stable trash;" and the Aethiopics of Heliodorus, which he
appears to have finished on Easter-day, 1837, he pronounces "The best of
the Greek Romances, which is not saying much for it."] It was discovered
at Florence, little more than a hundred years ago, by an English envoy.
Nothing so detestable ever came from the Minerva Press. I have read
Theocritus again, and like him better than ever.

As to Latin, I made a heroic attempt on Pliny's Natural History; but I
stuck after getting through about a quarter of it. I have read Ammianus
Marcellinus, the worst written book in ancient Latin. The style would
disgrace a monk of the tenth century; but Marcellinus has many of the
substantial qualities of a good historian. I have gone through the
Augustan history, and much other trash relating to the lower empire;
curious as illustrating the state of society, but utterly worthless as
composition. I have read Statius again and thought him as bad as ever.
I really found only two lines worthy of a great poet in all the Thebais.
They are these. What do you think of my taste?

"Clamorem, bello qualis supremus apertis
Urbibus, aut pelago jam descendente carina."

I am now busy with Quintilian and Lucan, both excellent writers. The
dream of Pompey in the seventh book of the Pharsalia is a very noble
piece of writing. I hardly know an instance in poetry of so great an
effect produced by means so simple. There is something irresistibly
pathetic in the lines

"Qualis erat populi facies, clamorque faventum
Olim cum juvenis--"

and something unspeakably solemn in the sudden turn which follows

"Crastina dira quies--"

There are two passages in Lucan which surpass in eloquence anything
that I know in the Latin language. One is the enumeration of Pompey's
exploits

"Quod si tam sacro dignaris nomine saxum--"

The other is the character which Cato gives of Pompey,

"Civis obit, inquit--"

a pure gem of rhetoric, without one flaw, and, in my opinion, not
very far from historical truth. When I consider that Lucan died at
twenty-six, I cannot help ranking him among the most extraordinary men
that ever lived.

[The following remarks occur at the end of Macaulay's copy of the
Pharsalia

August 30, 1835.

"When Lucan's age is considered, it is impossible not to allow that the
poem is a very extraordinary one; more extraordinary, perhaps, than if
it had been of a higher kind; for it is more common for the imagination
to be in