Page:Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius.djvu/68

56 might meetly be headed "Retaliation;" for in it our poet bitterly upbraids Calvus for inflicting upon him a morning's work that, but for their ancient love, might provoke more lasting hatred than his speech drew from Vatinius. He had sent him, it seems, a "horrible and deadly volume" of sorry poetry, a "rascally rabble of malignants"—the latest novelty from the school of Sulla the grammarian; for no other object than to kill him at the convenient season of the Saturnalia with a grim playfulness, which the poet vows shall not go unrequited:—

At other times the intercourse between the friends was not so disappointing. Seemingly at Calvus's house the two friends met one evening to enjoy the feast of reason and the flow of soul, and the effects of such unmixt enjoyment overset the poet's fine-wrought brain-tissues:—