faster?"--
Love, who heard it in his flight,
To the truth his witness bore,
Sneezing quickly to the right--
(To the left he sneezed before.)

Thus with omens all-approving,
Each and both are loved and loving.
Poor Septimius with his Acme,
Cares not to whose lot may fall
Syria's glory--wealthy province!--
Or both Britains great and small.
Acme, faithful and unfeigning,
Gives, creates, enjoys all pleasure,
With her dear Septimius reigning.--
Oh! was ever earthly treasure
Greater to man's lot pertaining?
Blessed pair!--thus, without measure,
Venus' choicest gifts attaining.

GRATIAN.--You have a little run riot, good Master Curate; and run out of
your rhyming course too, I see--for you don't mean "province" to rhyme
to "Acme."--I see the next is, On Approach of Spring--with that
beautiful line, "Jam ver egelidos refert tepores." I wish to see how you
would have translated that refreshing and cool warmth of
expression--almost a contradiction in terms--the season when we inhale
the heavenly air with the chill off--like hot tea thrown into a glass of
spring-cold water, and drank off immediately.

AQUILIUS.--I gave it up in despair, and the Curate too has omitted it.
There are two other perhaps untranslatable lines in this short piece:--

"Jam mens praetrepidans avet vagari;
Jam laeti studio pedes vigescunt."

After two other little pieces, we come to a few lines to no less a
personage than Marcus Tullius Cicero, who had probably in some cause
gratuitously assisted the poet with his eloquence; for to sue _in forma
poetae_, was, perhaps, pretty much the same as in _forma pauperis_. It
seems that "omnium patronus" was a flattering title on other occasions,
and by other persons bestowed upon Cicero, as well as by our poet here.
One would almost think the orator had served the poet an ill turn, and
that this superlative praise was but irony; for he not only calls
Tullius the most eloquent of men, but as much the best of patrons, as
he, Catullus, is the worst of poets. This surely must be a mock
humility. Is it a satire in disguise, and meaning the reverse? After
this, follows a little piece to his friend Cornellus Licinius Calvus,
with whom he had passed a pleasant and too exciting day--but let him
tell his own story. Shall I repeat?

AD LICINIUM.

My dear Licinius, yesterday
We sported in our pleasant way;
Ta