with Catullus, lxxii., lxxiii., lxxv.; while Sonnet cxxxvii. presents a ghastly parallel with Catullus, lviii. Again, how exactly analogous is the adjuration to Quintius in Epigram lxxxii., with what finds expression in Sonnets xl.-xlii., and Sonnet cxx. But it would be tedious as well as superfluous to cite particular parallels where the whole position--which may be summed up in the two words of Catullus, “Odi et amo,”--is identical. Not the least remarkable thing about Catullus is his range and his versatility. It is truly extraordinary that the same pen should have given us such finished social portraits as “Suffenus iste” (xxii.), “Ad Furium” (xxiii.), “In Egnatium” (xxxix.); the perfection of such serious fooling as we find in the “Lugete, O Veneres” (iii.), and, if we may apply such an expression to the most delicious love poem ever written, the “Acme and Septimius” (xlv.); of such humorous fooling as we find in the “Varus me meus ad suos amores” (x.), the “O Colonia quæ cupis” (xvii.), the “Adeste, hendecasyllabi,” the “Oramus, si forte non molestum” (lv.); such epic as we have in the “Peleus and Thetis”; such triumphs of richness, splendour, and grace as we have in the three marriage poems; such a superb expression of the highest imaginative power, penetrated with passion and enthusiasm, as we have in the _Attis_; such concentrated invective and satire as mark some of the lampoons; such mock heroic as we have in the _Coma Berenices_; such piercing pathos as penetrates the autobiographical poems, and the poems dedicated to Lesbia. Catullus has been compared to Keats, but the comparison is not a happy one. His nearest analogy among modern poets is Burns. Both were, in Tennyson’s phrase, “dowered with the love of love, the scorn of scorn,” and, in the poems of both, those passions find the intensest expression. Both had an exquisite sympathy with all that appeals, either in nature or in humanity, to the senses and the affections. Both were sensualists and libertines without being effeminate, or without being either depraved or hardened. In both, indeed, an infinite tenderness is perhaps the predominating feature. Both had humour, that of Catullus being the more caustic, that of Burns the more genial. Both were distinguished by sincerity and simplicity; both waged war with charlatanry and baseness. Burns had the richer nature and was the greater as a man; Catullus was the more accomplished artist.