whose comedies, imitated from the Greek, show us what we lost in losing Menander-exquisite humour, a great deal of fun and a beautiful force of character run through their productions. I do not intend to trouble you with many names after the Christian era, that advent which determined the fate of the world, when there fell with a crash, according to prophecy, those legs of iron and feet of clay, whose ruin the stone cut out of the mountain without hands was to accomplish. Of the Roman prose writers, just previous to that day, the greatest is CICERO a philosopher, a statesman, and an orator. His writings are remarkable for deep thought, great fluency, and astonishing eloquence; and his private letters exhibit a perfect picture of the private life of a Roman patrician at that day. He wrote, and spoke, and laboured for Rome, until the unprincipled league between Augustus, Antony, and Lepidus, after the murder of Julius Cæsar, bore its first fruits in the sacrifice of Cicero. Another great writer was SALLUST, an historian; but the foremost man of all that age was JULIUS CÆSAR, whose influence upon all time ever since is one that has been seldom equalled. He transformed the Roman republic into a monarchy, and laid the foundation of laws and institutions which have gone on germinating ever since. He was also great as a writer from his very simplicity. His history of his wars in Gaul (the country now called France) is the easiest of all writings to understand, and is peculiarly interesting to us, as in it is the earliest record of this island of Britain made by any writer. Julius Cæsar made two expeditions to the English coast, and returned with a success, that, after all, proved only temporary, which he himself describes at some length. He returned and the country was not conquered until nearly 100 years afterwards. Those portions of the island which he visited were chiefly Kent, of Surrey a little, and part of Hertfordshire and Middlesex. His great nephew Augustus presided over the empire in peace and dignity. Whatever we may think of the mode in which he obtained the elevation, his conduct when seated on the throne was noble and magnanimous. He drew to his court all the greatest authors and wits of that time, and he patronised and encouraged VIRGIL, the great poet of the Latin language, as Homer is that of the Greek. Virgil's first introduction to Augustus was rather unfortunate. His farm had been taken away from him in the war, but through the good offices of Mæcenas, prime minister of Augustus, he was introduced to him and obtained restitution. Amongst his poems are several called "Bucolics," short dialogues and descriptions of rustic life; but a far more important one is the "Georgics," which relate to farming operations, to the management of vines and timber, the care of cattle, the keeping of bees, and such other matters of fact, all described and descanted on in the grandest and most touching poetry—a remarkable example of how genius will throw its splendid light around the humblest subjects. Augustus, being established on the throne of the Roman empire, wished to have some great poem which should hallow him and the empire to all time, and he fixed on Virgil for that purpose. It was the boast of Augustus that he was descended from Æneas or Eneas, a prince of the royal house of Troy. He flattered himself that Eneas made his escape from Troy at its fall, and founded a small kingdom in Italy, and from him descended a princess, the mother of the Romulus and Remus, who founded the city of Rome. This was, however, but a fond dream of pride and poetry, as modern researches have demonstrated. On this legend, Virgil built up a species of poetic history of the adventures of the hero Eneas, the early part of which is occupied by his supposed wanderings, copied with great success from the Odyssey; and the last six books, not so well copied from the Iliad, a description of the wars which accompanied the founding of his kingdom. Many passages point directly to Augustus, and all hold up Æneas, a character invested with every excellent quality, as the ancestor of the Romans. Recollecting how difficult it is to write poetry to order, and the circumstances under which it was written, the "Eneid" is undoubtedly a work of great genius, but it is deficient in the divine inspiration, the earnestness, and the truthfulness of the Iliad and Odyssey. HORACE was also a resident at the Court of Augustus, who hoped by bringing around him men of learning and genius, to gild his despotism, and draw the attention of his subjects from reflections upon the loss of their liberty. Horace wrote lyric poetry which is very graceful and beautiful, though much is copied from the lyric poets of Greece. But the most original are his Satires and his letters in verse, in which, particularly the Satires, he touched with a masterly hand the vices of his day. A third great poet at the court of Augustus was OVID, who possessed a great deal of fancy. After the death of Augustus there came a dark period for Rome, when monsters in human form ruled over her destinies. Rome shared the general corruption, but in the first century after Christianity two writers, both of them heathens, arose, who dared to show up the deformities of the times. The first was JUVENAL, who bared the vices and follies of the day with no gentle finger. Indeed, when we see how corrupt the society of Rome was we are astonished that any one should, by bold and vigorous out-speaking, probe such a state of society to the core. In his force and strength, he is a remarkable con trast to the more playful Horace. If you look at Johnson's celebrated poem, on "The Vanity of Human Wishes," you will have a good idea of Juvenal. Johnson has substituted modern instances and characters for those of Juvenal, but he has followed the line of argument so exactly that those who do not know the original may tell very exactly what Juvenal's poems are. But while Juvenal lashed the vices of imperial Rome, the great historian, TACITUS, drew not less unfavourable pictures of them in those "Annals" which are such excellent specimens of vigorous and clear writing. This reminds me that there was one other great writer in the time of Augustus that I should have mentioned, namely LIVY. To him we owe those early records of Romulus and Remus which read very beautifully, but which we cannot believe to be true. The greater part of his history is lost, but we have the books which treat of the earliest days of Rome, and also a large portion of his later books, in which he gives an account of the great wars between Rome and the mighty Carthaginian general, Hannibal, when the fate of the world hung in the balance between the warlike city Rome, and Carthage, more famous for her commerce and navy, but rendered a great land power through the genius of her famous commander. Tacitus tells us, in his Annals, of the earlier successors of Augustus, but his life of his father-in-law, Agricola, a separate work, is most interesting to us. Agricola did more than any other single man to civilise Britain. Nearly a hundred years after the Romans had first landed in Kent they really conquered the country, and Agricola was, after a short time, sent hither as governor. He cultivated the genius of the natives, and taught them to build houses and temples, and make roads, some of which form the line of our high roads at this day. The earliest mention of London is to be found in Tacitus, where it is spoken of as an influential commercial town-rich, well inhabited, and civilised. I hope I have made clear what I had to say. I am aware of the difficulty of dealing with a quantity of hard names and hard facts, and of giving, as one goes on, an explanation of those facts. But if I have conveyed any idea of the great and famous writers of Greece and Rome, and of the importance of their writings, I am content. I do not advise anyone who has not acquired a knowledge of these languages in his earliest youth to undertake the work, as it is a heavy task; though if any one have the energy to do so, he will have his reward. But even to those who cannot enter into this study, a slight knowledge of these facts is of great importance, inasmuch as you can hardly take up a newspaper without some allusion to them. All books of a standard character refer in some way or |