Studies in the Poetry of Italy, Part I. Roman

of Horace, was Aulus Persius Flaccus. His circumstances were as unlike those of his great predecessor as can well be imagined. Horace was the son of a freedman, with no financial

refully shielded from contact with the rough and wicked world. At the age of twelve he was taken from his native Volaterr? in Etruria to Rome, where his formal education was continued in the same careful seclusion until he assumed the toga of manhood. His writings do not, therefore, smack of the street and the world of men as do those of Horace, but they savor of the cloister and the library. Horace preached against the sins of men as he saw them; Persius, as he imagined th

nscience sought and found an asylum. It had ceased now to be a philosophy, and had become a

ion of Cornutus, a Stoic philosopher. His own account of this event forms one of the most pleasing passages in his works, and is

h in the old religious beliefs had given way, and had not yet laid hold upon the nascent doctrine of Christianity which was even now marching westward and was soon to gain admission to Rome itself. To the Stoic, virtue was the b

ds! when lust's

ce nature of

rage within the

hunder for th

the bolt, sus

hus alone thy

rms set Virtue

e their loss, d

ff

ty and of spiritual things. In the closing lines especially, he reaches so high and true a spiritual note that he seems almost to have caught a glimpse of those high conceptions which inspired his great contempora

n in an ode of Horace, in which he voices the same high truth, that the thought of the heart is of more

ree from ill,

offended gods

sparkling salt

s more costly

wk

sius addresses it to his friend Plotius Macrinus, congrat

iend! and while

inus, this a

sum of years

ther-with a

elfish and impious prayers with which men are too prone to come before the gods,

nius, drench in

rs, with merc

n what you woul

ew the gods a

t ones stand, wi

ent censer tem

ntegrity, a co

ud, that all a

hese (half whisper

hazards from the

uld my rich

pomp!-O tha

ied gold would

d, whom I suc

t! Poor child, h

him must be a

ce has Nerius s

is a widowe

he poor man must one day die, is a prayer becoming a pious nephew. The second petition is quite innocent.-If people will foolishly bury their gold and forget it, there is no more harm in his finding it than another. The third is even laudable; it is a prayer uttered in pure tenderne

friend, an eas

ts of Jove? "My tho

refer him to t

ividual?-B

r example. Hea

o would best di

unfriended orpha

atius, late pr

!" he cries, o'erw

ove himself "O

ink the impious

under shakes the

ous flies o'er

orest oak and

vid from the li

corpse, a mon

asted grove,

with sacrifi

, Jove, unscept

der mirth his

thou to win th

?-The lungs and

against which the poet inveighs. Then follows a rebuke to those who pray for h

ink that they are beings of like passions with themselves. No, no! the gods have no such carnal passions, nor do they care for gold and the

uls, and void o

ssions to the Im

what this carnal

asing in their

rian fleece wi

assia with ou

rocky conch i

e metal from t

deed, is vicio

, perhaps, and

ests (for sure

gs, what boots t

uth, than doll

hildhood, by

ng the Immorta

ala, now depr

charger, canno

d where moral

ssence; holy th

most retired a

in honor's

these let me a

hear the humbl

offering be

ff