Much has been said of this poet's invective against Caesar, which
produced no other effect than an invitation to sup at the dictator's
house. It was indeed scarcely entitled to the honour of the smallest
resentment. If any could be shewn, it must have been for the freedom
used by the author, and not for any novelty in his lampoon. There are
two poems on this subject, viz. the twenty-ninth and fifty-seventh, in
each of which Caesar is joined with Mamurra, a Roman knight, who had
acquired great riches in the Gallic war. For the honour of Catullus's
gratitude, we should suppose that the latter is the one to which
historians allude: but, as poetical compositions, they are equally
unworthy of regard. The fifty seventh is nothing more than a broad
repetition of the raillery, whether well or ill founded, with which
Caesar was attacked on various occasions, and even in the senate, after
his return from Bithynia. Caesar had been taunted with this subject for
upwards of thirty years; and after so long a familiarity with reproach,
his sensibility to the scandalous imputation must now have been much
diminished, if not entirely extinguished. The other poem is partly in
the same strain, but extended to greater length, by a mixture of common
jocular ribaldry of the Roman soldiers, expressed nearly in the same
terms which Caesar's legions, though strongly attached to his person,
scrupled not to sport publicly in the streets of Rome, against their
general, during the celebration of his triumph. In a word, it deserves
to be regarded as an effusion of Saturnalian licentiousness, rather than
of poetry. With respect to the Iambics of Catullus, we may observe in
general, that the sarcasm is indebted for its force, not so much to
ingenuity of sentiment, as to the indelicate nature of the subject, or
coarseness of expression.

The descriptive poems of Catullus are superior to the others, and