ificence, 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
"Graeculus." 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 de