OF LITERATURE. 



XXV11 



we might infer that somewhat of the inspiration 

 of madness pervades its descriptive passages. In 

 such passages alone, it may be added, is the di- 

 dactic writer really a poet. Where he unfolds 

 a system, he is merely a versifier ; it is where he 

 illustrates and embellishes it, that fancy asserts 

 her empire. As an imaginative portrayer of 

 nature, Lucretius has no superior. Some of his 

 very faults, in relation to a pure standard of 

 morals, arise out of his transcendent powers of 

 description. He sees everything with such in- 

 tense perspicacity, he paints everything in hues 

 so rich and vivid, that, where his theme is indeli- 

 cate or voluptuous, this irrepressible faculty 

 produces results that are doubly revolting. 



Within the limits of the same period we have 

 to notice the sparkling productions of CATULLUS 

 and of SALLUST.* In the works of both we trace 

 the paramount influence of Greek models. Of 

 itself Roman literature had not reached, at the 

 date of Catullus, that era when it would liave 

 been natural for the learned or pathetic elegy, 

 or the smart epigram, to make their appearance. 

 But with a style half-Grecian, and a taste wholly 

 so, it was no wonder that he looked for an ex- 

 ample to the poetry of Greece, and finding one 

 province yet uninvaded, imbibed and introduced 

 the spirit of the Alexandrian school. Even into 

 his lyric poetry, and his attempts in heroic metre, 

 he infused partly the pensive feeling of his 

 masters in elegiac verse, and partly the grace 

 and point of epigram. But besides this incon- 

 gruity, which is unquestionably a fault, Catullus 

 errs by being too confined in his range of 

 thought and subjects. He is too tiny a writer. 

 He never produced anything equal to his genius. 



Sallust, in a different department of letters, 

 has some strong symptoms of affinity with this 

 learned poet. Circumstances have even caused, 

 through the loss of the larger portion of his 

 writings, that Sallust should resemble Catullus in 

 the scantiness of his literary remains. But 

 more striking than this accidental similarity is 

 that prematureuess of style which, in both, could 

 have arisen out of nothing else than the spirit 

 of imitation. In the ordinary progress of events, 

 Sallust should hare followed Livy, instead of 

 preceding him ; that is, the deep thinker, full of 

 moral and political wisdom, should have come 

 after the lively, eloquent, and picturesque his- 

 torian. Not that Sallust is deficient in the power 

 of vivid painting. He could not devoutly study 

 and strive to emulate Thucydides without culti- 

 vating that faculty. Still, it is always evident 

 that he is more ambitious of being profound than 



Catullus about K. C. 87. Sallust, B. 0. 8634. 



of displaying any other quality ; and, fascinating 

 as his compositions are, it would have been bet- 

 ter for his fame had he not so often forced upon 

 the finest passages the mannerism of his Grecian 

 master, and darkened their meaning by the use 

 of antiquated diction. 



VIBGIL, HORACE, and LIVY* must next be 

 grouped together, not only because they lived in 

 the same age, but likewise as the brightest 

 specimens of that splendid era which derives its 

 name, as it derived much of its character, from 

 the sovereignty of Augustus. In some respects 

 this was the golden time of Latin literature 

 rendered so, to a great extent by the judicious 

 patronage of the emperor himself, and of those 

 exalted persons who imitated his example. Nor 

 should we be surprised at the signal difference 

 between the effect of Augustan patronage upon 

 the literature of Home, and that of the patronage 

 of the Ptolemies upon the literature of Greece. 

 The latter was directed to an original literature, 

 already on the decline, whose inspiration had 

 been freedom, and the ambition to excel ; the 

 patronage of Augustus and his court was bestow- 

 ed upon an imitative literature, still aiming at 

 improvement, whose inspiration was taste and 

 the ambition to please. This, too, produced the 

 vast increase of nationality, which became con- 

 spicuous in the writings of the Augustan age. 

 Though much of the expression and the orna- 

 ment of these writings was faithfully copied 

 from the Greeks, yet the subjects were more ex- 

 clusively Roman or Italian. Their very flattery 

 of existing power gives a national tone to the 

 strains of the poets. Virgil and Horace never 

 suffer us to forget that the master of half the 

 world was master also of Rome and of themselves. 

 We need say but little of the eclogues of Vir- 

 gil, the amusements of his youth, in which, with 

 all his love of nature, he is never natural, and 

 with the wish to imitate the Sicilian model he 

 has not ventured distinctly to echo the accents 

 of Theocritus. But, with far different power, 

 and a more true conception of Italian scenery 

 and agricultural life, he has given in the Georgics 

 a specimen of didactic poetry, in which we can 

 regret nothing but the form. The more Ave study 

 this consummate production, the more wonder- 

 ful does it seem that it should have been written 

 on command, and to serve a political purpose. 

 But Virgil w t is here employed upon a theme 

 eminently congenial to his taste and his affec- 

 tions. Here, too, he was more independent, 

 both in the selection and in the treatment of his 



* Virgil, B. C. 7019. Horace, B. C. W a. 



Livy, B. C. 5917. 



