But it is time to turn to the book which has recalled Catullus and Lesbia. Mr. Tremenheere has, with great ingenuity, succeeded in concocting by a process of elaborate dovetailing a very pretty romance which he divides into nine chapters, the first being “The Birth of Love,” the second, third and fourth, “Possession,” “Quarrels” and “Reconciliation,” the fifth, sixth, and seventh, “Doubt,” “A Brother’s Death” and “Unfaithfulness,” the last two, “Avoidance” and “The Death of Love.” The chief objection to this is that it is for the most part fanciful, and is absolutely without warrant, either from tradition or from probability. Many of the poems pressed into the service of his narrative by Mr. Tremenheere have nothing whatever to do with Lesbia. Such would be xiii., “The invitation to Fabullus,” xiv., “The Acme and Septimius.” The translations are very unequal. Of many of them it may be said in Dogberry’s phrase that they “are tolerable and not to be endured,” or to borrow an expression from Byron “so middling bad were better.” Thus the powerful poem to Gellius (xci.) is attenuated into:-- ’Twas not that I esteem’d you were As constant or incapable Of vulgar baseness, but that she For whom great love was wasting me, The spice of incest lacked for you; And though we were old friends, ’tis true, That seem’d poor cause to my poor mind, Not so to yours. Sometimes the versions are detestable. Nothing could be worse than to turn:-- Nulli illum pueri nullæ optavere puellæ No more is she glad to the eyes of a lad, To the lasses a pride,-- or Dulcis pueri ebrios ocellos as Her minion’s passion-sodden eyes,-- which might do very well for a coarse phrase like “In Venerem putres,” but not for “Ebrios.” But sometimes the renderings are very felicitous. As here:-- Quid vis? quâlubet esse notus optas Eris: quandoquidem meos amores Cum longâ voluisti amare pœnâ. Cost what it may, you’ll win renown! You shall, such longing you exhibit Both for my mistress--and a gibbet! And the following is happy:-- Nullum amans vere, sed identidem omnium Ilia rumpens. Nec meum respectet, ut ante, amorem Qui illius culpâ cecidit; velut prati Ultimi flos, prætereunte postquam Tactus aratro est. Ah, shameless, loveless lust, sweet, seek no more To win love back, by thine own fault it fell, In the far corner of the field though hid, Touch’d by the plough at last,--the flower is dead. The following also is neat and skilful, but how inferior to the almost terrible impressiveness of the original:-- O Di si vostrûm est misereri, aut si quibus unquam Extremâ jam ipsâ in morte tulistis opem. Me miserum adspicite, et si vitam puriter egi, Eripite hanc pestem perniciemque mihi, Quæ mihi subrepens imos, ut torpor, in artus Expulit ex omni pectore lætitias.