Our good old friend still goes on improving this and improving that—has his little farm and his garden all in the highest perfection. Nor is the least care bestowed on the greenhouse, and the little aviary adjoining; for here are objects of feminine pleasure, and he loves not himself so well as he does the mistress of all, the mother and the partner. O the terrestrial paradise, in which to wait old age, and still enjoy, and breathe to the last the sunshiny breath of heaven, and feel that all is blessed and blessing; for there is peace, and that is the true name for goodness within! You shall have, my dear Eusebius, no farther description. A drop-scene, however, is not amiss to any little conversational drama. You may shift it, if you like, occasionally to the small snug library—just such a one as you would have for such a retreat. Our excellent friend took less part in our talk than we could have wished; for it began generally at night, and his infirmity sent him to bed early. But in spite of a little remnant of influenza, I and the Curate often kept it up to a late hour, which you, Eusibius, will construe into an early one. Never mind; though, perhaps, it was whispered to his discredit that the Curate kept bad hours. Those, however, who knew the fact did not keep better, and so he thought all safe. How sweet and consoling is sometimes ignorance!
Now, the Curate—let me introduce you,—“My dear Eusebius, the Curate, a class man some year or two from Oxford—a true man, in a word, worthy of this introduction to you, Eusebius.” “Mr. Curate, my friend Eusebius; see, don’t trust to his gravity of years; it is quite deceptive, and the only deceit he has about him. He is Truth in sunshine and a fresh healthy breeze. So now you know each other.” I wish, Eusebius, this were not a passage out of an imaginary conversation. Wait but for the swallow, and you shall shake hands; and you, I know, will laugh merrily within ten minutes after; and a laugh from you is as good as a ticket upon your breast, “All is natural here;” and for the rest, let come what will, that is uppermost. There will be no restraint. I cannot forbear, Eusebius, writing to you now, early in this new year, paying you this compliment, that your real conversations resemble in much “Landor’s Imaginary,” which you tell me you so greatly admire. Full, indeed, are they, these last two volumes, his works, of beautiful thoughts set off with exquisitely appropriate eloquence. You are in a garden, and if you do not always recognise the fruit as legitimate, you are quite as well pleased to find it like Aladdin’s, and would willingly store all, as he did, in the bosom of your memory. Precious stones, bigger than plums and peaches, are good for sore eyes, and something more, though they have not the flavour of apricots.
We—that is, the Trio—had been reading one evening; or rather, our friend Gratian read to me and the Curate, the “Conversation with the Abbé Delille and W. L.” We loitered, too, in the reading, as we do when the country is of a pleasant aspect, to look about us and admire—and we interspersed our own little talk by the way. Our friend could not consent that Catullus should walk with, and even, as it should seem, take the lead of his favourite Horace. “Catullus and Horace,” says Landor, “will be read as long as Homer and Virgil, and more often, and by more readers.”
“If,” said the Curate, “Catullus were not nearly banished from our public schools and our universities.”
“As he deserves,” replied Gratian; “for although there is in him great elegance, yet is there much that should not be read; and his most beautiful and most powerful little poem, his ‘Atys,’ is in its very subject unfit for schoolboys.”
Curate.—Yes, if in the presence of a master; that makes the only difficulty. The poem itself is essentially chaste, and of a grand tragic action, and grave character—is in fact a serious poem, and as such any youth may read it to himself, scarcely to another. The very subject touches on that mystical, though natural sanctity that every uncorrupted man is conscious of in the temple of his own person. To impart a thought of it is a deterioration. But a master must not hear it; and even for a very inferior reason. He cannot be a critical instructor.
Gratian.—You are right: that was a deep observation of Juvenal; it gave the caution,
“Maxima debetur pueris reverentia.”
I have often thought that good masters have ever shown very great tact in reading the Classics, where there is so much, even in the purest, that it is best not to understand.
Aquilius. (I choose to give myself that name)—Or rather to pass lightly over, for you cannot help seeing it; put your foot across it, and not lengthways; as you would over a rut in a bad bit of road, which may nevertheless lead to a most delightful place at the end. I cannot but think the “Atys” to be a borrowed poem. It is quite Greek—unlike any thing Roman. What Roman ever expressed downright mad violent action? How much there is in it that reminds you of the story of Pentheus of Euripides. Both deny a deity, and both are punished by their own hands. But the resemblance is less in the characters than in the vivid pictures and rapidity of action; and the landscape glows like one fresh from Titian’s pencil. Our friend Landor, here, I see, calls the author “graceful.” He says of Virgil that he is not so “graceful as Catullus.”