144
Propektius—ovid.
those of Pacuvius and Attius, imitations of Attic dramas, but
were based upon the models of the Alexandrian period; for the
tragedies of what was called the Pleias, were Undoubtedlyofvery
different character from the ancient Attic tragedies ; we may form
a tolerably correct notion of them by looking at the productions
of Seneca, whose pieces are certainly not Roman inventions, but
evidentlyimitations of foreign models, in which the lyric portions
are confined to anapaests, and rarely contain simple strophes of
four lines. IfI had the choice, I would rather have Varius’
poem “ De Morte” than his tragedy.
These and some other men form the illustrious assemblage
of the poets of that period and rarely has so great a number of
such poets existed together in the history of the world. They
were living at the time when Augustus made himself master
of the republic. But now another generation gradually rose
up, which constituted what may be properly called the Au-
gustan age. It began with Propeitius, whose poems are evi-
dently written according to the models of the Alexandrian
period; whereas the earlier lyric poets, with the exception
perhaps of Virgil, who, in parts, followed the poets of Alex-
andria and Pergamus, had taken the ancient Greek lyrics for
their models. It is impossible to determine the year in which
Propertius was born, though it must have been somewhere
about 700. IIe was a native of Umbria, and his great ambi-
tion was to become the Roman Callimachus or Philetas.
After him followed Ovid, who was born in 709, in the
consulship of Hirtius and Pansa. Next to Catullus, he is the
most poetical among the Roman poets. You must not believe
that those poets were isolated phenomena, standing as it were
in the air, and beyond the influence of contemporary events.
Virgil was evidently intimidated; Horace was in a painful
situation, for his heart was with Brutus; Tibullus, a man with
a tender heart, was weighed down by what he saw around
him ; Propertius, too, had been influenced by the occurrences
of his youth and the loss of his property, in consequence of
the establishment of military colonies: his real Gnjoymentoflife
and his ease never returned afterwards. The full and unre-
strained development of Catullus’ genius was the result of the
freedom which he enjoyed as a wealthy young man; his father
must have been one of the most disting-uished persons in the
province of Cisalpine Gaul, and was connected with Caesar by
OVID.--CORNIiLICS SEVERUS.
145
ties of hospitality. Ovid was born with one of the most happy
temperaments that heaven can bestow upon a man. The
calamities of the Perusinian war happened when he was an
infant only three years old. At the time of the battle of
Actium, which restored peace, he was thirteen years old, and
he scarcely heard of the misfortunes which belonged to the
time of his infancy. You yourselves must know how much
influence the recollections of your boyhood have on the
development of your temperaments and dispositions; and my
own disposition is very different from what it would be if
I were now a young man. The absence of all care and
anxiety in Ovid, and his cheerfulness, resulted from the cir-
cumstances amid which he passed his youthful years. He
was born at Sulmo. From his birth his life had been adorned
with everything that wealth and rank could procure, and he
was endowed with all that can adorn a man’s body and soul.
No one can have a greater talent or a greater facility for
writing poetry than Ovid had : in this respect, he may take
rank among the greatest poets. An unbiassed judge must
recognise in all the productions of Schiller a sort of constraint
and labour; while in the early poems of Goethe everything
bears the impress of the greatest ease; the lyric poets of the
Greeks are never laboured, and this is the kind of poetry in which
every one feels at home, and as though the sentiments could
not be expressed in any other way. Horace is much inferior
to Ovid in this respect; there are only a few among his lyric
poems of which we can say that they were composed with
ease and facility. Ovid’s facilitas is manifest everywhere.
His personal faults which are visible also in his poetry, are
well known, and do not require to be mentioned here. The
cause of his unfortunate exile is a mystery which no human
ingenuity will ever clear up, and concerning which an endless
variety of absurd opinions are abroad. He was exiled to Tomi,
and some persons censure him for his broken-heartedness; but
I cannot help, on the contrary, admiring him for the freshness
and activity which he preserved in his fearful exile among
barbarians.
One of his contemporaries was Cornelius Severus, of whom
we have a fragment, which confirms the opinion that he would
have been a great epic poet if he had lived Iongei. He would
have been infinitely superior to Lucan.
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