head. Catullus knew the wood she came from, and how it
grew--it had vitality, and he never can believe it quite gone.

AQUILIUS.--There is a poem by Turner on this subject.

GRATIAN.--By Turner?--what Turner?--You don't mean, "The Fallacies of
Hope" Turner?

AQUILIUS.--The same--but I should be sorry indeed, to see a vessel built
after the measure of his verses. She would require too nice an
adjustment of ballast. I doubt if she would bear a rough sea. The poem I
speak of was written with his palette's pen. It was the towing in the
old Temeraire to be broken up. There she was, on the waters, as her own
element, a Leviathan still, a history of "battle and of breeze"--behind
her the night coming in, sun setting, and in glory too. Her days are
over, and she is towed in to her last anchorage. The feeling of the
picture was touching, and there was a dignity and greatness in it of
mighty charm.

GRATIAN.--I remember it well, and it is well remembered now: but here is
the Curate with his paper in his hand: let us hear what he has to say.

CURATE.--I have the worse chance with you, for you have poeticised the
subject so much more largely than Catullus himself, that you will listen
with less pleasure to my translation; but you shall have it.

DEDICATIO PHASELI.

Strangers, the bark you see, doth say
Of ships the fleetest far was she.

AQUILIUS.--Stay for a moment: "the fleetest," then she was one of a
_fleet_, and sailed perhaps under convoy, and ought not to have
outsailed the _fleet_--say quickest.

GRATIAN.--No interruption, or by this baculus! Go on, Mr. Curate.

CURATE.--If you please, I'll heave anchor again.

Strangers, this bark you see doth say,
Of ships the fleetest far was she:
And that she passed and flew away
From every hull that ploughed the sea,
That fought against, or used the gale
With hand-like oar or wing-like sail.

She cites, as witness to her word,
The frowning Adriatic strand;
The Cyclades which rocks engird,
And noted Rhodus' distant land;
Propontis and unkindly Thrace,
And Savage Pontus' billowy race.

That which is now a shallop here,
Was once a tract of tressed wood,
Its foliage was Cytorus' gear,
Upon the topmost ridge it stood,
And when the morning breeze awoke
Its whistling leaves the silence broke.

Pontic Amastris, says the bark,
Box-overgrown Cytorus, you
Know me by each familiar mark,
And testify t