55 



after much care and pains had been employed on it, that it became a 

 fmooth or graceful tongue. Luculent" it never was. Its beft writers 

 always confeffed its difficulties, and its critics perpetually recommended 

 the ftudy and adaptation of the Greek to render it perfpicuous and mu- 

 fical. Perhaps, the fternnefs and martial turn of the Romans might have 

 contributed to give the language that iron afpeft, which it never wholly 

 loft. Even the Court of Auguftus did not think the language fufKciently 

 polifhed without the aid of the Grecian file, nor thought their youth 

 properly inftrufted till a Grecian education had tuned and regulated 

 their words. To every nation which they conquered, the political Romans 

 gave their own tongue; but confcious of their rufticity, Greece they 

 left in pofTeffion of hers, borrowing rather than giving to her, herein 

 fliewing their maflerly and confummate wifdom. 



Grecia capta ferutn viflorem cepit, et artes 

 Intulit agrefti Latio. 



But it is not necefTary I fliould compofe a hiflory of the Latin tongue. 

 The only queflion is, did the Romans rhime their verfe ? They did not : 

 the terminations of their cafes, and the embarrailing pofition of their 

 words fcarcely allowing the attempt : to fay nothing of their clofe imita- 

 tion of the Greek, and their diflike of whatever that nation difapproved. 

 Well, therefore, might the rhime be abhorrent from their language. Yet 

 have we the moft learned of the Romans making an effort at a grace 

 which perhaps he deemed natural, but found forbidding to the tongue 

 that himfelf had enriched and affifted to polilh. I fhall extraft from the 

 Adverfaria of the learned Barthius a part of the feventh chapter of the 

 thirty-firfl book. Its curioufnefs will apologize for its length. 



" Confonantium fyllabarum in fine verfuum nos hie rythmum appel- 

 lamus, non quem doftilTimus Viftorinus in grammatica et alii Artigraphi 

 decent, quem quidem nollrum, quamvis ultimis seculis corrumpend^ 

 Latinitati fummus auftor erat; etiam aliis in generibus verfuum non ab- 



horruiffe 



