strain, which show how nobly he might have followed in the steps of the Greeks, had he preferred high poetic fame to mere popular applause. The following, "On Demetrius," is an example of his better style (Book I. 102, translated by Elphinston, with slight alteration):

That hand, to all my labours once so true,

Which I so loved, and which the Cæsars knew,
Forsook the dear Demetrius' blooming prime;
Three lustres and four harvests all his time.
That not to Styx a slave he should descend,
When fell contagion urg'd him to his end,
We cheer'd with all our rights the pining boy;
Would that we could give him life to enjoy!
He tasted his reward, his patron blest,
And went a freeman to eternal rest.

But in the fifteen hundred epigrams which Martial has left, the gems are few and far between. They lie hid amid a mass of servility, scurrility, indecency, and puerility. Examples of the worst kind cannot be given, but the following will serve to show the character of a large portion of his writings. The first is a specimen of his gross flattery of Domitian (Book VIII. 54, translated by Elphinston):

Much tho' thou still bestow, and promise more;

Tho' lord of leaders, of thyself, thou be:
The people thee, not for rewards adore;

But the rewards adore for love of thee.

In the following, on Gellia, we see his scurrilous personality (Book I. 34, translated by Hay):

Her father dead!-Alone, no grief she knows;
Th' obedient tear at every visit flows.

No mourner he, who must with praise be fee'd!
But he who mourns in secret, mourns indeed!

Puerility reaches its climax in the two next (Book I. 29, translated by Relph):

Of yesterday's debauch he smells, you say:

"Tis false-Acerra plied it till to-day.

(Book I. 101, translated by Graves):

Tho' papa and mamma, my dear,
So prettily you call,

Yet you, methinks, yourself appear
The grand-mamma of all.

As the father of the modern pointed epigram, Martial holds a place which gives him renown. The Romans required stronger food than the simple Greeks, and to point his verse with a sting, provided it did not touch a worthless emperor or a pampered favourite, Martial found to be the most effectual way to gain by his muse. He declared, indeed, that he was careful

To lash the vices, but the persons spare;

but his practice was the very reverse of this: to vice he was lenient, but he failed not to lash those whom he dared to insult. His writings display no principle. For truth and purity he had no care. To ingratiate himself with a patron by flattery, and to punish by pointed satire those who offended him, satisfied his aspirations; and thus his talents, which were undoubtedly great, were employed for the most unworthy objects, and lost to all noble uses.

The pointed and satirical form of Martial's epigrams may be considered the chief cause of the influence which he has exercised over modern writers. The wit of a point is attractive, and if the body of an epigram be never so wanting in wisdom, it passes current for the humour of its close. In satire there is a fascination which few can resist, and which gives pleasure in proportion to its keenness. The polished man of the world enjoys the delicate sarcasm of the finished poet. The unthinking multitude applaud the coarse humour of the inferior satirist. The subjects, too, of Martial's epigrams insured him imitators amongst a large class of writers. Servility towards the wealthy and the powerful will exist so long as flattery is pleasant to their ears; and that will be until the rich man is never a fool, and the fool is never conceited. Scurrility will give pleasure to the sordid and the base so long as envy, hatred, and malice hold their place in the human heart; and that will be until epigrams shall be no more. Puerility will delight the brainless and the idle, so long as witless men

measure wit by their own standard, and idle men seek amusement without any effort of the intellect; and that will be until science be as God to produce wisdom, and knowledge be as pleasant to the indolent as wine to the drunkard.

But, notwithstanding these causes for the influence which Martial has exercised, it is possible that, had higher models been before Modern Epigrammatists, they might have chosen the good and refused the evil. But they had not the choice. The Greek Anthology was not only unread, but was well-nigh unknown. At the period at which Martial's manner most strongly affected epigrammatic literature, a great part of the Anthology, as it now exists in the "Analecta" of Brunck, and the "Anthologia" of Jacobs, was yet in manuscript, hidden away in various libraries throughout Europe, while that portion which was in print was too scarce to be generally known. The study of Greek, too, was much neglected, and from many of those who could read Martial, the epigrams of the Greeks were locked up in an unknown tongue. Thus it came to pass that, from want of acquaintance with the purest style of epigram, Martial was looked upon as the true model, and was considered, as he is still sometimes called, the greatest Epigrammatist who has ever lived; a truth, if quantity and not quality be the test of his greatness.

The effect of Martial's influence on our epigrammatic literature has been most disastrous. The pithy fulness, the elegant simplicity, the graceful turn, the sound sense, the guileless humour, and the inoffensive point, which characterized the epigram in its ancient home among the Greeks, has been exchanged for the redundant wordiness, the coarse conceit, the rough satire, the puerile imbecility, the unchaste wit, and the stinging point of the Roman school. The character of the epigram has been so lowered, that some of our critics have not hesitated to speak of it as unworthy of a place in our literature, and it has consequently fallen into disrepute, and has been considered as fit only to be the vehicle for party malice and private spite. It is only necessary to take up any of the popular collections of the last century, to be convinced how fallen was then the epigram from its high estate; how

lost was its true character; how undignified the form it had assumed. Happily there have never been wanting some Epigrammatists, who scorned to imitate either the grossness or the folly of Martial, who copied him in his virtues and not in his vices; and a few, too, who knew and appreciated the Greek models, and studied to reproduce their beauties. Of late years the imperfections of Martial have been more clearly discerned, and it may be hoped that his deleterious influence as a pattern for epigram writers is no longer paramount.

We now come to the period when the Gothic arms had driven literature from the West; and when at the Byzantine court the last uncertain sounds of the Grecian lyre were struggling with victorious barbarism. But whilst

darkness for centuries hung over Europe, and the light of learning was so feeble that it was lost in the gloom, far away in the East the Muses were courted, and monarchs and courtiers vied for the bays. Epigrammatic literature flourished among the votaries of Mahomet. Arabian poetry is little known in England, and even translations are rarely to be found. At the close of the last century, however, Mr. Carlyle, Cambridge Professor of Arabic, published a volume of great interest, "Specimens of Arabian Poetry from the Earliest Time to the Extinction of the Khaliphat." This work contains translations of Arabian poetry of various kinds, but a very considerable number of the pieces are of an epigrammatic character, not in the style of the Roman, but rather approximating towards the Greek, epigram, though a few are more humorous than was usual among the earlier Greek writers, and the majority are longer than the terse inscriptions of that people. The following example displays the character of many of these Arabian pieces. The author is Abou Teman, who was born in the year of the Hegira 190; i.e., A.D. 812. He addresses his mistress, who had found fault with him for profusion ("Specimens of Arabian Poetry," 1796, 64):

Ungenerous and mistaken maid,

To scorn me thus because I'm poor!
Canst thou a liberal hand upbraid

For dealing round some worthless ore?

To spare's the wish of little souls,
The great but gather to bestow;
Yon current down the mountain rolls,
And stagnates in the swamp below.

Turning again to the West, the revival of learning in Europe, and the resumption of epigram-writing, claims attention. The commencement of the fifteenth century is the period generally assigned as that at which the first marked attempts were made to dispel the darkness, and to rekindle the flame of literature. But, as in all revivals, it is usually one man who takes the lead, and directs the efforts of others, so, at this time, Lorenzo de Medici, the munificent patron of men of letters, stands prominently forward as the centre whence emanated the exertions for the restoration of learning. Succeeding to the chief place in the Republic of Florence, at the death of his father in 1469, Lorenzo the Magnificent bent all his energies to his favourite project-the revival of literature. He it was who employed learned men to discover and purchase the valuable relics of antiquity; who despatched John Lascaris (the editor of the first printed edition of the Greek Anthology) into the East to collect manuscripts; and who directed the labours of Italian scholars in collating the remains of ancient authors, for the purpose of disseminating them by means of the newly-invented art of printing. He was greatly aided in his efforts by learned Greeks, who, at the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453, had taken refuge in Italy, and who gladly resorted to a city which was graced by one so noble in rank and in mind as Lorenzo. The result was the establishment of an academy at Florence for the cultivation of the Greek language and literature, under the direction of Greeks and Italians, by means of which the study of that tongue was extended throughout a great part of Europe, though it was afterwards unfortunately allowed to fall much into desuetude.

From this period may be dated the restoration of Latin epigrammatic literature. But, though Latin was the language, the ancient Latin writers were not the models. The Anthology of John Lascaris, and the study of the Greek