From the beginning of the third century until the fifth, Christian views find their exponents in Tertullian, Lactantius, Ambrose, Prudentius, Jerome, and Augustine. To Jerome is due in particular that Latin version of the Bible of which the present _Vulgate_ represents successive partial revisions, to Augustine the _City of God_, to Ambrose the initiation of the Christian hymn, and to Prudentius its development. Christian also is the Gallo-Roman poet Ausonius, of the later fourth century, but his verse is by no means dedicated to Christian teaching. In him appears what might seem to be a modern, if not fully “romantic,” partiality for affectionate observation of natural scenery, best illustrated by his well-known description of the stream and banks of the Moselle. Meanwhile among pagan writers must be reckoned Ammianus, a picturesque and interesting historian, who undertook to bring the work of Tacitus up to the year 378; Macrobius, whose _Saturnalia_ discourses in a desultory fashion on a variety of literary and social topics; and Claudian, the composer of polished poems on contemporary history, in which extremely skilful polish of verse is united to brilliant gifts of description. The religion of Boethius, the last man of letters who can be said to linger on the border of the classical world, but who in style and thought stands nearer to it than many an earlier writer, is doubtful. In all probability he was a pagan, but he concerned himself, not with religion, but with philosophy as reflected from Plato. His _De Consolatione_, or _Consolations of Philosophy_, is a prose work interspersed with verses, and in virtue of this production, which often rises to great excellence, Boethius stood to the Dark Ages for the exemplar of the philosopher. His place in mediaeval reading was a very high one, and may be gauged from the fact that in England Alfred the Great translated his _Consolations_ into Anglo-Saxon, though with insertions and comments of his own. To Chaucer, as to all the mediaeval world, “Boece” was part of the staple library. * * * * *