The genius of the ancients was displayed in prose composition as well as in poetry, although perfection was not so soon attained.  The poets were the great creators of the languages of antiquity.  It was not until they had produced their immortal works that the languages were sufficiently softened and refined to admit of great beauty in prose.  But prose requires art as well as poetry.  There is an artistic rhythm in the writings of the classical authors—­like those of Cicero, Herodotus, and Thucydides—­as marked as in the beautiful measure of Homer and Virgil.  Plato did not write poetry, but his prose is as “musical as Apollo’s lyre.”  Burke and Macaulay are as great artists in style as Tennyson himself.  And it is seldom that men, either in ancient or modern times, have been distinguished for both kinds of composition, although Voltaire, Schiller, Milton, Swift, and Scott are among the exceptions.  Cicero, the greatest prose writer of antiquity, produced in poetry only a single inferior work, which was laughed at by his contemporaries.  Bacon, with all his affluence of thought, vigor of imagination, and command of language, could not write poetry any easier than Pope could write prose,—­although it is asserted by some modern writers, of no great reputation, that Bacon wrote Shakspeare’s plays.

All sorts of prose compositions were carried to perfection by both Greeks and Romans, in history, in criticism, in philosophy, in oratory, in epistles.

The earliest great prose writer among the Greeks was Herodotus, 484 B.C., from which we may infer that History was the first form of prose composition to attain development.  But Herodotus was not born until Aeschylus had gained a prize for tragedy, nor for more than two hundred years after Simonides the lyric poet nourished, and probably five or six hundred years after Homer sang his immortal epics; yet though two thousand years and more have passed since he wrote, the style of this great “Father of History” is admired by every critic, while his history as a work of art is still a study and a marvel.  It is difficult to understand why no work in prose anterior to Herodotus is worthy of note, since the Greeks had attained a high civilization two hundred years before he appeared, and the language had reached a high point of development under Homer for more than five hundred years.  The History of Herodotus was probably written in the decline of life, when his mind was enriched with great attainments in all the varied learning of his age, and when he had conversed with most of the celebrated men of the various countries he had visited.  It pertains chiefly to the wars of the Greeks with the Persians; but in his frequent episodes, which do not impair the unity of the work, he is led to speak of the manners and customs of the Oriental nations.  It was once the fashion to speak of Herodotus as a credulous man, who embodied the most improbable though interesting stories.  But now it is believed