Propertius, the contemporary of Tibullus, born 51 B.C., was on the contrary the most eager of all the flatterers of Augustus,—­a man of wit and pleasure, whose object of idolatry was Cynthia, a poetess and a courtesan.  He was an imitator of the Greeks, but had a great contemporary fame.  He showed much warmth of passion, but never soared into the sublime heights of poetry, like his rival.

Such were among the great elegiac poets of Rome, who were generally devoted to the delineation of the passion of love.  The older English poets resembled them in this respect, but none of them have risen to such lofty heights as the later ones,—­for instance, Wordsworth and Tennyson.  It is in lyric poetry that the moderns have chiefly excelled the ancients, in variety, in elevation of sentiment, and in imagination.  The grandeur and originality of the ancients were displayed rather in epic and dramatic poetry.

In satire the Romans transcended both the Greeks and the moderns.  Satire arose with Lucilius, 148 B.C., in the time of Marius, an age when freedom of speech was tolerated.  Horace was the first to gain immortality in this department.  Next Persius comes, born 34 A.D., the friend of Lucian and Seneca in the time of Nero, who painted the vices of his age as it was passing to that degradation which marked the reign of Domitian, when Juvenal appeared.  The latter, disdaining fear, boldly set forth the abominations of the times, and struck without distinction all who departed from duty and conscience.  There is nothing in any language which equals the fire, the intensity, and the bitterness of Juvenal, not even the invectives of Swift and Pope.  But he flourished during the decline of literature, and had neither the taste nor the elegance of the Augustan writers.  He was born 60 A.D., the son of a freedman, and was the contemporary of Martial.  He was banished by Domitian on account of a lampoon against a favorite dancer, but under the reign of Nerva he returned to Rome, and the imperial tyranny was the subject of his bitterest denunciation next to the degradation of public morals.  His great rival in satire was Horace, who laughed at follies; but Juvenal, more austere, exaggerated and denounced them.  His sarcasms on women have never been equalled in severity, and we cannot but hope that they were unjust.  From an historical point of view, as a delineation of the manners of his age, his satires are priceless, even like the epigrams of Martial.  This uncompromising poet, not pliant and easy like Horace, animadverted like an incorruptible censor on the vices which were undermining the moral health and preparing the way for violence; on the hypocrisy of philosophers and the cruelty of tyrants; on the frivolity of women and the debauchery of men.  He discoursed on the vanity of human wishes with the moral wisdom of Dr. Johnson, and urged self-improvement like Socrates and Epictetus.

I might speak of other celebrated poets,—­of Lucan, of Martial, of Petronius; but I only wish to show that the great poets of antiquity, both Greek and Roman, have never been surpassed in genius, in taste, and in art, and that few were ever more honored in their lifetime by appreciating admirers,—­showing the advanced state of civilization which was reached in those classic countries in everything pertaining to the realm of thought and art.