Ennius owes his fame chiefly to his “Annals,” an historical epic, the work of his old age. Here he wove together the ancient legends and folk-lore of the Romans handed down in Saturnian ballads, with later accredited events, and contemporary history, accomplishing the difficult task of adapting the old Latin to dactylic hexameters. Greek metres henceforth superseded the irregular Saturnian verse, the syllables being arranged according to quantity, and not as before by accent. Moreover, the language was indebted to him not only for this improved versification, but for fresh elements of strength, and grammatical changes for the better. Thus Ennius introduced a new era in Roman literature, laying solid foundations on which his successors built. He is recognized as “the father of Latin song,” and it has been well said: “Whatever in the later poets is most truly Roman in sentiment and morality, appears to be conceived in the spirit of Ennius.” Ennius had a high opinion of his own talents; he deemed himself the Roman Homer, and claimed, in accordance with the Pythagorean doctrines, that the soul of the Greek bard had passed into his frame from the intermediate body of a peacock. And indeed his spirited battle-scenes, his “verses fiery to the heart’s core,” sometimes recalled his sublime prototype; while an air of antiquity breathed in his picturesque style and archaic forms. The poet’s self-praise was echoed by his countrymen. Cicero proudly styled him “our own Ennius;” Virgil enriched the Æneid with his most musical verses; Horace hailed him as “the Calabrian Muse.” The triumphs of Rome and her heroes were often told in the verse that he made familiar; even during the Dark Ages his works remained favorites, until in the thirteenth century they gradually sunk into obscurity. (_Read Sellar’s “Roman Poets of the Republic.”_) The versatile genius of Ennius displayed itself in satires, epigrams, and didactic poems, as well as in epics and dramas. A curious specimen of his composition was his metrical treatise on edible fish, a compilation from a number of existing works on the subject. From the fragments that remain of “the Annals” (600 lines in all) we present one of the most pleasing passages,—that in which the vestal Il’ia tells her elder sister a dream she has had, foreshadowing her great destiny as the mother of Romulus, founder of Rome. ILIA’S DREAM.