subjectivity impossible in the case of Greece or any other ancient
nation. Whilst the Hellenes, with their strange beauty-worship and
defective moral ideals, are to be admired and pitied at once, as
luminous but remote phantoms; the Romans, with their greater practical
sense, ancient virtue, and love of law and order, seem like our own
people. It is with personal pride that we read of the valour and
conquests of this mighty race, who used the alphabet we use, spoke and
wrote with but little difference many of the words we speak and write,
and with divine creative power evolved virtually all the forms of law
which govern us today. To the Greek, art and literature were
inextricably involved in daily life and thought; to the Roman, as to us,
they were a separate unit in a many-sided civilisation. Undoubtedly this
circumstance proves the inferiority of the Roman culture to the Greek;
but it is an inferiority shared by our own culture, and therefore a bond
of sympathy.
The race whose genius gave rise to the glories of Rome is, unhappily,
not now in existence. Centuries of devastating wars, and foreign
immigration into Italy, left but few real Latins after the early
Imperial Êra. The original Romans were a blend of closely related
dolichocephalic Mediterranean tribes, whose racial affinities with the
Greeks could not have been very remote, plus a slight Etruscan element
of doubtful classification. The latter stock is an object of much
mystery to ethnologists, being at present described by most authorities
as of the brachycephalic Alpine variety. Many Roman customs and habits
of thought are traceable to this problematical people.
It is a singular circumstance, that classic Latin literature is, save in
the case of satire, almost wholly unrelated to the crude effusions of
the primitive Latins; being borrowed as to form and subject from the
Greeks, at a comparatively late date in Rome's political history. That
this borrowing assisted greatly in Latin cultural advancement, none may
deny; but it is also true that the new Hellenised literature exerted a
malign influence on the nation's ancient austerity, introducing lax
Grecian notions which contributed to moral and material decadence. The
counter-currents, however, were strong; and the virile Roman spirit
shone nobly through the Athenian dress in almost every instance,
imparting to the literature a distinctively national cast, and
displaying the peculiar characteristics of the Italian mind. On the
whole, Roman life moulded Roman literature more than the literature
moulded the life.
The earliest writings of the Latins are, save for a fragment or two,
lost to posterity; though a few of their qualities are known. They were
for the most part crude ballads in an odd "Saturnian" metre copied from
the Etruscans, primitive religious chants and dirges, rough medleys of
comic verse forming the prototype of satire, and awkward "Fescennine"
dialogues or dramatic farces enacted by the lively peasantry. All
doubtless reflected the simple, happy and virtuous, if stern, life of
the home-loving agricultural race which was destined later to conquer
the world. In B. C. 364 the medleys or "SaturÊ" were enacted upon the
Roman stage, the words supplemented by the pantomime and dancing of
Etruscan performers who spoke no Latin. Another early form of dramatic
art was the "fabula Atellana," which was adapted from the neighbouring
tribe of Oscans, and which possessed a simple plot and stock characters.
While this early literature embodied Oscan and Etruscan as well as Latin
elements, it was truly Roman; for the Roman was himself formed of just
such a mixture. All Italy contributed to the Latin stream, but at no
time did any non-Roman dialect rise to the distinction of a real
literature. We have here no parallel for the ∆olic, Ionic, and Doric
phases of Greek literature.
Classical Latin literature dates from the beginning of Rome's free
intercourse with Greece, a thing brought about by the conquest of the
Hellenic colonies in Southern Italy. When Tarentum fell to the Romans in
B. C. 272, there was brought to Rome as a captive and slave a young man
of great attainments, by name Andronicus. His master, M. Livius
Salinator, was quick to perceive his genius, and soon gave him his
liberty, investing him according to custom with his own nomen of Livius,
so that the freedman was afterward known as Livius Andronicus. The
erstwhile slave, having established a school, commenced his literary
career by translating the Odyssey into Latin Saturnian verse for the use
of his pupils. This feat was followed by the translation of a Greek
drama, which was enacted in B. C. 240, and formed the first genuinely
classic piece beheld by the Roman public. The success of Livius
Andronicus was very considerable, and he wrote many more plays, in which
he himself acted, besides attempting lyric and religious poetry. His
work, of which but 41 lines remain in existence, was pronounced inferior
by Cicero; yet must ever be accorded respect as the very commencement of
a great literature.
Latin verse continued to depend largely on Greek models, but in prose
the Romans were more original, and the first celebrated prose writer was
that stern old Greek hater, M. Porcius Cato (234-149 B. C.), who
prepared orations and wrote on history, agriculture, and other subjects.
His style was clear, though by no means perfect, and it is a source of
regret that his historical work, the "Origines," is lost. Other prose
writers, all orators, extending from Cato's time down to the polished
period, are LÊlius, Scipio, the Gracchi, Antonius, Crassus, and the
celebrated Q. Hortensius, early opponent of Cicero.
Satire, that one absolutely native product of Italy, first found
independent expression in C. Lucilius (180-103 B. C.), though the great
Roman inclination toward that form of expression had already found an
outlet in satirical passages in other sorts of writing. There is perhaps
no better weapon for the scourging of vice and folly than this potent
literary embodiment of wit and irony, and certainly no author ever
wielded that weapon more nobly than Lucilius. His Êra was characterised
by great degeneracy, due to Greek influences, and the manner in which he
upheld failing Virtue won him the unmeasured regard of his
contemporaries and successors. Horace, Persius, and Juvenal all owe much
to him, and it is melancholy to reflect that all his work, save a
fragment or two, is lost to the world. Lucilius, sometimes called "The
Father of Satire," was a man of equestrian rank, and fought with Scipio
at Numantia.
With the age of M. Tullius Cicero (106-43 B. C.)--the Golden Age--opens
the period of highest perfection in Roman literature. It is hardly
necessary to describe Cicero himself--his luminous talents have made him
synonymous with the height of Attic elegance in wit, forensic art, and
prose composition. Born of equestrian rank, he was educated with care,
and embarked on his career at the age of twenty-five. His orations
against L. Sergius Catilina during his consulship broke up one of the
most dastardly plots in history, and gained for him the title of "Father
of His Country." Philosophy claimed much of his time, and his delightful
treatises "De Amicitia" and "De Senectute" will be read as long as
friendship endures on earth, or men grow old. Near the end of his life
Cicero, opposing the usurpations of M. Antonius, delivered his
masterpieces of oratory, the "Philippics," modelled after the similar
orations of the Greek Demosthenes against Philip of Macedonia. His
murder, demanded by the vengeful Antonius in the proscription of the
second triumvirate, was the direct result of these Philippics.
Contemporary with Cicero was M. Terentius Varro, styled "most learned of
the Romans," though ungraceful in style. Of his works, embracing many
diverse subjects, only one agricultural treatise survives.
In this survey we need allot but little space to Caius Julius CÊsar,
probably the greatest human being so far to appear on this globe. His
Commentaries on the Gallic and Civil Wars are models of pure and
perspicuous prose, and his other work, voluminous but now lost, was
doubtless of equal merit. At the present time, passages of CÊsar's
Gallic War are of especial interest on account of their allusions to
battles against those perpetual enemies of civilisation, the Germans.
How familiar, for instance, do we find the following passage from Book
Six, describing German notions of honour:
"Latrocinia nullam habent infamiam, quÊ extra fines cujusque civitatis
fiunt, atque ea juventutis exercendÊ ac desidiÊ minuendÊ causa fieri
prÊdicant!"
The next generation of authors fall within what has been termed the
"Augustan Age," the period during which Octavianus, having become
Emperor, encouraged letters to a degree hitherto unknown; not only
personally, but through his famous minister MÊcenas (73-8 B. C.). The
literature of this period is immortal through the genius of Virgil,
Horace, and Ovid, and has made the name "Augustan" an universal synonyme
for classic elegance and urbanity. Thus in our own literary history,
Queen Anne's reign is known as the "Augustan Age" on account of the
brilliant wits and poets then at their zenith. MÊcenas, whose name must
ever typify the ideal of munificent literary patronage, was himself a
scholar and poet, as was indeed Augustus. Both, however, are
overshadowed by the titanic geniuses who gathered around them.
Succeeding the Golden Age, and extending down to the time of the
Antonines, is the so-called "Silver Age" of Latin literature, in which
are included several writers of the highest genius, despite a general
decadence and artificiality of style. In the reign of Tiberius we note
the annalists C. Velleius Paterculus and Valerius Maximus, the medical
writer, A. Cornelius Celsus, and the fabulist PhÊdrus, the latter a
freedman from Thrace who imitated his more celebrated predecessor ∆sop.
The satirist, A. Persius Flaccus (34-62 A. D.), is the first eminent
poet to appear after the death of Ovid. Born at VolaterrÊ of an
equestrian family, carefully reared by his gifted mother, and educated
at Rome by the Stoic philosopher Cornutus, he became famous not only as
a moralist of the greatest power and urbanity, but as one whose life
accorded perfectly with his precepts; a character of unblemished virtue
and delicacy in an age of unprecedented evil. His work, which attacked
only the less repulsive follies of the day, contains passages of the
highest nobility. His early death terminated a career of infinite
promise.
In the person of D. Junius Juvenalis (57-128 A. D.), commonly called
Juvenal, we behold the foremost satirist in literary history. Born at
Aquinum of humble but comfortably situated parents, he came to Rome as a
rhetorician; though upon discovering his natural bent, turned to
poetical satire. With a fierceness and moral seriousness unprecedented
in literature, Juvenal attacked the darkest vices of his age; writing as
a relentless enemy rather than as a man of the world like Horace, or as
a detached spectator like Persius. The oft repeated accusation that his
minute descriptions of vice shew a morbid interest therein, may fairly
be refuted when one considers the almost unthinkable depths to which the
republic had fallen. Only a tolerant or a secluded observer could avoid
attacking openly and bitterly the evil conditions which obtruded
themselves on every hand; and Juvenal, a genuine Roman of the active and
virtuous old school, was neither tolerant nor secluded. Juvenal wrote
sixteen satires in all, the most famous of which are the third and
tenth, both imitated in modern times with great success by Dr. Johnson.
Contemporary with Juvenal was the Spaniard, M. Valerius Martialis
(43-117 A. D.), commonly called Martial, master of the classic epigram.
Unsurpassed in compact, scintillant wit, his works present a subjective
and familiar picture of that society which Juvenal so bitterly attacked
from without.
We come now upon one of the most distressing spectacles of human
history. The mighty empire of Rome; its morals corrupted through Eastern
influences, its spirit depressed through despotic government, and its
people reduced to mongrel degeneracy through unrestrained immigration
and foreign admixture; suddenly ceases to be an abode of creative
thought, and sinks into a mental lethargy which dries up the very
fountains of art and literature. The Emperor Constantinus, desirous of
embellishing his new capital with the most magnificent decorations, can
find no artist capable of fashioning them; and is obliged to strip
ancient Greece of her choicest sculptures to fulfil his needs. Plainly,
the days of Roman glory are over; and only a few and mainly mediocre
geniuses are to be expected in the years preceding the actual downfall
of Latin civilisation.
It is interesting, in a melancholy way, to trace the course of Roman
poetry down to its very close, when it is lost amidst the darkness of
the Middle Ages. Claudius Rutilius Namatianus, who flourished in the 5th
century, was a Gaul, and wrote a very fair piece culled the
"Itinerarium," describing a voyage from Rome to his native province.
Though inferior to his contemporary, Claudian, in genius, Rutilius
excels him in purity of diction and refinement of taste. At this period,
pure Latin was probably confined to the highest circles, the masses
already using that =eloquium vulgare= which later on formed the several
modern Romance Languages; hence Rutilius must have been in a sense a
classical antiquarian.
The end draws near. Compilers, grammarians, critics, commentators, and
encyclopÊdists; summarising the past and quibbling over technical
minutiÊ; are the last survivors of a dying literature from whence
inspiration has already fled. Macrobius, a critic and grammarian of
celebrity, flourished in the fourth or fifth century, and interests us
as being one through knowledge of whose works Samuel Johnson first
attracted notice at Oxford. Priscian, conceded to be one of the
principal grammatical authorities of the Roman world, flourished about
the year 500. Isidorus Hispalensis, Bishop of Seville, grammarian,
historian and theologian, was the most celebrated and influential
literary character of the crumbling Roman fabric, save the philosopher
Boetius and the historian Cassiodorus, and was highly esteemed during
the Middle Ages, of which, indeed, he was as much a part, as he was a
part of expiring classicism.
Now falls the curtain. =Roma fuit.= At the time of Isidorus' death in
A. D. 636, the beginnings of mediÊvalism were fully under way.
Authorship had disappeared in the broader sense; learning, such as it
was, had retired into the monasteries; whilst the populace of the
erstwhile Empire, living side by side with the invading barbarians, no
longer spoke a language justly to be called classical Latin. With the
revival of letters we shall see more Latin writings, but they will not
be Roman; for their authors will have new and strange idioms for their
mother-tongues, and will view life in a somewhat different manner. The
link of continuity will have been irreparably broken, and these revivers
will be Romans only in an artificial and antiquarian sense. He who calls
himself "Pomponius LÊtus" will be found to have been baptised Pomponio
Leto. Classical antiquity, with its simple magnificence, can never
return.
In glancing back over the literature we have examined, we are impressed
by its distinctiveness, despite its Greek form. It is truly
characteristic of the Roman people, and expresses Rome's majestic mind
in a multitude of ways. Law, order, justice, and supremacy; "these
things, O Roman, shall to you be arts!" All through the works of Latin
authors runs this love of fame, power, order, and permanence. Art is not
a prime phase of life or entirely an intrinsic pleasure, but a means of
personal or national glorification; the true Roman poet writes his own
epitaph for posterity, and exults in the lasting celebrity his memory
will receive. Despite his debt to Hellas, he detests the foreign
influence, and can find no term of satirical opprobrium more biting than
"GrÊculus." The sense of rigid virtue, so deficient in the Greek,
blossoms forth nobly in the Roman; making moral satire the greatest of
native growths. Naturally, the Roman mind is most perfectly expressed in
those voluminous works of law, extending all the way down to the
Byzantine age of Justinianus, which have given the modern world its
entire foundation of jurisprudence; but of these, lack of space forbids
us to treat. They are not, strictly speaking, a part of literature
proper.
The influence of the Latin classics upon modern literature has been
tremendous. They are today, and will ever be, vital sources of
inspiration and guidance. Our own most correct age, that of Queen Anne
and the first three Georges, was saturated with their spirit; and there
is scarce a writer of note who does not visibly reflect their immediate
influence. Each classic English author has, after a fashion, his Latin
counterpart. Mr. Pope was a Horace; Dr. Johnson a Juvenal. The early
Elizabethan tragedy was a reincarnation of Seneca, as comedy was of
Plautus. English literature teems with Latin quotations and allusions to
such a degree that no reader can extract full benefit if he have not at
least a superficial knowledge of Roman letters.
Wherefore it is enjoined upon the reader not to neglect cultivation of
this rich field; a field which offers as much of pure interest and
enjoyment of necessary cultural training and wholesome intellectual
discipline.
To Alan Seeger:
Howard Phillips Lovecraft
(In =National Enquirer=)
SEEGER, whose soul, with animated lyre
Wak'd the dull dreamer to a manlier fire;
Whose martial voice, by martial deeds sustain'd,
Denounc'd the age when shameful peace remain'd;
Let thy brave spirit yet among us dwell,
And linger where thy form in valour fell:
Proudly before th' invader's fury mass'd,
Behold thy country's cohorts, rous'd at last!
It was not for thy mortal eye to see
Columbia arm'd for right and liberty;
Thine was the finer heart, that could not stay
To wait for laggards in the vital fray,
And ere the millions felt thy sacred heat,
Thou hadst thy gift to Freedom made complete.
But while thou sleepest in an honour'd grave
Beneath the Gallic sod thou bledst to save,
May thy soul's vision scan the ravag'd plain,
And tell thee that thou didst not fall in vain:
Here, as thou pray'dst, a million men advance,
To prove Columbia one with flaming France,
And heeding now the long-forgotten debt,
Pay with their blood the gen'rous LAFAYETTE!
Thy ringing odes to prophecies are turn'd,
Whilst legions feel the blaze that in thee burn'd.
Not as a lonely stranger dost thou lie,
Thy form forsaken 'neath a foreign sky,
On Gallic tongues thy name forever lives,
First of the mighty host thy country gives:
All that thou dreamt'st in life shall come to be,
And proud Columbia find her voice in thee!
(Alan Seeger fell in the Cause of Civilisation at Belloy-en-Santerre,
July 4, 1916.)
THE UNITED AMATEUR JANUARY 1919
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
1858-1919
Last of the giants, in whose soul shone clear
The sacred torch of greatness and of right,
A stricken world, that cannot boast thy peer,
Mourns o'er thy grave amidst the new-born night.
Sage, seer and statesman, wise in ev'ry art;
First to behold, and first to preach, the truth;
Soldier and patriot, in whose mighty heart
Throbb'd the high valour of eternal youth.
Foremost of citizens and best of chiefs,
Within thy mind no weak inaction lay;
Leal to thy standards, firm in thy beliefs;
As quick to do, as others are to say.
Freeman and gentleman, whose spirit glow'd
With kindness' and with goodness' warmest fire;
To prince and peasant thy broad friendship flow'd,
Each proud to take, and eager to admire.
Within thy book of life each spotless page
Lies open for a world's respecting view;
Thou stand'st the first and purest of our age,
To private, as to public virtue true.
In thee did such transcendent greatness gleam,
That none might grudge thee an Imperial place;
Yet such thy modesty, thou need'st must seem
The leader, not the monarch, of thy race.
Courage and pow'r, to wit and learning join'd,
With energy that sham'd the envious sun;
The ablest, bravest, noblest of mankind--
A Caesar and Aurelius mixt in one.
At thy stern gaze Dishonour bow'd its head;
Oppression slunk ingloriously away;
The virtuous follow'd where thy footsteps led,
And Freedom bless'd thy uncorrupted sway.
When from the East invading Vandals pour'd,
And selfish ignorance restrain'd our hand,
Thy voice was first to bid us draw the sword
To guard our liberties and save our land.
Envy deny'd thee what thy spirit sought,
And held thee from the battle-seething plain;
Yet thy proud blood in filial bodies fought,
And poppies blossom o'er thy QUENTIN slain.
'Twas thine to see the triumph of thy cause;
Thy grateful eyes beheld a world redeem'd;
Would that thy wisdom might have shap'd the laws
Of the new age, and led to heights undream'd!
Yet art thou gone? Will not thy presence cling
Like that of all the great who liv'd before?
Will not new wonders of thy fashioning
Rise from thy words, as potent as of yore?
Absent in flesh, thou with a brighter flame
Shin'st as the beacon of the brave and free;
Thou art our country's soul--our loftiest aim
Is but to honour and to follow thee!
H. P. LOVECRAFT.
January 13, 1919.
THE UNITED AMATEUR MARCH 1919
A Note on Howard P. Lovecraft's Verse
Rheinhart Kleiner
Comment occasioned by the verse of Mr. Howard P. Lovecraft, who is a
more or less frequent contributor to the amateur press, has not
consisted of unmixed praise.
Certain critics have regarded his efforts as too obviously imitative of
a style that has long been discredited. Others have accepted his work
with admiration and have even gone so far as to imitate the couplets
which he produces with such apparent ease.
Between these two opinions there is a critical neutral ground, the
holders of which realise how large an element of conscious parody enters
into many of Mr. Lovecraft's longer and more serious productions, and
who are capable of appreciating the cleverness and literary charm of
these pastoral echoes without being dominated by them to the extent of
indiscriminate praise and second-hand imitation.
Those who would beguile Mr. Lovecraft from his chosen path are probably
unaware of the attitude which he consistently maintains toward hostile
criticism. Mr. Lovecraft contends that it gives him pleasure to write as
the Augustans did, and that those who do not relish his excursions into
classic fields need not follow him. He tries to conciliate no one, and
is content to be his own sole reader! What critic, with these facts
before him, will think it worthwhile to break a lance with the poet?
But even Mr. Lovecraft is willing to be original, at times. He has
written verse of a distinctly modern atmosphere, and where his imagery
is not too obtrusively artificial--according to the modern idea--many of
his quatrains possess genuine poetic value.
Many who cannot read his longer and more ambitious productions find Mr.
Lovecraft's light or humorous verse decidedly refreshing. As a satirist
along familiar lines, particularly those laid down by Butler, Swift and
Pope, he is most himself--paradoxical though it seems. In reading his
satires one cannot help but feel the zest with which the author has
composed them. They are admirable for the way in which they reveal the
depth and intensity of Mr. Lovecraft's convictions, while the wit,
irony, sarcasm and humour to be found in them serve as an indication of
his powers as a controversialist. The almost relentless ferocity of his
satires is constantly relieved by an attendant broad humour which has
the merit of causing the reader to chuckle more than once in the perusal
of some attack levelled against the particular person or policy which
may have incurred Mr. Lovecraft's displeasure.
OFFICIAL REPORTS
DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC CRITICISM
=The Coyote= for October-January is a "Special War Number," dedicated to
Cpl. Raymond Wesley Harrington, the editor's valiant soldier brother,
and having a general martial atmosphere throughout. Among the contents
are two bits of verse by the gallant overseas warrior to whom the issue
is inscribed, both of which speak well for the poetic sentiment of their
heroic author.