A principal cause of this is, no doubt, the language. But there are other causes, and we shal

ong the most important of the spiritual forces that hold together the fabric of nationality are art and literature. With that large common sense of theirs which, as they grew in historical experience, became more and more spiritual, they perceived early, and they gauged profoundly, the importance of accomplishments not native to their genius. They knew what had happened to the 'valiant kings' who 'lived before Agamemnon'-and why. The same could easily happen to a great empire. That is partially, of course, a utilitarian consideration. But the Romans believed also, and deeply, in the power of literature-and particularly of poetry-to humanize, to moralize, to mould character, to inspire action. It was this faith which, as Cicero tells us, lay behind the great literary movement associated with the

tion. The principal business of the Roman schoolmaster was to take the great poets and interpret them 'by reading and comment'. Education was practically synonymous with the study of the poets. The poets made a man brave, the poets made a man eloqu

and purified Roman patriotism. They put the history of the world in a new light to the educated Roman. The antagonism of Greek and Roman dropped away. The wars with Pyrrhus were forgotten. The issue was now no longer as between Greece and Rome, but as between East and West. The Roman saw in himself the last guardian of the ideals of Western civilization. He must hand on th

asual, it is none the less as yet uninfected by officialism. The transition from the

asual adjunct of the functions of the litterator. At what precise date the office of the litterator became bifurcated into the two distinct professions of grammaticus and rhetor we cannot say. It seems likely that the undivided office was retained in the smaller Italian towns after it had disappeared from the educational system of Rome. The author of Catelepton V, who may ve

hich it presents there has recently been a not unnatural reaction. A moderate representative of this reaction is the late Professor Nettleship. 'The intimacy', says Nettleship[5], 'which grew up between Octavianus and some of the great writers of his time did not imply more than the relation which ... often existed between a poor poet and his powerful friend. For as the men of nobler character among the Roman aristocracy were mostly ambit

be measured, and cannot be sustained, by purely material achievements. It is true, again, that the system of patronage did not originate with Augustus or the Augustans. Augustus was a patron of letters just as Scipio had been-because he possessed power and taste and a wide sense of patriotic obligation.

d declaiming daily. He wrote a variety of prose works, and 'poetica summatim attigit', he dabbled in poetry. There were still extant in Suetonius' time two volumes of his poetry, the one a collection of Epigrammata, the other-more interesting and significant-a hexameter poem upon Sicily.[6] Moreover Augustus 'nursed in all ways the literary talent of his time'. He listened 'with charity and long-suffering' to endless recitations 'not only of poetry and of history but of orations and of dialogues'. We are somewhat apt, I fancy, to associate the practice of recitation too exclusively with the literary circles of the time of Nero, Domitian, and Trajan. Yet it is quite clear that already in the Augustan age this practice had attained system and elaboration. From the silence of Cicero in his Letters (the Epistles of Pliny fu

wealthy patron and his poor but ambitious client. The patron, in fact, did not subscribe for what he had not read-or heard. The endless recitations to which Augustus listened were hardly those merely of his personal friends. He listened, as Suetonius says, 'benigne et patienter'. But it was the 'benignity and patience' not of a personal friend but of a government official-of a government official dispens

as we should call it. And we may perhaps be allowed, if we guard ourselves against the peril of mistaking a distant analogy for a real similarity of conditions, to see in the recitations before the Emperor and his ministers, an inspection, as it were, of schools and universities, an examination for literary honours and emoluments. And this being so, it is not to no purpose that the rhetor in this age stands behind the grammaticus. For the final examination, the inspection-by-recitation, is bound to be, whatever the wishes of any of the parties concerned, an examination in rhetoric. The theme appo

and the velvet glove. Just so in rhetoric-which in the spiritual world is one of the greatest, and very often one of the noblest, of conquering forces-there is the iron manner and the velvet manner. Lucan goes home like a dagger thrust. His is the rhetoric that cuts and beats. The rhetoric of Vergil is soft and devious. He makes no attempt to astonish, to perplex, to horrify. He aims to move us in a wholly different manner. And yet, like Lucan, he aims to move us once and for all. He aims to be understood upon a first hearing. I know that this sounds like a paradox. I shall be told that Vergil is of all poets the most indirect. That is

siae Priamique

m superis, cec

s humo fumat N

a et desertas

r diuum, class

rygiae molimur

ta ferant, ubi

) is caught up by ceciditque Ilium (2-3), with the new detail superbum added, and again echoed (3) by humo fumat-fumat giving a fresh touch to the picture. In 4 diuersa exsilia is reinforced by desertas terras, sub ipsa Antandro (5-6) by m

scholar in his study. We shall not judge his style truly if we allow ourselves wholly to forget the auditorium. And here let me add that we shall equally fail to understand the style of Lucan or that of Statius if we remember, as we are apt to do, only the auditorium. The auditorium is a much more dominating force in their consciousness than it is in that of Vergil. But even they rarely allow themselves to forget the ju

which is as purely poetry as that of Catullus. Take the fourth book of the Aeneid, which has so much passionate Italian quality. Even there Vergil does not forget the mere formal rules of rhetoric. Analyse any speech of Dido. Dido knows all the rules. You can christen out of Quintilian almost all the figures of rhetoric which she employs. Here is a theme which I have not leisure to develop. But it is interesting t