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in old Rome, not myths alone. But Augustus built with elegance, always using the classic style of Greece, as well as the rich and polished marbles with which Greece abounded; and in which he was, perhaps, the first to show the Italians how very rich they were themselves. So it was his famous boast, when he pointed to the sumptuous halls and temples with which he eclipsed the modest merit of preceding builders-'I found Rome of clay, and leave her of marble.'

Augustus was a munificent patron of learning, and so many famous writers flourished in his reign, that the Augustan age proverbially expresses the contemporaneous appearance of great authors in every class of literature. They are all remarkable for a depth of thought, a purity of taste, a terseness and an accuracy of expression hitherto unknown to Roman literature. But one and all-historian, poet, and orator-alike bowed down in adoration to the Emperor's star, and aided him in rivetting fetters upon their country. Henceforth the Roman received from Livy's 'pictured page' such a history of the Republic as the usurper himself might sanction.

From old legends and almost forgotten traditions of their kings, he made the Romans as proud and fond of the absolute monarchs who ruled their ancestors, and quite as really represented them, as Shakspeare has represented and endeared. to us our own Lear and Cymbeline. It was in vain that Livy's inaccuracies, and often his direct falsehoods, were pointed out by honest critics or jealous rivals, henceforth the national vanity must be pampered; it was treason to the majesty of Rome to doubt the eulogies on her heroes. But he dearly bought his favour at court, by the scorn he foully heaped upon the tribunes, and by contempt for the populace, who, after all, were the true patriots who achieved their country's freedom, and to whom it owed its greatness. Hence

forth, at every period, as Dr. Arnold complains, "We will find fabrications of this sort-the peculiar disgrace of Roman history-often imaginative and beautiful, oftener tame and fraudulent, but always playing with facts, and converting them into a wholly different form, for the gratification of individual or national vanity.'

Virgil, too-although in his melodious numbers he, with mournful enthusiasm, describes the pristine heroism of the ancient Romans-devotes his grand epic to the glorification of the usurper, and shadows forth Augustus in his magnificent ideal of the pious Eneas. As for Horace, his light touch and exquisite taste in sketching off and satirizing the follies. and vices of the day, were fully appreciated, and rewarded by the politic Emperor, for he desired to curtail the luxury of the few, and make the masses dependent upon the government itself for all their enjoyments. Horace richly earned the Sabine farm, of which he gives us such a pleasing picture, by his sarcastic sketches of the purse-proud millionaire, fond of parading his wealth, and sordidly striving to augment the heap amidst the smoke, and din, and vexations of city life; as much as by the attractive visions which he raises in strong contrast, of the happy simplicity and peacefulness of the rural retreat, with its sweet mid-day slumbers in the meadow beneath the spreading beech-tree shade, hard by some purling brook. Then the new nobility writhed sensitively under the sneers of the old aristocracy, whose ambition the Emperor jealously watched, and whom he was pleased to see mortified by the courtly poet's playful banter on the childish folly of deriving their distinction only from the deeds of their illustrious ancestors; and from his philosophic warnings against their expecting enjoyment on the thorn-strewed pillow of greatness.

Ovid was still more useful in aiding the Emperor's designs

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against the liberty of his country. The old Etruscan system of Paganism, in its stern simplicity, and in its ascribing Divine authority to the laws and institutions of the Republic, had proved one of its most firm bulwarks. For some time the senators and higher classes had been imbibing a preference for the Greek mythology, as more agreeable to the indolence and luxury produced amongst them by the unbounded opulence which the commercial regulations, and conquests of Augustus had gained for Rome. Ovid, during his long residence at Athens, had acquainted himself with all the romantic legends of the Grecian deities, which his teeming fancy and exquisite poetic taste enabled him to present to his own countrymen in forms so attractive, as instantly to secure them such immense popularity as threw those Etruscan traditions that upheld the Republic into the cold shade of oblivion. But this imperial literary victory was dearly bought; for Ovid's elaborate details of the voluptuous scenes in which his Grecian heroes and heorines had moved, and their sensual lives after they attained deification, produced a general mental defilement which degraded to the lowest pitch of abasement the Roman matron, who hitherto boasted of 'her children as her jewels,' and of her own fidelity to her mate as that of the eagle that soars to her airy nest through storms and sunshine '-defilement so irresistible as to taint the laboured elegance of Propertius, the wit of Horace, and even the refinement of Virgil.

Thus the 'Imperial idea' became thoroughly master of the Roman mind, and those who so lately prided themselves on their passionate love of liberty, bartered it for shows, baths and largesses; and accepted theatres, temples and palaces for conquests and triumphs. Notwithstanding the Emperor's vigorous police regulations, that extirpated the brigands who used to roam about the city with naked daggers in broad

daylight, the luxurious indolence with which he corrupted the populace produced its natural fruit in universal profligacy. Divorces became so numerous, and so scanty was the number of marriages, that the Emperor and his councillors trembled lest the existence even of the Eternal City should be imperilled by the increasing scarceness of its Roman inhabitants. He assembled the citizens in his presence, placing the married men on his right hand, and the unmarried on his left, and great was his dismay at beholding how vastly the latter exceeded the former in number. The Emperor spoke in his most persuasive tones, and urged the youth of Rome to make a venture in their country's cause, and encounter fair brides; and, perceiving his eloquence in vain, he enacted heavy penalties against the crime of celibacy. The unmarried man was to give place in all competitions for office, of high or low degree, to his married adversary; he was to lose his succession to property, and pay a tax to government. The married obtained the special privileges of precedence in the theatres, and, in case of three children being born to him, immunity from taxes, the honours of old age, and many other privileges. For less rewards than these,' said the Emperor, 'would thousands expose their lives, and can they not, then, entice a Roman citizen to arise and marry a wife?' The unmarried trembled, but did not obey; so pleasant was their profligate club-life, so scandalously vile had become the character of the Roman matron. All kinds of fraud were resorted to for eluding the Pappian law which enforced these enactments. Many a man got formally wedded to a harmless child of four or five years old, in order to obtain the civil immunities of a husband, without the burden of an infamous wife; and others privately purchased dispensations and indulgences, which enabled them to defy the informers, who drove a gainful trade by denouncing celibacy.

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Fortunate as Augustus was, during his long reign of fortyfour years, in his public life-fortunate, too, in his admirable ministers Mæcenas and Agrippa-his domestic troubles must have embittered his enjoyments, and made him, even in the midst of his greatness, echo Solomon's exclamation, 'All is vanity! After divorcing his first wife Clodia, he married Scribonia, by whom he had an only daughter, Julia. After repudiating Scribonia, he married Livia, the wife of Tiberius Nero, who was already mother of two sons, Tiberius and Drusus.

The last Empress was an unprincipled and ambitious woman, and employed every means for the exaltation of her own son Tiberius to the throne, and for the destruction of the family of Augustus. She fully succeeded in her fiendish schemes, and yet managed to elude the jealous penetration of the Emperor, and, by indulging his foibles, to maintain over him unlimited power.

When his daughter Julia, after her marriage with Tiberius, became so shameless in depravity that the Emperor was forced to banish her for ever from his presence-her three sons having been murdered, it was believed, by the secret agents of the Empress Livia-he fixed his whole heart on his sister Octavia's amiable son Marcellus, and designated him for his successor. But all Rome was soon plunged in grief at the young prince's premature death. Murmurs not loud but deep accused Livia as his murderess; whilst Octavia fainting at Virgil's recital of her darling's praises, and the hopes so cruelly frustrated, cast the last ray of brightness over the Roman matron. Tiberius then became heir presumptive to the Emperor, an able general who spent his days in hardfought campaigns against the Gauls and Germans. Augustus's death was characteristic of his life. He had been always temperate even to abstinence, and his health had been