“Hard, hard the task, from the low muttered prayer To free the fanes; or find one suppliant there, Who dares to ask but what his state requires, And live to heaven and earth with known desires! Sound sense, integrity, a conscience clear, Are begged aloud, that all at hand may hear; But prayers like these (half whispered, half suppressed) The tongue scarce hazards from the conscious breast:— ‘O that I could my rich old uncle see In funeral pomp!’—’ O that some deity To pots of buried gold would guide my share!’— ‘O that my ward, whom I succeed as heir, Were once at rest! poor child, he lives in pain, And death to him must be accounted gain.’— ‘By wedlock thrice has Nerius swelled his store, And now—is he a widower once more!’” The Second Satire concludes with these noble lines:— “No; let me bring the immortal gods a mind, Where legal and where moral sense are joined With the pure essence; holy thoughts, that dwell In the soul’s most retired and sacred cell; A bosom dyed in honor’s noblest grain, Deep-dyed—with these let me approach the fane, And Heaven will hear the humble prayer I make, Though all my offering be a barley-cake.”—GIFFORD. =Lucius Annæus Seneca=, son of the rhetorician, was born at Cordova B.C. 7, but received his education at Rome under the supervision of his father. From the first he displayed great interest in his studies, and as he grew in years he indulged his natural bent for philosophical researches. So thorough a Pythagorean did he become that he even eschewed animal food, lest he should devour flesh that had once been animated by a human soul. On the remonstrance of his parent, however, he renounced vegetarianism and “lived as others lived” again. At a later period we find him the leader of the Stoics at Rome. Seneca early made his mark as an orator. Hearing him plead eloquently on one occasion in the senate, Caligula, out of jealousy, threatened to have him executed, and was deterred only by the consideration that Seneca had the consumption and was not likely to live for any length of time. But Seneca survived this imperial butcher, to become the instructor and moral guide of the youthful Nero. While Nero submitted to his counsels, Rome enjoyed a halcyon age, long remembered by her people as _the Five Years_. His influence led to the adoption of many salutary measures; it is thought to have been at his instigation that Nero despatched an expedition to explore the sources of the Nile—the first recorded in history. Well would it have been for Rome, had Nero continued to follow the advice of Seneca.