says a late translator of Lucretius, “the true genius of poetry is perhaps more powerfully and triumphantly exhibited than in any other poem that was ever written. Lucretius has ventured upon one of the most uncouth and repressing subjects to the muses that can possibly be brought forward—the history and symptoms of a disease, and this disease accompanied with circumstances naturally the most nauseating and indelicate. It was a subject altogether new to numerical composition; and he had to strive with all the pedantry of technical terms, and all the abstruseness of a science in which he does not appear to have been professionally initiated. He strove, however, and he conquered. In language the most captivating and nervous, and with ideas the most precise and appropriate, he has given us the entire history of this tremendous pestilence. There is not, perhaps, a symptom omitted, yet there is not a verse with which the most scrupulous can be offended. The description of the symptoms, and also the various circumstances of horror and distress attending this dreadful scourge, have been derived from Thucydides, who furnished the facts with great accuracy, having been himself a spectator and a sufferer under this calamity. His narrative is esteemed an elaborate and complete performance; and to the faithful yet elegant detail of the Greek historian, the Roman bard has added all that was necessary to convert the description into poetry.”

In the whole history of Roman taste and criticism, nothing appears to us so extraordinary as the slight mention that is made of Lucretius by succeeding Latin authors; and, when mentioned, the coldness with which he is spoken of by all Roman critics and poets, with the exception of Ovid. Perhaps the spirit of free-thinking which pervaded his writings, rendered it unsuitable or unsafe to extol even his poetical talents. There was a time, when, in this country, it was thought scarcely decorous or becoming to express high admiration of the genius of Rousseau or Voltaire.

The doctrines of Lucretius, particularly that which impugns the superintending care of Providence, were first formally opposed by the Stoic Manilius in his Astronomic poem. In modern times, his whole philosophical system has been refuted in the long and elaborate poem of the Cardinal Polignac, entitled, _Anti-Lucretius, sive de Deo et Natura_. This enormous work, though incomplete, consists of nine books, of about 1300 lines each, and the whole is addressed to Quintius, an atheist, who corresponds to the Lorenzo of the _Night Thoughts_. Descartes is the Epicurus of the poem, and the subject of many heavy panegyrics. In the philosophical part of his subject, the Cardinal has sometimes refuted, at too great length, propositions which are manifestly absurd—at others, he has impugned demonstrated truths—and the moral system of Lucretius he throughout has grossly misunderstood. But he has rendered ample justice to his poetical merit; and, in giving a compendium of the subject of his great antagonist’s poem, he has caught some share of the poetical spirit with which his predecessor was inspired:—

“Hic agitare velit Cytheriam inglorius artem:
Hic myrtum floresque legat, quos tinxit Adonis
Sanguine, dilectus Veneri puer; aut Heliconem,
Et colles Baccho, partim, Phœboque sacratos
Incolat. Hic, placidi latebris in mollibus antri,
Silenum recubantem, et amico nectare venas
Inflatum stupeat titubanti voce canentem;
Et juvenum cæcos ignes, et vulnera dicat,
Et vacuæ, pulsis terroribus, otia vitæ,
Fœcundosque greges, et amæni gaudia ruris:
Hæc et plura canens, avidè bibat ore diserto
Pegaseos latices; et nomen grande Poetæ,
Non Sapientis, amet. Lauro insignire poetam
Quis dubitet? Primus viridanteis ipse coronas
Imponam capiti, et meritas pro carmine laudes
Ante alios dicam.” ——(455)

Entertaining this just admiration of his opponent, the Cardinal has been studious, while refuting his principles, to imitate as closely as possible the poetic style of Lucretius; and, accordingly, we find many noble and beautiful passages interspersed amid the dry discussions of the _Anti-Lucretius_. In the first book, there is an elegant comparison, something like that by Wolsey in _Henry VIII._, of a man who had wantoned in the sunshine of prosperity, and was unprepared for the storms of adversity, to the tender buds of the fruit-tree blighted by the north-wind. The whole poem, indeed, is full of many beautiful and appropriate similes. I have not room to transcribe them, but may refer the reader to those in the first book, of a sick man turning to every side for rest, to a traveller following an _ignis fatuus_; in the second, motes dancing in the sun-beam to the atoms of Epicurus floating in the immensity of space; in the third, the whole philosophy of Epicurus to the infinite variety of splendid but fallacious appearances produced by the shifting of scenery in our theatres, (line 90,) and the identity of matter amid the various shapes it assumes, to the transformations of _Proteus_. The fourth book commences with a beautiful image of a traveller on a steep, looking back on his journey; immediately followed by a fine picture of the unhallowed triumph of Epicurus, and Religion weeping during the festival of youths to his honour. In the same book, there is a noble description of the river Anio, (line 1459,) and a comparison of the rising of sap in trees during spring to a fountain playing and falling back on itself (780–845). We have in the fifth book a beautiful argument, that the soul is not to be thought material, because affected by the body, illustrated by musical instruments (745). In the sixth book there occurs a charming description of the sensitive plant; and, finally, of a bird singing to his mate, to solace her while brooding over her young:—

“Haud secus in sylvis, ac frondes inter opacas,
Ingenitum carmen modulatur musicus ales,” &c.

Almost all modern didactic poems, whether treating of theology or physics, are composed in obvious imitation of the style and manner of Lucretius. The poem of Aonius Palearius, _De Animi Immortalitate_, though written in contradiction to the system of Lucretius, concerning the mortality of the soul, is almost a _cento_ made up from lines or half lines of the Roman bard; and the same may be said of that extensive class of Latin poems, in which the French Jesuits of the seventeenth century have illustrated the various phænomena of nature(456).

Others have attempted to explain the philosophy of Newton in Latin verse; but the Newtonian system is better calculated to be demonstrated than sung—

“Ornari res ipsa negat—contenta doceri.”

It is a philosophy founded on the most sublime calculations; and it is in other lines and numbers than those of poetry, that the book of nature must now be written. If we attempt to express arithmetical or algebraical figures in verse, circumlocution is always required; more frequently they cannot be expressed at all; and if they could, the lines would have no advantage over prose: nay, would have considerable disadvantage, from obscurity and prolixity. All this is fully confirmed by an examination of the writings of those who have attempted to embellish the sublime system of Newton with the charms of poetry. If we look, for example, into the poem of Boscovich on Eclipses, or still more, into the work of Benedict Stay, we shall see, notwithstanding the advantage they possessed of writing in a language so flexible as the Latin, and so capable of inversion,

“The shifts and turns,
The expedients and inventions multiform,
To which the mind resorts in search of terms(457).”

The latter of these writers employs 36 lines in expressing the law of Kepler, “that the squares of the periodical times of the revolutions of the planets, are as the cubes of their mean distances from the sun.” These lines, too, which are considered by Stay himself, and by Boscovich, his annotator, as the triumph of the philosophic muse, are so obscure as to need a long commentary. Indeed, the poems of both these eminent men consist of a string of enigmas, whereas the principal and almost only ornament of philosophy is perspicuity. After all, only what are called the round numbers can be expressed in verse, and this is necessarily done in a manner so obscure and perplexed as ever to need a prose explanation.

With Lucretius and his subject it was totally the reverse. From the incorrectness of his philosophical views, or rather those of his age, much of his labour has been employed, so to speak, in embodying straws in amber. Yet, with all its defects, this ancient philosophy, if it deserve the name, had the advantage, that its indefinite nature rendered it highly susceptible of an embellishment, which can never be bestowed on a more precise and accurate system. Hence, perhaps, it may be safely foretold, that the philosophical poem of Lucretius will remain unrivalled; and also, that the prediction of Ovid concerning it will be verified—

“Carmina sublimis, tunc sunt peritura Lucretî
Exitio terras cum dabit una dies.”

The refutations and imitations of Lucretius, contained in modern didactic poems, have led me away from what may be considered as my proper subject, and I therefore return to those poets who were coeval with that author, with whose works we have been so long occupied. Of these the most distinguished was

CAIUS VALERIUS CATULLUS,

who was nearly contemporary with Lucretius, having come into the world a few years after him, and having survived him but a short period.

In every part of our survey of Latin Literature, we have had occasion to remark the imitative spirit of Roman poetry, and the constant analogy and resemblance of all the productions of the Latian muse to some Greek original. None of his poetical predecessors was more versed in Greek literature than Catullus; and his extensive knowledge of its beauties procured for him the appellation of _Doctus_(458). He translated many of the shorter and more delicate pieces of the Greeks; an attempt which hitherto had been thought impossible, though the broad humour of their comedies, the vehement pathos of their tragedies, and the romantic interest of the Odyssey, had stood the transformation. His stay in Bithynia, though little advantageous to his fortune, rendered him better acquainted than he might otherwise have been with the productions of Greece, and he was therefore, in a great degree, indebted to this expedition (on which he always appears to have looked back with mortification and disappointment) for those felicitous turns of expression, that grace, simplicity, and purity, which are the characteristics of his poems, and of which hitherto Greece alone had afforded models. Indeed, in all his verses, whether elegiac or heroic, we perceive his imitation of the Greeks, and it must be admitted that he has drawn from them his choicest stores. His Hellenisms are frequent—his images, similes, metaphors, and addresses to himself, are all Greek; and even in the versification of his odes we see visible traces of their origin. Nevertheless, he was the founder of a new school of _Latin_ poetry; and as he was the first who used such variety of measures, and perhaps himself invented some(459), he was amply entitled to call the poetical volume which he presented to Cornelius Nepos, _Lepidum Novum Libellum_. The beautiful expressions, too, and idioms of the Greek language, which he has so carefully selected, are woven with such art into the texture of his composition, and so aptly figure the impassioned ideas of his amorous muse, that they have all the fresh and untarnished hues of originality.

This elegant poet was born of respectable parents, in the territory of Verona, but whether at the town so called, or on the peninsula of Sirmio, which projects into the Lake Benacus, has been a subject of much controversy. The former opinion has been maintained by Maffei and Bayle(460), and the latter by Gyraldus(461), Schoell(462), Fuhrmann(463), and most modern writers.

The precise period, as well as place, of the birth of Catullus, is a topic of debate and uncertainty. According to the Eusebian Chronicle, he was born in 666, but, according to other authorities, in 667(464) or 668. In consequence of an invitation from Manlius Torquatus, one of the noblest patricians of the state, he proceeded in early youth to Rome, where he appears to have kept but indifferent company, at least in point of moral character. He impaired his fortune so much by extravagance, that he had no one, as he complains,

“Fractum qui veteris pedem grabati
In collo sibi collocare possit.”

This, however, must partly have been written in jest, as his finances were always sufficient to allow him to keep up a delicious villa, on the peninsula of Sirmio, and an expensive residence at Tibur. With a view of improving his pecuniary circumstances, he adopted the usual Roman mode of re-establishing a diminished fortune, and accompanied Caius Memmius, the celebrated patron of Lucretius, to Bithynia, when he was appointed Prætor of that province. His situation, however, was but little meliorated by this expedition, and, in the course of it, he lost a beloved brother, who was along with him, and whose death he has lamented in verses never surpassed in delicacy or pathos. He came back to Rome with a shattered constitution, and a lacerated heart. From the period of his return to Italy till his decease, his time appears to have been chiefly occupied with the prosecution of licentious amours, in the capital or among the solitudes of Sirmio. The Eusebian Chronicle places his death in 696, and some writers fix it in 705. It is evident, however, that he must have survived at least till 708, as Cicero, in his Letters, talks of his verses against Cæsar and Mamurra as newly written, and first seen by Cæsar in that year(465). The distracted and unhappy state of his country, and his disgust at the treatment which he had received from Memmius, were perhaps sufficient excuse for shunning political employments(466); but when we consider his taste and genius, we cannot help regretting that he was merely an idler, and a debauchee. He loved Clodia, (supposed to have been the sister of the infamous Clodius,) a beautiful but shameless woman, whom he has celebrated under the name of Lesbia(467), as comparing her to the Lesbian Sappho, her prototype in total abandonment to guilty love. He also numbered among his mistresses, Hypsithilla and Aufilena, ladies of Verona. Among his friends, he ranked not only most men of pleasure and fashion in Rome, but many of her eminent literary and political characters, as Cornelius Nepos, Cicero, and Asinius Pollio. His enmities seem to have been as numerous as his loves or friendships, and competition in poetry, or rivalship in gallantry, appears always to have been a sufficient cause for his dislike; and where an antipathy was once conceived, he was unable to put any restraint on the expression of his hostile feelings. His poems are chiefly employed in the indulgence and commemoration of these various passions. They are now given to us without any order or attempt at arrangement: They were distributed, indeed, by Petrus Crinitus, into three classes, lyric, elegiac, and epigrammatic,—a division which has been adopted in a few of the earlier editions; but there is no such separation in the best MSS., nor is it probable that they were originally thus classed by the author, as he calls his book _Libellum Singularem_; and they cannot now be conveniently reduced under these heads, since several poems, as the nuptials of Peleus and Thetis, are written in hexameter measure. To others, which may be termed occasional poems expressing to his friends a simple idea, or relating the occurrences of the day, in iambic or phalangian verse, it would be difficult to assign any place in a systematic arrangement. Under what class, for instance, could we bring the poem giving a detail of his visit to the house of the courtezan, and the conversation which passed there concerning Bithynia? The order, therefore, in which the poems have been arbitrarily placed by the latest editors and commentators, however immethodical, is the only one which can be followed, in giving an account of the miscellaneous productions of Catullus.

1. Is a modest and not inelegant dedication, by the poet, of the whole volume, to Cornelius Nepos, whom he compliments on having written a general history, in three books, an undertaking which had not previously been attempted by any Roman—

—— “Ausus es unus Italorum
Omne ævum tribus explicare chartis.”

2. _Ad Passerem Lesbiæ_. This address of Catullus to the favourite sparrow of his mistress, Lesbia, is well known, and, has been always celebrated as a model of grace and elegance. Politian(468), Turnebus, and others, have discovered in this little poem an allegorical signification, which idea has been founded on a line in an epigram of Martial, _Ad Romam et Dindymum_—

“Quæ si tot fuerint, quot ille dixit,
_Donabo tibi passerem Catulli_(469).”

That by the _passer Catulli_, however, Martial meant nothing more than an agreeable little epigram, in the style of Catullus, which he would address to Dindymus as his reward, is evident from another epigram, where it is obviously used in this sense—

“Sic forsan tener ausus est Catullus
Magno mittere passerem Maroni(470).”

and also from that in which he compares a favourite whelp of Publius to the sparrow of Lesbia(471). That a real and _feathered_ sparrow was in the view of Catullus, is also evinced by the following ode, in which he laments the death of this favourite of his mistress. The erroneous notion taken up by Politian, has been happily enough ridiculed by Sannazzarius, in an epigram entitled _Ad Pulicianum_—

“At nescio quis Pulicianus,” &c.

and Muretus expresses his astonishment, that the most grave and learned Benedictus Lampridius should have made this happy interpretation by Politian the theme of his _constant_ conversation, “Hanc Politiani sententiam in _omni_ sermone approbare solitum fuisse(472).” Why Lesbia preferred a sparrow to other birds, I know not, unless it was for those qualities which induced the widow of the Emperor Sigismond to esteem it more than the turtle-dove(473), and which so much excited the envy of the learned Scioppius, at Ingolstadt.

3. _Luctus in morte Passeris_. A lamentation for the death of the same sparrow—

“Qui nunc it per iter tenebricosum,
Illuc unde negant redire quemquam:
At vobis male sit, malæ tenebræ
Orci, quæ omnia bella devoratis.”

The idea in this last line was probably taken from Bion’s celebrated _Idyllium_—the lamentation of Venus for the death of Adonis, where there is a similar complaint of the unrelenting Orcus—

“Το δε παν καλον ἐς σε καταῥρει.”

This poem on the death of Lesbia’s sparrow has suggested many similar productions. Ovid’s elegy, _In Mortem Psittaci_(474), where he extols and laments the favourite parrot of his mistress, Corinna, is a production of the same description; but it has not so much delicacy, lightness, and felicity of expression. It differs from it too, by directing the attention chiefly to the parrot, whereas Catullus fixes it more on the lady, who had been deprived of her favourite. Statius also has a poem on the death of a parrot, entitled _Psittacus Melioris_(475); and Lotichius, a celebrated Latin poet, who flourished in Germany about the middle of the 16th century, has, in his elegies, a similar production on the death of a dolphin(476). Naugerius, _In Obitum Borgetti Catuli_, nearly copies the poem of Catullus—

“Nunc raptus rapido maloque fato,
Ad manes abiit tenebricosas,” &c.

It has been imitated closely, and with application to a sparrow, by Corrozet, Durant, and Monnoye, French poets of the 16th century—by Gacon and Richer, in the beginning, and R. de Juvigny, in the end, of the 18th century. In all these imitations, the idea of a departure to regions of darkness, whence no one returns, is faithfully preserved. Most of them are written with much grace and elegance; and this, indeed, is a sort of poetry in which the French remarkably excel.

4. _Dedicatio Phaseli_. This is the consecration to Castor and Pollux, of the vessel which brought the poet safe from Bithynia to the shores of Italy. By a figure, daring even in verse, he represents the ship as extolling its high services, and claiming its well-earned dedication to Castor and Pollux, gods propitious to mariners. From this poem we may trace the progress of Catullus’s voyage: It would appear that he had embarked from Pontus, and having coasted Thrace, sailed through the Archipelago, and then into the Adriatic, whence the vessel had been brought probably up the course of the Po, and one of its branches, to the vicinity of Sirmio.

There have been nearly as many parodies of this poem, as imitations of that last mentioned. The collector of the _Catalecta Virgilii_, has attributed to Virgil a satire on Ventidius, (under the name of Sabinus,) who, from a muleteer, became consul, in the reign of Augustus, and which is parodied from Catullus—

“Sabinus ille quem videtis hospites,” &c.

Another parody is a Latin poem, entitled _Lycoris_, by Adrien Valois, published at the end of the _Valesiana_, where a courtezan, retired from the world, is introduced, boasting of the various intrigues of her former life. Nicol Heinelius published not less than fifty parodies of this poem, in a small book entitled “Phaselus Catulli, et ad eundem Parodiarum a diversis auctoribus scriptarum decades quinque; ex Bibliotheca Nic. Heinelii, Jurisconsulti, Lips. 1642.” Scaliger has also translated the _Phaselus_ of Catullus into Greek iambics.

5. _Ad Lesbiam_—

“Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus,
Rumoresque senum severiorum
Omnes unius æstimemus assis.
Soles occidere et redire possunt:
Nobis, cum semel occidit brevis lux,
Nox est perpetua una dormienda.
Da mihi basia mille, deinde centum.”

This sentiment, representing either the pleasure of conviviality, or delights of love, (and much more so as when here united,) in contrast with the gloom of death, possesses something exquisitely tender and affecting. The picture of joy, with Death in the distance, inspires a feeling of pensive morality, adding a charm to the gayest scenes of life, as the transientness of the rose enhances our sense of its beauty and fragrance; and as the cloud, which throws a shade over the horizon, sometimes softens and mellows the prospect. This opposition of images succeeds even in painting; and the Arcadian landscape of Poussin, representing the rural festivity of swains, would lose much of its charm if it wanted the monument and inscription. An example had been set of such contrasted ideas in many epigrams of the Greeks, and also in the Odes of Anacreon, who constantly excites himself and fellow-passengers to unrestrained enjoyment at every stage, by recalling to remembrance the irresistible speed with which they are hurried to the conclusion of their journey—

“Ὁ δ’ Ερως, χιτωνα δησας
Ὑπερ αυχενος παπυρῳ,
Μεθυ μοι διηκονειτω.
Τροχος αρματος γαρ οῖα
Βιωτος τρεχει κυλισθεις.
Ὀλιγη δε κεισομεσθα
Κονις, ὀστεων λυθεντων.”
Od. IV.

“The ungodly,” says the _Wisdom of Solomon_, “reason with themselves, but not aright. Our life is short—our time is a very shadow that passeth away—and, after our end, there is no returning. Come on, therefore, let us enjoy the good things that are present, and let us speedily use the creatures like as in youth. Let us fill ourselves with costly wine and ointments, and let no flower of the spring pass by us; let us crown ourselves with rose-buds, before they be withered. Let none of us go without his part of our voluptuousness; let us leave tokens of our joyfulness in every place: For this is our portion, and our lot in this(477).”

Among the Latin poets no specimen, perhaps, exists so perfect of this voluptuous yet pensive morality or immorality, as the _Vivamus, mea Lesbia_, of Catullus. It is a theme, too, in which he has been frequently followed, if not imitated, by succeeding poets—by Horace, in particular, who, amid all the delights of love and wine, seldom allows himself to forget the closing scene of existence. Many of them too, like Catullus, have employed the argument of the certainty and speediness of death for the promotion of love and pleasure—

“Interea, dum fata sinunt, jungamus amores;
Jam veniet tenebris Mors adoperta caput(478).”

And, in like manner, Propertius—

“Dum nos fata sinunt, oculos satiemus amore;
Nox tibi longa venit nec reditura dies.”

There is not much of this in the amatory or convivial poetry of the moderns. Waller has some traces of it; but a modern prose writer hath most beautifully, and with greater boldness than any of his predecessors, represented not merely the thoughts, but the actual image of mortality and decay, as exciting to a more full and rapid grasp at tangible enjoyments. Anastasius, while journeying amid the tombs of Scutari, breathing the damp deadly effluvia, and treading on a swelling soil, ready to burst with its festering contents, asks himself,—“Shall I, creature of clay like those here buried—I, who travel through life as I do on this road, with the remains of past generations strewed around me—I, who, whether my journey last a few hours, more or less, must still, like those here deposited, in a short time rejoin the silent tenants of a cluster of tombs—be stretched out by the side of some already sleeping corpse—and be left to rest, for the remainder of time, with all my hopes and fears, all my faculties and prospects, consigned to a cold couch of clammy earth—Shall I leave the rose to blush along my path unheeded—the purple grape to wither unculled over my head * * *? Far from my thoughts be such folly! Whatever tempts, let me take—whatever bears the name of enjoyment henceforth, let me, while I can, make my own(479).”—The French writers, like Chaulieu and Gresset, who paint themselves as finding in philosophy and the Muses sufficient compensation for the dissatisfaction attending worldly pleasures, frequently urge the shortness of life, not as an argument for indulging in wantonness or wine, but for enjoying, to the utmost, the innocent delights of rural tranquillity—

“Fontenay, lieu délicieux,
Ou je vis d’abord la lumiere,
Bientôt au bout de ma carriere
Chez toi je joindrai mes ayeux.

“Muses, qui dans ce lieu champêtre
Avec soin me fites nourrir—
Beaux arbres qui m’avez vu naître
Bientôt vous me verrez mourir:

“Cependant du frais de votre ombre
Il faut sagement profiter,
Sans regret pret a vous quitter
Pour ce Manoir terrible et sombre.”—_Chaulieu._

The united sentiment of enjoying the delights of love, and beauties of nature, as suggested by the shortness of the period allotted for their possession, has been happily expressed by Mallet, in his celebrated song to the Scotch tune, _The Birks of Invermay_:

“Let us, Amanda, timely wise,
Like _them_ improve the hour that flies;
For soon the winter of the year,
And Age, life’s winter, will appear.
At this thy living bloom must fade,
As that will strip the verdant shade:
Our taste of pleasure then is o’er—
The feathered songsters love no more:
And when they droop, and we decay,
Adieu, the shades of Invermay!”

It will not fail, however, to be remarked, that in the ode of Catullus, which has recalled these verses to our recollection, there is a double contrast, from comparing the long, dark, and everlasting sleep—the μακρον, ατερμονα, νηγρετον ὑπνον, with the quick and constant succession of suns, by which we are daily enlightened—

“Soles occidere et redire possunt:
Nobis, cum semel occidit brevis lux,
Nox est perpetua una dormienda.”

Poets, in all ages, have been fond of contrasting the destined course of human life with the reparation of the sun and moon, and with the revival of nature, produced by the succession of seasons. The image drawn from the sun, and here employed by Catullus, is one of the most natural and frequent. It has been beautifully attempted by several modern Latin poets. Thus by Lotichius—

“Ergo ubi permensus cœlum sol occidit, idem
Purpureo vestit lumine rursus humum:
Nos ubi decidimus, defuncti munere vitæ,
Urget perpetua lumina nocte sopor.”

And still more successfully by Jortin—

“Hei mihi lege ratà sol occidit atque resurgit.
* * * *
Nos domini rerum—nos magna et pulchra minati,
Cum breve ver vitæ robustaque transiit ætas,
Deficimus; neque nos ordo revolubilis auras
Reddit in ætherias, tumuli nec claustra resolvit.”

Other modern Latin poets have chosen this ode as a sort of theme or text, which they have dilated into long poems. Of these, perhaps the most agreeable is a youthful production of Muretus—

“Ludamus, mea Margari, et jocemur,” &c.

The most ancient French imitator is the old poet Baif, in a sort of Madrigal. He was followed by Ronsard, Bellay, Pellisson, La Monnoye, and Dorat. The best imitation, I think, is that by Simon, which I shall give at full length, once for all as a fair specimen of the French mode of imitating the lighter poems of Catullus—

“Vivens, O ma Julie!
Jurons d’aimer toujours:
Le printemps de la vie
Est fait pour les amours.
Si l’austère vieillesse
Condamne nos desirs,
Laissons lui sa sagesse,
Et gardons nos plaisirs.

“L’Astre dont la lumiere
Nous dispense les jours,
Au bout de sa carriere
Recommence son cours.
Quand le temps, dans sa rage,
A fletti les appas,
Les roses du bel âge
Ne refleurissent pas.

“D’une pudeur farouche
Fuis les deguisemens;
Viens donner à ma bouche
Cent baisers ravissans—
Mille autres—Pose encore
Sur mes lèvres de feu
Tes lèvres que j’adore—
Mourons à ce doux jeu.

“De nos baisers sans nombre
Le feu rapide et doux
S’échappe comme l’ombre,
Et passe loin de nous:
Mais le sentiment tendre
D’un heureux souvenir,
Dans mon cœur vient reprendre,
La place du plaisir.”

7. _Ad Lesbiam_. His mistress had asked Catullus how many kisses would satisfy him, and he answers that they must be as numerous as the sands of the sea—

“Aut quam sidera multa, cum tacet nox,
Furtivos hominum vident amores.”

These two lines seem to have been in the view of Ariosto, in the 14th canto of the _Orlando_—

“E per quanti occhi il ciel le furtive opre
Degli amatori, a mezza notte, scopre.”

Martial likewise imitates, and refers to this and to the 5th poem of Catullus, in the 34th epigram of the 6th book—

“Basia da nobis, Diadumene, pressa: quot? inquis—
Oceani fluctus me numerare jubes;
Et maris Ægæi sparsas per littora conchas,
Et quæ Cecropio monte vagantur apes.
Nolo quot arguto dedit exorata Catullo
Lesbia: pauca cupit, qui numerare potest.”

The verses of Catullus have been also imitated in Latin by Sannazzarius, by Joannes Secundus, of course, in his _Basia_, and by almost all the ancient amatory poets of France.

8. _Ad Seipsum_. This is quite in the Greek taste: About a third of the Odes of Anacreon are addressed Εις σεαυτον. Catullus here playfully, yet feelingly, remonstrates with himself, for still pursuing his inconstant Lesbia, by whom he had been forsaken.

9. _Ad Verannium_. This is one of the most pleasing of the shorter poems. Catullus congratulates his friend Verannius on his return from Spain, and expresses his joy in terms more touching and natural than anything in the 12th Satire of Juvenal, or the 36th Ode of the 1st Book of Horace, which were both written on similar occasions.

10. _De Varri Scorto_. Catullus gives an account of a visit which he paid at the house of a courtezan, along with his friend Varrus, and relates, in a lively manner, the conversation which he had with the lady on the subject of the acquisitions made by him in Bithynia, from which he had lately returned. There seems here a hit to have been intended against Cæsar, of whose conduct in that country some scandalous anecdotes were afloat. The epigram, however, appears chiefly directed against those cross-examiners, who are not to be put off with indefinite answers, and in whose company one must be constantly on guard. In fact, the lady detects Catullus making an unfounded boast of his Bithynian acquisitions, and he accordingly exclaims,

“Sed tu insulsa male, et molesta vivis,
Per quam non licet esse negligentem.”

11. _Ad Furium et Aurelium_. This ode commences in a higher tone of poetry than any of the preceding. Catullus addresses his friends, Furius and Aurelius, who, he is confident, would be ready to accompany him to the most remote and barbarous quarters of the globe—

“Furi et Aureli, comites Catulli,
Sive in extremos penetrabit Indos,
Littus ut longe resonante Eoà
Tunditur undâ.”

This verse was no doubt in the view of Horace, in the sixth Ode of the second Book, where he addresses his friend Septimius, and adopts the elegant and melodious Sapphic stanza employed by Catullus—

“Septimi, Gades aditure mecum, et
Cantabrum indoctum juga ferre nostra, et
Barbaras Syrtes, ubi Maura semper
Æstuat unda.”

Horace, however, has closed his ode with a few lines, perhaps the most beautiful and tender in the whole circle of Latin poetry, and which strike us the more, as pathos is not that poet’s peculiar excellence—

“Ille te mecum locus et beati,” &c.

Catullus, on the other hand, after preserving an elevated strain of poetry for four stanzas, concludes with requesting his friends to deliver a ridiculous message to his mistress, who

“Nec meum respectet, ut ante, amorem,
Qui illius culpa cecidit; velut prati
Ultimi flos, prætereunte postquam
Tactus aratro est.”

This last most beautiful image has been imitated by various poets. Virgil has not disdained to transfer it to his Æneid—

“Purpureus veluti cum flos succisus aratro
Languescit moriens(480).”

Fracastoro has employed the same metaphor with hardly less elegance in his consolatory epistle to Turri, on the loss of his child—

—— “Jacet ille velut succisus aratro
Flos tener, et frustra non audit tanta gementem;”

and Ariosto has introduced it in the eighteenth canto of the Orlando—

“Come purpureo fior languendo muore
Che ’l vomere al passar tagliato lassa.”

13. _Ad Fabullum_. Our poet invites Fabullus to supper, on condition that he will bring his provisions along with him—

—— “Nam tui Catulli
Plenus sacculus est aranearum.”

On his own part, he promises only a hearty welcome, and the most exquisite ointments. In the poetry of social kindness and friendship, Catullus is eminently happy; and we regret to find that this tone, which has so much prevailed in the preceding odes, subsequently changes into bitter and gross invective.

The thirteen following poems are chiefly occupied with vehement and indelicate abuse of those friends of the poet, Furius and Aurelius, who were men of some quality and distinction, but had wasted their fortunes by extravagance and debauchery. In a former ode, we have seen him confident that they would readily accompany him to the wildest or remotest quarters of the globe: But he had subsequently quarrelled with them, partly because they had stigmatized his verses as soft and effeminate; and, in revenge for this affront, he upbraids them with their poverty and vices. Of these thirteen poems, the last, addressed to Furius, is a striking picture of the sheltered situation of a villa. In the common editions, the description refers to the villa of Catullus himself, but Muretus thinks, it was rather meant to be applied to that of Furius:

“Furi, villula vostra non ad Austri,” &c.

27. _Ad Pocillatorem puerum_. This address, in which Catullus calls on his cupbearer to pour out for him copious and unmixed libations of Falernian, is quite in the spirit of Anacreon: it breathes all his easy and joyous gaiety, and the enthusiasm inspired by the grape.

28. _Ad Verannium et Fabullum_—

“Pisonis comites cohors inanis,” &c.

Catullus condoles with these friends on account of the little advantage they had reaped from accompanying the Prætor Piso to his province—comparing their situation to the similar circumstances in which he had himself been placed with Memmius in Bithynia.

There is a parody on this piece of Catullus by the celebrated Huet, Bishop of Avranches—

“Bocharti comites cohors inanis.” &c.

In his youth, Huet had accompanied Bochart to Sweden, on the invitation of Queen Christina, and appears to have been as little gratified by his northern expedition, as Catullus by his voyage to Bithynia.

29. _In Cæsarem_. Julius Cæsar, while yet but the general of the Roman republic, had been accustomed, during his stay in the north of Italy, to lodge at the house of the father of Catullus in Verona. Notwithstanding the intimacy which in consequence subsisted between Cæsar and his father, Catullus lampooned the former on more than one occasion. In the present epigram, he pours on him an unmeasured abuse, chiefly for having bestowed the plunder of Britain and Gaul on his favourite, the infamous Mamurra, who appropriated the public money, and the spoils of whole nations, to support his boundless extravagance. There is a story which has become very common on the authority of Suetonius, that Cæsar invited Catullus to supper on the day on which he first read some satirical verses of the poet against himself and Mamurra, and that he continued to lodge with his father as before(481). It appears that on one occasion, when some scurrilous verses by Catullus were shown to him, he supped with Cicero at his villa near Puteoli. On the 19th, he staid at the house of Philippus till one in the afternoon, but saw nobody; he then walked on the shore across to Cicero’s villa—bathed after two o’clock, and heard the verses on Mamurra read, at which he never changed countenance(482). Now, this was in the year 708, after the civil war had been ended, by the defeat and death of the younger Pompey in Spain. It is most likely that this 29th epigram was the one which was read to him at Cicero’s villa; and the 57th epigram, also directed against Cæsar and Mamurra, is probably that concerning which the above anecdote is related by Suetonius. Though it stands last of the two in the works of Catullus, it was evidently written before the 29th. He talks in it of Cæsar and Mamurra, as of persons who were still on a footing of equality—in the other, he speaks of their dividing the spoils of the provinces, Gaul, Britain, Pontus, and Spain. The coolness and indifference which Cæsar showed with regard to the first epigram written against him, and the forgiveness he extended to its author, encouraged Cicero, who was a gossip and newsmonger, or those who attended him, to read to him another of the same description while bathing at the Puteolan Villa.

31. _Ad Sirmionem Peninsulam_. This heart-soothing invocation, which is perhaps the most pleasing of all the productions of Catullus, is addressed to the peninsula of Sirmio, in the territory of Verona, on which the principal and favourite villa of our poet was situated. Sirmio was a peninsular promontory, of about two miles circumference, projecting into the Benacus, now the Lago di Garda—a lake celebrated by Virgil as one of the noblest ornaments of Italy, and the praises of which have been loudly re-echoed by the modern Latin poets of that country, particularly by Fracastoro, who dwelt in its vicinity, and who, while lamenting the untimely death of his poetical friend, Marc Antonio del Torri, beautifully represents the shade of Catullus, as still nightly wandering amidst these favourite scenes—

“Te ripæ flevere Athesis; te voce vocare
Auditæ per noctem umbræ, manesque Catulli,
Et patrios mulcere novâ dulcedine lucos(483).”

Vestiges of the magnificent house supposed to have belonged to Catullus, are yet shown on this peninsula. Its ruins, which lie near the borders of the lake, still give the idea of an extensive palace. There are even now, as we are informed by travellers(484), sufficient remains of mason-work, pilasters, vaults, walls, and subterraneous passages, to assist the imagination in representing to itself what the building was when entire, at least in point of extent and situation. The length of the whole construction, from north to south, is about 700 feet, and the breadth upwards of 300. The ground on which it stood does not appear to have been level, and the fall to the west was supplied by rows of vaults, placed on each other, the top of which formed a terrace. On the east, the structure had been raised on those steep and solid rocks which lined the shore; on the front, which was to the north, and commanded a magnificent view of the lake, an immense portico seems to have projected from the building: under the ruins, there are a number of subterraneous vaults, one of which ran through the middle of the edifice, and along its whole length(485).

The peninsula on which the villa of Catullus was situated, is not surpassed in beauty or fertility by any spot in Italy. “Sirmione,” says Eustace(486), “appears as an island, so low and so narrow is the bank that unites it to the mainland. The promontory spreads behind the town, and rises into a hill entirely covered with olives. Catullus,” he continues, “undoubtedly inhabited this spot, and certainly he could not have chosen a more delightful retreat. In the centre of a magnificent lake, surrounded with scenery of the greatest variety and majesty, secluded from the world, yet beholding from his garden the villas of his Veronese friends, he might have enjoyed alternately the pleasures of retirement, and society; and daily, without the sacrifice of his connexions, which Horace seemed inclined to make in a moment of despondency, he might have contemplated the grandeur and agitation of the ocean, without its terrors and immensity. Besides, the soil is fertile, and its surface varied; sometimes shelving in a gentle declivity, at other times breaking in craggy magnificence, and thus furnishing every requisite for delightful walks and luxurious baths; while the views vary at every step, presenting rich coasts or barren mountains, sometimes confined to the cultivated scenes of the neighbouring shore, and at other times bewildered and lost in the windings of the lake, or in the recesses of the Alps. In short, more convenience and more beauty are seldom united(487).” No wonder, then, that Catullus, jaded and disappointed by his expedition to Bithynia, should, on his return, have exclaimed with transport, that the spot was not to be matched in the wide range of the world of waters; or that he should have unloaded his mind of its cares, in language so perfect, yet simple, that it could only have flowed from a real and exquisite feeling. No poem in the Latin language expresses tender feelings more tenderly, and home feelings more naturally, than the Invocation to Sirmio, in which the verses soothe and refresh us somewhat in the manner we suppose Catullus himself to have been, by the trees that shaded the promontory, and by the waters of the lake below—

“Quam te libenter, quamque lætus inviso!
Vix me ipse credens Thyniam, atque Bithynos
Liquisse campos, et videre te in tuto.
O quid solutis est beatius curis?
Cum mens onus reponit, ac peregrino
Labore fessi venimus larem ad nostrum,
Desideratoque acquiescimus lecto.
Hoc est, quod unum est pro laboribus tantis.
Salve, O venusta Sirmio, atque hero gaude.”

These lines show that the most refined and tender feelings were as familiar to the bosom of Catullus as the grossest. Nothing can be more delicate than his description of the emotions of one, who, after many wanderings and vicissitudes of fortune, returns to his home, and to the scenes beloved in youth or infancy: Nothing can be more beautiful than his invocation to the peninsula—his fond request that the delightful promontory, and the waters by which it was surrounded, should join in welcoming him home; and, above all, his heartfelt expression of delight at the prospect of again reclining on his accustomed couch.

It appears to me, however, that the beauty and the pathos of the poem is in some degree injured by the last verse,—

“Ridete quicquid est domi cachinnorum,”

which introduces the idea of obstreperous mirth, instead of that tone of tenderness which pervades the preceding lines of the ode. One would almost suppose, as probably has happened in some other cases, that a verse had been subjoined to this which properly belonged to a different ode, where mirth, and not tenderness, prevailed.