216 CHAUCER. 



The refined formality with which the literary product of 

 Provence is for the most part stamped, as with a trademark, 

 was doubtless the legacy of Gallo-Roman culture, itself at 

 best derivative and superficial. I think, indeed, that it may 

 well be doubted whether Roman literature, always a half- 

 hardy exotic, could ripen the seeds of living reproduction. 

 The Roman genius was eminently practical, and far more apt 

 for the triumphs of politics and jurisprudence than of art. 

 Supreme elegance it could and did arrive at in Virgil, but, 

 if I may trust my own judgment, it produced but one 

 original poet, and that was Horace, who has ever since 

 continued the favourite of men of the world, an apostle to 

 the Gentiles of the mild cynicism of middle-age and an after- 

 dinner philosophy. Though in no sense national, he was, 

 more truly than any has ever been since, till the same 

 combination of circumstances produced B6ranger, an urbane 

 or city poet. Rome, with her motley life, her formal 

 religion, her easy morals, her spectacles, her luxury, her 

 suburban country-life, was his muse. The situation was 

 new, and found a singer who had wit enough to turn it to 

 account. There are a half-dozen pieces of Catullus unsur 

 passed (unless their Greek originals should turn up) for 

 lyric grace and fanciful tenderness. The sparrow of Lesbia 

 still pecks the rosy lips of his mistress, immortal as the eagle 

 of Pindar. One profound imagination, one man, who with 

 a more prosperous subject might have been a great poet, 

 lifted Roman literature above its ordinary level of tasteful 

 common-sense. The invocation of Venus, as the genetic 

 force of nature, by Lucretius, seems to me the one sunburst 

 of purely poetic inspiration which the Latin language can 

 show. But this very force, without which neque Jit Icetum 

 neque amabile quicquam, was wholly wanting in those poets 

 of the post-classic period, through whom the literary 

 influences of the past were transmitted to the romanised 

 provincials. The works of Ausonius interest us as those 

 of our own Dwights and Barlows do. The &quot; Conquest of 

 Canaan&quot; and the &quot;Columbiad&quot; were Connecticut epics 

 no doubt, but still were better than nothing in their day. 



