No More Learning

For over half a century his home in St. James's Place was a ren-
dezvous for poets and artists, statesmen and
musicians; for English men and women of
note, and for distinguished people from
abroad. Here almost daily he entertained
five or six at breakfast, and talked with
them through the morning hours. Here
art and politics were discussed, bons-mots
originated, and entertaining anecdotes re-
tailed. This English "autocrat of the break-
fast table," whose keen ugly face, high
brow, and striking pallor, had a cadaverous
effect provoking much witticism, was him-
self an able story-teller. Sometimes his
wit grew caustic, and his almost ferocious
frankness inspired terror. But in spite of
surface crabbedness he was philanthropic and personally generous.
He was a faithful friend not alone to Sheridan through his wretched
last years of poverty, but to many another unfortunate, author or not.
Keenly appreciative rather than creative, the practical adviser of
Wordsworth and the other "Lake poets," as well as their admiring
auditor, he was the friend of poets to a greater extent than a con-
siderable poet himself. Perhaps his greatest hindrance was his con-
tinuous prosperity. From the beginning to the end of his life he was
quite too comfortable for poetic thrills. His poems have no intensity;
they are gentle moralizings and appreciations of moral and physical
beauty, the fruit more of refinement and cultivation than of irresist-
ible poetic impulse,- and bear no very strong individual stamp.
SAMUEL ROGERS
There is idyllic charm about Rogers's early life. Fortunate son of
a loving if austere father and a beautiful sprightly mother, he was



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T2346
SAMUEL ROGERS
born at Stoke Newington, a suburb of London, on July 30th, 1763.
His parents were people of refined and liberal tastes, who constantly
received in their hospitable mansion a circle of delightful friends,
among them Dr. Priestley. There with his brothers and sisters, ten
in all, Samuel was carefully trained by private tutors. Good Dr.
Price, the clergyman, dropping in of an evening in dressing-gown
and slippers to chat with the children before their bedtime, was an
important factor in their daily life. At this home Rogers learned to
appreciate social intercourse; and there in leisure hours he pored
over Pope and Goldsmith, and took their poems as models. When
he was sixteen or seventeen his father placed him in the London
bank of which he himself was head; and he remained in connection
with it all his life, as clerk, partner, or director. In London he found
a helpful friend in Miss Helen Williams, an intellectual woman, at
whose literary parties he heard brilliant conversation and formed con-
genial friendships. In 1793, when he was about thirty, his father's
death left him with an income of £5,000. Ten years later he fitted up
comfortable bachelor quarters in St. James's Place; where, following
his own recipe for long life, "temperance, the bath and flesh-brush,
and don't fret," he lived to the age of ninety-two, dying in 1855.
Rogers's first literary efforts were short sketches, signed "The
Scribbler," which appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine, and were
the tentative work every young poet must practice his hand on.
In 1786 the 'Ode to Superstition,' appearing in a time of com-
parative poetic dearth and of metrical trivialties, was greatly admired.
Rogers loved music; and his ear for harmonious sound guided him
to a pleasing choice of word and measure. At its best, his verse is
as trim and ently smooth as a Kentish landscape. He was reared
in the traditions of an era of common-sense and well-regulated emo-
tions. Grace of workmanship is the predominating characteristic of
the banker-poet; he had nothing in common with the passion of his
younger friend Byron. The Pleasures of Memory,' published in
1792 (doubtless suggested by Akenside's 'Pleasures of Imagination'),
and 'Human Life,' have the same leisurely, meditative quality. At
the same time, the usual fling that Rogers owed all his contemporary
repute to his social and business position is unjust and untrue. He
was a welcome member of the literary group, as a distinguished
component of it, before he had any such position.
Travelers in Italy soon grow familiar with often quoted lines from
his long poem upon Italy. In 1814 he spent eight months in Italy;
and he worked over material gathered there until 1822, when the
first part of the poem appeared. It was a failure; and the author
burned the unsold copies, and set about a careful revision. A second
edition, beautifully bound, and so profusely illustrated that an ill-
natured critic called it "Turner illustrated," had more success, though


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SAMUEL ROGERS
12347
public taste was already demanding something different. The very
fact, however, that a century after it was written it is still quoted
from, shows that it has some enduring quality; for poems on Italy
have been written and forgotten by the thousand, and there is noth-
ing to keep Rogers's alive but its own merit. What that is, our
extract will indicate.
Rogers was a link between the forms of thought and expression
before and after the French Revolution. A disciple of Pope, intimate
with the Barbaulds and the Burneys, with Joanna Baillie, Mrs. Sid-
dons, Fox, and Sheridan, he saw the revival of the poetry of the
soul, knew Wordsworth and Coleridge, Byron and Scott, and lived on
to know Dickens and Thackeray.
"
GINEVRA
I'
F THOU shouldst ever come by choice or chance
To Modena, where still religiously
Among her ancient trophies is preserved
Bologna's bucket (in its chain it hangs
Within that reverend tower, the Guirlandine),
Stop at a palace near the Reggio-gate,
Dwelt in of old by one of the Orsini.
Its noble gardens, terrace above terrace,
And rich in fountains, statues, cypresses,
Will long detain thee; through their arched walks,
Dim at noonday, discovering many a glimpse
Of knights and dames such as in old romance,
And lovers such as in heroic song,-
Perhaps the two, for groves were their delight
That in the springtime, as alone they sate,
Venturing together on a tale of love,
Read only part that day. -A summer sun
Sets ere one-half is seen; but ere thou go,
Enter the house - prithee, forget it not-
And look a while upon a picture there.
care not.
'Tis of a lady in her earliest youth,
The very last of an illustrious race,
Done by Zampieri - but by whom
He who observes it, ere he passes on,
Gazes his fill, and comes and comes again,
That he may call it up when far away.
She sits, inclining forward as to speak,
Her lips half-open, and her finger up,


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12348
SAMUEL ROGERS
As though she said "Beware! " her vest of gold
Broidered with flowers, and clasped from head to foot,
An emerald stone in every golden clasp;
And on her brow, fairer than alabaster,
A coronet of pearls. But then her face,
So lovely, yet so arch, so full of mirth,
The overflowings of an innocent heart,—
It haunts me still, though many a year has fled,
Like some wild melody!
Alone it hangs
Over a moldering heirloom, its companion,
An oaken chest, half eaten by the worm,
But richly carved by Antony of Trent
With Scripture stories from the life of Christ;
A chest that came from Venice, and had held
The ducal robes of some old ancestor.
That by the way,-it may be true or false,—
But don't forget the picture; and thou wilt not,
When thou hast heard the tale they told me there.
She was an only child; from infancy
The joy, the pride, of an indulgent sire.
Her mother dying of the gift she gave,-
That precious gift,- what else remained to him?
The young Ginevra was his all in life;
Still as she grew, forever in his sight:
And in her fifteenth year became a bride,
Marrying an only son, Francesco Doria,—
Her playmate from her birth, and her first love.
Just as she looks there in her bridal dress,
She was all gentleness, all gayety,
Her pranks the favorite theme of every tongue.
But now the day was come, the day, the hour;
Now, frowning, smiling, for the hundredth time,
The nurse, that ancient lady, preached decorum;
And in the lustre of her youth, she gave
Her hand, with her heart in it, to Francesco.
Great was the joy; but at the bridal feast,
When all sate down, the bride was wanting there.
Nor was she to be found! Her father cried,
"Tis but to make a trial of our love! "
And filled his glass to all; but his hand shook,
And soon from guest to guest the panic spread.
'Twas but that instant she had left Francesco,
Laughing and looking back and flying still,


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SAMUEL ROGERS
12349
Her ivory tooth imprinted on his finger:
But now, alas! she was not to be found;
Nor from that hour could anything be guessed
But that she was not! -Weary of his life,
Francesco flew to Venice, and forthwith
Flung it away in battle with the Turk.
Orsini lived; and long was to be seen
An old man wandering as in quest of something,
Something he could not find - he knew not what.
When he was gone, the house remained a while
Silent and tenantless-then went to strangers.
Full fifty years were past, and all forgot,
When on an idle day—a day of search
'Mid the old lumber in the gallery,-
That moldering chest was noticed; and 'twas said
By one as young, as thoughtless as Ginevra,
"Why not remove it from its lurking-place? "
'Twas done as soon as said: but on the way
It burst, it fell; and, lo! a skeleton,
With here and there a pearl, an emerald stone,
A golden clasp, clasping a shred of gold.
All else had perished-save a nuptial ring,
And a small seal, her mother's legacy,
Engraven with a name, the name of both,
"Ginevra. " There then had she found a grave!
Within that chest had she concealed herself,
Fluttering with joy, the happiest of the happy;
When a spring-lock that lay in ambush there
Fastened her down forever!
FROM THE PLEASURES OF MEMORY
OPENING LINES
Τ
WILIGHT'S Soft dews steal o'er the village green,
With magic tints to harmonize the scene.
Stilled is the hum that through the hamlet broke,
When round the ruins of their ancient oak
The peasants flocked to hear the minstrel play,
And games and carols closed the busy day.
Her wheel at rest, the matron thrills no more
With treasured tales and legendary lore.
All, all are fled; nor mirth nor music flows
To chase the dreams of innocent repose.


## p. 12350 (#400) ##########################################

12350
SAMUEL ROGERS
All, all are fled; yet still I linger here!
What secret charms this silent spot endear?
Mark yon old mansion frowning through the trees,
Whose hollow turret wooes the whistling breeze.
That casement, arched with ivy's brownest shade,
First to these eyes the light of heaven conveyed.
The moldering gateway strews the grass-grown court,
Once the calm scene of many a simple sport;
When nature pleased, for life itself was new,
And the heart promised what the fancy drew.
Childhood's loved group revisits every scene,
The tangled wood-walk and the tufted green!
Indulgent Memory wakes, and lo, they live!
Clothed with far softer hues than light can give.
Thou first, best friend that Heaven assigns below,
To soothe and sweeten all the cares we know;
Whose glad suggestions still each vain alarm,
When nature fades and life forgets to charm,-
Thee would the Muse invoke! to thee belong
The sage's precept and the poet's song.
What softened views thy magic glass reveals,
When o'er the landscape Time's meek landscape steals!
As when in ocean sinks the orb of day,
Long on the wave reflected lustres play. —
Thy tempered gleams of happiness resigned,
Glance on the darkened mirror of the mind.
The school's lone porch, with reverend mosses gray,
Just tells the pensive pilgrim where it lay.
Mute is the bell that rung at peep of dawn,
Quickening my truant feet across the lawn.
Unheard the shout that rent the noontide air
When the slow dial gave a pause to care.
Up springs, at every step, to claim a tear,
Some little friendship formed and cherished here;
And not the lightest leaf but trembling teems
With golden visions and romantic dreams.
CLOSING LINES
OFT may the spirits of the dead descend
To watch the silent slumbers of a friend;
To hover round his evening walk unseen,
And hold sweet converse on the dusky green;
To hail the spot where first their friendship grew,
And heaven and nature opened to their view!


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SAMUEL ROGERS
12351
Oft when he trims his cheerful hearth and sees
A smiling circle emulous to please,-
There may these gentle guests delight to dwell,
And bless the scene they loved in life so well.
O thou! with whom my heart was wont to share
From Reason's dawn each pleasure and each care;
With whom, alas, I fondly hoped to know
The humble walks of happiness below;
If thy blest nature now unites above
An angel's pity with a brother's love,
Still o'er my life preserve thy mild control,
Correct my views and elevate my soul;
Grant me thy peace and purity of mind,
Devout yet cheerful, active yet resigned;
Grant me, like thee, whose heart knew no disguise,
Whose blameless wishes never aimed to rise,
To meet the changes Time and Chance present
With modest dignity and calm content.
When thy last breath, ere Nature sunk to rest,
Thy meek submission to thy God expressed,—
When thy last look ere thought and feeling fled,
A mingled gleam of hope and triumph shed,-
What to thy soul its glad assurance gave,
-
Its hope in death, its triumph o'er the grave?
The sweet remembrance of unblemished Youth,
The still inspiring voice of Innocence and Truth!
Hail, Memory, hail! in thy exhaustless mine
From age to age unnumbered treasures shine!
Thought and her shadowy brood thy call obey,
And Place and Time are subject to thy sway!
Thy pleasures must we feel, when most alone;
The only pleasures we can call our own.
Lighter than air, Hope's summer visions die,
If but a fleeting cloud obscure the sky;
If but a beam of sober Reason play,
Lo, Fancy's fairy frostwork melts away!
But can the wiles of Art, the grasp of Power,
Snatch the rich relics of a well-spent hour?
These, when the trembling spirit wings her flight,
Pour round her path a stream of living light;
And gild those pure and perfect realms of rest,
Where Virtue triumphs and her sons are blest!


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12352
SAMUEL ROGERS
FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF THE TABLE-TALK OF SAMUEL
ROGERS
I
WAS present when Sir Joshua Reynolds delivered his last lect-
ure at the Royal Academy. On entering the room, I found
that a semicircle of chairs immediately in front of the pul-
pit was reserved for persons of distinction, being labeled “Mr.
Burke," "Mr. Boswell," etc. , etc. ; and I, with other young men,
was forced to station myself a good way off. During the lecture,
a great crash was heard; and the company, fearing that the build-
ing was about to come down, rushed towards the door. Presently
however it appeared that there was no cause for alarm, and they
endeavored to resume their places: but in consequence of the
confusion, the reserved seats were now occupied by those who
could first get into them; and I, pressing forwards, secured one
of them. Sir Joshua concluded the lecture by saying with great
emotion, "And I should desire that the last words which I should
pronounce in this Academy, and from this place, might be the
name of Michael Angelo. " As he descended from the rostrum,
Burke went up to him, took his hand, and said,-
"The Angel ended, and in Adam's ear
So charming left his voice, that he awhile
Thought him still speaking, still stood fixed to hear. "
What a quantity of snuff Sir Joshua took! I once saw him
at an Academy dinner when his waistcoat was absolutely pow-
dered with it.
THE head-dresses of the ladies during my youth were of a
truly preposterous size. I have gone to Ranelagh in a coach
with a lady who was obliged to sit upon a stool placed in the
bottom of the coach, the height of her head-dress not allowing
her to occupy the regular seat.
Their tight lacing was equally absurd. Lady Crewe told me
that on returning home from Ranelagh, she has rushed up to
her bedroom, and desired her maid to cut her laces without a
moment's delay, for fear she should faint.
DR. FORDYCE sometimes drank a good deal at dinner. He
was summoned one evening to see a lady patient when he was
more than half-seas-over, and conscious that he was so. Feel-
ing her pulse, and finding himself unable to count its beats, he


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SAMUEL ROGERS
12353
muttered, "Drunk, by God! " Next morning, recollecting the
circumstance, he was greatly vexed; and just as he was thinking
what explanation of his behavior he should offer to the lady, a
letter from her was put into his hand. "She too well knew,"
said the letter, "that he had discovered the unfortunate condition
in which she was when he last visited her; and she entreated
him to keep the matter secret in consideration of the inclosed"
(a hundred-pound bank-note)!
SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT once met Quin at a very small dinner
party. There was a delicious pudding, which the master of the
house, pushing the dish towards Quin, begged him to taste. A
gentleman had just before helped himself to an immense piece
of it. "Pray," said Quin, looking first at the gentleman's plate
and then at the dish, "which is the pudding? "
Sir George Beaumont, when a young man, was one day in
the Mount (a famous coffee-house in Mount Street, Grosvenor
Square) with Harvey Aston. Various persons were seated at
different tables. Among others present, there was an Irishman
who was very celebrated as a duelist, having killed at least half
a dozen antagonists. Aston, talking to some of his acquaintance,
swore that he would make the duelist stand barefooted before
them. "You had better take care what you say," they replied;
"he has his eye upon you. " "No matter," rejoined Aston; "I
declare again that he shall stand barefooted before you, if you
will make up among you a purse of fifty guineas. " They did so.
Aston then said in a loud voice, "I have been in Ireland, and
am well acquainted with the natives. " The Irishman was all
ear. Aston went on, "The Irish, being born in bogs, are every
one of them web-footed: I know it for a fact. ” "Sir," roared
the duelist, starting up from his table, "it is false! " Aston per-
sisted in his assertion. "Sir," cried the other, "I was born in
Ireland; and I will prove to you that it is a falsehood. " So
saying, in great haste he pulled off his shoes and stockings and
displayed his bare feet. The joke ended in Aston's sharing the
purse between the Irishman and himself, giving the former thirty
guineas and keeping twenty. Sir George assured me that this was
a true story.
Aston was always kicking up disturbances. I remember being
at Ranelagh with my father and mother, when we heard a great
row and were told that it was occasioned by Aston.
XXI-773


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12354
SAMUEL ROGERS
If I mistake not, Aston fought two duels in India on two
successive days, and fell in the second one.
WORDS are so twisted and tortured by some writers of the
present day that I am really sorry for them,-I mean for the
words. It is a favorite fancy of mine that perhaps in the next
world the use of words may be dispensed with,-that our
thoughts may stream into each other's minds without any verbal
communication.
THOMAS GRENVILLE told me this curious fact. When he
a young man, he one day dined with Lord Spencer at Wimble-
don. Among the company was George Pitt (afterwards Lord
Rivers), who declared that he could tame the most furious ani-
mal by looking at it steadily. Lord Spencer said, "Well, there
is a mastiff in the court-yard here which is the terror of the
neighborhood: will you try your powers on him? " Pitt agreed
to do so; and the company descended into the court-yard. A
servant held the mastiff by a chain. Pitt knelt down at a short
distance from the animal, and stared him sternly in the face.
They all shuddered. At a signal given, the mastiff was let
loose, and rushed furiously towards Pitt, then suddenly checked
his pace, seemed confounded, and leaping over Pitt's head, ran
away, and was not seen for many hours after.
During one of my visits to Italy, while I was walking a little
before my carriage on the road not far from Vicenza, I per-
ceived two huge dogs, nearly as tall as myself, bounding towards
me (from out a gateway, though there was no house in sight).
I recollected what Pitt had done; and trembling from head to
foot, I yet had resolution enough to stand quite still and eye.
them with a fixed look. They gradually relaxed their speed from
a gallop to a trot, came up to me, stopped for a moment, and
then went back again.
•
DUNNING (afterwards Lord Ashburton) was "stating the law"
to a jury at Guildhall, when Lord Mansfield interrupted him by
saying, "If that be law, I'll go home and burn my books. " "My
lord," replied Dunning, "you had better go home and read
them. "
Dunning was remarkably ugly. One night while he was play-
ing whist at Nando's with Horne Tooke and two others, Lord


## p. 12355 (#405) ##########################################

SAMUEL ROGERS
12355
Thurlow called at the door and desired the waiter to give a note
to Dunning (with whom, though their politics were so different,
he was very intimate). The waiter did not know Dunning by
sight. "Take the note up-stairs," said Thurlow, "and deliver it
to the ugliest man at the card-table-to him who most resem-
bles the knave of spades. " The note immediately reached its
destination. Horne Tooke used often to tell this anecdote.
WHEN titled ladies become authoresses or composers, their
friends suffer for it. Lady asked me to buy her book, and
I replied that I would do so when I was rich enough. I went
to a concert at Lady - -'s, during which several pieces com-
posed by her daughter were performed; and early next morning
a music-seller arrived at my house, bringing with him the daugh-
ter's compositions (and a bill receipted), price sixteen shillings.
THOMAS GRENVILLE told me that he was present in the House
when Lord North, suddenly rising from his seat and going out,
carried off on the hilt of his sword the wig of Welbore Ellis,
who was stooping to take up some papers. I have myself often
seen Lord North in the House. While sitting there he would
frequently hold a handkerchief to his face; and once after a long
debate, when somebody said to him, "My lord, I fear you have
been asleep," he replied, "I wish I had. "
ONE morning at his own house, while speaking to me of his
travels, Fox could not recollect the name of a particular town in
Holland, and was much vexed at the treacherousness of his mem-
ory. He had a dinner party that day; and just as he had applied
the carving-knife to the sirloin, the name of the town having
suddenly occurred to him, he roared out exultingly, to the aston-
ishment of the company, "Gorcum, Gorcum! "
LORD ST. HELENS (who had been ambassador to Russia) told
me as a fact this anecdote of the Empress Catherine. She fre-
quently had little whist parties, at which she sometimes played,
and sometimes not. One night when she was not playing, but
walking about from table to table and watching the different
hands, she rang the bell to summon the page-in-waiting from
an antechamber. No page appeared. She rang the bell again;
and again without effect. Upon this she left the room, looking


## p.
12356 (#406) ##########################################

12356
SAMUEL ROGERS
daggers, and did not return for a very considerable time; the
company supposing that the unfortunate page was destined for
the knout or Siberia. On entering the antechamber, the Empress
found that the page, like his betters, was busy at whist; and that
when she had rung the bell, he happened to have so very inter-
esting a hand that he could not make up his mind to quit it.
Now what did the Empress do? She dispatched the page on
her errand, and then quietly sat down to hold his cards till he
should return.
Lord St. Helens also told me that he and Ségur were with
the Empress in her carriage, when the horses took fright, and
ran furiously down-hill. The danger was excessive. When it
was over the Empress said, "Mon étoile vous a sauvée. "


## p. 12357 (#407) ##########################################

12357
ROMAN POETS OF THE LATER EMPIRE
BY HARRIET WATERS PRESTON
E
ARLY in the second century A. D. the sweet but slender after-
math of Latin pagan poetry began to ripen upon the sunny
hillside where it had pleased the Emperor Hadrian to fix
his most magnificent abode. That many-sided and enigmatical being,
whom the ancient writers can only attempt to describe by accumu
lating pairs of contradictory adjectives-"grave and gay, cordial and
reserved, impulsive and cautious, niggardly and lavish, crafty and
ingenuous," had certainly both a refined taste in poetry and a deli-
cate poetical talent of his own. The ghosts of the light and languid
men of letters whom he rather disdainfully patronized — " with an
air," goes on Spartianus, the author quoted above, "of knowing much
more than they". -seem always to haunt the beautiful oval gymna-
sium of Hadrian's villa at Tivoli, upon whose original marble seats
one may still dream away an idle hour. Here Annius Florus chanted
the brief glories of the rose, or engaged in merry metrical duels with
his imperial master; and the Etruscan Annianus sang in tripping
measure the song of the Falernian vine ("I am the one grape —I am
the grape of Falernum"), or sought to bring again into vogue, by
slightly adapting to the superficial squeamishness of a sophisticated
time, the naïve indecencies of the Fescennine harvest-home and mar-
riage hymns. The taste of the clique, as often happens in a period
of decadence, was for the far-sought and archaic, the curious and the
daintily sensuous, for tender sentimentalism and aromatic pains.
These artificial folk doted upon nature; and the fragments of their
verse which we possess reveal an altogether new sensitiveness to her
beauties, and sympathy with her moods. Whatever they knew of
aspiration or regret seems to have been gathered into one wistful
sigh, and to exhale in the forever inimitable farewell of the Emperor
himself to his own departing soul,—"Animula, blandula, vagula. ”
It is difficult also, upon internal evidence, not to refer to the same
period, and to some member or members of the same circle, the one
fragment of highly impassioned and melodious Latin verse which
has survived the wreckage of a couple of centuries,- the 'Pervigil-
ium Veneris. ' We know that Hadrian restored with great pomp the
worship of Alma Venus; and it seemed as if this dulcet song for the
vigil of her festa must have been inspired by that circumstance. The


## p. 12358 (#408) ##########################################

12358
ROMAN POETS OF THE LATER EMPIRE
connection of ideas is loose, the imagery as vaporous, fluctuating,
and insaissisable as in a Troubadour love-song; but here too the atmo
sphere is voluptuous and the emotion strong. The German critic who
"proves all things," without always holding fast to that which is
good, has both shown conclusively that the 'Pervigilium' does belong
to the time of Hadrian, and that it does not. The fact that the
strongly accented septennarian verse in which it is written, constantly
recalls the long surge of certain Augustinian hymns, may only mean
that the tonic accent really went for more in the delivery of native
Latin verse than is commonly supposed.
A similar uncertainty with regard to its date involves the work of
the best Latin bucolic poet after Virgil; the only one, in fact, whose
compositions will stand any kind of comparison with those of the
master. Calpurnius Siculus wrote eclogues of indisputable though
unequal beauty. He offered the incense of extravagant praise to a
youthful emperor who had lately acceded, whose advent had been
heralded by the appearance of a wonderful comet; whose personal
and mental gifts excited ardent hopes; who built a huge amphitheatre
of wood on or near the Campus Martius, and ransacked the earth for
curious beasts to exhibit therein. All these things have commonly
been thought to refer to Nero, and to the first five years of his reign
(54-59 A. D. ), during which he gave no sign of the vicious and insane
propensities which afterwards made his name a synonym of horror.
It appears, however, by the precise testimony of astronomy, that the
comet of 54 cannot be identified with the one which is described so
very vividly by Calpurnius; while a comet meeting the requirements.
fairly well did appear early in the third century A. D. Of the eleven
eclogues long attributed to the Sicilian, four are now almost univer-
sally assigned to the African, Olympius Aurelius Nemesianus, who
also wrote a poem upon hunting, and who certainly flourished during
the brief reign of the Emperor Carus and his sons,-282-284 A. D.
On the other hand, the recurring refrain of the last of these Neme-
sianian eclogues bears a strong resemblance to that of the 'Pervigil-
ium Veneris,' and may perhaps be considered an argument for the
advanced date of the latter.
Nearly a century more was to pass before the last ardent revival
of Roman patriotism found expression in a poetic revival, during
which the venerable forms of classic Latin verse were once again
handled for a moment with something like the old mastery and
grace. It was the flare of a forlorn hope. The cloud of barbarian
invasion already hung low upon the horizon; and the end of the
Golden City of the past was as plainly announced as is that of the
"golden autumn woodland" on the last still day of October. Mean-
while Roma Aurea had lost but little as yet of her unparalleled


## p. 12359 (#409) ##########################################

ROMAN POETS OF THE LATER EMPIRE
12359
outward magnificence; and it seems to have been more that vision-
ary and bewildering beauty of aspect which fired the imaginations of
her latest pagan devotees, than any deep reverence for her hoary
traditions, or reasoned attachment to her political code and forms.
The three poets of the fourth and early fifth centuries whose names
we instinctively associate - Ausonius, Claudian, and Rutilius-were
all of them, like nearly every other late writer whose name has sur-
vived, of provincial extraction. Two were professed pagan believers,
and eager pagan apologists. The third, who as the tutor of a nom-
inally Christian prince was himself of necessity a nominal Christian,
was the most deeply imbued with pagan feeling, and debauched by
pagan sensualism, of them all.
Decimus Magnus Ausonius-"proud," as he used to say, "of pre-
serving even in his name a reminiscence of Italy"-was born in
Burdigala, now Bordeaux, in 309. He saw the conversion of Con-
stantine, the apostasy and death of Julian, the restoration of so-
called Christian rule in the person of the blunt soldier Jovian. In
369, being already well advanced in years, he was appointed tutor
to Gratian, then a boy of eight, son of the Pannonian general Valen-
tinian I. , who had been proclaimed Roman Emperor three years
before. Valentinian had divided the empire with his brother Valens;
sending the latter to the city of Constantine in the East, while he
himself assumed the sovereignty of the West and fixed his court at
Augusta Trevirorum (Trier or Trèves). Ausonius was educated at
Toulouse, and returned at about the age of twenty-eight to Bor-
deaux, where he had been known as a teacher of rhetoric and
literature for nearly thirty years before he received his court ap-
pointment. In 375 Valentinian I. went back to his own native prov-
ince, to subdue a revolt which had broken out among the Quadi;
and died there suddenly in the month of November of the same
year.
After the accession of his royal pupil at the age of sixteen, Auso-
nius was made prefect of Italy and Africa. Three years later, in 378,
he and his son Hesperius were joint prefects of Gaul; and we find
him consul-designate for 379. Four years later Gratian was murdered
by the revolting Briton Maximus, but not before he had associated
with himself in the empire a Spanish general who was none other
than Theodosius the Great. Maximus managed to hold his own for
four years; and while he reigned at Trèves, Ausonius was in disgrace.
Theodosius restored him to favor; but he was now past seventy, and
soon retired to a fine estate near his native town of Bordeaux, where
he seems to have lived to extreme old age, corresponding with
friends all over the Roman world, and polishing for publication his
early poetical writings.


## p. 12360 (#410) ##########################################

12360
ROMAN POETS OF THE LATER EMPIRE
The most noteworthy of these, the 'Idyll of the Moselle,' is a
description of the poet's journey upon that river from the port of
Taberna (now Bern-Castel) to the Augustan capital. It is full of
keen observation and picturesque description, affording by far the
clearest picture we possess of Roman civilization in the north of
Europe, and enabling us-along with the highly impressive Roman
remains yet existing in and about Trèves - to reconstruct with very
tolerable success the outward features of that civilization.
Ausonius also sketched a certain number of human figures typical
of his time, in the series of epigrams and epitaphs upon his own
kindred which he entitled 'Parentalia'; and in his 'Ordo Nobilium
Orbium' he described, seemingly from personal observation, the six-
teen greatest cities of Europe in his day, beginning with Rome and
ending with Bordeaux. "Her I love," he says of his native place;
"but Rome I worship. "
Officially as a laureate produces a birthday ode - Ausonius com-
posed, soon after his arrival at Valentinian's court, an Easter hymn.
But in his graceful 'Dream of Cupid Crucified' he travesties, appar-
ently with no thought of blasphemy, and in singularly light and
charming verse, the awful central scene of Christian history; and in
his 'Griphus, or riddling disquisition on the properties of the num-
ber three, he points out that there are "three Graces, three Harpies,
three Furies, three prophesying Sibyls, three drinks to a toast, and
three persons in the Trinity. " Ausonius also perpetrated many epi-
grams, most of them insufferably coarse, and a few tame and tasteless
eclogues; and he wrote other idyls besides that of the 'Moselle. '
In the best of these he essays, as Omar Khayyám and Ronsard, Wal-
ler and Herrick, and a hundred more have done since his day, the
everlasting theme of the evanescent rose; adorning it lavishly with
"pathetic fallacies," and giving it a wealth of sentimental develop-
ment which contrasts curiously with the perfectly simple transcrip-
tion of the elementary melody by Florus, two hundred years before.
A far more virile minstrel, many of whose compact and ringing
hexameters need have been disdained neither by Lucretius nor Vir-
gil, was Claudius Claudianus. He was born and brought up at Alex-
andria; and his father, who seems to have lectured on philosophy in
the city of Hypatia something like a generation before her day, was
a native of Asia Minor. But though born to speak Greek, Claudian
wrote, by preference if not always, in Latin. His mature years were
passed in Rome, and he was passionately identified with the last
struggle of the Roman patriciate against the official establishment of
Christianity by Theodosius.
When the great Spaniard died, in 395, each of his two sons, be-
tween whom the kingdom of the world was divided, fell under the
-


## p. 12361 (#411) ##########################################

ROMAN POETS OF THE LATER EMPIRE
12361
dominion of a powerful prime minister. Arcadius, in the East, became
the tool of the infamous Rufinus; Honorius, in the West, was more
happily controlled by his father-in-law, the brilliant Vandal warrior
Stilicho, who was able so long as he lived to hold the other bar-
barians at bay. It was the signal deliverance, under his generalship,
of the Golden City from its first threatened sack by Alaric the Visi-
goth, which rendered Stilicho the hero par excellence of the poet
Claudian. He wrote among other things an epithalamium and four
short Fescennine lays on the marriage of Honorius to Stilicho's
daughter Maria; the praises of the great Vandal leader in two books;
of his consulate in another; of his wife Serena in a fourth; a brill-
iant poem on the Getic war and the defeat of Alaric; invectives
against Rufinus and Eutropius; and three books of a mythological
poem on the rape of Proserpine, parts of which are exceedingly fine.
The literary merits of Claudian were acknowledged by those who
had least sympathy with him in opinion: by Sidonius Apollinaris in
an ode; in the 'Civitas Dei' by St. Augustine, who mourns that so
noble a writer should have been "hostile to the name of Christ”; and
by Orosius, who says that though a superlatively good poet, he was
a most stubborn (pervicacissimus) pagan. After the fall of Stilicho in
403, there is no further mention of Claudian in history; and it seems
natural to conclude that his fate was involved in that of the man
whom he so admired and exalted. The emperors Honorius and
Arcadius, on petition of the Roman Senate, erected in the Forum of
Trajan a statue, of which the inscription, discovered in the fifteenth
century, describes "Claudian the Tribune" as uniting in one person
"the mind of Virgil and the muse of Homer. "
It is a singular fact that the one other militant pagan of this
tragic period whose poetical work has endured should have been as
vehemently hostile to Stilicho as Claudian was eloquent in his
praise. Rutilius Claudius Numatianus was born in Toulouse, but like
Claudian, he lived long in Rome, was at one time prefect of the city,
and was undoubtedly residing there at the time of Stilicho's disgrace
and Claudian's disappearance. He bitterly charges the great Vandal
himself with contempt of the elder gods, in ordering the destruction
of the Sibylline Books; and though this particular accusation has
never been substantiated, it is apparently true that Stilicho did strip
the doors of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus of their golden plating,
and steal from the neck of a venerable statue of Cybele—a horrified
Vestal protesting the while a most ancient and precious necklace,
which he bestowed upon his wife Serena. When in 410 Rome had
finally succumbed to the second assault of Alaric, and the barbarian
hordes had overflowed into Gaul, breaking up the Aurelian Way as
they went, destroying bridges and plundering and laying waste the
―


## p. 12362 (#412) ##########################################

12362
ROMAN POETS OF THE LATER EMPIRE
country,- Rutilius followed them by sea, to save what he might of
his patrimony. It was with heartsick reluctance that he forsook the
city of his impassioned predilection; endeavoring to silence, by yearn.
ing promises of a speedy return, the ominous voice within which
told him that his farewell was a final one.
Seven years later, in 417, we find him beguiling his lingering
exile, in Gaul by the composition in sweetly flowing elegiacs of an
'Itinerarium,' or narrative of his homeward journey. The poem was to
have been a long one, to judge by the first and fragment of a second
book, which are all that we possess; and its easy graphic style
enables one to follow the poet, mile by mile and day by day, from
the port of Ostia, where he embarked, to a point on the eastern
Riviera of the Mediterranean somewhere between Pisa and Genoa.
All the incidents of the voyage are recalled and revivified. All the
objects descried in passing, upon mainland or island,- cities, villas,
fortifications, fishing and salt-making stations; immemorial ruins, like
those of the Etruscan Populonia, whose aspect is almost the same to-
day as when Rutilius beheld it; incipient convents which excite him
to explosions of scorn and wrath at the senseless fanaticism of the
monks; mines of Elba divined rather than seen,- pass before him in
review; and when the white city of Luna, on a spur of the Carrara
Mountains, fades from view, and this fascinating guide-book of the
fifth century comes to an untimely end, we regret its fragmentary
nature, for the moment, almost more than the mutilation of some of
the greater works of antiquity.
One more name remains to be added to the list of Roman poets
whose hearts were irrevocably set upon the past, and who caught
such inspiration as they had from the expiring glories of the pre-
Christian order. Claudian had once said, in his carelessly hyperboli-
cal way, that every individual of the renowned Anician stock would
be found to have sprung from a consul; and Anicius Manlius Seve-
rinus Boëthius, born in 480, or about seventy-five years after Claudian
ceased to be, was certainly himself a consul, the son of a consul, and
the father of two boys who were named honorary consuls in their
mere infancy by Theodoric, on his visit to Rome in 522. The Anicii,
like the remnant in general of the old Roman patriciate, were now
Christian in name, as their sovereigns had long been; but their feel-
ing of race, their habits of mind, their code of conduct,- all their
civic and social traditions, in a word,-were still intensely and im-
penitently pagan. With great wealth, commanding position, and the
broadest culture of his day, Boëthius passed the years of his early
manhood chiefly in his own beautiful library, "ceiled with ivory and
decorated with crystal," now writing a philosophical essay on the
Trinity or a tract against Nestorius, now translating Plato, Aristotle,


## p. 12363 (#413) ##########################################

ROMAN POETS OF THE LATER EMPIRE
12363
or Euclid. But when the hour came suddenly upon him, of cruel
calamity and uttermost reverse, it was in the innate pride and power
of a long-descended and indomitable Roman that he rose to meet his
fate. It was philosophy, not religion, that he summoned to his aid;
and in her mystic sign, rather than that of the Labarum of Constan-
tine, he conquered. A monotheist Boëthius undoubtedly was, and a
devout one; but not, if we are to judge him by his own clear and
candid testimony, a practical follower of the sect of the Nazarenes.
He was a Roman citizen first; a deist afterward; an orthodox Christ-
ian last and least of all: and the book by which he still holds the
memory and affections of men, and still, out of the solitude and
squalor of his dim prison chamber, affords help in trouble to a cer-
tain order of minds among them, is a dialogue, partly in prose, but
interrupted by pieces of noble verse, with a visible embodiment of
the philosophic spirit.
Jealousy of the splendid fortune and exclusive national prejudices
of Boëthius would seem to have been the sole source of the baseless
and malign accusation of treason which poisoned against him the
mind of Theodoric. He was arrested in the sacristy of a church near
Ticinum, the modern Pavia,-imprisoned for a year in a strong
tower, never examined or allowed a hearing, finally tortured and
slain in prison. The 'Consolation of Philosophy,' beloved of Dante
and many another undaunted sufferer, was written there; and the
simplicity and sincerity of expression born of the writer's own des-
perate condition invest its thrilling pages with unique and enduring
power.
Harmeet Tracers Preston
ANNIUS FLORUS
ROSES
NCE more the genius of the laughing spring
Doth roses bring.
A spear-like point amid the under green
Is one day seen,
The next a swelling bud, the next we greet
The rose complete;
Whose race, before another set of sun,
Will all be run.
Gather then, quickly, ere this glory's o'er,
Or nevermore!
ON
Translation of H. W. P.


## p. 12364 (#414) ##########################################

12364
ROMAN POETS OF THE LATER EMPIRE
THE EMPEROR HADRIAN
TO HIS SOUL
IFELING, changeling, darling,
L My body's comrade and guest,—
To what place now wilt betake thee,
Weakling, shivering, starveling,
Nor utter thy wonted jest?
Translation of William Everett.
LITTLE Soul from far away,
Sweet and gay,
While the body's friend and guest,-
Whither now again wilt stray?
Shivering, paling,
Rent thy veiling,
And forgot thy wonted jest?
Translation of L. P. D.
AUTHOR UNKNOWN
From the 'Pervigilium Veneris >
Cras amet qui nunquam amavit; quique amavit cras amet!
SPE
PRING again! The time of singing! All the earth regenerate!
Everywhere the rapt embrace! Each winged creature seeks his
mate.
From thy leafy locks, O forest, shake the drops of bridal dew,
For to-morrow shall the Linker pass thy shadowy by-ways through,
Binding every bower with myrtle. Yea, to-morrow, on her throne,
Set in queenly state, Dione gives the law to all her own.
Cras amet qui nunquam amavit; quique amavit cras amet!
Hark! the goddess calls her nymphs to enter by the myrtle gate.
"Come, my maidens, for the day to Love disarmed is consecrate.
Bidden to fling his burning gear, his quiver bidden to fling away,
So nor brand nor barbèd shaft may wound upon my holiday:
Lo, the Boy among the maidens! Foolish maidens, dull to see
In the helpless, bowless Cupid, still the dread divinity.
Have a care! his limbs are fair, and nakedness his panoply! "


## p. 12365 (#415) ##########################################

ROMAN POETS OF THE LATER EMPIRE
12365
Cras amet qui nunquam amavit; quique amavit cras amet!
"Be my bar," the queen ordains, "with blushing garlands decorate.
When I sit for judgment, let the Graces three upon me wait;
Send me every blossom, Hybla, that thy opulent year doth yield;
Shed thy painted vesture, fair as that of Enna's holy field.
Rally, all ye rural creatures! nymphs of grove and fountain bright,
Dwellers in the darksome woodland, haunters of the lonely height! "
Cras amet qui nunquam amavit; quique amavit cras amet!
This is she, the procreatrix, hers the power, occult, innate,
Whereby soul and sense of man with breath divine are permeate.
Sower of the seed, and breather of the brooding warmth of life,
Hers the universal realm, with universal being rife.
None in air or hidden ocean, or the utmost parts of earth,
But have trodden, at her bidding, the mysterious ways of birth.
Cras amet qui nunquam amavit; quique amavit cras amet!
Hark the lowing herd, their joys in leafy shades who celebrate!
Hark the hoarser calling of the noisy marsh-bird to his mate!
Aye the goddess will have song of all whom she has dowered with
wings;
Wherefore still the soul of Philomela in the poplar sings,
Till the very pulse of love seems beating in the rapturous strain,
And the sister soul of Procne hath forgot her wedded pain.
Who am I, to listen dumbly? Come, my spring, desired so long!
I have angered great Apollo, I have done the Muses wrong.
Come and waken on these voiceless lips of mine the swallow-song!
Translation of H. W. P.
CALPURNIUS SICULUS
THE RUSTIC IN THE AMPHITHEATRE
C
ORYDON—I saw the heaven: high structure of woven timbers
wrought,
Looking down on the very Tarpeian rock, methought;
I saw the gradients vast, and I gained by easy stairs
The place assigned to the common folk, and the women's chairs.
Where these and the men in homely raiment view the show;
For the statelier places under the open sky below


## p. 12366 (#416) ##########################################

12366
ROMAN POETS OF THE LATER EMPIRE
Are all for the knights and the tribunes in their snowy dress.
Even as our sunny valley in the wilderness
Ringed by these forest ranks that aye reclining seem,
Flares to the unbroken chain of hills about its brim,
So there, the arena circuit girds the level ground,
And the massive hemispheres in an oval vast are bound.
But how to tell thee all, which I scarce had eyes to see
In part? For the universal splendor dazzled me.
And there I stood agape, and as rooted to the spot,-
Though little of all the coming wonders then I wot,-
Till an ancient gaffer on my left hand spake and said:
"No marvel if all this glory hath turned thy clownish head,
Who knowest, mayhap, not gold by sight, nor ever saw
Statelier home than a starveling peasant's hut of straw!
Why, hoary-headed and shaky as I stand here to-day,
Having grown old in the city-I know not what to say!
All they have shown us in years before is poor and mean,
Sordid, I tell thee, man, to this bewildering scene!
Look how the gem-set barriers and gilded loggia shine!
And down on the marble wall,- the arena's boundary-line,—
Where are the foremost seats of all, dost thou discern
The cylinders made of beauteous ivory slabs, that turn
Smoothly on polished axles, and suddenly let slip
Claws of the dizzied climber, who tumbles in a heap?
For him too glitter the nets of golden wire hung out,
Each from an ivory tusk,-the arena round about
Whole tusks, and all of a size! " And I, Lycotas, deem
Each one of those tusks was longer than our plowshare beam!
And what shall I tell thee next? All manner of beasts were
-
-:
there,
The elk, even in his own native forest rare;
With snow-white hares, and horrid boars, and bulls galore!
Some without necks, a hideous hump on the shoulders bore;
There were shaggy manes and bearded chins. And others yet
Had rigid dewlaps all with quivering bristles set.
But the strange, wild forest creatures made not all the show:
Seals were there, along with the bear, their constant foe;
And the shapeless being called a river-horse, and born
Of the stream whose overflowings quicken the vernal corn.
Awesome it was indeed, to see in the sandy deep
The wild things out of their subterranean caverns leap,
Or up from the selfsame hollow places grow amain
Living arbutus bowers, in a nimbus of golden rain!
-


## p. 12367 (#417) ##########################################

ROMAN POETS OF THE LATER EMPIRE
12367
Lycotas-Ay, ay!
And thou art a happy fellow, Corydon,
To have seen by grace divine, e'er tremulous eld come on,
This age of ours! And tell, oh, tell me if by chance
Thou hadst a right near view of the godlike countenance;
And how did the dread one look ? What manner of garb
wore he?
I fain would know the aspect on earth of deity!
Corydon - Would I had gone less meanly clad! For then, mayhap,
I had not been balked of a noble sight by a sordid wrap
And a clumsy brooch! But to me, as I stood afar,
He carried, unless these eyes of mine deceivers are,
The part at once of the god of song and the god of war!
Translation of H. W. P.
DECIMUS MAGNUS AUSONIUS
IDYL OF THE ROSES
SP
PRING morning! and in all the saffron air,
The tingling freshness of a day to be!
The breeze that runs before the sun-steeds, ere
They kindle fire, appeared to summon me;
And I went forth by the prim garden beds
To taste that early freshness, and behold
The bending blades dew-frosted, and the heads
Of the tall plants impearled, and heavy-rolled
O'er spreading leaves, the sky-drops crystalline.
Here too were roses, as in Pæstum gay;
Dim through the morning mist I saw them shine,
Save where at intervals a blinding ray
Flashed from a gem that Sol would soon devour!
Verily, one knew not if the rosy Dawn
Borrowed her blushes from the rosy flower,
Or this from her; for that the two had on
The same warm color, the same dewy veil.
Yea, and why not? For flower alike and star
Live under Lady Venus, and exhale,
Mayhap, the self-same fragrance. But afar
The planet's breath is wafted and is spent,
The blossom sheds its fragrance at our side;
Yet still they wear the one habiliment
The Paphian goddess lent them, murex-dyed!
A moment more and the young buds were seen
Bursting their star-like sheathings. One was there


## p. 12368 (#418) ##########################################

12368
ROMAN POETS OF THE LATER EMPIRE
Who sported yet a fairy helm of green;
And one a crimson coronal did wear;
And one was like a stately pyramid
Tipped at the apex with a purple spire;
And one the foldings of her veil undid
From her fair head, as moved by the desire
To number her own petals. Quick, 'tis done!
The smiling casket opens, and we see
The crocus therein hidden from the sun
Dense-seeded. But another flower, ah me!
With flame-like hair afloat upon the breeze
Paled suddenly, of all her glory shorn.
"Alas for the untimely fate of these,
Who age the very hour wherein they're born,"
I cried.