Gesner rightly calls a great genius. His Latinity is Gallic with a sprinkling of Romanic, and we see from him that the common language was very different from the classic style: but for all that we find him to be a man of most varied acquirements. There were, however, at that period also some writers of history, as the times were stirring, and afforded a good subject; but the greater part of them have been lost: of Renatus Profuturus,[70] a fragment which is still extant, gives one a very favourable impression. But an entirely new literature was the Christian one, which has not yet been noticed and brought out as much as it deserves. Lactantius, of whom we have already spoken, is of great importance. Ambrose and others are less so as writers. Two great men, moreover, are St. Jerome and St. Augustine; who indeed are giants: what I know of them entitles them to high praise. The literary and critical writings of St. Jerome have not much in them: but in the rest he has liveliness, versatility, an immense range of learning, and, even in his old age, a rich vein of wit, which is a leading trait in him: were he not a writer of the Church, he might have shone by his wit in the same manner as Pascal did. Augustine is a truly philosophic mind, as strongly actuated by a yearning after truth as any of the great philosophers: his language also is very noble. He is by no means witty, like St. Jerome; but he is eloquent, and in many places admirable. The latter half of the fourth, and the whole of the fifth century, are a classical era for Christian literature. Sulpicius Severus’ Church history is a masterpiece; and of this time are also the poems of Cælius Sedulius and Claudius Mamertus. The full life of the Gallic period was in this century: Gaul, in spite of all its misfortunes, had a glorious era for the intellect. The writings of Salvian, who was a priest or bishop of Marseilles, are very remarkable. He wrote on the government of God, and _contra avaritiam_; and though his language is Gallican, and his rhetorical turn may subject him to censure, he is exceedingly interesting on account of his political feelings which are quite different from those of Orosius. He lays bare the whole misery of the age; yet he makes no sanctimonious exhortations, but inveighs against those who in better times had neglected the favourable moment, and against the rich: this political indignation against the mighty ones of the earth, is quite a particular feature of his. There is a downright republican bias in him, which is remarkable in a psychological as well as in an historical point of view: it is evident what many even in the Church were now driving at, as the Church contained at that time many republican elements of which Salvian is quite aware. What he really aims at, is community of goods under the administration of the presbyters. Prudentius is in order of time the first of the Christian poets; yet his poems are but middling. The