XXX 



U1SE AND PROGRESS 



sions, and words that h.ive no vernacular autho- 

 rity. And though in TACITUS * all the streng ih 

 of I Ionian genius rallied for a latest effort, yet 

 even the productions of his great mind are mark- 

 ed by peculiarities unlike the manhood of litera- 

 ture. Mannerism verging close on affectation, 

 and the ambition of be ing always profound, have 

 weakened the effect which must otherwise have 

 resulted from his energy, his sensibility, his 

 high morality, and his political sagacity. In his 

 works, however, the glories of Latin prose find 

 a more brilliant termination than if we extend 

 the catalogue so as to embrace the panegyric on 

 Trajan by 1'nNTf the Younger. The very 

 faultlessness of that extolled attempt is faulty. 

 Its modish beauties and finished workmanship 

 too plainly bespeak an age in which the tricks 

 of art were prized above sterling nature and 

 simplicity. 



The poetry of the same interval is not less in- 

 fected with the great vice of exaggeration and 

 bombast. LUCAN,} for example, affords a me- 

 morable instance of desperate exertions to force 

 the sickly produce of artificial heat into rivalry 

 with the fruits of natural genius. There was a 

 relationship of mind as well as of blood between 

 him and his uncle Seneca. Surrounded with 

 servility, and subjected to a tyrant's yoke, he in- 

 demnified himself by extravagant pomp of 

 language, and the eulogy of departed freedom, 

 for an abject flattery of existing despotism, which 

 after all proved in vain. Besides this defect, 

 the poet of Pharsalia and the civil wars had 

 likewise to contend with the political nature of 

 his subject. The epic muse delights, indeed, in 

 the shadowy realm of obscure traditional history, 

 but she shrinks from the glare of ascertained and 

 definite truth. A theme of that description 

 compels a transference of poetical power from 

 the management of incidents to the elaboration 

 of diction and the painting of characters. Hence 

 arises an abundance of mere rhetoric, of cold fire, 

 that shines and sparkles with vast vehemence, 

 but communicates no genial glow. The mistake 

 of Lucan has been more than once repeated in 

 later times, and against its depressing influence 

 no energies ever struggled with perfect success. 



Thus the decline and fall of Roman literature 

 may be divided into three stages. Towards the 

 close of the reign of Augustus, and during that 

 of Tiberius, all that was great and elevating 

 gradually disappeared. Poetry became a sordid 

 device for attracting the overflowings of court 

 favour; history sank into a hireling panegyrist, 

 eloquence into an aimless exercise of the schools. 



A. D. 60. tA. D. 02 107. J A. D. 38-05. 



The debasement of mind was accompanied by 

 debasement of expression. For genuine str*-n;>i h 

 of language empty parade was substituted, and 

 the semblance of sublimity, banished from 

 thought, took refuge in words. 



Between Tiberius and the epoch of Vespasian, 

 the most remarkable characteristic of style was 

 an eagerness for tinsel ornament, revealing itself 

 in a rage for antithesis, a passion for tropes and 

 figures, and a forcible introduction of poetical 

 turns and phrases into prose. 



The succeeding Caesars, from Vespasian to 

 the Antonines, generally sought, by liberal en- 

 couragement, to revive the vigour of the Roman 

 intellect ; but, with all their pains, they could 

 not recall it from the bad direction it had taken. 

 As Tiberius formerly, after the example of 

 Augustus, had established a library, so Vespasian, 

 so even Domitian, and so Trajan made collections 

 of books, which served for little except to adorn 

 the capital. Other efforts were not neglected. 

 Vespasian, avaricious as he was, bestowed salaries 

 on grammarians and rhetoricians : Titus lavish- 

 ed rewards upon orators, poets, and artists : 

 Hadrian founded an athenaeum for professors of 

 rhetoric, poetry, and philosophy : Nerva and 

 the Antonines set up schools in the great towns 

 of the empire ; and Home, Milan, and Marseilles 

 were visited by numbers, who wished to cultivate 

 mental endowments. But what did all these 

 means and appliances, what did the emulation 

 roused and the attempts made in other quarters 

 effect? The freedom of speech and writing, 

 which Nerva and Trajan restored, arrested for a 

 season, but could not prevent, the extinction of 

 knowledge and of taste. Even the talents of 

 Tacitus and the younger Pliny did not exempt 

 them from the infection of the times; and after 

 their decease, during the latter half of this third 

 period, the state of polite learning became every 

 day more forlorn and hopeless. The authors 

 became fewer and worse. The writers of prose 

 were poor epitomists, or, if they ventured to be 

 copious, their chief qualities were extravagance, 

 credulity, and folly. The poets, from want of 

 judgment, selected bad subjects, or spoiled every 

 topic by a ridiculous phraseology. Poetry at 

 last died away in the versification of men whose 

 notions of harmony were confined to the compu- 

 tation of syllables, and who thought the nerve 

 and majesty of ancient composition were attained, 

 when they pressed into their own vapid lines 

 the obsolete words of Ennius and Lucilius. In 

 the hundred and eightieth year of the Christian 

 era, when the monster Commodus ascended the 

 throne, he was able by his-crimes and cruelties, 

 to outrage and degrade humanity. But Roman 



