deception, he confronted the reality. He knew the delusion was of his own creation; and his detestation of the cause was almost mixed with wonder at its power. But he cannot forgive Clodia; much less Rufus, the author of his destruction. He persecutes both with a venom and brutality of purpose only explicable on the principle that the corruption of the best thing is the worst.

Yet in spite of the blight which thus fell upon the life of Catullus, there were some feelings which still remained fresh and healthy. His tender attentions to his friends and to his brother's memory still remained in leaf. The brother died at an early age, and was buried in the Troad 'that neutral graveyard of Europe and Asia.' Catullus made a pilgrimage to the tomb, where all that made his life worth living was laid, and his words then spoken will make a fitting conclusion :

'Dear brother, I have passed through many peoples, I have crossed many seas, and I am here, at these untimely obsequies, that I may deliver to thee death's last tribute, and waste fruitless words on dust that cannot answer. For I know that blind chance has stolen away from me thy living self, O my poor brother, so loved and yet lost by me! Behold! these despairing sacrifices, which old custom on this soil enjoins, take, I pray thee--they are made wet with a brother's tears. And thus I greet thee and bid thee farewell, brother, for evermore.'

III.

'Quid est, Catulle? quid moraris emori?"

THE secret of immortality can be learned more easily from Catullus than from any one, for he possessed nothing beside. To express a conceived object of sense or form of emotion in some plastic material which can be made to present an image, such as stone, metal or pigment, or words, which are images of images, with the simplicity of truth and the grace always accompanying true simplicity, is the conclusion of the whole duty of art. Of making many additions to this duty, some more and some less incongruous, but all supererogatory and laborious, there is no end among artists of every kind. But Catullus stands clear of this imputation. His experience of a passion or a conception is direct, spontaneous, and so free from superfluous pains and any appearance of effort. He reproduced with precision what he saw and felt with an unconfused sensibility; and was successful because he did not strain to do more. The peculiar merit of his poetry consists in what we might call incuriosa felicitas. If he is one of the most perfect of poets, why then is he not one of the greatest of poets? Because, when the power of execution is assumed, rank and precedence among artists is determined by

the comparative elevation of their subject-matter; and Catullus' subjects are not of the highest sublimity. But whatever title we give him must be perpetual, for his works have the immortality of truth.

QUAESTIO I.

CATULLUS IN RELATION TO GREEK

LITERATURE.

6 Saepe tibi studiose animo venante requirens
Carmina uti possem mittere Battiadae.'

IF the web of history could be unravelled, and we
might speculate afresh on what is past, nothing would
appear so certain as this: that Rome, but for her
contact with Greece, instead of producing a literature
whose influence has pervaded and ruled the later
world of letters with almost sovereign authority, would
have had no literature whatsoever worthy of the
name. Whatever native inspiration the Italians
possessed, they wanted the proper forms of expression.
Greek genius had created these forms for itself: the
Roman borrowed them, and used them, in his own
way, to supply his need. Roman poetry is far from a
lifeless imitation of Greek poetry; but the Roman
poet could not work without a model.
At first wrong

models were chosen. The earlier and greater Greek literature rather defied than assisted Latin literary effort. It was too spontaneous for conscious endeavour

to learn from it; its Hellenic characters were too deeply stamped to be effaced or changed in order to suit Roman purposes. As long therefore as only the earlier Greek epic and drama were studied by the first Latin poets, so long-men of genius though they were they failed. But the last generation of the Republic turned for instruction to the school of Alexandria. There, by royal command, a cosmopolitan university of letters had arisen, whose members had specially devoted themselves to the critical examination of the modes of literary composition, and had provided a series of 'studies' in almost every literary form. Alexandrine poetry was not written by men of the highest order of genius: it was artificial, unreal, often spoilt by over-precision and pedantry. Its power, though indeed it has left much which the world will not willingly let die, lies in execution rather than creation. But the Roman poets seized the forms which the Alexandrines taught them, made them their own, and breathed into them the freshness of a newer life. More than this, they were enabled by Alexandria to reach and reap with profit the older literature of Greece. Thus Roman literature, in its best originality, became possible; but the debt of Rome to Alexandria is ever shown by a constant searching after the right model, discernible in all Latin poetry from its beginning to its close.

This debt was freely confessed by Propertius, Ovid, Virgil; but by none so frankly as by the most original of Roman poets, Catullus. He had learned enough