Angelo Poliziano continued to write Latin verses. His epigrams, odes, and elegies are valuable both as conveying a knowledge of the persons and tendencies of a memorable period, and as proofs of a versatility and classical spirit to be found in none of his contemporaries and in few subsequent writers. The philologers of the fifteenth century wrote Latin verses with ease; but the only poet among them is Poliziano. His works abound in imitations of all kinds, as do those of the later Roman poets. But Poliziano feels, thinks, and writes like a Roman; if not like a poet of the Augustan age, at least like one of the time of Statius, whom he resembles in more ways than one, having written ‘Sylvæ’ like him. He is more classical than some of those who are included in the ranks of the poets of antiquity. A peculiar grace, fulness of thought, and great variety, give to his poems a charm not often found in modern Latin verses, which seldom display a living individuality. To descriptions of modern life and modern localities, whose very names seem unsuitable to a classic sphere, he can give a native classical colouring, without any apparent effort, yet with the most consummate art. Most remarkable among his writings, by its grace and naturalness and an intermingling of joy and sadness, is the elegy on a bunch of violets given him by a beloved hand; a poem which, in the sixteenth century and in our own, has been an object of study to the choice spirits who wish to acquire pure classic inspiration in a modern form.[40] Poliziano here challenges a comparison with Lorenzo de’ Medici, who treated the same subject in two of his loveliest sonnets. The ‘Sylvæ,’ poems of Angelo’s later years, from 1482 to 1486, added to his reputation, though in happy turns of thought and warmth of feeling they are inferior to many of his smaller pieces. They are four poems in heroic metre, prolusions to his philological lectures at the Florence University, to a chair in which he was appointed on December 23, 1485, the degree of Doctor of Common Law being conferred on him by Archbishop Rinaldo Orsini at his palace, in the presence of Lorenzo’s son Piero.[41] The first of these poems,[42] ‘Manto’ (the name of the Theban prophetess, which was assumed by the Italian city founded by her son), treats of Virgil, his works, his place in literature, his importance for all time.