the study of facts. Sallust is therefore to be considered as the father of philosophic history; a species of writing which has been so successfully cultivated in modern times. He is an admirable writer for the matter of his compositions, which evince great judgment and knowledge of human nature; but by no means commendable for his style and manner of writing. He affects singularity of expression, an antiquated phraseology, and a petulant brevity and sententiousness, which has nothing of the dignity of the historical style.

9. Cæsar has much more purity of style than Sallust, and more correctness and simplicity of expression: but his Commentaries wanting that amplitude of diction and fulness of illustration which is essential to history, are rather of the nature of annals-but as such, they have never been excelled.

10. In all the requisites of an historian, Livy (d. 19 A. C.) stands unrivalled among the Romans; possessing consummate judgment in the selection of facts, perspicuity of arrangement, sagacious reflection, sound views of policy, with the most copious, pure, and eloquent expression. It has been objected, that his speeches derogate from the truth of history; but this was a prevalent taste with the ancient writers; and as those speeches are always known to be the composition of the historian, the reader is not deceived. As to the style of Livy, though in general excellent, we sometimes perceive in it, and most commonly in the speeches, an affectation of the pointed sentences (the vibrantes sententiola) and obscurity of the declaimers, which evinces the pernicious influence acquired by those teachers at Rome since the time of Cicero and Sallust.

11. In the decline of Roman literature, Tacitus (Al.90 a. c.) is an historian of no common merit. He successfully cultivated the method pointed out by Sallust, of applying philosophy to history. In this he displays great knowledge of human nature, and penetrates with singular acuteness into the secret springs of policy and the motives of actions. But his fault is, that he is too much of a politician, drawing his characters after the model of his own mind; ever assigning actions and events to preconceived scheme and design, and allowing too little for the operation of accidental causes, which often have the greatest influence on human affairs. Tacitus, in his style, professedly imitated that of Sallust; adopting all the ancient phraseology, as well as the new idioms introduced into the Roman language by that writer. To his brevity and abruptness, he added most of the faults of the declaiming school. His expression, therefore, though extremely forcible, is often enigmatically obscure; the very worst property that style can possess.

12. Among the eminent Roman poets (after the dramatic) Lucretius (d. 55 B. C.) deserves first to be noticed. He has great inequality, being at some times verbose, rugged, and perplexed, and at others displaying all the elements as well as the

fire of poetry. This may be in great part attributed to his subject. Philosophical disquisition is unsuitable to poetry. It demands a dry precision of thought and expression, rejecting all excursive fancy and ornament of diction. That luxuriance of imagery which is the soul of poetry, is raving and impertinence when applied to philosophy.

13. Catullus, the contemporary of Lucretius, is the earliest of the Roman lyric poets. His Epigrams are pointed and satirical, but too licentious; his Idyllia is tender, natural, and picturesque. He flourished in the age of Julius Cæsar.

14. In the succeeding age of Augustus, poetry attained to its highest elevation among the Romans. Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and Tibullus, were all contemporaries; and it may be safely asserted that these poets, in their several departments, were never equalled in any of the succeeding ages of the empire. Virgil is allowed the same rank among the Roman poets as Homer among the Greek. If Homer excels him in the sublime, he surpasses the Greek in the tender and the elegant. The transcendent merits of Homer are sullied by occasional defects; Virgil is the model of a correct taste. The difference of manner in the Bucolics, the Georgics, and the Æneid, shows that Virgil was capable of excelling in various departments of poetry; and such is the opinion of Martial, who affirms, that he could have surpassed Horace in lyric poetry, and Varius in tragedy.

15. Horace excels as a lyric poet, a satirist, and a critic. In his odes there is more variety than in those of either Anacreon or Pindar; and he can alternately display the sublimity of the one, and the jocose vein of the other. His Satires have that characteristic slyness and obliquity of censure, associated with humour and pleasantry, which strongly distinguish them from the stern and cutting sarcasm of Juvenal, (fl. 80 A. C.) As a critic, his rules are taken chiefly from Aristotle; but they contain the elements of a just taste in poetical composition, and therefore do not admit of variation. The Satires of Juvenal, compared with those of Horace, are deficient in facetiousness and urbanity; but they are superior in acuteness of thought, and in manly vigour of sentiment.

16. In variety of talent, without supreme excellence, and ease and elegance of numbers, no Roman poet has excelled Ovid, (d. 17 A. C.) In his Metamorphoses particularly, with great fancy, we have specimens of the pathetic, the descriptive, the eloquent, and even the sublime. His Elegies have more of nature and of real passion than those of either Tibullus or Propertius, (A. 20. A. C.) His amatory verses have much tenderness, but are too frequently loose, and even grossly licentious.

17. There is nothing more elegant than the compositions of Tibullus, nothing more delicate than the turn of his expression; but it is not the language of passion. The sentiments are tender, but their power of affecting the heart is weakened by the visible

care and solicitude of the poet for refined phraseology and polished numbers; nor is there either much fancy or variety of thought. A single elegy exhibits the sentiments of the whole.

18. Martial is the last of the Roman poets who can be mentioned with high approbation, (A. 90 a. C.) His Epigrams, independent of their art and ingenuity, are valuable, as throwing light upon the Roman manners. He possesses, above every other poet, a naiveté of expression, which is chiefly observable in his serious Epigrams. He is well characterized by the younger Pliny, "ingeniosus, acer, et qui in scribendo et salis haberet et fellis, nec candoris minus." Epist. iii. 21.

19. Luxuriance of ornament, and the fondness for point, and brilliancy of thought and expression, are certain indications of the decline of good taste. These characters were discernible even in Martial, and strongly mark the Latin poets of the succeeding ages. Lucan (fl. 50 a. C.) has some scattered examples of genuine poetic imagery, and Persius (fl. 50 A. c.) some happy strokes of animated satire; but they scarcely compensate the affected obscurity of the one, and the bombast of the other. The succeeding poets, Statius, Silius-Italicus, and Valerius Flaccus, in their attempts at the most difficult of all species of poetry, the epic, have only more signally displayed the inferiority of their genius, and the manifest decay of the art, (fl. 80 -90 A. c.)

SECTION XLVIII.

STATE OF PHILOSOPHY AMONG THE ROMANS.

1. THE Romans, in the earlier periods of the republic, being constantly engaged in war, had little leisure to bestow on the cultivation of the sciences, and had no idea of philosophical speculation. It was not till the end of the sixth century from the building of the city, and in the interval between the war with Perseus of Macedon and the third Punic war, that philosophy made its first appearance at Rome. A few learned Achæans, banished from their native country, had settled in various parts of Italy, and, applying themselves to the cultivation of literature and the education of youth, diffused a taste for those studies hitherto unknown to the Romans. The elder citizens regarded these pursuits with an unfavourable eye. Jealous of the introduction of foreign manners with foreign studies, the senate banished the Greek philosophers from Rome. But an Athenian embassy arriving soon after, brought thither Carneades and Critolaus, who, by their discourses, revived the taste for the Greek philosophy, and left behind them many able disciples, who publicly taught their doctrines.

2. It was natural that those systems should be most generally adopted which were most suitable to the national character. While the manners of the Romans had yet a tincture of ancient severity, the Stoical system prevailed. Scipio, Lælius, and the younger Cato, rank among its chief partisans.

3. The philosophy of Aristotle was little known in Rome till the age of Cicero. Cratippus and Tyrannion then taught his system with great reputation. Yet Cicero complains that the Peripatetic philosophy was little understood at Rome; and, on that account, he sent his son to study its doctrines in the schools of Athens.

4. Lucullus, whose stay in Greece gave him an opportunity of being acquainted with all the different sects, disseminated, on his return to Rome, a very general taste for philosophy. His patronage of learned men, and his liberality in allowing his library to be open for the public use, contributed greatly to the promotion of literature.

5. The Old and New Academy had each their partisans. Of the former, which may be termed the Stoico-Platonic, the most illustrious disciples were Marcus Brutus and Terentius Varro. To the philosophical talents of Brutus, and the universal erudition of Varro, the writings of Cicero bear the most ample testimony. Cicero himself must be deemed the most eminent of all the Roman philosophers. He is classed among the principal supporters of the New Academy; though it seems rather to have been his purpose to elucidate the Greek Philosophy in general, than to rank himself among the disciples of any particular sect.

6. The cultivation of Physics, or Natural Philosophy, seems to have been little attended to either by the Greeks or Romans. Unless Agriculture should be classed under this description, we know of no Roman authors, except Varro and the elder Pliny, who seem to have bestowed much attention on the operations of nature. The works of the former have perished except a few fragments; but the Natural History of Pliny is a most valuable storehouse of the knowledge of the ancients in Physics, Economics, and the Arts and Sciences. It is to be regretted that the style is unsuitable to the matter, being too frequently florid, declamatory, and obscure.

ners.

7. The philosophy of Epicurus was unknown in the early ages of the Roman commonwealth. It was introduced with luxury, and kept pace in its advancement with the corruption of manCineas having discoursed on the tenets of Epicurus at the table of Pyrrhus, Fabricius exclaimed, "May the enemies of Rome ever entertain such principles!" Yet these principles were, in a short time from that period, but too current among her own citizens.

SECTION XLIX.

OF THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE MANNERS OF THE ROMANS.

1. THE manners of the Romans in the early ages of the republic were so different from those of the latter times, that one should be led to suppose some very extraordinary causes to have cooperated to produce so remarkable a change; yet the transition is easy to be accounted for. A spirit of temperance, of frugality, and probity, is the characteristic of every infant establishment. A virtuous simplicity of manners, and a rigour of military discipline, paved the way for the extension of the Roman arms, and for their prodigious conquests; these conquests introduced wealth, luxury, and corruption.

2. In the early times, the patricians, when in the country, forgot the distinction of ranks, and laboured in the cultivation of their fields, like the meanest plebeians. We have the examples of Cincinnatus the dictator, Curius, who expelled Pyrrhus from Italy, the elder Cato, and Scipio Africanus, the conqueror of Hannibal, and the destroyer of Carthage. The town was visited only every ninth or market-day, on which occasions they provided themselves with necessaries for the week, and took their part in the public business of the republic. In those times of virtuous simplicity, says Sallust, Domi militiæque boni mores colebantur.-Duabus artibus, audacia in bello, ubi pax evenerat, æquitate, seque remque publicam curabant.' But when, in consequence of this very discipline, and these manners, the Romans had extended their dominion, they imported with the wealth of the conquered nations their states, their manners, and their vices.

3. The Romans had no natural taste in the fine arts. On the conquest of Greece, an immense field opened at once to their eyes, and the masterpieces of art poured in upon them in abundance. But their excellencies they could not appreciate. The Roman luxury, so far as the arts were concerned, was in general displayed in an awkward, heavy, and tasteless magnificence.

4. The public and private life of the Romans will be best elucidated by a short account of the manner in which the day was passed at Rome, both by the higher and lower ranks of the people. The morning hours were spent by a part of the citizens in visiting the temples; by others in attending the levees of the great. The Clientes waited on their Patroni; the patricians visited each other, or paid their compliments to the leaders of the republic. Popularity was always the first object of ambition at Rome, as paving the way to all advancement. From the levee they proceeded to the Forum, either to assist in the public business, or for amusement. There the time was spent till noon, the hour of dinner among the Romans, chiefly a very light repast,