Gratian.—Pretty as the passage of the maiden's disaster in dropping the lover's gift—and that, too, be it observed, in the hurry of her tenderness, which increases the beauty, or rather accomplishes it—yet is it not abrupt in a piece where there is the expression of so much grief? Catullus was an affectionate man, more especially affectionate brother; on other occasions, if I remember rightly, he deplores this brother's loss. Now, Master Curate, what do you offer us?
Curate.—Not now a verse translation, but an observation on a little piece of raillery, in which Catullus quizzes one Arrius for his aspirating; and, I mean it not as a pun, exasperating, though it should seem that his friends were not a little exasperated at his bad pronunciation. Do we inherit from the Romans this, our (Cockneyism, I was going to say, but it is too general to allow of such a limit,) vulgarity of speech? "Where," says Catullus, "Arrius meant to say commoda, he uttered it as chommoda, and hinsidias for insidias, and never thought he spoke remarkably well unless he laid great stress upon the aspirate, calling it with emphasis hinsidias. I believe his mother, his uncle, his maternal grandfather and grandmother all spoke in the same way. When the man went into Syria, all ears had a little rest, and heard those words pronounced without this emphatic aspirate, and began to entertain no fears respecting the use of the words; when on a sudden they hear—that after Arrius had gone thither, the Ionian seas were no longer Ionian, but Hionian." This is curious. As the Romans had possession here more than four hundred years, did they leave us this legacy?
Aquilius—I will, then, give you versions of the two which immediately follow.
DE AMORE SUO.
I love and hate. You ask me how 'tis so.
Small is the reason which I have to show:
I feel it to my cost—'tis all I know.
Then follows a compliment, by comparison, to his Lesbia.
DE QUINTIA ET LESBIA.
Many think Quintia beautiful: she's tall,
And fair, and straight. I know, I grant it all,
When each particular beauty I recall;
But I deny—when these are uncombined
To form a whole of beauty—and I find
So large a person with so small a mind.
But Lesbia's perfect person is all soul,
Compact in beauty—as if grace she stole
From all the rest, and made herself one perfect whole.