OF LITERATURE. 



XXV 



nnlity of this species of poetry consists, for, with 

 regard to its essence, Lucilius was deeply read in 

 the Greek old comedy and Iambic invectives, and 

 merely clothed the spirit, learned from them, 

 with a new external dress of hexameter verse, 

 his favourite mode of composition. Still earlier, 

 however, and in a different department of letters, 

 we are called upon to distinguish the names of 

 CATO THE CENSOR, and of FABIUS PICTOR.* Had 

 anything except his agricultural journal descend- 

 ed to us in a state of good preservation, it might 

 have been possible to praise, on other grounds 

 than those of traditionary fame, the nervous style 

 and masculine eloquence of Cato. But in that 

 treatise he writes like a farmer ; and of his other 

 productions, nothing but fragments or uncertain 

 reports have survived. Quintus Fabius Pictoris 

 selected, as the most ancient compiler, in prose, of 

 his country's annals; though his improbabilities, 

 absurdities, and inconsistencies, of which one of 

 his successors loudly complains, appear to fix 

 upon him the title of fabulist rather than even of 

 chronicler. VARRO,f likewise, whose life was 

 protracted beyond the deaths of the great men, 

 enumerated at the beginning of this paragraph, 

 came into the world before them. He was, 

 among other things, an agriculturist, a gramma- 

 rian, a critic, a theologian, an historian, a philo- 

 sopher, a satirist. Of his miscellaneous works 

 considerable portions are extant, sufficient to 

 display his erudition and acuteness, yet in them- 

 selves more curious than attractive. When Pe- 

 trarch hailed him as the third light of Rome, he 

 was moved, no doubt, by that pedantry, which, 

 in the constitution of his mind, was so largely 

 blended with genius. To us the circumstance 

 of main interest, connected with these authors, 

 is the light thrown by their style and subjects 

 upon the rise of Latin literature. We cannot 

 fail to be struck by the early appearance of prose 

 composition ; but we at once detect its source in 

 the imitative nature of that literature. Where 

 original genius has to pioneer its own way, 

 some time usually elapses before the natural ten- 

 dency, produced by many causes, to metrical and 

 rhythmical effusions, subsides into an aptitude 

 for composition in prose : but far more rapid is 

 the progress towards this extension of literary 

 labours, where the chief task and aim of author- 

 ship are to copy antecedent models. The choice 

 of subjects is the other remarkable feature of the 

 epoch to which we have alluded. It shows, on 

 the one hand, that fondness of the ancient 

 Italians for rural life, which so long retarded the 



M. Porcius Cato, B.C. 234149. Fabius Pictor, about 

 B.C. S20. 



M, Terentius Varro, B. C. UC 28. 



improvement of their language and tie dawn of 

 intellectual refinement; while, on the other 

 hand, the works of Varro alone sufficiently testi- 

 fy that not a century had elapsed from the first 

 appearance of literature at Rome, before men of 

 learning, in the peculiar sense of that appellation, 

 were mingled with her poets and annalists. Of 

 the want of freshness in the Roman literature, 

 this is a striking evidence. It can scarcely be 

 said to have passed through the fair and amiable 

 gradations of infancy and youth. All at once 

 came upon it the lineaments of manhood, and 

 even these were soon darkened and sullied by 

 some shades of incipient decrepitude. 



Free, however, from every trace of decay or 

 decline, and exhibiting only the pride and 

 beauty of consummate vigour, are those produc- 

 tions which, better than their deeds on the arena 

 of war and politics, have immortalized CICERO * 

 and C^SAR. The coetaneous existence of these 

 remarkable men, and the close relation in which 

 they stood to each other in public life, would 

 force us to view them together, were there no 

 affinity between them as authors. But, in their 

 case, it is assuredly a bond of literary con- 

 nexion, that they both display the perfection of 

 Latin prose, and supply the purest repository of 

 diction available for that species of composition. 

 Perhaps, too, though their styles are very differ- 

 ently coloured, both were alike fastidious in the 

 selection of words and arrangement of sentences. 

 The exquisite simplicity of the one might be as 

 much the result of art as the swelling pomp of 

 the other. But their art was applied in separate 

 directions. Cicero, not less than Caesar, was a 

 practical man: but Cassar, probably by a con- 

 tinual effort, has communicated to his writings 

 also the practical character. Though he wrote 

 quick, we cannot believe that he wrote careless- 

 ly ; yet while his taste was ever on the watch, 

 while he never misplaced a word, nor was guilty 

 of an inelegance, he stamped an impression of 

 unaffected earnestness, an air of business, on 

 every thing that dropped from his pen. Cicero 

 permits the artist always to be visible ; nay not 

 merely permits, but glories in the revelation of 

 his pains and skill. He wishes to be detected in 

 his work-shop with his tools around him. He is 

 uneasy lest the reader should not esteem him 

 sufficiently elaborate. 



Had the orations of Caesar come down to us in 

 an unmutilated shape, we might have instituted 

 a more full comparison between him and Cicero. 

 For it is chiefly as an orator that Cicero is made 

 the subject of criticism. From the remotest 



Cicerc, B. C. 106-43. Ciesar, B.C. 10044. 



