Thus our own faults we miss, and long

May seek them circumspectly;

If others in the least go wrong,

We see and blame directly.

Page 47.

Congratulations on Poverty.-To Furius.

I see no good reason for supposing this a different personage from the Furius before addressed. This poem may well have been only a playful jeer, such as has often passed between literary friends. Dr. Drake, in his "Literary Hours," condemns at once all the satirical poems of Catullus; he writes, "They abound in "the coarsest invective, and are generally levelled at the personal "blemishes and nauseous defects of those whom he hated." At least the last poem on Suffenus must form an exception; and, though poverty may be an unworthy butt, it is in this poem commented upon with a pleasantry that almost amounts to consolation. There is a Greek Epigram in the same strain.

INSCRIPTION ON A COTTAGE.

Martial has imitated this poem in more than one epigram, but it is generally rare for poets to ridicule want of wealth they have been more inclined to cloak its misery by pride and misanthropy. Such is the character of another Epigram in the Greek Anthology.

One cloak's thin covering all the clothes I use,
Slave at no board, I banquet with the Muse.
I hate mad riches, which are only good
To nurse the parasite's and flatterer's brood.
I will not mould my brow as others feel;
But know the freedom of a stinted meal.

Page 49.

To Juventius.

The Juventii, though of plebeian origin, were afterwards one of the first families in Rome. This is a remonstrance with a youth of the race, on his intimacy with some needy hanger-on. This poem the commentators would arbitrarily consider applicable to that visionary Furius of Pisaurus; whom they have conjured up to rob the real Furius of the jokes on him, and take all Catullus's unappropriated abuse.

With a wretch, who commands neither servant nor purse. To have neither slave nor chest (translated purse as more familiar) seems to have been proverbially characteristic of extreme

want.

Page 51.
To Furius.

Pezay writes, "Je ne trouve aucun sens ou du moins aucun sel "(ce que est presque pire) dans la traduction littérale de ces vers." As he then assumes the liberty of giving it a point of his own, it is unpardonable that it should be so flat as it is. This is an instance of the carelessness with which he studied his author, not taking the trouble to discover the double meaning of the word

"opponere," which the earliest commentators would have pointed out to him. It is contended that Catullus is here talking of his own villa to Furius, and the translation should be "Furius, my "Villa, &c." Vulpius states, as conclusive, that Catullus has before stated Furius to have no house. In the first place, Catullus only says, that he possessed no house in which a spider could live; and if he had said what Vulpius states, poetry is not to be understood so very literally; or at any rate Furius might have had such property, and reduced himself by squandering and borrowing. Vossius calculates that the amount of the mortgage mentioned in the original would now be about ninety-five pounds sterling.

Page 52.

To his Cupbearer.

Addresses to the slaves, who attended at their convivialities, are frequent with the ancient poets. Anacreon and Martial each have written one; and Horace's simple and flowing Ode is wellknown.

Boy, I hate the pomp refined

That the Persian banquets know,
Hate their wreaths of linden rind;
Search no longer then to find

Where the lingering rose may blow.

Let me no gay floweret see

With the simple myrtle twine:

Myrtle amply graces thee

Tending on my cup, and me

Quaffing underneath the vine.

Gay Postumia thus ordains.

This appears to us a curious mention of a lady. I cannot, however, believe with some, that in this festive address, he means the allusion satirically. It probably was not thought out of character for the more frolicsome courtesans to join compotations with their lovers. Juvenal has some hits at the wine-bibbing ladies of his time, and such a practice may not be quite left off even now. We know that so late as when Mrs. Cole flourished, "the "colonel and Jenny Cummins drank three flasks of Burgundy "hand to fist."-Foote's Minor.

Page 54.

To Verannius and Fabullus.

These two friends of Catullus had accompanied Cneius Calpurnius Piso into Spain, when he went thither as questor with pretorian power, and they returned with disappointment and loss equal to what Catullus himself had met with, when he went with Memmius in a like capacity. Sallust gives no favourable character of Piso, and his neglect of the two friends of Catullus is alluded to subsequently in a poem to Porcius and Socration. Noel inserts in a note a Latin parody of this poem by the learned Huet in his youth, after his journey into Sweden in 1652; when he accompanied Bochart thither on the invitation of Queen Christina. The voyage does not seem to have been more prosperous or pleasing than that of Catullus or of his two friends.

Page 56.

Upon Mamurra.

This profligate favourite Mamurra was a Roman knight, and

commander of the artillery, " præfectum fabrum," to Cæsar during his wars in Gaul. From the fruits of that and other expeditions he amassed an immense fortune; and is said by Pliny to have been the first in Rome who adorned his house with pillars of solid marble. This must have been the poem, which Suetonius says was read to Cæsar, whose conduct Dr. Middleton also relates in his "Life of Cicero." Cæsar was on a visit at Cicero's Villa. "While bathing he heard the verses by Catullus; not produced "by Cicero, for that would not have been agreeable to good man"ners; but by some of his own friends, who attended him, and "who knew his desire to see every thing that was published "against him, as well as his easiness in slighting or forgiving it." Cicero in a letter to Atticus writes, "Cæsar bathed after two, "heard the verses on Mamurra, at which he never changed "countenance." However Panvinius, in his work "De Antiquitatibus Veronensibus," proves by quotations from Plautus, Terencé, and Cicero, that the word "satisfacientem," which is applied to Catullus in the passage from Suetonius, means nothing less than confessing before witnesses, that he repented of what he had written. If so, this degrading ceremony detracts very much from our admiration of both the boldness of Catullus and the magnanimity of Cæsar.

Cæsar is thus addressed.

Romulus.

Page 57.

E'en to the farthest isle that gems the distant West. Britain.