.

CURATE.--I fear experience alone won't do much. It seems thrown away
upon most people. They continue follies to the end. I suppose Cicero
thought himself a poet; though it may be doubted if he wrote the line as
Juvenal gives it,

"O fortunatam natam me consule Romam."

Perhaps most men's natural common sense has a less wide range than they
think. For there are some things obvious to all besides, that the wisest
cannot see.

AQUILIUS.--Cicero was less likely to see any defect in himself than most
men. He had consummate vanity--which must have led him into many a
ridiculous position. But there were no Boswells in those days. I never
could understand how it is that so great an admiration of Cicero has
come over mankind. Even in language he has had an evil influence; and
our literature for a long period was tainted with it. Sensible himself,
he taught the art of writing fluently without sense. The flow and
period--the _esse videatur_--a style too common with us less than half a
century ago--you might read page after page, and pause to wonder what
you had been reading about. The upper current of the book did not
disturb the under current of your own thoughts, perhaps aided by the
lulling music.

CURATE.--The vanity of Cicero was too manifest. It is a pity, for the
sake of his reputation, that the letter to his friend, in which he
requested him to write his life, is extant. To tell him plainly that it
is the duty of a friend to exaggerate his virtues, is a mean
vanity--unworthy such a man.

GRATIAN.--Come, come! let him rest; our business is with Catullus.
Curate, let us have your translation.

CURATE.--I pass by the account of Suffenus, as well as some other
pieces, and come to that very short one in which he complains of the
mortgage which is on his villa. It is a wretched pun on the word
"opponere," and was scarcely worth translating;--take it, however:

AD FURIUM.

You, Furius, ask against what wind
My little villa stands--
If Auster, or Favonius kind
Who comes o'er western lands,
Or cruel Boreas, or that one
That rises with the morning sun?

Alas--it stands against a breeze
Which beats against the door,
Of fifteen thousand sesterces,
And twice a hundred more.
I challenge you on earth to find
So foul and pestilent a wind.

AQUILIUS.--What! do you look for a wind _on_ earth,--it blows over it;
and catch it who can.

GRATIAN.--It blows