delight,
And willing should we die together.

So this is the offending ode! Was the proposition to be constant not
quite agreeable to the French editor? Or was he in Horace's probable
condition, getting a little up in years? See you, it is a youthful
rival, Juvenis, who troubles him. And Lydia takes care to throw in this
ingredient, the "sweet age." He is not _old_ Ornytus--a hint of
comparison with Horace himself--but his son; indeed, he is hardly
Juvenis, for she soon calls him her dear boy, as much as to say, "_You_
are old enough to be his father!" She carries out this idea, too,
seeming to say, "You may love Chloe--I dare say you do; but, does Chloe
love you? Whereas _our_ passion is mutual."

Our poet, delightful and wise as he generally is, was not wise to match
his wit against that of a woman, and an offended beauty. How miserably
he comes off in every encounter! He would die, forsooth! once--she would
die twice over! There is a hit in his very liver! And as to the
survivorship of Chloe, that she suggests, considering their ages, might
be very natural--but she doubts if her youth _could_ survive should
_she_ die; though she even came to life again, a second time to die, it
would be of no use. What could the foolish poet do after that?
Nothing--but make up the quarrel in the best way he might. He drops his
ears, is a little sulky still--most men are so in these affairs--seldom
generous in love. To pretend to be so is only to encroach on woman's
sweet and noble prerogative, and to assume her great virtue. No man
could keep it up long; he would naturally fall into his virile sulks. So
Horace does not at once open his arms that his Lydia may fall into
them--but stands hesitatingly, rather foolish, his hands behind him, and
puts forward the supposition _If_--that graceless peace-maker. Lydia, on
the contrary--all love, all generosity, is in his arms at once; for he
must at the moment bring them forward, whether he will for love or no,
or Lydia would fall. It is now she looks into his very eyes, and only
playfully, as quizzing his jealousy, reminds him of her Calaeis, her star
of beauty; thus sweetly reproving and as sweetly forgiving the temper of
her Horace--for he is her Horace still--and who can wonder at that? She
will bear with all--will live, will die with him. I look, Eusebius, upon
this ode as a real consolation to your lovers of an ambiguous and
querulous age. Seeing what we are daily becoming, it is a