"correctness" of Queen Anne's reign. Horace Walpole is half a Frenchman, Hume imitates Montesquieu's cold lucidity, Gibbon adapts Bossuet's majestic periods to other purposes. On the other hand Voltaire takes ideas from Locke, but his form is always intensely personal and inimitably French. After the 16th century English literature, as a whole, is refractory to external influence. Waves of enthusiasm pass over England--for Rousseau, for Goethe--but leave no abiding trace on English literature. During the latter half of the 18th century France resumed something of her old literary supremacy; the literatures of Italy and Spain at this period are purely derivative, and French influence was extended still further on the continent as the result of the Romantic movement. Since that impulse was exhausted, literature everywhere has been in a state of flux: it is less national, and yet fails to be cosmopolitan. All writers of importance, and many of no importance, are translated into other European languages; the quick succession of diverse and violent impressions has confused the scheme of literature. Literature suffers likewise from the competition of the newspaper press, and as the press has multiplied it has grown less literary. The diversities of modern interests, the want of leisure for concentrated thought, suggest that literature may become once more the pleasure of a small caste. But the desire for the one just form which always inspires the literary artist visits most men sometimes, and it cannot be doubted that literature will continue to accommodate itself to new conditions. (J. F.-K.) LITERNUM, an ancient town of Campania, Italy, on the low sandy coast between Cumae and the mouth of the Volturnus. It was probably once dependent on Cumae. In 194 B.C. it became a Roman colony. It is mainly famous as the residence of the elder Scipio, who withdrew from Rome and died here. His tomb and villa are described by Seneca. Augustus is said to have conducted here a colony of veterans,[1] but the place never had any great importance, and the lagoons behind it made it unhealthy, though the construction of the Via Domitiana through it must have made it a posting station. It ceased to exist in the 8th century. No remains are visible. See J. Beloch, _Campanien_, ed. ii. (Breslau, 1890), 377. FOOTNOTE: [1] Mommsen in C.I.L. x. 343 does not accept this statement, but an inscription found in 1885 confirms it.