The better Roman prose begins after Theodosius. Ammianus Marcellinus, an ingenious writer although not always correct, still belongs to the reign of Theodosius. He is particularly honest and high-minded: he had himself served as a soldier, and he is what a historian ought always to be, a man of experience. From Alexander Severus down to Diocletian, no one had written history in Latin: in the reign of the latter, at the beginning of the fourth century, were what are called the _Scriptores Historiæ Augustæ_, who are beneath criticism. From thence again, down to Theodosius, there is not one. Ammianus is a Greek of Antioch, and one sees at once that he is a foreigner.—The rhetoricians still continue: Marius Victorinus, bad as he is, has made an epoch in his time. Of the school of the rhetoricians, the præfect Symmachus remains to be mentioned, whose letters are altogether got up after the pattern of those of Pliny, and are without any historical substance. His Panegyric also is of a school which reminds one of Pliny. Now, on the whole, the Panegyrists get into vogue, such as Eumenius, Pacatus, and others;—a wretched kind indeed of literature; people were no more ashamed of flattering.—Of poetry, not a trace is found until the time of Theodosius, except the epigram on the base of the obelisk of Constantius, and that on Constantine which was placarded as a lampoon. With Theodosius, a new life is infused into Latin literature. Now arose Claudian, a Greek of Alexandria, who at first also wrote Greek. There are few instances besides of foreigners having written in a strange tongue so well as he did; except, perhaps Goldoni:[68] M. Antoninus also writes very good Greek. Claudian’s language is everything that one could wish: one can see that he made Latin his own with heartfelt liking. He is a true poetical genius, although tainted indeed with the mannerism of the later Greek poets; he is a wonderful master of mythology, and is gifted moreover with great facility and brilliancy of language: sometimes he is lascivious. One reads him with about the same gratification as one does Ovid: John Matthias Gesner was very fond of him. Claudian’s influence was very great, and a particular school of poets followed in his steps: one of his disciples was Merobaudes, whose fragments I had the good luck to discover at St. Gall. The language of Merobaudes, although he is a native of the West, has much in it that is faulty; yet he is a man who does not merely hunt for words, but whose words are the expression of his feelings. He is quite enthusiastic for Aëtius. The same Merobaudes is no doubt the author of a most beautiful poem, which is contained in Fabricius’ _Poëtæ Christiani_,[69] a poem of as great depth as any can have. He seems likewise to have been the author of another poem on the miracles of Christ, which is placed among those of Claudian, who was a heathen Greek, whilst the other was a Christian. At the close of the century, comes Sidonius Apollinaris, whom