W. Y. Sellar

“ The poetry of the Augustan age and of that immediately preceding it is deeply pervaded by this new sentiment. Each of the great poets manifests the feeling in his own way. Lucretius, while contemplating the majesty of Nature's laws, and the immensity of her range, is at the same time powerfully moved to sympathy with her ever-varying life. He feels the charm of simply living in fine weather, and looking on the common aspects of the world,—such as the sea-shore, fresh pastures and full-flowing rivers, or the new loveliness of the early morning. ”

“ The coarseness of Catullus is symptomatic rather of more recklessness than of greater corruption in society. Impurity is less destructive to human nature when it vents itself in bantering or virulent abuse, than when it clings to the imagination, associates itself with the sense of beauty, and expresses itself in the language of passion. Though, in his nobler poetry, Catullus is ardent and impassioned, he is much more free from this taint than Ovid or Propertius. ”

“ Their tastes and feelings are, in some ways, rather Italian than purely Roman; their thoughts and convictions are rather of a cosmopolitan type than moulded on the national traditions. They drew the materials of their art as much from the stores of Greek poetry as from the life and action of their own times. Their art is thus a composite structure, in which old forms are combined with altered conditions; in which the fancies of earlier times reappear in a new language, and the spirit of Greece is seen interpenetrating the grave temperament of Rome, and the genial nature of Italy. ”

“ It is written with the same gaiety of heart, blending indeed with a graver sense of happiness. The feeling of the hour does not merely express itself in graceful language: it awakens the active power of imagination, clothes itself in radiant imagery, and rises into the completeness and sustained melody of the highest lyrical art. The tone of the whole poem is one of joy, changing from the rapture of expectation in the opening lines to the more tranquil happiness of the close. ”

“ As a painter of life it is not by striking effects, but by his truth in detail, and his power of delineating the finer distinctions in varying specimens of the same type, that he gains the admiration of the reader. There are no strongly-drawn or vividly conceived personages in his plays, but they all act and speak in the most natural manner. Though he has left no trace in any of his plays of one drawing directly from the life, there is no more truthful, natural, and delicate delineator of human nature, in its ordinary and more level moods, within the whole range of classical literature. ”

“ To him, as to the modern poet, whose imagination most nearly resembles his, the thought of more enduring things had
'Power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal silence.'
But while by his silence on the subject of national glory and his ardent speculative enthusiasm Lucretius seems to be more of a Greek than of a Roman, yet no Roman writer possessed in larger measure the moral temper of the great Republic. He is a truer type of the strong character and commanding genius of his country than Virgil or Horace. ”

“ The changing face of Nature is to his spirit so full of power and wonder, that it needs no poetical adornment, but is left to tell its own tale in the plainest language. If words are a true index of feeling, it would be difficult to name any poet by whom the living presence and full being of Nature were more immediately apprehended, nor has any one caught with more fidelity the intimations of her hidden life, as they betray themselves in her outward features and motions. ”

“ No writer of antiquity was more profoundly impressed by the serious import and mystery of life. Yet he appears as the unhesitating advocate of all the tenets of this philosophy, and denies the foundations of religious belief with a zeal more like religious earnestness than the spirit of any other writer of antiquity. Without conscious deviation from the teaching of his master, he reproduces the calm unimpassioned doctrines of Epicurus, in a new type,—earnest, austere, and ennobled; enforcing them not for the sake of ease or for the love of pleasure, but in the cause of truth and human dignity. ”

“ The processes of his mind are characterised by continuity, consistency, and a kind of gathering intensity of movement. The periods of Virgil delight us by their intricate harmony; those of Lucretius impress us by their continuous and hurrying impetus. The long drawn out charm of the one is indicative of the deep love which induced him to linger over every detail of his subject: the force and grandeur of the other are the outward signs of the inward wonder and enthusiasm by which his spirit was borne rapidly along. Virgil's movement displays the majesty of grace and serenity ”

“ A poet of more delicacy of taste and perfection of execution would have been unintelligible to his contemporaries. A more systematic thinker would have been out of harmony with the conditions of life by which he was surrounded. Breadth, vigour, a spirit clinging to what was most vital in the old state of things, and yet readily adapting itself to what was new, were the qualities needed to establish a literature true to the genius of Rome in the second century b.c., and containing the promise of the more perfect accomplishment of a later age. ”

“ There is no feeling so characteristic of the higher works of Roman genius as the sense of majesty. This feeling is called forth by the idea or outward manifestation of strength, stability, vastness, and order; by whatever impresses the imagination as the symbol of power and authority, whether in the aspect of Nature, or in the works, actions, and institutions of man. It is in their most serious and elevated writings, and chiefly in their epic and didactic poetry, that the Romans show their peculiar susceptibility to this grave and dignified emotion. ”

“ If, as we read them, the imagination is not so powerfully stimulated by the revelation of a new world, yet, in the elevated tones of Roman poetry, there is felt to be a permanent affinity with the strength and dignity of man's moral nature; and, in the finer and softer tones, a power to move the heart to sympathy with the beauty, the enjoyment, and the natural sorrows of a bygone life. ”

“ The only obligation which young men seem to acknowledge is that of honour and friendly service to one another. So too slaves, while they hold it as their first duty to lie and swindle in behalf of their young masters, feel the duty of absolute devotion and sacrifice of themselves to their interests. Plautus shows scarcely any of the Roman feeling of dignity or seriousness, or any regard for patriotism or public duty. There is everywhere abundance of good humour and good sense, but, except in the Captivi and Rudens, we find scarcely any pathos or elevated feeling. ”

“ Nearly all have some immediate relation to himself, and give expression to his love or hatred, his admiration or scorn, his happiness or misery. There is nearly as little in them of reflexion on human life as of meditative communion with Nature; but, as individual men and women excited in him intense affection or passion, so certain beautiful places and beautiful objects in Nature charmed his fancy and sank into his heart. He shows himself, spiritually and intellectually, the child of his age in his ardent vitality, in the license of his life and satire, in the fierceness of his antipathies ”

“ Yet it is only after the poem has been mastered in its details that we realise its full effect on the imagination. It is only then that we understand the complete greatness of the man, as a thinker, a teacher, and a poet. The most familiar beauties reveal a deeper meaning when they are seen to be not mere resting places in the toilsome march of his argument, but rather commanding positions, successively reached, from which the widest contemplative views of the realms of Nature and human life are laid open to us. ”

“ Every line almost of his fragments attests his possession of that quality which, more than any other, secures a wide, if not always a lasting, popularity, great vitality and its natural accompaniment, boldness and confidence of spirit. While he saw clearly, felt keenly, and judged wisely the political and social action of his time, he reproduced it vividly in his pages. Whatever other quality his style may want, it is always alive. And the life with which it is animated is thoroughly healthy. ”

“ His imagination expands in contemplating the objects either of thought or of sight, which produce the impression of immensity,—such as the vast expanse of earth, sea and sky,—or of great duration,—such as the 'aeterni sidera mundi' or the 'validas aevi vires.' Thus, as much of the majesty of his poetry may be connected with his contemplative sense of law, much of its pervading life with his sense of the mobility of Nature, so the sublimity of many passages may be resolved into the influence of the ideas of immensity, both of time and space, on his imagination. ”

“ I can devise or frame no new pleasure for thee. "There is no new thing under the sun"—"eadem sunt omnia semper."' To the weak complaint of age, Nature would speak with sterner voice: 'Away hence with thy tears and thy complainings. It is because, unable to enjoy the present, thou art ever weakly longing for what is absent, that death has come on thee unsatisfied.' 'This would be, indeed, a just charge and reproof. For the old order is ever yielding place to new; and life is given to no man in possession, to all men for use. ”

“ The genius of poetry has never, since the time of Homer, appeared in union with a faculty of expression so true and spontaneous, so faultless in purity, so inexhaustible in resources. It is difficult to imagine a greater contrast than that between the varied and harmonious power of the earliest Greek epic, and the rugged rhythm and diction of the Annals. Yet the very rudeness of that work is significant of the energy of a man who had to accomplish a gigantic task by his own unaided efforts. ”

“ It might perhaps have been expected that a writer of such prodigal invention and so popular and national a fibre as Plautus would have chosen rather to set before his countrymen a humorous image of themselves, than to transport them in imagination to Athens and to exhibit to them those well-used conventional types of Greek life and manners. But, in the first place, the mere fact that it was more easy for him to adapt than to create would have been a sufficient motive to so careless and unconscious an artist. ”

“ Among the poets of the Republic, whose works have reached us only in fragments, Lucilius is only second in importance to Ennius. Roman Satire owes as much in form, substance, and spirit to him as the Roman epic does to the older poet. While Ennius represents the highest mood of Rome, and first gave expression to that imperial idea which ultimately realised itself in history, Lucilius is the exponent of her ordinary moods, manifested in the streets and the forum, and of those internal dissensions and destructive forces by which her political life was agitated and ultimately overthrown. ”

“ Further, in the fervour and dignity of their moral feeling, the Roman poets are true exponents of the genius of Rome. Their spirit is more authoritative, and less speculative than that of Greek poetry. They speak rather from the will and conscience than from the wisdom that has searched and understood the ways of life. Greek poetry strengthens the will or purifies the heart indirectly, by its truthful representation of the tragic situations in human life; Roman poetry appeals directly to the manlier instincts and more magnanimous impulses of our nature. ”

“ Greece had disappeared, so that, were it nothing more, that literature would still be valuable as the fruit of the later summer of antiquity. As in Homer, the earliest poet of the ancient world, there is a kind of promise of the great life that was to be; so, in the Augustan poets, there is a retrospective contemplation of the life, the religion, and the art of the past,—a gathering up of 'the long results of time.' But the Roman poets had also a strong vein of original character and feeling, and many phases of national and personal experience to reveal. ”

“ The appetite for pleasure was still too fresh to produce that deadening of energy and of feeling, which is most fatal to literary creativeness. The passionate life led by Catullus and his friends may have shortened the days of some of them, and tended to limit the range and to lower the aims of their genius, but it did not dull their vivid sense of beauty, chill their enjoyment of their art, or impair the mastery over its technical details, for which they strove. ”

“ The charm of the poem does not arise from its tone of feeling and its clear ringing melody alone. The bright spirit of the day awakens the inward eye which creates pictures and images of beauty in harmony with itself. The poet [page 459] sees Hymenaeus coming from the distant rocks of Helicon, robed in saffron, and wreathed with fragrant amaracus, in radiant power and glory, chanting the song with his ringing voice, beating the ground with his foot, shaking the pine-torch in his hand. ”

“ Livius was the schoolmaster of the Roman people rather than the father of their literature. To accomplish what he did required no original genius, but only the industry, knowledge, and tastes of an educated man. In spite of the disadvantage of writing in a foreign language, and of addressing an unlettered people, he was able to give the direction which Roman poetry long followed, and to awaken a new interest in the legends and heroes of his race. It was necessary that the Romans should be educated before they could either produce or appreciate an original poet. ”

“ The romance of Theseus and Ariadne is told much less distinctly and simply than the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice in Virgil. There is dramatic power in the soliloquy of Ariadne, as in that of Attis, but the dramatic faculty in Catullus is rather a phase of his special lyrical gift, which enables him to identify himself with some single passionate situation, than the power of giving life to various types of character. The imaginative excellence of the poem is idyllic rather than epic or dramatic. There is a wonderful harmony of tone in his whole conception of the heroic age. ”

“ It has cast a kind of religious solemnity around the fragments of the early epic, tragic, and satiric poetry: it has given an intenser fervour to the stern consistency and desperate fortitude of Lucretius: it has added the element of strength to the pathos and fine humanity in the Aeneid. It is by his moral, as well as his national enthusiasm, that Horace reveals the Roman gravity that tempered his genial nature. The language of Lucan, Persius, and Juvenal still breathed the same spirit in the deadening atmosphere of the Empire. ”

“ While so much of the literature of that age has perished, we are fortunate in possessing the works of the greatest authors in prose and verse. The poems of Lucretius and Catullus enable us, better perhaps than any other extant Latin works, to appreciate the most opposite capacities and tendencies of the Roman genius. In their force and individuality, they are alike valuable as the last poetic voices of the Republic, and as, perhaps, the most free and sincere voices of Rome. ”