CATULLUS AND LESBIA.[47]

"Still more majestic shalt thou rise,More dreadful from each foreign stroke;As the loud blast that tears the skiesServes but to root thy native oak"—

"Still more majestic shalt thou rise,

More dreadful from each foreign stroke;

As the loud blast that tears the skies

Serves but to root thy native oak"—

was suggested by Horace's

"Duris ut ilex tonsa bipennibusNigræ feraci frondis in Algido,Per damna, per cædes, ab ipsoDucit opes animumque ferro."

"Duris ut ilex tonsa bipennibus

Nigræ feraci frondis in Algido,

Per damna, per cædes, ab ipso

Ducit opes animumque ferro."

Now, not only was Horace, as innumerable imitations and reminiscences prove, one of Thomson's favourite poets, but Thomson has, in the third part ofLibertytranslated this very passage:—

"Like an oak,Nurs'd on feracious Algidum, whose boughsStill stronger shoot beneath the rigid axeBy loss, by slaughter, from the steel itselfE'en force and spirit drew."

"Like an oak,

Nurs'd on feracious Algidum, whose boughs

Still stronger shoot beneath the rigid axe

By loss, by slaughter, from the steel itself

E'en force and spirit drew."

He has, elsewhere, two other reminiscences of the same passage, once in the third part ofLiberty—

"Every tempest sungInnoxious by, or bade it firmer stand"—

"Every tempest sung

Innoxious by, or bade it firmer stand"—

and once inSophonisba(Act V. sc. ii.):—

"Thy rooted worthHas stood these wintry blasts, grown stronger by them."

"Thy rooted worth

Has stood these wintry blasts, grown stronger by them."

The epithet "azure" employed in the first stanza is, with "cerulean" and "aerial," one of the three commonest epithets in Thomson, the three occurring at least twenty times in his poetry. A somewhat cursory examination of his works has enabled us to find that "azure" or "azured" alone occurs ten times. "Generous," too, in the Latin sense of the term, is another of his favourite words, it being used no less than sixteen times inBritanniaandLibertyalone. Another of his favourite allusions is to England's "native oaks." Thus inBritanniahe speaks of—

"Your oaks, peculiar harden'd, shootStrong into sturdy growth;"

"Your oaks, peculiar harden'd, shoot

Strong into sturdy growth;"

in the last part ofLibertywe find "Let her own naval oak be basely torn," and in the same partof the poem he speaks of the "venerable oaks" and "kindred floods." The epithet "manly" and the phrase "the fair"—"manly hearts to guard the fair"—are also peculiarly Thomsonian, being repeatedly employed by him, the phrase "the fair" occurring in his poetry at least six times, if not oftener. "Flame," too, is another of his favourite words.

"All their attempts to bend thee downWill but arouse," etc.,

"All their attempts to bend thee down

Will but arouse," etc.,

is exactly the sentiment inBritannia.

"Your heartsSwell with a sudden courage, growing stillAs danger grows."

"Your hearts

Swell with a sudden courage, growing still

As danger grows."

The stanza beginning "To thee belongs," etc., is simply a lyrical paraphrase of the passage inBritanniacommencing "Oh first of human blessings," and of a couplet in the last part ofLiberty:—

"The winds and seas areBritain's wide domain;And not a sail but by permission spreads."

"The winds and seas areBritain's wide domain;

And not a sail but by permission spreads."

The couplet

"All thine shall be the subject main,And every shore it circles thine"

"All thine shall be the subject main,

And every shore it circles thine"

is simply the echo of a couplet in the fifth part ofLiberty—

"All ocean is her own, and every landTo whom her ruling thunder ocean bears."

"All ocean is her own, and every land

To whom her ruling thunder ocean bears."

The phrase "blessed isle," as applied to England,he employs three times inLiberty. Again, the stanza in whichRule Britanniais written is the stanza in which the majority of Thomson's minor lyrics are written, and the rhythm and cadence, not less than the tone, colour and sentiment, are exactly his.

Mallet was undoubtedly an accomplished man and a respectable poet, as his balladWilliam and Margaret, hisEdwin and Emma, and hisBirks of Invermaysufficiently prove, but he has written nothing tolerable in the vein ofRule Britannia. Neatness, and tenderness bordering on effeminacy, mark his characteristic lyrics, and, if we except a few lines in hisTyburnand the eight concluding lines in a poem entitledA Fragment, there is no virility in his poetry at all. Of the patriotism and ardent love of liberty which pervade Thomson's poems, and which glow so intensely inRule Britannia, he has absolutely nothing. Nor are there any analogues or parallels in his poems to this lyric either in form—for if we are not mistaken, he has never employed the stanza in which it is written—or in imagery, or phraseology. Like Thomson, whom, in his narrative blank-verse poems, he servilely imitates, he is fond of the words "azure" and "aerial"; and the word "azure" is the only verbal coincidence linking the phraseology of his acknowledged poems with the lyric in question. It may be added, too, that a man who was capable of the jinglingrubbish of such a masque asBritannia, and who had the execrable taste to substitute Bolingbroke's stanzas for the stanzas which they supersede, could hardly have been equal to the production of this lyric. We believe, then, that there can be no reasonable doubt that the honour of composingRule Britanniabelongs to Thomson the bard, and not to Mallet the fribble.

But to return to Mr. Tovey and the "mare's-nest" to which we have referred. This mare's-nest is the assumption that Pope assisted Thomson in revisingThe Seasons. Since Robert Bell's edition this has come to be received as an established fact, but we propose to show that it rests on a hypothesis demonstrably baseless.

There is, in the British Museum, an interleaved copy of the first volume of the London edition of Thomson's works, dated 1738, and the part of the volume which containsThe Seasonsis full of manuscript deletions, corrections, and additions. These are in two handwritings, the one being unmistakably the handwriting of Thomson, the other beyond all question the handwriting of some one else. Almost all these corrections were inserted in the edition prepared for the press in 1744, and now, consequently, form part of the present text. The corrections in the hand which is not the hand of Thomson are, in many cases, of extraordinary merit, showing a fineness of ear and delicacy of touch quite above the reach of Thomson himself. We will givetwo or three samples. Thomson had written inAutumn290 seqq.:—

"With harvest shining all these fields are thine,And if my rustics may presume so far,Their master, too, who then indeed were blestTo make the daughter of Acasto so."

"With harvest shining all these fields are thine,

And if my rustics may presume so far,

Their master, too, who then indeed were blest

To make the daughter of Acasto so."

The unknown corrector substitutes the present reading:—

"The fields, the master, all, my fair, are thine;If to the various blessings which thy houseHas lavished on me thou wilt add that bliss,That dearest bliss, the power of blessing thee!"

"The fields, the master, all, my fair, are thine;

If to the various blessings which thy house

Has lavished on me thou wilt add that bliss,

That dearest bliss, the power of blessing thee!"

The other is famous. Thomson had written:—

"Thoughtless of beauty, she was beauty's self,Recluse among the woods, if City-damesWill deign their faith. And thus she went compell'dBy strong necessity, with as sereneAnd pleased a look as patience can put on,To glean Palemon's fields."

"Thoughtless of beauty, she was beauty's self,

Recluse among the woods, if City-dames

Will deign their faith. And thus she went compell'd

By strong necessity, with as serene

And pleased a look as patience can put on,

To glean Palemon's fields."

For these vapid and dissonant verses is substituted by the corrector, who very properly retains the first verse, what is now the text:—

"Recluse amid the close embow'ring woods,As in the hollow breast of Apennine,Beneath the shelter of encircling hills,A myrtle rises, far from human eyes,And breathes its balmy fragrance o'er the wild.So flourished blooming, and unseen by all,The sweet Lavinia," etc.

"Recluse amid the close embow'ring woods,

As in the hollow breast of Apennine,

Beneath the shelter of encircling hills,

A myrtle rises, far from human eyes,

And breathes its balmy fragrance o'er the wild.

So flourished blooming, and unseen by all,

The sweet Lavinia," etc.

The transformation of a single line is often most felicitous: thus inWinterthe flat line

"Through the lone night that bids the waves arise"

is grandly altered into

"Through the black night that sits immense around."

Thus, inSpring, Thomson had merely written

"Whose aged oaks and venerable gloomInvite the noisy rooks;"

"Whose aged oaks and venerable gloom

Invite the noisy rooks;"

but his corrector alters and extends the passage into

"Whose aged elms and venerable oaksInvite the rooks, who high amid the boughsIn early spring their airy city build,And caw with ceaseless clamour."

"Whose aged elms and venerable oaks

Invite the rooks, who high amid the boughs

In early spring their airy city build,

And caw with ceaseless clamour."

Indeed, throughoutThe SeasonsThomson's indebtedness to his corrector is incalculable; many of the most felicitous touches are due to him. Now, who was this corrector? Let Mr. Tovey answer. "It has long been accepted as a fact among scholars that Pope assisted Thomson in the composition ofThe Seasons. Our original authority is, we suppose, Warton." The truth is that our original authority for this statement is neither Warton nor any other writer of the eighteenth century, but simply the conjecture of Mitford—in other words, Mitford's mere assumption that the handwriting of the corrector is the handwriting of Pope; and, if we are not mistaken,—for Mitford may have given earlier currency to it in some other place—the conjecture appeared for the first time in Mitford's edition of Gray, published in 1814. In his copy of the volume,containing the MS. notes, he bolsters up his statement by two assertions and references: "That Pope saw some pieces of Thomson's in manuscript is clear from a letter in Bowles'sSupplement, page 194" (an obvious misprint for 294). But on turning to the references all that we find is—it is in a letter dated February 1738/9—"I have yet seen but three acts of Mr. Thomson's, but I am told, and believe by what I have seen that it excels in the pathetic"; the reference is plainly to Thomson's tragedy,Edward and Eleonora. Again, Mitford writes: "On Thomson's submitting his poems to Pope" (see Warton's edition, vol. viii., page 340), and again we get no proof. All that Pope says is, "I am just taken up"—he is writing to Aaron Hill under date November 1732—"by Mr. Thomson in the perusal of a new poem he has brought me;" this new poem being almost certainlyLiberty, in the composition of which Thomson was then engaged. So far from the tradition having any countenance from Warton, it is as certain as anything can be, that Warton knew nothing about it. In hisEssay on Popehe gives an elaborate account ofThe Seasons, and he has more than once referred to Pope and Thomson together; but he says not a word, either in this Essay or in his edition of Pope's Works, about Pope having corrected Thomson's poetry. If Pope assisted Thomson, to the extent indicated in these corrections, such an incident,considering the fame of Thomson and the fame of Pope, must have been known to some at least of the innumerable editors, biographers, and anecdotists between 1742 and 1814. It could hardly have escaped being recorded by Murdoch, Mallet, or Warburton, by Ruffhead, by Savage or Spence, by Theophilus Cibber or Johnson. It is incredible that such an interesting secret should have been kept either by Thomson himself or by Pope. Again, whoever the corrector was, he had a fine ear for blank verse, and must indeed have been a master of it. There is no proof that Pope ever wrote in blank verse; indeed, we have the express testimony of Lady Wortley Montagu that he never attempted it, and his Shakespeare conclusively proves that he had anything but a nice ear for its rhythm. With all this collateral evidence against the probability of the corrector being Pope, we come to the evidence which should settle the question, the evidence of handwriting. There is no lack of material for forming an opinion on this point. Pope's autograph MSS. are abundant, illustrating his hand at every period in his life. It is amazing to find Mitford asserting that his friends Ellis and Combe, at the British Museum, had no doubt about the hand of the corrector being the hand of Pope. Mr. Tovey candidly admits that, "if the best authorities at the Museum many years ago were positive that the handwriting was Pope's, their successorsat the present time are equally positive that it is not." Such is the very decided opinion of Mr. Warner; such, also, as Mr. Tovey acknowledges, is the opinion of Professor Courthope, and such, we venture to think, will be the opinion of every one who will take the trouble to compare the hands. Mr. Tovey himself is plainly very uneasy, and indeed goes so far as to say that "it has all along been perplexing to me how the opinion that this was Pope's handwriting could ever have beenconfidently" (the italics are his) "entertained"; and yet in his notes he follows Bell, and inserts these corrections with Pope's initials.

We search in vain among those who are known to have been on friendly terms with Thomson for a probable claimant. It could not, as his other stupid revisions of Thomson's verses sufficiently show, have been Lyttleton. Mallet's blank verse is conclusive against his having had any hand in the corrections. Collins and Hammond are out of the question. It is just possible, though hardly likely, that the corrector was Armstrong. He was on very intimate terms with Thomson. His own poem proves that he could sometimes write excellent blank verse, but the touch and rhythm of the corrections are, it must be admitted, not the touch and rhythm of Armstrong.

What has long, therefore, been represented and circulated as an undisputed fact—namely,that Pope assisted Thomson in the revision ofThe Seasons—rests not, as all Thomson's modern editors have supposed, on the traditions of the eighteenth century, and on the testimony of authenticated handwriting, but on a mere assumption of Mitford. That the volume in question really belonged to Thomson, and that the corrections are originals, hardly admits of doubt, though Mitford gives neither the pedigree nor the history of this most interesting literary relic. It is, of course, possible that the corrections are Thomson's own, and that the differences in the handwriting are attributable to the fact that in some cases he was his own scribe, that in others he employed an amanuensis; but the intrinsic unlikeness of the corrections, made in the strange hand, to his characteristic style renders this improbable. In any case there is nothing to warrant the assumption that the corrector was Pope.

[47]The Lesbia of Catullus.Arranged and translated by J. H. A. Tremenheere. London.

Perhaps the best thing in this world is youth, and the poetry of Catullus is its very incarnation. The "young Catullus" he was to his contemporaries, and the young Catullus he will be to the end of time. To turn over his pages is to recall the days when all within and all without conspire to make existence a perpetual feast, when life's lord is pleasure, its end enjoyment, its law impulse, before experience and satiety have disillusioned and disgusted, and we are still in Dante's phrase, "trattando l'ombre come cosa salda." And the poet of youth had the good fortune not to survive youth; of the dregs and lees of the life he chose he had no taste. While the cup which "but sparkles near the brim" was still sparkling for him, death dashed it from his lips. At thirty his tale was told,—and a radiant figure, a sunny memory and a golden volume were immortal.

Revelling alike in the world of nature, and in the world of man, at once simple and intense, at once playful and pathetic, his poetry has a freshness as of the morning, an abandon as of a child at play. He has not, indeed, escaped the taint of Alexandrinism any more than Burns escaped the taint of the pseudo-classicism of the conventional school of his day, but this is the only note of falsetto discernible in what he has left us. It is when we compare him with Horace, Propertius, and Martial that his incomparable charm is most felt. As a lyric poet, except when patriotic, and when dealing with moral ideas, Horace is as commonplace as he is insincere; he had no passion; he had little pathos; he had not much sentiment; he had no real feeling for nature, he was little more than a consummate craftsman, to adopt an expression from Scaliger "ex alienis ingeniis poeta, ex suo tantum versificator." In his Greek models he found not merely his form, but his inspiration. Most of his love odes have all the appearance of being mere studies in fancy. When he attempts threnody he is as frigid as Cowley. Whose heart was ever touched by the verses to Virgil on the death of Quintilian, or by the verses to Valgius on the death of his son? The real Horace is the Horace of the Satires and Epistles, and the real Horace had as little of the temperament of a poet as La Fontaine and Prior. Propertius had passion, and he had certainly some feeling for nature, but he was an incurablepedant both in temper and in habit. Martial applied the epigram, in elegiacs and in hendecasyllabics, to the same purposes to which it was applied by Catullus, with more brilliance and finish, but he had not the power of informing trifles with emotion and soul. What became with Catullus the spontaneous expression of the dominant mood, became in the hands of Martial the meretour de forceof the ingenious wit. Catullus is the most Greek of all the Roman poets; Greek in the simplicity, chastity and propriety of his style, in his exquisite responsiveness to all that appeals to the senses and the emotions, in his ardent and abounding vitality. But, in his enthusiasm for nature, in the intensity of his domestic affections, and in his occasional touches of moral earnestness—and we have seldom to go far for them—he was Roman. His sketches from nature are delightful. What could be more perfect than the following? Has even Tennyson equalled it?—

Hic, qualis flatu placidum mare matutinoHorrificans Zephyrus proclivas incitat undas,Aurorâ exoriente, vagi sub lumina solis;Quæ tarde primum clementi flamine pulsæProcedunt, leviterque sonant plangore cachinni:Post, vento crescente, magis magis increbescunt,Purpureâque procul nantes a luce refulgent.

Hic, qualis flatu placidum mare matutino

Horrificans Zephyrus proclivas incitat undas,

Aurorâ exoriente, vagi sub lumina solis;

Quæ tarde primum clementi flamine pulsæ

Procedunt, leviterque sonant plangore cachinni:

Post, vento crescente, magis magis increbescunt,

Purpureâque procul nantes a luce refulgent.

"As in early morning when Zephyr's breath, ruffling the stilly sea, stirs it into slanting waves up against the glow of the travelling sun; and at first, while the impelling breeze is gentle, they move in slow procession, and the plash of theirripples is not loud; but then, as the breeze freshens, they crowd faster and faster on, and far out at sea, as they float, flash back the splendour of the crimsoning day in their front."

Or, again, in the epistle to Manlius—

Qualis in aeriipellucensvertice montisRivusmuscoso prosilit e lapide.

Qualis in aeriipellucensvertice montis

Rivusmuscoso prosilit e lapide.

How vivid is the picture of the rising sun and of early morning in the Attis, 39-41.

Ubi oris aurei sol radiantibus oculisLustravit æthera album, sola dura, mare ferum,Pepulitque noctis umbras vegetis sonipedibus.

Ubi oris aurei sol radiantibus oculis

Lustravit æthera album, sola dura, mare ferum,

Pepulitque noctis umbras vegetis sonipedibus.

In his "Asian Myrtle, in all the beauty of its blossom-laden branches, which the Wood-Nymphs feed with honey dew to be their toy:"—

Floridis velut enitensMyrtus Asia ramulis,Quos Hamadryades DeæLudicrum sibi roscidoNutriunt humore.—

Floridis velut enitens

Myrtus Asia ramulis,

Quos Hamadryades Deæ

Ludicrum sibi roscido

Nutriunt humore.—

—who does not recognise Matthew Arnold's "natural magic"?

Flowers he loved, as Shakespeare loved them. What tenderness there is in the image of the love that perished—

PratiUltimi flos, prætereunte postquamTactus aratro est,(xi. 19-21.)

Prati

Ultimi flos, prætereunte postquam

Tactus aratro est,

(xi. 19-21.)

—in the beautiful simile, so often imitated inevery language in Europe, where the unmarried maiden is compared to the uncropped flower, lxii., 39-45; or where in the

Alba parthenice,Luteumve papaver,(lxi. 194-5.)

Alba parthenice,

Luteumve papaver,

(lxi. 194-5.)

he sees the symbol of maidenhood; or where Ariadne is compared to the myrtles on the banks of the Eurotas, and to the "flowers of diverse hues which the spring breezes evoke"; and, again, the exquisite simile picturing the husband's love binding fast the bride's thoughts, as a tree is entwined in the clinging clasp of the gadding ivy—

Mentem amore revinciens,Ut tenax hedera huc et hucArborem implicat errans.

Mentem amore revinciens,

Ut tenax hedera huc et huc

Arborem implicat errans.

Then we have the garland of Priapus with its felicitous epithets (xix., xx.).

It may be said of Catullus as Shelley said of his Alastor—

Every sightAnd sound from the vast earth and ambient airSent to his heart their choicest impulses.

Every sight

And sound from the vast earth and ambient air

Sent to his heart their choicest impulses.

What rapture inspires and informs the lines to his yacht, and to Sirmio, as well as theJam ver egelidos refert tepores!

As the author of theAttisCatullus stands alone among poets. There was, so far as we know, nothing like it before, and there has beennothing like it since. If it be a study from the Greek, as it is generally supposed to be, it is very difficult to conjecture at what period its original could have been produced. There is nothing at all resembling it which has come down from the lyric period; its theme is not one which would have been likely to attract the Attic poets. If its model was the work of some Alexandrian, we can only say that such a poem must have been an even greater anomaly in that literature than Smart'sSong to Davidis to our own literature, in the eighteenth century. It may, of course, be urged that it is equally anomalous in Latin poetry, and that, if resolved into its elements, it has much more affinity with what may be traced to Greek than to Roman sources. In its compound epithets, and more particularly in the singular use of "foro," so plainly substituted for the Greekαγοραand its associations, it certainly reads like a translation from the Greek; and yet, in the total impression made by it, the poem has not the air of a translation, but of an original, and of an original struck out, in inspiration, at white heat.

Only by an extraordinary effort of imaginative sympathy are we now able to realize to ourselves the tragedy of theAttis, while its rushing galliambics whirl us through the panorama of its swift-succeeding pictures. But home to every heart must come the poems which Catullus dedicates to the memory of his brother, and the poem inwhich he tries to soothe Calvus for the death of Quintilia.

Multas per gentes, et multa per aequora vectusAdvenio has miseras, frater, ad inferias,Ut te postremo donarem munere mortis,Et mutum nequidquam alloquerer cinerem:Quandoquidem fortuna mihi tete abstulit ipsum:Heu miser indigne frater adempte mihi!Nunc tamen interea prisco quæ more parentumTradita sunt tristi munere ad inferias,Accipe, fraterno multum manantia fletu:Atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale.

Multas per gentes, et multa per aequora vectus

Advenio has miseras, frater, ad inferias,

Ut te postremo donarem munere mortis,

Et mutum nequidquam alloquerer cinerem:

Quandoquidem fortuna mihi tete abstulit ipsum:

Heu miser indigne frater adempte mihi!

Nunc tamen interea prisco quæ more parentum

Tradita sunt tristi munere ad inferias,

Accipe, fraterno multum manantia fletu:

Atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale.

"Many are the peoples, many the seas I have passed through to be here, dear brother, at this, thine untimely grave, that I might pay thee death's last tribute, and greet,—how vainly,—the dust that has no response. For well I know Fortune hath bereft me of thy living self—Ah! hapless brother, cruelly torn from me! Yet here, see, be the offerings which, from of old, the custom of our fathers hath handed down as a sad oblation to the grave—take them—they are streaming with a brother's tears. And now—for evermore—brother, hail and farewell!"

Could pathos go further? How exquisite, too, is the following:—

Si quidquam mutis gratum acceptumque sepulcrisAccidere a nostro, Calve, dolore potest,Quum desiderio veteres renovamus amores,Atque olim amissas flemus amicitias:Certe non tanto mors immatura dolori estQuintiliæ, quantum gaudet amore tuo.[48]

Si quidquam mutis gratum acceptumque sepulcris

Accidere a nostro, Calve, dolore potest,

Quum desiderio veteres renovamus amores,

Atque olim amissas flemus amicitias:

Certe non tanto mors immatura dolori est

Quintiliæ, quantum gaudet amore tuo.[48]

Shakespeare merely unfolded what was included here, when he wrote those haunting lines:—

When to the sessions of sweet silent thoughtI summon up remembrance of things past,I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,And with old woes new wail my dear time's wasteThen can I drown an eye, unus'd to flow,For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,And weep afresh love's long-since cancell'd woe,And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight.

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

I summon up remembrance of things past,

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,

And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste

Then can I drown an eye, unus'd to flow,

For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,

And weep afresh love's long-since cancell'd woe,

And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight.

Never, too, has any poet given such pathetic expression to a sorrow, which to the young is even harder to bear than the loss inflicted by death, the perfidy and treachery of friends. The verses to Alphenus (xxx.), to the anonymous friend in lxviii., and the epigram to Rufus (lxxvii.), are indescribably touching. What infinite sadness there is in:—

Si tu oblitus es, at Dii meminerunt, meminit Fides,Quæ te ut pæniteat postmodo facti faciet tui.

Si tu oblitus es, at Dii meminerunt, meminit Fides,

Quæ te ut pæniteat postmodo facti faciet tui.

What passion of grief in:—

Heu, heu, nostræ crudele venenumVitæ, heu, heu, nostræ pestis amicitiæ!

Heu, heu, nostræ crudele venenum

Vitæ, heu, heu, nostræ pestis amicitiæ!

But nothing that Catullus has left us equals in fascinating interest, or exceeds in charm, the poems inspired by the woman who was at once the bliss and the curse of his life—

Lesbia nostra, Lesbia illa,Illa Lesbia, quam Catullus unamPlusquam se, atque suos amavit omnes.

Lesbia nostra, Lesbia illa,

Illa Lesbia, quam Catullus unam

Plusquam se, atque suos amavit omnes.

Whether she is to be identified with the sister of P. Clodius Pulcher, and the wife of Metellus Celer, seems to us, in spite of the arguments of Schwaber, Munro, Ellis, and Sellar, extremely doubtful. It is a point which need not be discussed here, and is, indeed, of little importance. That she was a woman of superb and commanding beauty, a false wife, a false mistress, and of immeasurable profligacy, Catullus has himself told us. There could only be one end to a passion of which such a siren was the object; and, exquisite as the poems are which precede the breaking of the spell, it is in the poems recording the gradual process of disenchantment, and the struggle between the old love and the new loathing, that Catullus touches us most. How piercing is the pathos of such a poem as theSi qua recordanti(lxxvi.), or the epigram in which he says that he loves and loathes, but knows not why, only knows that it is so, and that he is on the rack:—

Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.Nescio: sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.

Nescio: sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

Or where he says that, pest as she is, he cannot curse a love who is dearer to him than both his eyes:—

Credis me potuisse meæ maledicere vitæ,Ambobus mihi quæ carior est oculis?Non potui, nec, si possem, tam perdite amarem.

Credis me potuisse meæ maledicere vitæ,

Ambobus mihi quæ carior est oculis?

Non potui, nec, si possem, tam perdite amarem.

And he suffered the more, as he had lavished on her the purest affections of his heart. Hislove for her—such was his own expression—was not simply that which men ordinarily feel for their mistresses, but such as the father feels for his sons and his sons-in-law:—

Dilexi tum te, non tantum ut vulgus amicam,Sed pater ut gnatos diligit et generos.

Dilexi tum te, non tantum ut vulgus amicam,

Sed pater ut gnatos diligit et generos.

But shameless as she is, and it is an impossibility for her to be otherwise, he cannot abandon her. Do what she will he is her slave. His mind, he says, was so straitened by her frailty, so beggared by its own devotion, that, even if she became virtuous, he could not love her with absolute goodwill, and if she stuck at nothing—drained vice to its very dregs—he could not give her up:—

Huc est mens deducta tuâ, mea Lesbia, culpâAtque ita se officio perdidit ipsa suo,Ut jam nec bene velle queam tibi, si optima fias,Nec desistere amare, omnia si facias.

Huc est mens deducta tuâ, mea Lesbia, culpâ

Atque ita se officio perdidit ipsa suo,

Ut jam nec bene velle queam tibi, si optima fias,

Nec desistere amare, omnia si facias.

He compares himself to a man labouring under a cruel and incurable disease, a disease which is paralysing his energy, and draining life of its joy:—

Me miserum adspicite, et si vitam puriter egi,Eripite hanc pestem perniciemque mihi,Quæ mihi subrepens imos, ut torpor, in artusExpulit ex omni pectore lætitias.

Me miserum adspicite, et si vitam puriter egi,

Eripite hanc pestem perniciemque mihi,

Quæ mihi subrepens imos, ut torpor, in artus

Expulit ex omni pectore lætitias.

Nearly sixteen hundred years had to pass before the world was to have any parallel to these poems. And the parallel is certainly a remarkableone. In the "Dark Lady" of Shakespeare's Sonnets, Lesbia lives again; in the lover of the dark lady, Lesbia's victim. Once more a false wife and a false mistress, not indeed beautiful, but with powers of fascination so irresistible that deformity itself becomes a charm, makes havoc of a poet's peace. Once more a passion, as degraded as it is degrading, sows feuds among friends, and "infects with jealousy the sweetness of affiance." Once more rises the bitter cry of a soul, conscious of the unspeakable degradation of a thraldom which it is agony to endure, and from which it would be agony to be emancipated. Compare for instance:—

My love is as a fever, longing stillFor that which longer nurseth the disease,Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,The uncertain sickly appetite to please.······Past cure I am, now reason is past care,And frantic mad with evermore unrest,My thoughts and my discourse as madman's are,(Sonnet cxlvii.)

My love is as a fever, longing still

For that which longer nurseth the disease,

Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,

The uncertain sickly appetite to please.

······

Past cure I am, now reason is past care,

And frantic mad with evermore unrest,

My thoughts and my discourse as madman's are,

(Sonnet cxlvii.)

with Catullus, lxxvi.

And:—

Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,That in the very refuse of thy deedsThere is such strength and warrantise of skill,That in my mind thy worst all best exceeds.Who taught thee how to make me love thee more,The more I hear and see just cause of hate?(Sonnet cl.)

Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,

That in the very refuse of thy deeds

There is such strength and warrantise of skill,

That in my mind thy worst all best exceeds.

Who taught thee how to make me love thee more,

The more I hear and see just cause of hate?

(Sonnet cl.)

with Catullus, lxxii., lxxiii., lxxv.; while Sonnetcxxxvii. presents a ghastly parallel with Catullus, lviii. Again, how exactly analogous is the adjuration to Quintius in Epigram lxxxii., with what finds expression in Sonnets xl.-xlii., and Sonnet cxx. But it would be tedious as well as superfluous to cite particular parallels where the whole position—which may be summed up in the two words of Catullus, "Odi et amo,"—is identical.

Not the least remarkable thing about Catullus is his range and his versatility. It is truly extraordinary that the same pen should have given us such finished social portraits as "Suffenus iste" (xxii.), "Ad Furium" (xxiii.), "In Egnatium" (xxxix.); the perfection of such serious fooling as we find in the "Lugete, O Veneres" (iii.), and, if we may apply such an expression to the most delicious love poem ever written, the "Acme and Septimius" (xlv.); of such humorous fooling as we find in the "Varus me meus ad suos amores" (x.), the "O Colonia quæ cupis" (xvii.), the "Adeste, hendecasyllabi," the "Oramus, si forte non molestum" (lv.); such epic as we have in the "Peleus and Thetis"; such triumphs of richness, splendour, and grace as we have in the three marriage poems; such a superb expression of the highest imaginative power, penetrated with passion and enthusiasm, as we have in theAttis; such concentrated invective and satire as mark some of the lampoons; such mock heroic as we have in theComa Berenices;such piercing pathos as penetrates the autobiographical poems, and the poems dedicated to Lesbia.

Catullus has been compared to Keats, but the comparison is not a happy one. His nearest analogy among modern poets is Burns. Both were, in Tennyson's phrase, "dowered with the love of love, the scorn of scorn," and, in the poems of both, those passions find the intensest expression. Both had an exquisite sympathy with all that appeals, either in nature or in humanity, to the senses and the affections. Both were sensualists and libertines without being effeminate, or without being either depraved or hardened. In both, indeed, an infinite tenderness is perhaps the predominating feature. Both had humour, that of Catullus being the more caustic, that of Burns the more genial. Both were distinguished by sincerity and simplicity; both waged war with charlatanry and baseness. Burns had the richer nature and was the greater as a man; Catullus was the more accomplished artist.

But it is time to turn to the book which has recalled Catullus and Lesbia. Mr. Tremenheere has, with great ingenuity, succeeded in concocting by a process of elaborate dovetailing a very pretty romance which he divides into nine chapters, the first being "The Birth of Love," the second, third and fourth, "Possession," "Quarrels" and "Reconciliation," the fifth, sixth,and seventh, "Doubt," "A Brother's Death" and "Unfaithfulness," the last two, "Avoidance" and "The Death of Love." The chief objection to this is that it is for the most part fanciful, and is absolutely without warrant, either from tradition or from probability. Many of the poems pressed into the service of his narrative by Mr. Tremenheere have nothing whatever to do with Lesbia. Such would be xiii., "The invitation to Fabullus," xiv., "The Acme and Septimius."

The translations are very unequal. Of many of them it may be said in Dogberry's phrase that they "are tolerable and not to be endured," or to borrow an expression from Byron "so middling bad were better." Thus the powerful poem to Gellius (xci.) is attenuated into:—

'Twas not that I esteem'd you wereAs constant or incapableOf vulgar baseness, but that sheFor whom great love was wasting me,The spice of incest lacked for you;And though we were old friends, 'tis true,That seem'd poor cause to my poor mind,Not so to yours.

'Twas not that I esteem'd you were

As constant or incapable

Of vulgar baseness, but that she

For whom great love was wasting me,

The spice of incest lacked for you;

And though we were old friends, 'tis true,

That seem'd poor cause to my poor mind,

Not so to yours.

Sometimes the versions are detestable. Nothing could be worse than to turn:—

Nulli illum pueri nullæ optavere puellæ

No more is she glad to the eyes of a lad,To the lasses a pride,—

No more is she glad to the eyes of a lad,

To the lasses a pride,—

Dulcis pueri ebrios ocellos

Her minion's passion-sodden eyes,—

which might do very well for a coarse phrase like "In Venerem putres," but not for "Ebrios." But sometimes the renderings are very felicitous. As here:—

Quid vis? quâlubet esse notus optasEris: quandoquidem meos amoresCum longâ voluisti amare pœnâ.

Quid vis? quâlubet esse notus optas

Eris: quandoquidem meos amores

Cum longâ voluisti amare pœnâ.

Cost what it may, you'll win renown!You shall, such longing you exhibitBoth for my mistress—and a gibbet!

Cost what it may, you'll win renown!

You shall, such longing you exhibit

Both for my mistress—and a gibbet!

And the following is happy:—

Nullum amans vere, sed identidem omniumIlia rumpens.Nec meum respectet, ut ante, amoremQui illius culpâ cecidit; velut pratiUltimi flos, prætereunte postquamTactus aratro est.

Nullum amans vere, sed identidem omnium

Ilia rumpens.

Nec meum respectet, ut ante, amorem

Qui illius culpâ cecidit; velut prati

Ultimi flos, prætereunte postquam

Tactus aratro est.

Ah, shameless, loveless lust, sweet, seek no moreTo win love back, by thine own fault it fell,In the far corner of the field though hid,Touch'd by the plough at last,—the flower is dead.

Ah, shameless, loveless lust, sweet, seek no more

To win love back, by thine own fault it fell,

In the far corner of the field though hid,

Touch'd by the plough at last,—the flower is dead.

The following also is neat and skilful, but how inferior to the almost terrible impressiveness of the original:—

O Di si vostrûm est misereri, aut si quibus unquamExtremâ jam ipsâ in morte tulistis opem.Me miserum adspicite, et si vitam puriter egi,Eripite hanc pestem perniciemque mihi,Quæ mihi subrepens imos, ut torpor, in artusExpulit ex omni pectore lætitias.

O Di si vostrûm est misereri, aut si quibus unquam

Extremâ jam ipsâ in morte tulistis opem.

Me miserum adspicite, et si vitam puriter egi,

Eripite hanc pestem perniciemque mihi,

Quæ mihi subrepens imos, ut torpor, in artus

Expulit ex omni pectore lætitias.

Oh God! if Thine be pity, and if ThouE'en in the jaws of death ere now,Hast wrought salvation—look on me;And if my life seem fair to TheeO tear this plague, this curse away,Which gaining on me day by day,A creeping slow paralysis,Hath driven away all happiness.

Oh God! if Thine be pity, and if Thou

E'en in the jaws of death ere now,

Hast wrought salvation—look on me;

And if my life seem fair to Thee

O tear this plague, this curse away,

Which gaining on me day by day,

A creeping slow paralysis,

Hath driven away all happiness.

Six love stories stand out conspicuous in the records of poetry—those which find expression in theElegiesof Propertius, in theSonnets and Canzoniof Dante and Petrarch, in theSonnetsof Camoens, in theAstrophel and Stellaof Sidney, in theSonnetsof Shakespeare. But never has passion, never has pathos, thrilled in intenser or more piercing utterance than in the poems which that fatal "Clytemnestra quadrantaria"—to employ the phrase which may actually have been applied to her—inspired, and in which the rapture and loathing and despair of Catullus found a voice.

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