conquerors imported into their own
country the valuable productions of the Greek language, and the first
essay of Roman genius was in dramatic composition. Livius Andronicus,
who flourished about 240 years before the Christian aera, formed the
Fescennine verses into a kind of regular drama, upon the model of the
Greeks. He was followed some time after by Ennius, who, besides dramatic
and other compositions, (60) wrote the annals of the Roman Republic in
heroic verse. His style, like that of Andronicus, was rough and
unpolished, in conformity to the language of those times; but for
grandeur of sentiment and energy of expression, he was admired by the
greatest poets in the subsequent ages. Other writers of distinguished
reputation in the dramatic department were Naevius, Pacuvius, Plautus,
Afranius, Caecilius, Terence, Accius, etc. Accius and Pacuvius are
mentioned by Quintilian as writers of extraordinary merit. Of
twenty-five comedies written by Plautus, the number transmitted to
posterity is nineteen; and of a hundred and eight which Terence is said to
have translated from Menander, there now remain only six. Excepting a few
inconsiderable fragments, the writings of all the other authors have
perished. The early period of Roman literature was distinguished for the
introduction of satire by Lucilius, an author celebrated for writing with
remarkable ease, but whose compositions, in the opinion of Horace, though
Quintilian thinks otherwise, were debased with a mixture of feculency.
Whatever may have been their merit, they also have perished, with the
works of a number of orators, who adorned the advancing state of letters
in the Roman Republic. It is observable, that during this whole period,
of near two centuries and a half, there appeared not one historian of
eminence sufficient to preserve his name from oblivion.

Julius Caesar himself is one of the most eminent writers of the age in
which he lived. His commentaries on the Gallic and Civil Wars are
written with a purity, precision, and perspicuity, which command
approbation. They are elegant without affectation, and beautiful without
ornament. Of the two books which he composed on Analogy, and those under
the title of Anti-Cato, scarcely any fragment is preserved; but we may be
assured of the justness of the observations on language, which were made
by an author so much distinguished by the excellence of his own
compositions. His poem entitled The Journey,