Vergil (70-19 B. C.) is one of the six greatest poets of all time. His chief work is inspired by Homer. It is a long epic poem (a volume in itself) describing the wanderings of Aeneas of Troy after the destruction of that city, working up the legend that he eventually reached Italy and founded Rome and the Romans. It is therefore known as _The Aeneid_. Vergil was so polished and conscientious a scholar that at his death he ordered the destruction of the manuscript of the great poem, as he had wished to give three further years to perfecting it before publication. The Emperor overruled his will and gave the masterpiece to the world. Vergil wrote also two series of poems of pastoral life, the _Eclogues_ and the _Georgics_. He has not the greatness of Homer, but his work is so impressive that the Catholic poet Dante, twelve centuries later, took Vergil as his guide through the underworld. The next greatest Latin poet, Horace (65-8 B. C.), is the most difficult to translate, yet in his pure humanity and praise of the common pleasures of life he comes nearest to modern sentiments. Apart from a long poem _On the Art of the Poet_, which is now chiefly read in Latin classes, he wrote a large number of satires, odes and letters which are exquisite poetical appreciations of a life of refined pleasure. It is generally said that he is Epicurean, but the phrase is misleading. Vergil also was a follower of Epicurus--most Roman gentlemen of that age were--yet he is sternly patriotic and speaks of the old Roman gods as if he accepted them. Somewhere about the same time--we are not sure of the date--there lived a Latin poet of distinction named Lucretius who put into a poem called _On the Nature of Things_ the serious philosophy of Epicurus about the world and human life. It is not strictly a literary classic, though a fine poem, but it is memorable as the only complete Epicurean work which we have and the nearest to modern thought. Mr. W. H. Mallock some years ago published a very free but admirable version of it in English verse.