The History of Roman Literature Part 18

CHAPTER I.

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS.

The Augustan Age in its strictest sense does not begin until after the battle of Actium, when Augustus, having overthrown his compet.i.tor, found himself in undisputed possession of the Roman world (31 B.C.). But as the _Eclogues_, and many of Horace's poems, were written at an earlier date, and none of these can be ranked with the Republican literature, it is best to a.s.sign the commencement of the Augustan period to the year of the battle of Philippi, when the defeat of Brutus and Ca.s.sius left the old const.i.tution without a champion and made monarchy in the person either of Antonius or Octavius inevitable. This period of fifty-seven years, extending to the death of Augustus, comprises a long list of splendid writers, inferior to those of the Ciceronian age in vigour and boldness, but superior to all but Cicero himself in finish and artistic skill as well as in breadth of human sympathy and suggestive beauty of expression.

It marks the culmination of Latin poetry, as the last epoch marks the perfection of Latin prose. But the bloom which had been so long expanding was short-lived in proportion to its sweetness; and perfect as is the art of Virgil, Horace, and Tibullus, within a few years of Horace's death both style and thought had entered on the path of irretrievable decline. The muse of Ovid, captivating and brilliant, has already lost the severe grace that stamps the highest cla.s.sic verse; and the false tendencies forgiven in him from admiration for his talent, become painfully conspicuous in his younger contemporaries. Livy, too, in the domain of history, shows traces of that poetical colouring which began more and more to encroach on the style of prose; while in the work of Vitruvius, on the one hand and in that of the elder Seneca on the other, we observe two tendencies which helped to accelerate decay; the one towards an entire absence of literary finish, the other towards the subst.i.tution of rich decoration for chaste ornament.

There are certain common features shared by the chief Augustan authors which distinguish them from those of the closing Republic. While the latter were men of birth and eminence in the state, the former were mostly Italians or provincials, [1] often of humble origin, neither warriors nor statesmen, but peaceful, quiet natures, devoid of ambition, and desiring only a modest independence and success in prosecuting their art. Horace had indeed fought for Brutus; but he was no soldier, and alludes with humorous irony to his flight from the field of battle. [2] Virgil prays that he may live without glory among the forests and streams he loves. [3]

Tibullus [4] and Propertius [5] a.s.sert in the strongest terms their incapacity for an active career, praying for nothing more than enjoyment of the pleasures of love and song. Spirits like these would have had no chance of rising to eminence amid the fierce contests of the Republic.

Gentle and diffident, they needed a patron to call out their powers or protect their interests; and when, under the sway of Augustus, such a patron was found, the rich harvest of talent that arose showed how much letters had hitherto suffered from the unsettled state of the times. [6]

It is true that several writers of the preceding period survived into this. Men like Varro, who kept aloof from the city, nursing in retirement a hopeless loyalty to the past; men like Pollio and Messala, who accepted the monarchy without compromising their principles, and who still appeared in public as orators or jurists; these, together with a few poets of the older school, such as Furius Bibaculus, continued to write during the first few years of the Augustan epoch, but cannot properly be regarded as belonging to it. [7] They pursued their own lines of thought, uninfluenced by the Empire, except in so far as it forced them to select more trivial themes, or to use greater caution in expressing their thoughts. But the great authors who are the true representatives of Augustus's reign, Virgil, Livy, and Horace, were brought into direct contact with the emperor, and much of their inspiration centres round his office and person.

The conqueror of Actium was welcomed by all cla.s.ses with real or feigned enthusiasm. To the remnant of the republican families, indeed, he was an object partly of flattery, partly of hatred, in no case, probably, of hearty approval or admiration; but by the literary cla.s.s, as by the great ma.s.s of the people, he was hailed as the restorer of peace and good government, of order and religion, the patron of all that was best in literature and art, the adopted son of that great man whose name was already a mighty power, and whose spirit was believed to watch over Rome as one of her presiding deities. It is no wonder if his opening reign stamped literature with new and imposing features, or if literature expressed her sense of his protection by a constant appeal to his name.

Augustus has been the most fortunate of despots, for he has met with nothing but praise. A few harsh spirits, it seems, blamed him in no measured terms; but he repaid them by a wise neglect, at least as long as Maecenas lived, who well knew, from temperament as well as experience, the value of seasonable inactivity. As it is, all the authors that have come to us are panegyrists. None seem to remember his early days; all centre their thoughts on the success of the present and the promise of the future. Yet Augustus himself could not forget those times. As chief of the proscription, as the betrayer of Cicero, as the suspected murderer of the consul Hirtius, as the pitiless destroyer of Cleopatra's children, he must have found it no easy task to act the mild ruler; as a man of profligate conduct he must have found it still less easy to come forward as the champion of decency and morals. He was a.s.sisted by the confidence which all, weary of war and bloodshed, were willing to repose in him, even to an unlimited extent. He was a.s.sisted also by able administrators, Maecenas in civil, and Agrippa in military affairs. But there were other forces making themselves felt in the great city. One of these was literature, as represented by the literary cla.s.s, consisting of men to whom letters were a profession not a relaxation, and who now first appear prominently in Rome. Augustus saw the immense advantage of enlisting these on his side.

He could pa.s.s laws through the senate; he could check vice by punishment; but neither his character nor his history could make him influence the heart of the people. To effect real reforms persuasive voice must be found to preach them. And who so efficacious as the band of cultured poets whom he saw collecting round him? These he deliberately set himself to win; and that he did win then, some to a half-hearted, others to an absolute allegiance, is one of the best testimonies to his enlightened policy. Yet he could hardly have effected his object had it not been for the able co- operation of Maecenas, whose conciliatory manners well fitted him to be the friend of literary men. This astute minister formed a select circle of gifted authors, chiefly poets, whom he endeavoured to animate with the enthusiasm of succouring the state. He is said to have suggested to Augustus the necessity of restoring the decayed grandeur of the national religion. The open disregard of morality and religion evinced by the ambitious party-leaders during the Civil Wars had brought the public wors.h.i.+p into contempt and the temples into ruin. Augustus determined that civil order should once more repose upon that reverence for the G.o.ds which had made Rome great. [8] Accordingly, he repaired or rebuilt many temples, and both by precept and example strove to restore the traditional respect for divine things. But he must have experienced a grave difficulty in the utter absence of religious conviction which had become general in Rome.

The authors of the _De Divinatione_ and the _De Rerum Natura_ could not have written as they did, without influencing many minds. And if men so admirable as Cicero and Lucretius denied, the one the possibility of the science he professed, [9] the other the doctrine of Providence on which all religion rests, it was little likely that ordinary minds should retain much belief in such things. Augustus was relieved from this strait by the appearance of a new literary cla.s.s in Rome, young authors from the country districts, with simpler views of life and more enthusiasm, of whom some at least might be willing to consecrate their talents to furthering the sacred interests on which social order depends. The author who fully responded to his appeal, and probably exceeded his highest hopes, was Virgil; but Horace, Livy, and Propertius, showed themselves not unwilling to espouse the same cause. Never was power more ably seconded by persuasion; the laws of Augustus and the writings of Virgil, Horace, and Livy, in order to be fully appreciated, must be considered in their connection, political and religious, with each other.

The emperor, his minister, and his advocates, thus working for the same end, beyond doubt produced some effect. The _Odes_ of Horace in the first three books, which are devoted to politics, show an att.i.tude of antagonism and severe expostulation; he boldly rebukes vice, and calls upon the strong hand to punish it:

"Quid tristes querimoniae, Si non supplicio culpa reciditur?

Quid leges sine moribus Vanae proficiunt?" [10]

But when, some years later, he wrote the _Carmen Saeculare_, and the fourth book of the Odes, his voice is raised in a paean of unmixed triumph. "The pure home is polluted by no unchast.i.ty; law and morality have destroyed crime; matrons are blessed with children resembling their fathers; already faith and peace, honour and maiden modesty, have returned to us," &c. [11] This can hardly be mere exaggeration, though no doubt the picture is coloured, since the popularity of Ovid's _Art of Love_, even during Horace's lifetime, is a sufficient proof that profligacy did not lack its votaries.

To the student of human development the most interesting feature in this attempted reform of manners is the universal tendency to connect it with the deification of the emperor. It was in vain that Augustus claimed to return to the old paths; everywhere he met this new apotheosis of himself crowning the restored edifice of belief; so impossible was it for him, as for others, to reconstruct the past. As the guardian of the people's material welfare, he became, despite of himself, the people's chief divinity. From the time that Virgil's grat.i.tude expressed itself in the first Eclogue--

"Namque erit ille mihi semper deus: illius aram Saepe tener nostris ab ovilibus imbuet agnus," [12]

the emperor was marked out for this new form of adulation, and succeeding poets only added to what Virgil had begun. Even in his _Epistles_, where the conventionalities of mythology are never employed, Horace compares him with the greatest deities, and declares that altars are raised to his name, while all confess him to be the greatest person that has been or will be among mankind. [13] Propertius and Ovid [14] accept this language as proper and natural, and the striking rapidity with which it established itself in universal use is one of the most speaking signs of the growing degeneracy. Augustus himself was not cajoled, Tiberius still less, but Caius and his successors were; even Vespasian, when dying, in jest or earnest used the words "ut puto deus fio." As the satirist says, "Power will believe anything that Flattery suggests." [15]

Side by side with this religious cultus of the emperor was a willingness to surrender all political power into his hands. Little by little he engrossed all the offices of state, and so completely had proscription and indulgence in turn done their work that none were found bold enough to resist these insidious encroachments. [16] The privileges of the senate and the rights of the people were gradually abridged; and that pernicious policy so congenial to a despotism, of satisfying the appet.i.te for food and amus.e.m.e.nt and so keeping the people quiet, was inaugurated early in his reign, and set moving in the lines which it long afterwards followed.

Freedom of debate, which had been universal in the senate, was curtailed by the knowledge that, as often as not, the business was being decided by a secret council held within the palace. Eloquence could not waste itself in abstract discussions; and even if it attempted to speak, the growing servility made it perilous to utter plain truths. Thus the sphere of public speaking was greatly restricted. Those who had poured forth before the a.s.sembled people the torrents of their oratory were now by what Tacitus so graphically calls the _pacification_ of eloquence [17] confined to the tamer arena of the civil law courts. All those who felt that without a practical object eloquence cannot exist, had to resign themselves to silence. Others less serious-minded found a sphere for their natural gift of speech in the halls of the rhetoricians. It is pitiable to see men like Pollio content to give up all higher aims, and for want of healthier exercise waste their powers in noisy declamation.

History, if treated with dignity and candour, was almost as dangerous a field as eloquence. Hence we find that few were bold enough to cultivate it. Livy, indeed, succeeded in producing a great masterwork, which, while it did not conceal his Pompeian sympathies, entered so heartily into the emperor's general point of view as to receive high praise at his hands.

But Livy was not a politician. Those who had been politicians found it unwise to provoke the jealousy of Augustus by expressing their sentiments.

Hence neither Messala nor Pollio continued their works on contemporary history; a deprivation which we cannot but strongly feel, as we have few trustworthy accounts of those, times.

In law Augustus trenched less on the independent thought of the jurists, but at the same time was better able to put forth his prerogative when occasion was really needed. His method of accrediting the _Responsa Prudentum_, by permitting only those who had his authorisation to exercise that profession, was an able stroke of policy. [18] It gave the profession as it were the safeguard of a diploma, and veiled an act of despotic power under the form of a greater respect for law. The science of jurisprudence was ably represented by various professors, but it became more and more involved and difficult, and frequently draws forth from the satirists abuse of its quibbling intricacies.

Poetry was the form of literature to which most favour was shown, and which flourished more vigorously than any other. The pastoral, and the metrical epistle, were now first introduced. The former was based on the Theocritean idyll, but does not seem to have been well adapted to Roman treatment; the latter was of two kinds; it was either a real communication on some subject of mutual interest, as that of Horace, or else an imaginary expression of feeling put into the mouth of a mythical hero or heroine, of which the most brilliant examples are those of Ovid.

Philosophy and science flourished to a considerable extent. The desire to find some compensation for the loss of all outward activity led many to strive after the ideal of conduct presented by stoicism: and nearly all earnest minds were more or less affected by this great system. Livy is reported to have been an eloquent expounder of philosophical doctrines, and most of the poets show a strong leaning to its study. Augustus wrote _adhortationes_, and beyond doubt his example was often followed. The speculative and therefore inoffensive topics of natural science were neither encouraged nor neglected by Augustus; Vitruvius, the architect, having showed some capacity for engineering, was kindly received by him, but his treatise, admirable as it is, does not seem to have secured him any special favour. It was such writers as he thought might be made instruments of his policy that Augustus set himself specially to encourage by every means in his power. The result of this patronage was an increasing divergence from the popular taste on the part of the poets, who now aspired only to please the great and learned. [19] It is pleasing, however, to observe the entire absence of ill-feeling that reigned in this society of _beaux esprits_ with regard to one another. Each held his own special position, but all were equally welcome at the great man's reunions, equally acceptable to one another; and each criticised the other's works with the freedom of a literary freemasonry. [20] This select cultivation of poetry reacted unfavourably on the thought and imagination, though it greatly elevated the style of those that employed it. The extreme delicacy of the artistic product shows it to have been due to some extent to careful nursing, and its almost immediate collapse confirms this conclusion.

While Augustus, through Maecenas, united men eminent for taste and culture in a literary coterie, Messala, who had never joined the successful side, had a similar but smaller following, among whom was numbered the poet Tibullus. At the tables of these great men met on terms of equal companions.h.i.+p their own friends and the authors whom they favoured or a.s.sisted. For though the provincial poet could not, like those of the last age, a.s.sume the air of one who owned no superior, but was bound by ties of obligation as well as grat.i.tude to his patron, still the works of Horace and Virgil abundantly prove that servile compliment was neither expected by him nor would have been given by them, as it was too frequently in the later period to the lasting injury of literature as well as of character.

The great patrons were themselves men of letters. Augustus was a severe critic of style, and, when he wrote or spoke, did not fall below the high standard he exacted from others. Suetonius and Tacitus bear witness to the clearness and dignity of his public speaking. [21]

MAECENAS, as we shall notice immediately, was, or affected to be, a writer of some pretension; and MESSALA'S eloquence was of so high an order, that had he been allowed the opportunity of freely using it, he would beyond doubt have been numbered among the great orators of Rome.

Such was the state of thought and politics which surrounded and brought out the celebrated writers whom we shall now proceed to criticise, a task the more delightful, as these writers are household words, and their best works familiar from childhood to all who have been educated to love the beautiful in literature.

The excellent literary judgment shown by Augustus contributed to encourage a high standard of taste among the rival authors. How weighty the sovereign's influence was may be gathered from the extravagancies into which the Neronian and Flavian authors fell through anxiety to please monarchs of corrupt taste. The advantages of patronage to literature are immense; but it is indispensable that the patron should himself be great.

The people were now so totally without literary culture that a popular poet would necessarily have been a bad poet; careful writers turned from them to the few who could appreciate what was excellent. Yet Maecenas, so judicious as a patron, fell as an author into the very faults he blamed.

During the years he held office (30-8 B.C.) he devoted some fragments of his busy days to composing in prose and verse writings which Augustus spoke of as "_murobrecheis cincinni_," "curled locks reeking with ointment." We hear of a treatise called _Prometheus_, certain dialogues, among them a _Symposium_, in which Messala, Virgil, and Horace were introduced; and Horace implies that he had planned a prose history of Augustus's wars. [22] He did not shrink from attempting, and what was worse, publis.h.i.+ng, poetry, which bore imprinted on it the characteristics of his effeminate mind. Seneca quotes one pa.s.sage [23] from which we may form an estimate of his level as a versifier. But, however feeble in execution, he was a skilful adviser of others. The wisdom of his counsels to Augustus is known; those he offered to Virgil were equally sound. It was he who suggested the plan of the _Georgics_, and the poet acknowledges his debt for a great idea in the words "_Nil altum sine te meas inchoat_."

He was at once cautious and liberal in bestowing his friends.h.i.+p. The length of time that elapsed between his first reception of Horace and his final enrolment of the poet among his intimates, shows that he was not hasty in awarding patronage. And the difficulty which Propertius encountered in gaining a footing among his circle proves that even great talent was not by itself a sufficient claim on his regard. As we shall have occasion to mention him again, we shall pa.s.s him over here, and conclude the chapter with a short account of the earliest Augustan poet whose name has come to us, L. VARIUS RUFUS (64 B.C.-9 A.D.), the friend of Virgil, who introduced both him and Horace to Maecenas's notice, and who was for some years accounted the chief epic poet of Rome. [24]

Born in Cisalpine Gaul, Varius was, like all his countrymen, warmly attached to Caesar's cause, and seems to have made his reputation by an epic on Caesar's death. [25] Of this poem we have scattered notices implying that it was held in high esteem, and a fragment is preserved by Macrobius, [26] which it is worth while to quote:

"Ceu canis umbrosam l.u.s.trans Gortynia vallem, Si veteris potuit cervae comprendere l.u.s.tra, Saevit in absentem, et circ.u.m vestigia l.u.s.trans Aethera per nitidum tenues sectatur odores; Non amnes illam medii non ardua tentant, Perdita nec serae meminit decedere nocti."

The rhythm here is midway between Lucretius and Virgil; the inartistic repet.i.tion of _l.u.s.trans_ together with the use immediately before of the cognate word _l.u.s.tra_ point to a certain carelessness in composition; the employment of epithets is less delicate than in Horace and Virgil; the last line is familiar from its introduction unaltered, except by an improved punctuation, into the _Eclogues_. [27] Two fine verses, slightly modified in expression but not in rhythm, have found their way into the _Aeneid_. [28]

"Vendidit hic Latium populis, agrosque Quiritum Eripuit: fixit leges pretio atque refixit."

Besides this poem he wrote another on the praises of Augustus, for which Horace testifies his fitness while excusing himself from approaching the same subject. [29] From this were taken two lines [30] appropriated by Horace, and instanced as models of graceful flattery:

"Tene magis salvum populus velit, an populum tu, Servet in ambiguum qui consulit et tibi et Urbi, Iupiter."

After the pre-eminence of Virgil began to be recognised, Varius seems to have deserted epic poetry and turned his attention to tragedy, and that with so much success, that his great work, the _Thyestes_, was that on which his fame with posterity chiefly rested. This drama, considered by Quintilian [31.] equal to any of the Greek masterpieces, was performed at the games after the battle of Actium; but it was probably better adapted for declaiming than acting. Its high reputation makes its loss a serious one--not for its intrinsic value, but for its position in the history of literature as the first of those rhetorical dramas of which we possess examples in those of Seneca, and which, with certain modifications, have been cultivated in our own century with so much spirit by Byron, Sh.e.l.ley, and Swinburne. The main interest which Varius has for us arises from his having, in company with Plotius Tucca, edited the Aeneid after Virgil's death. The intimate friends.h.i.+p that existed between the two poets enabled Varius to give to the world many particulars as to Virgil's character and habits of life; this biographical sketch, which formed probably an introduction to the volume, is referred to by Quintilian [32] and others.

A poet of inferior note, but perhaps handed down to unenviable immortality in the line of Virgil--

"Argutos inter strepere Anser olores," [33]

was ANSER. He was a partisan of Antony, and from this fact, together with the possible allusion in the _Eclogues_, later grammarians discovered that he was, like Bavius and Maevius, unhappy bards only known from the contemptuous allusions of their betters, [34] an _obtrectator Virgilii_.

As such he of course called down the vials of their wrath. But there is no real evidence for the charge. He seems to have been an unambitious poet, who indulged light and wanton themes. [35] AEMILIUS MACER, of Verona, who died 16 B.C., was certainly a friend of Virgil, and has been supposed to be the Mopsus of the _Eclogues_. He devoted his very moderate talents to minute and technical didactic poems. The _Ornithogonias_ of Nicander was imitated or translated by him, as well as the _Thaeriaka_ of the same writer. Ovid mentions having been frequently present at the poet's recitations, but as he does not praise them, [36] we may infer that Macer had no great name among his contemporaries, but owed his consideration and perhaps his literary impulse to his friends.h.i.+p for Virgil.

CHAPTER II.

VIRGIL (70-19 B.C.).

PUBLIUS VIRGILIUS, or more correctly, VERGILIUS [1] MARO, was born in the village or district [2] of Andes, near Mantua, sixteen years after the birth of Catullus, of whom he was a compatriot as well as an admirer. [3]

As the citizens.h.i.+p was not conferred on Gallia Transpadana, of which Mantua was a chief town, until 49 B.C., when Virgil was nearly twenty-one years old, he had no claim by birth to the name of Roman. And yet so intense is the patriotism which animates his poems, that no other Roman writer, patrician or plebeian, surpa.s.ses or even equals it in depth of feeling. It is one proof out of many how completely the power of Rome satisfied the desire of the Italians for a great common head whom they might reverence as the heaven-appointed representative of their race. And it leads us to reflect on the narrow pride of the great city in not earlier extending her full franchise to all those gallant tribes who fought so well for her, and who at last extorted their demand with grievous loss to themselves as to her, by the harsh argument of the sword.

To return to Virgil. We learn nothing from his own works as to his early life and parentage. Our chief authority is Donatus. His father, Maro, was in humble circ.u.mstances; according to some he followed the trade of a potter. But as he farmed his own little estate, he must have been far removed from indigence, and we know that he was able to give his ill.u.s.trious son the best education the time afforded. Trained in the simple virtues of the country, Virgil, like Horace, never lost his admiration for the stern and almost Spartan ideal of life which he had there witnessed, and which the levity of the capital only placed in stronger relief. After attending school for some years at Cremona, he a.s.sumed at sixteen the manly gown, on the very day to which tradition a.s.signs the death of the poet Lucretius. Some time later (53 B.C.), we find him at Rome studying rhetoric under Epidius, and soon afterwards philosophy under Siro the Epicurean. The recent publication of Lucretius's poem must have invested Siro's teaching with new attractiveness in the eyes of a young author, conscious of genius, but as yet self-distrustful, and willing to humble his mind before the "temple of speculative truth,"

The short piece, written at this date, and showing his state of feeling, deserves to be quoted:--

"Ite hinc inanes ite rhetorum ampullae...

Scholasticorum natio madens pingui:...

Tuque o mearum cura, s.e.xte, curarum Vale Sabine: iam valete formosi.

Nos ad beatos vela mittimus portus Magni patentes docta dicta Sironis, Vitamque ab omni vindicabimus cura.

Ite hinc Camenae...

Dulces Camenae, nam (fatebimur verum) Dulces fuistis: et tamen meas chartas Revisitote, sed pudenter et varo."

These few lines are very interesting, first, as enabling us to trace the poetic influence of Catullus, whose style they greatly resemble, though their moral tone is far more serious; secondly, as showing us that Virgil was in aristocratic company, the names mentioned, and the epithet _formosi_, by which the young n.o.bles designated themselves, after the Greek _kaloi, kalokagathoi_, indicating as much; and thirdly, as evincing a serious desire to embrace philosophy for his guide in life, after a conflict with himself as to whether he should give up writing poetry, and a final resolution to indulge his natural taste "seldom and without licentiousness." We can hardly err in tracing this awakened earnestness and its direction upon the Epicurean system to his first acquaintance with the poem of Lucretius. The enthusiasm for philosophy expressed in these lines remained with Virgil all his life. Poet as he was, he would at once be drawn to the theory of the universe so eloquently propounded by a brother-poet. And in all his works a deep study of Lucretius is evidenced not only by imitations of his language, but by frequent adoption of his views and a recognition of his position as the loftiest attainable by man.

[4] The young Romans at this time took an eager interest in the problems which philosophy presents, and most literary men began their career as disciples of the Lucretian theory. [5] Experience of life, however, generally drew them away from it. Horace professed to have been converted by a thunder-clap in a clear sky; this was no doubt irony, but it is clear that in his epistles he has ceased to be an Epicurean. Virgil, who in the _Eclogues_ and _Georgics_ seems to sigh with regret after the doctrines he fears to accept, comes forward in the _Aeneid_ as the staunch adherent of the national creed, and where he acts the philosopher at all, a.s.sumes the garb of a Stoic, not an Epicurean. But he still desired to spend his later days in the pursuit of truth; it seemed as if he accepted almost with resignation the labours of a poet, and looked forward to philosophy as his recompense and the goal of his constant desire. [6] We can thus trace a continuity of interest in the deepest problems, lasting throughout his life, and, by the sacrifice of one side of his affections, tinging his mind with that subtle melancholy so difficult to a.n.a.lyse, but so irresistible in its charm. The craving to rest the mind upon a solid ground of truth, which was kept in abeyance under the Republic by the incessant calls of active life, now a.s.serted itself in all earnest characters, and would not be content without satisfaction. Virgil was cut off before his philosophical development was completed, and therefore it is useless to speculate what views he would have finally espoused. But it is clear that his tone of mind was in reality artistic and not philosophical. Systems of thought could never have had real power over him except in so far as they modified his conceptions of ideal beauty: he possessed neither the grasp nor the boldness requisite for speculative thought; all ideas as they were presented to his mind were unconsciously transfused into materials for effects of art. And the little poem which has led to these remarks seems to enshrine in the outpourings of an early enthusiasm the secret of that divided allegiance between his real and his fancied apt.i.tudes, which impels the poet's spirit, while it hears the discord, to win its way into the inner and more perfect harmony.