NATIONAL STYLE 185 



geous paludaments, which it wears like a conqueror, and trails 

 in the dust of the imperial city like a general on his path to 

 Capitolian Jove. That investiture of naked strength with 

 studied oratorical magnificence is the supreme achievement 

 of the Roman genius in style. And the indifference with 

 which the trappings of purple and of gold are carried, the 

 brutality of the underlying thought, the solid concrete of the 

 road on which the triumphal chariots travel, add to the 

 impressiveness of this majestic Roman manner. 



The ruins of the Parthenon are unapproachable in loveli- 

 ness, crowning the sacred hill on which a virgin goddess in 

 the world's young prime descended. They enchant us with 

 a revelation of divine harmony and immortal beauty. The 

 ruins of the Pont du Gard, bridging the broad valley of 

 the Gardon, uplifted high in air, with no charm of form, no 

 appeal to the aesthetic sense, conceding nothing to nature 

 and claiming nothing from environment ; these Roman ruins 

 enthrall the imagination with a different but not less potent 

 magic. 



We cannot surmise what Latin literature might have pro- 

 duced if it had not submitted to Greek models. The religion 

 of the Romans shows them to have been deficient in the 

 first constituent of national poetry, an imaginative mythology. 

 We are, therefore, so far justified in believing that the 

 assimilative instinct of their artists was a right one. Yet 

 how firmly did the Roman spirit grasp whatever things it 

 touched ! 



Excudent alii spirantia mollius sera, 

 Credo equidem vivos ducent de marmore vultus ; 

 Orabunt causas melius, coelique meatus 

 Describent radio, et surgentia sidera dicent : 

 Tu regere imperio populos, Eomane, memento ; 

 Has tibi erunt artes : pacisque imponere morem, 

 Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos. 



The poet who in proud humility and candid sense of fact 

 uttered these words of condescending withdrawal from the 

 lesser fields of empire, exercised a lordlier influence over the 

 last nineteen centuries of civilisation than any poet of the 



