Aquilius.—See, you have set our host asleep; and, judging from his last words, his dream will not be unpleasant. We must not come to a sudden silence, or it will waken him. The murmur of the brook that invites sleep, is pledged to its continuance. The winds and the pattering rain, says the Roman elegiast, assist the sleeper.
Aut gelidas hibernus aquas eum fuderit auster
Securum somnos imbre juvante sequi.
We must not, however, proceed with our translations. Take up Landor’s Pentameron, and begin where you left off, when we first entered upon this discussion of Catullus. He seemed to give the preference to Catullus over Horace. Here is the page,—read on.
The Curate at once took the volume and read aloud.—The following passage arrested our attention:—
“In return for my suggestion, pray tell me what is the meaning of
Obliquo laborat
Lympha fugax trepidare rivo.
“Petrarcha.—The moment I learn it you shall have it. Laborat trepidare! lympha rivo! fugax, too! Fugacity is not the action for hard work or labour.
“Boccaccio.—Since you cannot help me out, I must give up the conjecture, it seems, while it has cost me only half a century. Perhaps it may be curiosa felicitas.”
Aquilius—Stay there:—that criticism is new to me. I never even fancied there was a difficulty in the passage. Let us consider it a moment.
Curate.—Does he then think Horace not very choice in his words? for he seems to be severe upon the “curiosa felicitas.” Surely the diction of the Latin poets is all in all—For their ideas seem hard stereotyped,—uninterchangeable, the very reverse of the Greek, in whom you always find some unexpected turn, some new thought, thrown out beautifully in the rapidity of their conception—excepting in Sophocles—who, attending more to his diction, deals perhaps a little too much in common-place.