ehind"
in hate or love--I doubt "before."

AQUILIUS.--Easily mended--thus then,--

Why? Because in words of hate
I go far beyond her,
Yet no jot of love abate--
But still grow the fonder.

GRATIAN.--Probatum est.

AQUILIUS.--The Curate is too quick upon me. We must go back: he has left
out "De Inconstantia Feminei Amoris."

CURATE.--True. Here is my version. Not being a happy subject, I passed
over it.

OF WOMAN'S INCONSTANCY.

My pretty she will none but me
For husband, though were Jove, her wooer.
So tells she me: but what a she
Says to her lover and pursuer,
Might well be written on the wind,
Or stream that leaves no track behind.

AQUILIUS.--I object to "pretty she," for _mulier_. I think, however,
that _mulier_ here is a word of contempt. I make it out thus:

DE INCONSTANTIA FEMINEI AMORIS.

She says--the woman says--she none would wed
But me, though Jove came suitor to her bed;
She says--but, oh! what woman says--so fair,
And smooth to doting man, is writ on air,
And on the running stream that changeth every where.

AQUILIUS.--We have seen much of our friend Catullus as a loving poet,
let us end by showing him to have been a good hater. The following is no
bad specimen of his powers in this line:--

IN COMINIUM.

If you, Cominius, old, defiled
With every vice, contemn'd, and hoary,
From your vile life were once exiled,
Your carcass beasts would mar--grim, wild.
Vultures that tongue, defamatory
Of all the gentle, good, and mild;
And with those eyes, that all detest,
Pluck'd from their hateful sockets gory,
Crows cram their maws, or feed their nest,
And hungry wolves devour the rest!

It was now time, Eusebius, to conclude for the night, and, indeed, to
put our Catullus upon his shelf again. Before separating, we reminded
Gratian that he was the arbiter, and must make his award. "I remember
well," said he; "and you, Aquilius, made, I think, this my baculus the
staff of office. A good umpire might, not very improperly, give the
stick to you both, breaking it equally, "secundum artem baculinam." But
it is a good, useful staff to me; we have had some rubs together, and I
won't part with it. True, it has not unfrequently rubbed my pigs' backs,
and shall again. But _the_ pig Aquilius has made his acquaintance with,
has grunted out all his happy days; and, to d