These Periods are distinguished by certain strongly marked characteristics. The First, which comprises the history of the legitimate drama, of the early epos and satire, and the beginning of prose composition, is marked by immaturity of art and language, by a vigorous but ill-disciplined imitation of Greek poetical models, and in prose by a dry sententiousness of style, gradually giving way to a clear and fluent strength, which was characteristic of the speeches of Gracchus and Antonius. This was the epoch when literature was popular; or at least more nearly so than at any subsequent period. It saw the rise and fall of dramatic art: in other respects it merely introduced the forms which were carried to perfection in the Ciceronian and Augustan ages. The language did not greatly improve in smoothness, or adaptation to express finished thought. The ancients, indeed, saw a difference between Ennius, Pacuvius, and Accius, but it may be questioned whether the advance would be perceptible by us. Still the _labor limae_ unsparingly employed by Terence, the rules of good writing laid down by Lucilius, and the labours of the great grammarians and orators at the close of the period, prepared the language for that rapid development which it at once assumed in the masterly hands of Cicero. The Second Period represents the highest excellence in prose and poetry. The prose era came first, and is signalised by the names of Cicero, Sallust, and Caesar. The celebrated writers were now mostly men of action and high position in the state. The principles of the language had become fixed; its grammatical construction was thoroughly understood, and its peculiar genius wisely adapted to those forms of composition in which it was naturally capable of excelling. The perfection of poetry was not attained until the time of Augustus. Two poets of the highest renown had indeed flourished in the republican period; but though endowed with lofty genius they are greatly inferior to their successors in sustained art, _e.g._ the constructions of prose still dominate unduly in the domain of verse, and the intricacies of rhythm are not fully mastered. On the other hand, prose has, in the Augustan age, lost somewhat of its breadth and vigour. Even the beautiful style of Livy shows traces of that intrusion of the poetic element which made such destructive inroads into the manner of the later prose writers. In this period the writers as a rule are not public men, but belong to what we should call the literary class. They wrote not for the public but for the select circle of educated men whose ranks were gradually narrowing their limits to the great injury of literature. If we ask which of the two sections of this period marks the most strictly national development, the answer must be--the Ciceronian; for while the advancement of any literature is more accurately tested by its prose writers than by its poets, this is specially the case with the