bed? He backs out of it with the lame excuse that the bearers are scarcely his to lend, being Caius Cinna's purchase, though what was Cinna's was his friend's also; but, ends the poet, driven into a corner—
You're plaguily importunate,
To press one so extremely hard.
He cannot speak but by the card."—(C. xi.)
Not much evidence, it may be said, of the fruits, or want of fruit, of a year in the provinces. At any rate, there is proof that a second spring found the poet on the wing, rejoicing to be homeward bound. He is going to see all he can of famous cities by the way; and it does not seem as if he had persuaded any of his comrades to bear him company, though it has been surmised without much proof that his brother was of the number. Perhaps they had fared even worse, and could ill afford to pay their share of the expenses of the home route. The "Farewell to Bithynia" is so fresh and tender, and its last lines breathe a misgiving so soon to be realised, if the theory to which we alluded about his brother be true, that they deserve quotation:—
The savage howl of wintry tempests drear
In the sweet whispers of the western breeze
Has died away;—the spring, the spring is here!
Where days of sweltering sunshine soon shall crown
Nicæa's fields with wealth of golden grain,
And fly to Asia's cities of renown.
