Amongst the poets of the Augustan age, whose writings were much admired by their contemporaries, but have not stood the searching test of time, was Valgius Rufus. Of his life no records remain; but he probably belonged to that class of authors of whom Pliny says, “Quibus nos in vehiculo, in balneo, inter cœnam, oblectamus otium temporis.”[691] They were light and pleasing, calculated to amuse an idle half-hour, or to relieve the tedium of a journey. They answered the purpose of the railroad literature of our own days. These writers had a correct taste, and a critical discernment of poetical beauty, rather than a genius for poetical composition. Probably their personal characters had something to do with their reputation: they were members of a literary _coterie_; they lived, thought, and felt together; they defended each other against malicious criticism; and the bonds of friendship by which they were united tempted the greater poets to regard their effusions with kind but undue partiality. Valgius Rufus was a great favourite of Horace,[692] but only a few short, isolated passages are extant of his poems.[693] Quintilian[694] attributes to him a translation of the rhetorical precepts of Apollodorus. Seneca[695] mentions him by name: Pliny[696] praises his erudition. The testimony borne to his transcendent merits as an epic poet, in the Panegyric of Messala, need scarcely be trusted, because it is almost certain that this piece is spurious.[697] VARIUS. Of L. Varius Rufus also, who was one of the constant guests at Mæcenas’ table, scarcely any thing is known. Horace[698] tells us that he was unequalled in epic song, when Virgil had as yet only turned his attention to rustic poetry. The high praise bestowed upon his Thyestes by Quintilian has already been mentioned. To him, together with Virgil, we have seen that Horace owed his introduction to Augustus, and all three were of the party which accompanied Mæcenas to Brundisium. The titles of two of his poems are extant,—I. _De Morte_; II. _Panegyric on Augustus_. Of the former, four fragments are preserved by Macrobius, all of which Virgil has deemed worthy of imitation. Of the latter, two lines, containing a delicate compliment to Augustus, are extant, which Horace has introduced entire into one of his Epistles.[699] The passage by no means satisfies modern taste, which has been formed by the hexametrical rhythm of Virgil; but Seneca praises his style as free from the usual faults of Latin declamatory poetry—mere bombast on the one hand, and excessive minuteness on the other. Niebuhr conjectures that his Thyestes was too declamatory; and that, like the later Roman tragedies of Seneca and others, it was not an imitation of the Attic drama, but of the degenerate tragedies belonging to the Alexandrian period. C. CORNELIUS GALLUS (BORN B. C. 66 or 69.)