The Augustan age which followed, though it produced a constellation of poets who shed glory upon the throne before which they prostrated themselves in abject homage, like the courtiers of Louis XIV., still was unfavorable to prose composition,—­to history as well as eloquence.  Of the historians of that age, Livy, born 59 B.C., is the only one whose writings are known to us, in the shape of some fragments of his history.  He was a man of distinction at court, and had a great literary reputation,—­so great that a Spaniard travelled from Cadiz on purpose to see him.  Most of the great historians of the world have occupied places of honor and rank, which were given to them not as prizes for literary successes, but for the experience, knowledge, and culture which high social position and ample means secure.  Herodotus lived in courts; Thucydides was a great general, as also was Xenophon; Caesar was the first man of his times; Sallust was praetor and governor; Livy was tutor to Claudius; Tacitus was praetor and consul; Eusebius was bishop and favorite of Constantine; Ammianus was the friend of the Emperor Julian; Gregory of Tours was one of the leading prelates of the West; Froissart attended in person, as a man of rank, the military expeditions of his day; Clarendon was Lord Chancellor; Burnet was a bishop and favorite of William III.; Thiers and Guizot both were prime ministers; while Gibbon, Hume, Robertson, Macaulay, Grote, Milman, Froude, Neander, Niebuhr, Mueller, Dahlman, Buckle, Prescott, Irving, Bancroft, Motley, have all been men of wealth or position.  Nor do I remember a single illustrious historian who has been poor and neglected.

The ancients regarded Livy as the greatest of historians,—­an opinion not indorsed by modern critics, on account of his inaccuracies.  But his narrative is always interesting, and his language pure.  He did not sift evidence like Grote, nor generalize like Gibbon; but like Voltaire and Macaulay, he was an artist in style, and possessed undoubted genius.  His Annals are comprised in one hundred and forty-two books, extending from the foundation of the city to the death of Drusus, 9 B.C., of which only thirty-five have come down to us,—­an impressive commentary on the vandalism of the Middle Ages and the ignorance of the monks who could not preserve so great a treasure.  “His story flows in a calm, clear, sparkling current, with every charm which simplicity and ease can give.”  He delineates character with great clearness and power; his speeches are noble rhetorical compositions; his sentences are rhythmical cadences.  Livy was not a critical historian like Herodotus, for he took his materials second-hand, and was ignorant of geography, nor did he write with the exalted ideal of Thucydides; but as a painter of beautiful forms, which only a rich imagination could conjure, he is unrivalled in the history of literature.  Moreover, he was honest and sound in heart, and was just and impartial in reference to those facts with which he was conversant.