3. SATIRE AND EPIGRAM.--Roman satire, subsequently to Horace, is represented by Persius and Juvenal. Persius (34-62 A.D.) early attached himself to the Stoic philosophy. He was pure in mind, and free from the corrupt taint of an immoral age. Although Lucilius was, to a certain extent, his model, he does not attack vice with the biting severity of the old satirist, nor do we find in his writings the enthusiastic indignation which burns in the verses of Juvenal. His purity of mind and kindliness of heart disinclined him to portray vice in its hideous and loathsome forms, and to indulge in that bitterness of invective which the prevalent enormities of his times deserved. His uprightness and love of virtue are shown by the uncompromising severity with which he rebukes sins of not so deep a dye; and the heart which was capable of being moulded by his example, and influenced by his purity, would have shrunk from the fearful crimes which deform the pages of Juvenal. The greatest defect in Persius, as a satirist, is that the Stoic philosophy in which he was educated rendered him indifferent to the affairs of the world. His contemplative habits led him to criticise, as his favorite subjects, false taste in poetry and empty pretensions to philosophy. Horace mingled in the society of the profligate and considering them as fools, laughed their folly to scorn. Juvenal looked down upon the corruption of the age from the eminence of his virtue, and punished it like an avenging deity. Persius, pure in heart and passionless by education, while he lashes wickedness in the abstract, almost ignores its existence, and shrinks from probing to the bottom the vileness of the human heart. His works comprise six satires, all of which breathe the natural amiability and placid cheerfulness of his temper.