y
graceful, but they have no strong ardor, no deep tenderness, nor even
much light and joyous gayety; but as works of refined art, of the most
skillful felicities of language and of measure, of translucent
expression, and of agreeable images embodied in words which imprint
themselves indelibly on the memory, they are unrivaled. In the _Satires_
of Horace there is none of the lofty moral indignation, the fierce
vehemence of invective, which characterized the later satirists. It is
the folly rather than the wickedness of vice which he touches with such
playful skill. In the _Epodes_ there is bitterness provoked, it should
seem, by some personal hatred or sense of injury; but the _Epistles_ are
the most perfect of the Horatian poetry, the poetry of manners and
society, the beauty of which consists in its common sense and practical
wisdom. The Epistles of Horace are, with the Poem of Lucretius, the
Georgics of Virgil, and, perhaps, the Satires of Juvenal, the most
perfect and the most original form of Roman verse. The _Art of Poetry_
was probably intended to dissuade one of the younger Pisos from devoting
himself to poetry, for which he had little genius, or, at least, to
suggest the difficulties of attaining to perfection.

Three celebrated Elegiac poets--Tibullus, Propertius, and Ovid--also
belong to the Augustan age.

ALBIUS TIBULLUS was of equestrian family, and possessed an hereditary
estate between Tibur and Praeneste. His great patron was Messala, whom he
accompanied in B.C. 31 into Aquitania, whither Messala had been sent by
Augustus to suppress a formidable insurrection which had broken out in
this province. In the following year (B.C. 30) Messala, having pacified
Gaul, was sent into the East. Tibullus set out in his company, but was
taken ill, and obliged to remain in Corcyra, from whence he returned to
Rome. So ceased the active life of Tibullus. He died at an early age
soon after Virgil. The poetry of his contemporaries shows Tibullus as a
gentle and singularly amiable man. To Horace especially he was an object
of warm attachment. His Elegies, which are exquisite small poems,
celebrate the beauty and cruelty of his mistresses.

SEXTUS AURELIUS PROPERTIUS was a native of Umbria, and was born about
B.C. 51. He was deprived of his paternal estate by an agrarian division,
probably that in B.C. 33, after the Sicilian War. He began to write
poetry at a very early age, and the merit of his productions soon
attracted