ing, the doubtful lines would be better away, unless we give the poet credit for wishing to work up to a memorable maxim, which is almost always edifying and seldom new.

That Juvenal wrote slowly we know, and that he began to write late: it is not surprising that his writing should be patchy. What is surprising is that the little bursts of indignation, of sarcasm, should succeed each other so smoothly and with so much appearance of spontaneous impetuosity: as if his own boast, Facit indignatio versum, were literally true. Perhaps for the three or four lines, or the six or eight, which are written at red-heat, this is true; but one notices that in a very short space Juvenal runs himself to a standstill, and has to begin again: he is quite incapable of the long bursts of Lucan, who keeps up a higher level of declamation for twenty or fifty lines than Juvenal can keep up for half a dozen. Yet Juvenal has always been much more popular than Lucan, because he deals with lower motives and is less earnest, while he has been popular in later times compared with Horace just because of his making a greater show of manly indignation. It is characteristic that both Persius and Horace are more apt to end their sentences in the middle of a line, while Juvenal is so used to ending the sense and the line together that whereas one finds the chevilles at the end of a line in the "Eneid,” one finds them at the beginning of the line in Juvenal, who instinctively elaborates the point at the end first: thus, e. g., he works up rather feebly to the aphorism—

Spoliatis arma supersunt (viii. 124).

In another way Juvenal comes more closely into contact with Vergil than any other satirist: he is fond of parody, and he hardly goes beyond the great school classic when he wants something to turn into a jest. He parodies without any intention of making his original ridiculous, and only wishes to raise a laugh by describing his subject in language that is too fine for it. He does this consistently, even when he is not parodying language that has heroic associations of its own, and he is fond of enhancing the effect of this by interpolating a low word like caballus (which meant "nag" as distinguished

from "horse," though "chivalry" is derived from it) at the end of a sonorous passage, which is all the more striking because contemporary epic writers never dreamed of calling a horse caballus, though they were sorely discontented with equus, which was not nearly long enough or sonorous enough for them.

SULPICIA.

Sulpicia was a voluminous authoress, at any rate a versatile one; but the only record of her activity is a dull and pretentious protest against the banishment of the philosophers by Domitian in 94 A.D. If it is genuine, it is a curious proof that it was possible then, as now, for a clever lady who wrote very badly to acquire a literary position by the help of her charms as a leader of society. There are only seventy lines of it in all, and eleven are devoted to explaining to the muse whom the authoress piously invokes that she wishes to write in hexameters, not in hendecasyllables or iambics or elegiacs. So far as the poem has a plan or a subject, it is to quote the authority of the elder Cato, who once told the younger Scipio a fable about wasps and bees, the point of which cannot be extracted from Sulpicia's grandiloquence, to the effect that Rome throve best in adversity. The application of this is, that Rome will be ruined in the midst of apparent prosperity by the expulsion of the philosophers-for courage in war and wisdom in peace have been her strength hitherto, and she owes her wisdom to the philosophers who came from Greece and all the rest of the world to be her teachers. It is much to be feared that when they are gone the Romans will be reduced to live upon acorns and spring-water. There is an astonishingly bold and clumsy jest at the reigning emperor, who is charged with being pale with gluttony and heaving a falling paunch. Under these distressing circumstances the poetess prays that Calenus may have grace to emigrate, like the Smyr

1 There was a Greek proverb about a man who fell οὐκ ἀπὸ δοκοῦ ἀλλ ̓ an' ovov-falling, not off a beam, but off an ass, or out of his mind, áæò vou, which would be pronounced the same way. The pun is poor, but Sulpicia reproduces the pun as well as she can: the tyrant falls, not from a beam, but from his back-at least his paunch does.

niotes when the Lydians took the town, or at any rate that everything may be overruled for the best for Rome, and for Calenus's Sabine farm. The muse reassures her, vengeance

will overtake the tyrant. There are two or three good lines towards the end which Sulpicia's admirers might conscientiously praise, though even in these there is a vagueness which reminds us that we are reading an amateur.

PART VI.

PROSE LITERATURE FROM VESPASIAN TO HA

DRIAN.

CHAPTER I.

PLINY THE ELDER.

THE death of Nero marks a more important epoch in Latin literature than the death of Augustus; for the public to which writers addressed themselves underwent a thorough change. In the reign of Nero the public consisted of two classes-the fashionable and frivolous amateurs whom Persius ridicules, and the serious students, who were always risking a collision with authority in the pursuit of rhetorical or political or philosophical or historical reputation. Discreet, sensible persons went about their business and made their way by fair means or foul, but in neither case wrote; for "glory" was to be won, if at all, by means they despised or disapproved. With the accession of Vespasian this class of men came into literature. The court favorites, who had dazzled the town generally by their expenditure and sometimes by their wit, had disappeared with Vitellius, and did not reappear even under Domitian, whose magnificence was less uncalculating than Nero's, and unlikely to disturb the finances, but that he had to conciliate the soldiery as well as the populace. It is probable that Seneca's was nearly the last of the monstrous fortunes which made it possible for a large population of idlers to live the life of parasites in tolerable comfort. We find that Seneca was reduced to very risky investments; for when he tried to call his capital in which he had lent in Britain, the story goes that

this was enough to excite a revolt: and it would, of course, check accumulation if there were no convenient means for investment. Distant properties can never have been very productive to nobles who lived in Italy; they must have been exposed to the same drawbacks as Jamaica properties, doubled by the worse state of communications; and a millionaire of Martial's age probably reckoned his fortune by what his whole assets would bring, if he could have found a purchaser, though, if compelled to realize at a moment's notice, the total might have been an insignificant percentage of the estimated value. It is true that the system of recitations continued, but they were felt to be a weariness by all who were less goodnatured than the younger Pliny, who found reason repeatedly to rebuke his contemporaries for showing too plainly that they were not interested in what was well-intended for their entertainment. All the great books of the Claudian period were written to be recited, or to please a taste formed by the habit of recitation: all the great books of the period which followed were written, more or less, to be read, with the exception of the "Thebaid" of Statius. Even the "Punica" of Silius Italicus was written in the main to be read, for Pliny tells us that it was only now and then that he recited, to see what people thought of him; and Silius Italicus, though an estimable, was not an influential, author. Pliny the Younger himself was only a quasi-success as an orator, and it was as an orator and a poet that he recited. His real success was as a letter-writer, for down to the fourth and fifth century he was imitated by accomplished nobles. Quinctilian, of course, had been a celebrated declaimer, and had even done something as a pleader; but his great work that he is remembered by is the elaborate treatise which he composed when he had retired from teaching. Pliny's vast compilation was avowedly intended for a book of reference; he did not expect even to be read through, and drew up a table of contents for the use of his readers, that each might find what he wanted. This is characteristic: he was a practical man writing for practical men; and this is the rule with all the leading writers in prose of the age. Even Tacitus, wilful and poetical as he is, makes up his mind at once