AQUILIUS.--Cicero was less likely to see any defect in himself than most men. He had consummate vanity--which must have led him into many a ridiculous position. But there were no Boswells in those days. I never could understand how it is that so great an admiration of Cicero has come over mankind. Even in language he has had an evil influence; and our literature for a long period was tainted with it. Sensible himself, he taught the art of writing fluently without sense. The flow and period--the _esse videatur_--a style too common with us less than half a century ago--you might read page after page, and pause to wonder what you had been reading about. The upper current of the book did not disturb the under current of your own thoughts, perhaps aided by the lulling music. CURATE.--The vanity of Cicero was too manifest. It is a pity, for the sake of his reputation, that the letter to his friend, in which he requested him to write his life, is extant. To tell him plainly that it is the duty of a friend to exaggerate his virtues, is a mean vanity--unworthy such a man. GRATIAN.--Come, come! let him rest; our business is with Catullus. Curate, let us have your translation. CURATE.--I pass by the account of Suffenus, as well as some other pieces, and come to that very short one in which he complains of the mortgage which is on his villa. It is a wretched pun on the word "opponere," and was scarcely worth translating;--take it, however: AD FURIUM. You, Furius, ask against what wind My little villa stands-- If Auster, or Favonius kind Who comes o'er western lands, Or cruel Boreas, or that one That rises with the morning sun? Alas--it stands against a breeze Which beats against the door, Of fifteen thousand sesterces, And twice a hundred more. I challenge you on earth to find So foul and pestilent a wind. AQUILIUS.--What! do you look for a wind _on_ earth,--it blows over it; and catch it who can. GRATIAN.--It blows every where. The worst I know is that which blows down the chimney. And that reminds me to tell you what a town-bred chimney-sweeper said, the other day, to a friend of mine, in the valley yonder, who wanted to have a smoky chimney cured. My friend inquired if he could teach it not to smoke. "How can I tell?" said he, "I must take out a brick first and look into his _intellects_." CURATE.--Not the march--but the sweep of intellect spoke there. AQUILIUS.--And spoke not amiss; it was merely to see if he _had a mind_ to be cured. GRATIAN.--Perhaps you have translated that sweep's language better than your passages from Catullus. AQUILIUS.--I did not attempt to translate that little piece,--but ran quite out of course, as the Curate would tell me, in a long paraphrase. The idea is, however, furnished by Catullus,--so I dedicate it AD FURIUM.