AQUILIUS.--The same--but I should be sorry indeed, to see a vessel built after the measure of his verses. She would require too nice an adjustment of ballast. I doubt if she would bear a rough sea. The poem I speak of was written with his palette's pen. It was the towing in the old Temeraire to be broken up. There she was, on the waters, as her own element, a Leviathan still, a history of "battle and of breeze"--behind her the night coming in, sun setting, and in glory too. Her days are over, and she is towed in to her last anchorage. The feeling of the picture was touching, and there was a dignity and greatness in it of mighty charm. GRATIAN.--I remember it well, and it is well remembered now: but here is the Curate with his paper in his hand: let us hear what he has to say. CURATE.--I have the worse chance with you, for you have poeticised the subject so much more largely than Catullus himself, that you will listen with less pleasure to my translation; but you shall have it. DEDICATIO PHASELI. Strangers, the bark you see, doth say Of ships the fleetest far was she. AQUILIUS.--Stay for a moment: "the fleetest," then she was one of a _fleet_, and sailed perhaps under convoy, and ought not to have outsailed the _fleet_--say quickest. GRATIAN.--No interruption, or by this baculus! Go on, Mr. Curate. CURATE.--If you please, I'll heave anchor again. Strangers, this bark you see doth say, Of ships the fleetest far was she: And that she passed and flew away From every hull that ploughed the sea, That fought against, or used the gale With hand-like oar or wing-like sail. She cites, as witness to her word, The frowning Adriatic strand; The Cyclades which rocks engird, And noted Rhodus' distant land; Propontis and unkindly Thrace, And Savage Pontus' billowy race. That which is now a shallop here, Was once a tract of tressed wood, Its foliage was Cytorus' gear, Upon the topmost ridge it stood, And when the morning breeze awoke Its whistling leaves the silence broke. Pontic Amastris, says the bark, Box-overgrown Cytorus, you Know me by each familiar mark, And testify the tale is true. She says you saw her earliest birth Upon your nursing mountain-earth, She dipped her blades, a maiden launch, First in your waves, and bent her course Thence, ever to her master staunch, Through seas that plied their utmost force. If right or left the breeze did strike, Or gentle Jove did strain alike, Each sheet before the wind. She came From that remotest ocean-spot To this clear inlet, still the same, And yet audaciously forgot The bribes which, under doubtful skies, Are vowed to sea-side deities. Her deeds are done, her tale is told, For those were feats of bygone strength; In secret peace she now grows old, And dedicates herself at length, Twin-brother Castor, at thy shrine, And Castor's brother twin, at thine.