ies of the day, contains passages of the
highest nobility. His early death terminated a career of infinite
promise.

In the person of D. Junius Juvenalis (57-128 A. D.), commonly called
Juvenal, we behold the foremost satirist in literary history. Born at
Aquinum of humble but comfortably situated parents, he came to Rome as a
rhetorician; though upon discovering his natural bent, turned to
poetical satire. With a fierceness and moral seriousness unprecedented
in literature, Juvenal attacked the darkest vices of his age; writing as
a relentless enemy rather than as a man of the world like Horace, or as
a detached spectator like Persius. The oft repeated accusation that his
minute descriptions of vice shew a morbid interest therein, may fairly
be refuted when one considers the almost unthinkable depths to which the
republic had fallen. Only a tolerant or a secluded observer could avoid
attacking openly and bitterly the evil conditions which obtruded
themselves on every hand; and Juvenal, a genuine Roman of the active and
virtuous old school, was neither tolerant nor secluded. Juvenal wrote
sixteen satires in all, the most famous of which are the third and
tenth, both imitated in modern times with great success by Dr. Johnson.
Contemporary with Juvenal was the Spaniard, M. Valerius Martialis
(43-117 A. D.), commonly called Martial, master of the classic epigram.
Unsurpassed in compact, scintillant wit, his works present a subjective
and familiar picture of that society which Juvenal so bitterly attacked
from without.

We come now upon one of the most distressing spectacles of human
history. The mighty empire of Rome; its morals corrupted through Eastern
influences, its spirit depressed through despotic government, and its
people reduced to mongrel degeneracy through unrestrained immigration
and foreign admixture; suddenly ceases to be an abode of creative
thought, and sinks into a mental lethargy which dries up the very
fountains of art and literature. The Emperor Constantinus, desirous of
embellishing his new capital with the most magnificent decorations, can
find no artist capable of fashioning them; and is obliged to strip
ancient Greece of her choicest sculptures to fulfil his needs. Plainly,
the days of Roman glory are over; and only a few and mainly mediocre
geniuses are to be expected in the years preceding the actual downfall
of Latin civilisation.

It is interesting, in a melancholy way, to trace the course of