re news of Catullus?"

AQUILIUS.--We left Catullus asleep some time ago, and thinking it
probable that you and he might wake at the same time, we determined to
wait for you both, and, in the meanwhile, we have been discussing a
passage in Horace, of which, (for we will not now renew the
discussion,) I will one day hear your opinion. A very favourite author,
however, of yours, doubts the _felicity_ of Horace in the choice of
words.

CURATE.--And in the structure of his sentences, and says, "How simple in
comparison are Catullus and Lucretius."

GRATIAN.--Indeed! now I think that is but finding one fault, for the
choice of words and construction of sentences go pretty much together.
An ill-constructed sentence can hardly have a good choice of words, for
it is most probably unmusical, and that fault would make the choice a
jumble. If the words were nonsense in Milton, the music of them would
make you believe he could have used no other. They are breathed out so
naturally; take the first line of Paradise Lost--it is in this manner
perfect. Good words are, to good thoughts, what the stars are to the
night, sunshine to the brook, flowers to the field, and foliage to the
woods; clothing what is otherwise bare, giving glory to the dark, and to
the great and spacious; investing the rugged with grace, and adding the
vigour and motion of life to the inanimate, the motionless, and the
solid. I must defend my friend Horace against all comers.

"--rura, quae Liris quieta
Mordet aqua, taciturnus amnis."

Is there a bad choice of words there? How insidiously the silent river
_indents_ the banks with its quiet water, and how true to nature! It is
not your turbulent river that eats into the land, (it may overflow it,)
but that ever heavy weight of the taciturn rivers, running not in a
rocky bed, but through a deep soft soil.

CURATE.--You are lucky in your quotation, for we were discussing some
such matter. Horace is particularly happy in his river scenes. Did not
he know the value of his own words--he thus speaks of them:

"Verba loquor socianda chordis."

AQUILIUS.--Yes, but he speaks of them as immortal. "Ne credas
interitura." But if the "socianda chordis," means they are to be set to
music, I deny that music is

"Married to immortal verse,"

or there has long ago been a divorce. I am told, the more manifest the
nonsense, the better the song.

GRATIAN.--Then I leave you to sing it, and reserve your sense and
se