He was attracted to one of them, Helvius Cinna, by warm admiration for his poetic accomplishment, as well as by friendship³⁷; and the time spent by them together was probably lightened by the practice of their art, and the study of the Alexandrine poets. Although the fame of Cinna did not become so great as that of Catullus or Calvus, he seems to have been regarded by the poets of that school in the light of a master³⁸; and it is probably owing to the example of his Zmyrna, so highly lauded in the 95th poem of Catullus, that Catullus composed his Epithalamium of Peleus and Thetis, Calvus composed his Io, and Cornificius his Glaucus. A still more remarkable poem of Catullus, the Attis, the subject of which, so remote not only from Roman but even Greek life, is identified with the Phrygian highlands and the seats of the worship of Cybele, probably owes its inspiration as well as its local colouring to the poet's sojourn in this district. It is not unlikely that it was during the leisure of the time spent in Bithynia that these poems were commenced, as it was during his retirement to Verona after his brother's death that his longer Elegiac poems were written. The mention of the 'Catagraphi Thyni' in a later poem is suggestive of the interest which he took in the novel aspects of Eastern life opened up to him in the province. But it is in the poems which are written in the year 56 b.c., that we chiefly note the happy effect of the poet's absence from Rome, and of his emancipation from his passion. Some of these poems,—more especially xlvi, ci, xxxi, and iv,—are among the happiest and purest products of his genius. They bring him before us eagerly preparing to start on his journey 'among the famous cities of Asia,'—making his pious pilgrimage to his brother's tomb in the Troad,—greeting his beloved Sirmio and the bright waters of the Lago di Garda on his first return home, and recalling sometime later to his guests by the shores of the lake the memories of the places visited, and of the gallant bearing of his pinnace, 'through so many wild seas,' on his homeward voyage. Some of the poems written from Verona—those referring to his intrigue or perhaps his disappointment with Aufilena, and the invitation to Caecilius (xxxv), were probably composed about this time, before his return to Rome. The 'Aufilena' poems belong certainly to a time later than his passion for Lesbia; and during a still later visit to Verona—probably that during which he met and was reconciled to Julius Caesar—Catullus is found engaged in love-affairs in which Mamurra was his rival. As the invitation to Caecilius was written after the foundation of Como (b.c. 59), it could not have been sent by Catullus during his earlier sojourns at Verona: and 'the ideas' which he wished to interchange with the poet who was then engaged in writing a poem on Cybele—'Dindymi domina,'—to which Catullus pointedly refers, may well have been those suggested by his Eastern sojourn, and embodied in the Attis. But soon afterwards we find him back in Rome, and the lively and most natural comedy, dramatically put before us in x—

bears the freshest impress of his recent Bithynian experiences. Poems xxviii and xlviii, inspired by his hatred of Memmius and his sympathy with the treatment, like to that which he had himself experienced, which his friends Veranius and Fabullus had met with at the hands of their chief Piso, probably belong to a later time, after the return of Piso from his province in 55 b.c. Some critics have found the motive of the famous lines addressed to Cicero—

in the speech delivered in the early part of 56 b.c., in defence of Caelius, of which, from the prominence given in it to the vices of Clodia, Catullus must have heard soon after his return to Rome. But the words of the poem hardly justify this inference. Catullus was not interested in the vindication of Caelius, who had proved false to him as a friend, and supplanted him as a rival. And he was himself so perfect a master of vituperation that he did not need to thank Cicero for his having done that office for him in regard to Clodia. Yet the reference to Cicero's eloquence, and to his supremacy in the law courts—,

seems to point to some exercise of Cicero's special talent as an advocate, for which Catullus was grateful. The great orator and the great poet, who speaks so modestly of himself in the contrast he draws between them, may have been brought together in many ways. They had common friends and acquaintances—Hortensius, Manlius Torquatus, Sestius, Licinius Calvus, Memmius, etc.; and they heartily hated the same persons, Clodia, Vatinius, Piso, and others. The intimate associates of Catullus shared the political views and sympathies which the orator had professed at least up to the year 55 b.c. Cicero, too, was naturally attracted to young men of promise and genius,—if they did not belong too prominently to the 'grex Catilinae';—and, like Dr. Johnson in his relations to Beauclerk and Boswell, he may have valued their society more for their intellectual vivacity than their moral virtues³⁹.

The poems written in the last two years of the poet's life do not indicate any emancipation from the coarser passions and the fierce animosities of the period immediately preceding the Bithynian journey. To this later time may be assigned the famous lampoons on Julius Caesar and Mamurra, the poems referring to some of his Veronese amours, those addressed to Juventius, and the reckless, half-bantering, half-savage assaults on 'Furius and Aurelius,' who were both the butts of his wit and the sharers of his least reputable pleasures. They seem to have been needy men, though of some social standing⁴⁰, probably of the class of 'Scurrae,' who preyed on his purse and made loud professions of devotion to him, while they abused his confidence and his character behind his back. Some of the poems of his last years, however, are indicative of a more genial frame of mind and of happier relations with the world. It was at this time that he enjoyed the intimate friendship of Licinius Calvus⁴¹, to whom he was united by similarity of taste and of genius, as well as by sympathy in their personal and political dislikes. Four poems—one certainly among the very last written by Catullus—are inspired by this friendship, and all clearly prove that at least this source of happiness was unalloyed by any taint of bitterness. Two other poems, the final repudiation of Lesbia, and the bright picture of the loves of Acme and Septimius, which, by their

allusions to the invasion of Britain and to the excitement preceding the Parthian expedition of Crassus and the Egyptian expedition of Gabinius, show unmistakeably that they belong to the last year of his life, afford conclusive evidence that neither the exhausting passions, the rancorous feuds, nor the deeper sorrows of his life had in any way impaired the vigour of his imagination or his sense of beauty. Perhaps the latest verses addressed by Catullus to any of his friends are those lines of tender complaint to Cornificius, in which he begs of him some little word of consolation—

The lines—

might well have been drawn from him by the rapid advance of his fatal illness, and the phrase 'lacrimis Simonideis' is suggestive of the anticipation of death rather than of the misery of unfortunate love⁴².

The length as well as the diction, rhythm, and structure of the 64th poem—

shows that it was a work of much greater labour and thought than any of those which sprang spontaneously out of the passion or sentiment of the moment. Probably in the composition of this, which he must have regarded as the most serious and ambitious effort of his Muse, Catullus may have acted on the principle which he commends so warmly in his lines on the Zmyrna of Cinna—

and have kept it by him for years, elaborating the unfamiliar poetic diction in which it is expressed, and enlarging its original plan by the insertion of the long Ariadne episode. It is the only poem of Catullus which produces the impression of the slow and reflective processes of art as distinct from the rapidly shaping power of immediate inspiration. From this circumstance alone we should regard it as a work on which his maturest faculty was employed. But it has been shown⁴³ that throughout the poem, and more especially in the episode of Ariadne, there are clear indications that Catullus had read and imitated the poem of Lucretius, which appeared about the end of 55 or the beginning of 54 b.c. We may therefore conclude that in the year 54 b.c.—the last of his life—Catullus was still engaged either in the original composition of his longest poem, or in giving to it the finishing touches. The concluding lines of the poem—

which are written in a more serious spirit, and with a graver judgment on human life than anything else he has left, perhaps indicate the path which his maturer genius might have struck out for itself, if he had ever risen from the careless freedom of early youth to the reflective habits and steady labour of riper years.

But although longer life might have brought to Catullus a still higher rank among the poets of the world, the chief charm of the poems actually written by him arises from the strength and depth of his personal feelings, and the force, freshness, and grace with which he has expressed them. Other Roman poets have produced works of more elaborate composition, and have shown themselves greater interpreters of Nature and of human life: none have expressed so directly and truthfully the great elemental affections, or have uttered with such vital sincerity the happiness or the pain of the passing hour. He presents his own simple experience and emotions, uncoloured by idealising fancy or reflexion, and the world accepts this as among the truest of all records of human feeling. The 'spirat adhuc amor' is especially true of all the poems inspired by his love for Lesbia. It is by the union of the utmost fire of passion with a heart capable of the utmost constancy of feeling that he transcends all other poets of love. We pass with him through every stage of his passion, from the first rapture of admiration and the first happiness of possession to the biting words or scorn in which he announces to Lesbia his final renunciation of her. We witness the whole 'pageant of his bleeding heart,' from the fresh pain of the wound on first fully realising her unworthiness, through the various stages of superficial reconcilement,—the 'amoris integratio' following on the 'amantium irae⁴⁴,'—on to the state of torture described by him in the words 'Odi et amo⁴⁵,' till at last he obtains his emancipation by the growth of a savage rancour and loathing in the place of the passionate love which had tried so long to sustain itself 'like a wild flower at the edge of the meadow⁴⁶.' Among the many poems, written through nearly the whole of his poetical career, and called forth by this, the most vital experience of his life, those of most charm and power are the two on the 'Sparrow of Lesbia' (ii and iii) written in tones of playful tenderness, not without some touch of the luxury of melancholy which accompanies and enhances passion;—the two, v and vii,

and

written in the very height of his short-lived happiness, in the wildest tumult and most reckless abandonment of passion, when the immediate joy is felt as the only thing of any moment in life; the 8th poem—

in which he recalls the bright days of the past—

and steels his heart against useless regret:—and another poem written in a different metre, in the same mood, and apparently after the wounds, which had been partially healed, had broken out afresh,—

in which he prays for a deliverance from his passion as from a foul disease, or a kind of madness;—and lastly, the final renunciation (xi),—

in which scornful irony is combined with an imaginative power and creative force of expression which he has only equalled or surpassed in one or two other of his greatest works,—such as the 'Attis' and the Epithalamium of Manlius. Other tales of love told by poets have been more beautiful in their course, or more pathetic in their issue; none have been told with more truthful realism, or more desperate intensity of feeling.

The fame of Catullus, as alone among ancient poets of love rivalling the traditional glory of Sappho, does not rest only on those poems which record the varying vicissitudes of his own experience. His longer and more artistic poems are all concerned with some phase of this passion, either in its more beautiful and pathetic aspects, or in its perversion and corruption. Thus he not only selects from Greek legends the story of the desertion of Ariadne, of the brief union of Protesilaus and Laodamia, of the glory and blessedness of Peleus and Thetis, but he makes the tragic deed of Attis, instigated by the fanatical hatred of love,—'Veneris nimio odio,'—the subject of his art. Others of his poems are inspired by sympathy with the happiness of his friends in the enjoyment of their love, and with their sorrow when that love is interrupted by death. The most charming of all his longer poems is the Epithalamium which celebrates the union of Manlius with his bride. No truer picture of the passionate devotion of lovers has ever been painted than that presented in the few playful and tender but burning lines of the 'Acme and Septimius.' His own experience did not teach him the lessons of cynicism. At the close as at the beginning of his career, he finds in the union of passion with truth and constancy the most real source of happiness. The elegiac lines in which he comforts his friend Calvus for the loss of Quintilia bear witness to the strength and delicacy of his friendship, and, along with others of his poems, make us feel that the life of pleasure in that age was not only brightened by genius and culture, but also elevated by pure affection and sympathy,—

The most attractive feature in the character of Catullus is the warmth of his affection. No ancient poet has left so pleasant a record of the genial intercourse of friends, or has given such proof of his own dependence on human attachment and of his readiness to meet all the claims which others have on such attachment. In his gayest hours and his greatest sorrow, amid his pleasures and his studies, he shows his thoughtful consideration for others, his grateful recollection of past kindness, and his own extreme need of sympathy. Perhaps he expects too much from friendship, and, in addressing his comrades, is too ready to assume that whatever gives momentary pleasure or pain to 'their own Catullus' must be of equal importance to them. No poet makes such use of terms of endearment and affectionate diminutives in writing both to and of his friends, and of himself in his relation to them. But if he expected much from the sympathy of his associates, he possessed in no ordinary measure the capacity of feeling with and of heartily loving and admiring them. He often expresses honest and delicate appreciation of the works, or of the wit, taste, and genius of his friends. The dedication of his volume to Cornelius Nepos, the lines addressed to Cicero, the invitation to Caecilius—

the poem in which he recalls to Licinius Calvus a day passed together in witty talk and the interchange of verses over their wine, the contrast which he draws between the doom of speedy oblivion which he pronounces on the 'Annals of Volusius,' and the immortality which he confidently anticipates for the 'Zmyrna' of Cinna,—all show that, though fastidious in his judgments, he was without a single touch of literary jealousy, and that he felt a generous pride in the fame and accomplishments of men of established reputation as well as of his own younger compeers. Nor was his affection limited by literary sympathy. Of none of his associates does he write more heartily than of Veranius and Fabullus, young men, apparently enjoying their youth, and trying to better their fortunes by serving on the staff of some Praetor or Proconsul in his province. The language of affection could not be uttered with more cordiality, simplicity, and grace than in the poem of ten or eleven lines welcoming Veranius on his return from Spain,—

There is not a word in the poem wasted; not one that does not come straight and strong from the heart. The 'Invitation to Fabullus' is in a lighter strain, and is written with the freedom and humour which he could use to add a charm to his friendly intercourse⁴⁹, and a sting to his less congenial relations. Yet through the playful banter of this poem his delicate and kindly nature betrays itself in the words 'venuste noster,' and in those lines of true feeling,—

His affection for both comes out incidentally in his remonstrance with Marrucinus Asinius⁵⁰ for having filched after dinner, 'in ioco atque vino,' one of his napkins, which he valued as memorials of the friends who had sent them to him, and which he endows with some share of the love he felt for them,—

The lampoons on Piso and his favourites, Porcius and Socration, show that those who wronged his friends could rouse in him as generous indignation as those who wronged himself.

Other poems express the pain and disappointment of a very sensitive nature, which expects more active and disinterested sympathy from others than ordinary men care either to give or to receive. Of this sort are his complaint to Cornificius⁵¹,—

and the affectionate reproach which he addresses to Alphenus (xxx):—

These, and other poems, show that Catullus was quick to feel any coldness or neglect on the part of his friends, and exceedingly dependent for his happiness on their sympathy. But the tone of these poems is quite different from the resentment which he feels and expresses against those from whom he had experienced malice or treachery. It does great injustice to his noblest qualities, to think of him as one who wantonly attacked or lightly turned against his friends. No instance of such levity of feeling can be adduced from his writings. It has been conclusively shown⁵² that in the third line of the 95th poem there can be no reference to Hortensius, who, under the name of Hortalus, is addressed by Catullus in his 65th poem with courteous consideration: and if 'Furius and Aurelius' are to be regarded, on the strength of the opening lines of the 11th poem, as having ever ranked among his devoted friends, then the poem, instead of being a magnificent outburst of scornful irony, becomes a mere specimen of bathos. Nothing, on the other hand, can be more in keeping with the feeling of contemptuous tolerance which Catullus expresses in his other poems relating to them, than the pointed contrast between their hollow professions of enthusiasm and the degrading office which he assigns to them,—

Catullus could pass from friendship or love to a state of permanent enmity and hatred, when he believed that those in whom he had trusted had acted falsely and heartlessly towards him: and then he did not spare them. But the duties of loyal friendship and affection are to him a kind of religion. Perfidy and falsehood are regarded by him not only as the worst offences against honour in man, but as sins against the Gods. He lays claim to a good conscience and to the character of piety, on the ground that he had neither failed in acts of kindness nor violated his word or his oath in any of his human dealings:—

That he possessed no ordinary share of 'piety,' in the Roman sense of the word, appears from the poems which express his grief for his brother's death. He died in the Troad; and we have seen how, some years after the event, Catullus turned aside from his pleasant voyage among the Isles of Greece and coasts of Asia, to visit his tomb and to offer upon it the customary funeral gifts. His words in reference to this great sorrow, in all the poems in which he speaks of it, are full of deep and simple human feeling. He does not venture to comfort himself with the hope which he suggests to Calvus, in the lines on the death of Quintilia, of a conscious existence after death; but he resolves that his love shall still endure even after the eternal separation from its object. Yet while yielding to the first shock of this affliction, so as to become for the time indifferent to the passion which had swayed his life, and to the delight which he had taken in the works of ancient poets and the exercise of his art, he does not allow himself to forget what was due to living friends. It is characteristic of his frank affectionate nature, that, while dead to his old interests in life and literature, he finds his chief comfort in unburthening his heart to his friends and in writing to them words of delicate consideration. He cannot bear that, even in a trifling matter, Hortalus should find him forgetful of a promise: and he longs to lighten the sorrow of his friend Manlius, who had written to him in some sudden affliction,—probably the loss of the bride in whose honour Catullus had, a short time previously, composed his great Nuptial Ode. Though all other feelings were dead, and neither love could distract nor poetry heal his grief, his heart was alive to the memory of former kindness⁵⁴, to the natural craving for sympathy, and to the duty of thinking of others.

Another, and less admirable, side of the nature of Catullus is reflected in his short satirical poems. These have nothing in common with the ethical and reflective satire of Lucilius and Horace: and although the objects of some of them are the most prominent personages in the State, yet their motive cannot, in any case, be called purely political. They are like the lampoons of Archilochus and the early Greek Iambic writers, purely personal in their object. They are either the virulent expression of his antipathies, jealousies, and rancours, or they are inspired by his lively sense of the ridiculous and by his extreme fastidiousness of taste. The most famous, most incisive, and least justifiable of these lampoons are the attacks on Julius Caesar, especially that contained in the 29th poem,—

and in the less vigorous but much more offensive 57th poem.

Catullus in these poems expresses the animosity which the 'boni' generally entertained towards the chiefs of the popular party: and his intimacy at this time with Calvus, who was a member of the Senatorian party, and who lampooned Caesar and Pompey in the same spirit, may have given some political edge to his Satire. He was moved also by a feeling of disgust towards the habits and manners of some of Caesar's instruments and creatures,—such as Vatinius, Libo, Mamurra, etc. But the chief motive both of the 29th and the 57th,—the two poems which Suetonius regarded as attaching an 'everlasting stigma' to the name of Caesar—is the jealousy of Mamurra,—the object also of many separate satires,—who, through the favour of the Proconsul and the fortune which he thereby acquired, was a successful rival of Catullus in his provincial love affairs. The indignation of Cicero was roused against the riches of Mamurra on political grounds⁵⁵: that of Catullus on the ground that they gave their possessor an unfair advantage in the race of pleasure:—

Suetonius tells the story, confirmed by the lines in a later poem of Catullus—

that Caesar, while staying at his father's house at Verona, accepted the poet's apology for his libellous verses, and admitted him the same day to his dinner-table. Had he attached the meaning to the imputations contained in them, which Suetonius did two hundred years afterwards, even his magnanimous clemency could not well have tolerated them. But, as Cicero tells us in his defence of Caelius, such charges were in those days regarded as a mere 'façon de parler,' which if made coarsely were regarded as 'rudeness' ('petulantia'), if done wittily, as 'polite banter' ('urbanitas'). Caesar must have looked upon the imputations of the 57th poem as a mere angry ebullition of boyish petulance: and he showed the same disregard for imputations made by Calvus, which, though as unfounded, were not so absolutely incredible and unmeaning. His clemency to Catullus met with a return similar to that which it met with at a later time from other recipients of his generosity. Catullus, though the 'truest friend,' was certainly not the 'noblest foe.' The coarseness of his attack may be partly palliated by the manners of the age: but the spirit in which he returns to the attack in the 54th poem leaves a more serious stain on his character. He was too completely in the wrong to be able frankly to forgive Caesar for his gracious and magnanimous treatment.

Many of his personal satires are directed against the licentiousness of the men and women with whom he quarrelled. Notwithstanding the evidence of his own frequent confessions, he lays a claim to purity of life in the phrase, 'si vitam puriter egi⁵⁶,' and in his strange apology for the freedom of his verses,—

He is absolutely unrestrained both in regard to the imputations which he makes, and to the choice of the language in which he conveys them; and in these imputations he spares neither rank nor sex. It is one of the strangest paradoxes to find a poet like Catullus, endowed with the purest sense of beauty, and yet capable of turning all his vigorous force of expression to the vilest uses. He is coarser in his language than any of the older poets, and than any of those of the Augustan age. In the time of the former the traditional severity of the old Roman life,—'tetrica ac tristis disciplina Sabinorum,'—had not altogether lost its influence. In the Augustan age, if there was as much immorality as in the age preceding it, there was more outward decorum. The licentiousness of that age expresses itself in tones of refinement; it associates itself with sentimentalism in literature; it was reduced to system and carried out as the serious business of life. The coarseness of Catullus is symptomatic rather of more recklessness than of greater corruption in society. Impurity is less destructive to human nature when it vents itself in bantering or virulent abuse, than when it clings to the imagination, associates itself with the sense of beauty, and expresses itself in the language of passion. Though, in his nobler poetry, Catullus is ardent and impassioned, he is much more free from this taint than Ovid or Propertius. The errors of his life did not deaden his sensibility, harden his heart, or corrupt his imagination. It is only in his careless moods, when he looks on life in the spirit of a humorist, or in moods of bitterness when his antipathies are roused, or in fits of savage indignation against some violation of natural feeling or some prosperous villainy, that he disregards the restraints imposed by the better instincts of men on the use of language.

Many of his Satires, however, are written in a more genial vein, and are not much disfigured by coarseness or indelicacy of expression. As he especially valued good taste and courtesy, wit, and liveliness of mind in his associates, so he is intolerant of all mean and sordid ways of living, of all stupidity, affectation, and pedantry. The pieces in which these characteristics are exposed are marked by keen observation, a lively sense of absurdity, and sometimes by a boisterous spirit of fun. They are expressed with vigour and directness; but they want the subtle irony which pervades the Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Among the best of his lighter satires is the poem numbered xvii:—

which has some touches of graceful poetry as well as of humorous extravagance. It is directed against the dulness and stolid indifference of one of his fellow-townsmen, who, being married to a young and beautiful girl,—

was utterly careless of her, and insensible to the perils to which she was exposed. To rouse him from his sloth and stupor, Catullus asks to have him thrown head over heels—

from a rickety old bridge into the deepest and dirtiest part of the quagmire over which it was built. In another piece Catullus laughs at the affectation of one of his rivals, Egnatius,—a black-bearded fop from the Celtiberian wilds,—who had a trick of perpetually smiling in order to show the whiteness of his teeth;—a trick which did not desert him at a criminal trial, during the most pathetic part of the speech for the defence, or when he stood beside a weeping mother at the funeral pyre of her only son. In another of his elegiac pieces he gives expression to the relief felt on the departure for the East of a bore who afflicted the ears of the polite world by a superfluous use of his aspirates—

Just as the ears of men had recovered from this infliction—

Like fastidious and irritable poets of other times (Horace, Pope, Byron, etc.), Catullus waged internecine war against pedants, literary pretenders, and poetasters. He remonstrates in a vein of humorous exaggeration with his friend Licinius Calvus, for palming off on him as a gift on the Saturnalia (corresponding to our Christmas presents) a collection of the works of these 'miscreants' ('impiorum'), originally sent to him by some pedantic grammarian, in acknowledgment of his services as an advocate—

In the 36th poem he represents Lesbia as offering a holocaust to Venus of the work of 'the worst of all poets,' 'The Annals of Volusius,' in quittance of a vow on her reconcilement with Catullus. In another (xxii), addressed to Varus, probably the fastidious critic whom Horace quotes in the 'Ars Poetica⁵⁹,' he exposes the absurdity of one of their friends, who, though in other respects a man of sense, wit, and agreeable manners, entertained the delusion that he was a poet, and was never so happy as when he had surrounded himself with the newest and finest literary materials, and was plying his uncongenial occupation. In another he records the nemesis, in the form of a severe cough, which overtook him for allowing himself to be seduced by the hopes of a good dinner to read (or perhaps listen to the reading of) a speech of Cicero's friend and client Sestius,—

About one half of the shorter poems, and more than half of the epigrams, are to be classed among his personal lampoons or light satiric pieces. Many of these show Catullus to us on that side of his character, which it is least pleasant or profitable to dwell on. He could not indeed write anything which did not bear the stamp of the vital force and sincerity of his nature: but even his vigour of expression does not compensate for the survival in literature of the feelings and relations which are most ignoble in actual life. Yet some of these satiric pieces have an interest which amply justifies their preservation. The greatest of all his lampoons, the 29th, has an historical as well as a literary value. Tacitus, as well as Suetonius, refers to it. It is not only a masterpiece of terse invective, but, like the 11th, it is a powerful specimen of imaginative irony. The momentous events of a most momentous era—the Eastern conquests of Pompey, the first Spanish campaign of Caesar, the subjugation of Gaul, the invasion of Britain, the revolutionary measures of 'father-in-law and son-in-law,'—are all made to look as if they had had no other object or result than that of pampering the appetites of a worthless favourite. Other lampoons, such as those against Memmius and Piso, have also an historical interest. They testify to the republican freedom of speech, the open expression of which was soon to be silenced for ever. They enable us to understand how strong a social and political weapon the power of epigram was in ancient Rome,—a power which continued to be exercised, though no longer with republican freedom, under the Empire. The pen of the poet was employed in the warfare of parties as fiercely as the tongue of the orator; and although Catullus did not spare partisans of the Senate, such as Memmius, yet all his associations and tastes combined to turn his hostility chiefly against the popular leaders and their tools. The more genial satiric pieces, again, are chiefly interesting as throwing light on the social and literary life of Rome and the provincial towns of Italy. They give us an idea of the lighter talk, the criticism, and merriment of the younger men in the world of letters and fashion during the last age of the Republic. If they are not master-pieces of humour, they are full of gaiety, animal spirits, shrewd observation, and not very unkindly comment on men and manners.

Besides the poems which show Catullus in various relations of love, affection, animosity, and humorous criticism, there are still a few of the shorter pieces which have a personal interest. He had the purest capacity of enjoying simple pleasures; and some of his most delightful poems are vivid records of happy experiences procured to him by this youthful freshness of feeling. Three of these are especially beautiful,—the dedication of his yacht to Castor and Pollux,—the lines written immediately before quitting Bithynia,—

and the famous lines on Sirmio. They all belong to the same period of his life, and all show how happy and serene his spirit became, when it was untroubled by the passions and rancours of city life. The lines on his yacht—

express with much vivacity the feelings of affectionate pride which a strong and kindly nature lavishes not only on living friends, but on inanimate objects, associated with the memory of past happiness and adventure. His fancy endows it with a kind of life from the earliest time when, under the form of a clump of trees, it 'rustled its leaves' on Cytorus, till it obtained its rest in a peaceful age on the fair waters of Benacus. The 46th poem is inspired by the new sense of life which comes to early youth with the first approach of spring, and by the eager flutter of anticipation—

with which a cultivated mind forecasts the pleasure of travelling among famous and beautiful scenes. But perhaps the most perfect of his smaller pieces is that in which the love of home and of Nature, the sense of rest and security after toil and danger, the glee of a boy and the strong happiness of a man unite to form the charm of the lines on Sirmio, of which it is as impossible to analyse the secret as it is to reproduce in another tongue the language in which it is expressed.

Catullus is one of the great poets of the world, not so much through gifts of imagination—though with these he was well endowed—as through his singleness of nature, his vivid impressibility, and his keen perception. He received the gifts of the passing hour so happily, that, to produce pure and lasting poetry, it was enough for him to utter in natural words something of the fulness of his heart. His interests, though limited in range, were all genuine and human. His poems inspired by personal feeling seem to come from him without any effort. He says, on every occasion, exactly what he wanted to say, in clear, forcible, direct language. There are, indeed, even in his simplest poems, a few strokes of imaginative expression, as, for instance,—

and this, written with the feeling and with the application which Burns makes of the same image,—

and these two touches of tenderness and beauty, which appear in a poem otherwise characterised by a tone of careless drollery,—