CHAP. VI.

Of the Latin Literature during the reign of Augustus.

CICERO and Virgil are generally considered as belonging to that century called the Golden Age of the Latin literature; but those writers whose genius and talents aimed at perfection in the midst of such furious struggles for liberty, should be distinguished by another character from those whose abilities were ripened in the last years of the peaceable despotism of Augustus: but those periods approached so near to each other, that their dates might be confounded, were it not that the general spirit of their literature, before and after the loss of their liberty, presents to the eye of observation a most striking difference.

Many of the republican customs were continued from habit for some years after the reign of Augustus, the proofs of which are visible in many of their historical writers; but were all recalled by the influence of the court, the greater part of which desiring to please Augustus, and

being situated near him, gave to their writings that turn of character that must be assumed under the reign of a monarch who wishes to conciliate the good opinion of the people without diminishing in any degree the power he is possessed of. This is the only point of analogy which establishes the least relation between the Latin literature and that of the French in the reign of Louis XIV; in other respects, these different periods bear not the least resemblance to each other.

Philosophy, in Rome, preceded poetry : this was inverting the common order of things, and was possibly the principal cause of the perfection of the Latin poets. Emulation was not carried to poetry till the reign of Augustus. The enjoyinent of power and of political interest was generally preferred to any success that might arise purely from literature; and when, by the form of government, men of superior talents were called upon to the exercise of public occupations, it was towards eloquence, history, and philosophy, and to that species of literature which leads. more immediately to the knowledge of men and events, that their labours were directed. But under the dominion of an empire it is quite the reverse; and the only means left, by which men of distinguished talents can acquire fame, is in

the exercise of the fine arts: and if the tyranny should be tempered with lenity, the poets are, in general, too much inclined to illustrate the reign by their masterly pieces of adulation. Nevertheless, Virgil, Horace, and Ovid, though they were all prodigal of their flattery to Augustus; yet their writings discovered more philosophy and reflection than any other of the Latin poets: they were indebted for this advantage in part to the sound sense and solid judgment of the writers who preceded them. Every æra of literature has its epoch of poetry; the beauties of imagery and of harmony have been successively transplanted into many different and reformed languages: but when the poetical talent of a nation unfolds itself as it did at Rome, in the middle of an enlightened century, it is enriched by its knowledge and experience.

The poets, in the reign of Augustus, adopted in most of their compositions the Epicurean system; which is favourable to poetry, and appears to give a degree of consequence to indolence, a luxury to philosophy, and in a manner to dignify even slavery. This system is immoral, but it is not servile: it gives up liberty e every other good that requires any effort to keep possession of; but it does not make despotism a

principle, nor obedience to resemble fanaticism, as the flatterers of Louis XIV. were desirous of doing.

The idea of death, which Horace constantly intermixed with the most smiling images, established a kind of philosophical equality by the side of flattery; but it was not from a virtuous sensibility that the poets portrayed the brevity of existence and the certain destiny of man: if they had been really capable of profound reflection, they would rather have opposed the tyranny than have celebrated the usurper. But life thus passed, is but a representation of the smooth gliding streams that refreshed their burning climate, and we are almost inclined to forgive their omission of morals and of liberty, when we see them inattentive to time and existence.

But notwithstanding the great effeminacy of character so remarkably prevalent in most of the poets during the reign of Augustus, there are found in them a number of reflected beauties: they borrowed from the Greeks great part of their poetical inventions, which the moderns have imitated in their turn: and it seems as if they would ever remain the standard of the art. But whatever is tender or philosophical in the Latin poets, may be ascribed entirely to themselves.

The love of a pastoral life, which inspired so many beautiful ideas, assumes a different character with the Romans to that which was understood by the Greeks: these nations were both equally pleased with the same imagery, which was suitable to a similar climate. They each invoked the freshness bestowed by Nature, and welcomed with delight the shade that skreened them from a vertical sun: but the Romans required, to heighten the charms of rural life, a shelter that could defend them from tyranny; they retired from the bustle of inhabited cities, to repose their minds after the painful emotions they had been subjected to, and to lose sight, if possible, of the yoke which goaded and degraded them. Such a measure was favourable to moral reflections; they were interspersed with their descriptive poetry: and we imagine we perceive a tender regret, and a melancholy remembrance in all the compositions of that period. This circumstance, without doubt, is the cause why we feel a greater degree of interest for the Romans than for the Greeks. The Greeks lived as it were with futurity in view; but the Romans, like us, loved to carry their reflections to the past. As long as the republic existed, the Romans discovered a delicacy in their affection for the female