through; his faults are not such as "plead sweetly for pardon;" they are obtrusive and repelling, and have been more in the way of his fame than those of any extant writer of equal genius. He was a devoted admirer of Virgil, whose poems he sketches in the following graceful lines: [29]-- "Actia Virgilio custodit (deus) litora Phoebi, Caesaris et fortes dicere posse rates: Qui nunc Aeneae Troianaque suscitat arma, Iactaque Lavinis moenia litoribus. Cedite Romani seriptores, cedite Graii, Nescio quid maius nascitur Iliade! Tu canis umbrosi subter pineta Galesi Thyrsin et attritis Daphnin arundinibus, Utque decera possint corrumpere mala puellas, Missus et impressis haedus ab uberibus. Felix qui viles pomis mercaris amores! Huic licet ingratae Tityrus ipse canat. Felix intactum Corydon qui tentat Alexin Agricolae domini carpere delicias. Quamvis ille sua lassus requiescat avena, Laudatur faciles inter Hamadryadas. Tu canis Ascraei veteris praecepta poetae, Quo seges in campo, quo viret uva iugo. Tale facis carmen, docta testudine quale Cynthius impositis temperat articulis." The elegies that show his characteristics best are the second of the first book, where he prays his lady to dress modestly; the seventeenth, where he rebukes himself for having left her side; the twentieth, where he tells the legend of Hylas with great pictorial power and with the finest triumphs of rhythm; the beautiful lament for the death of Paetus; [30] the dream in which Cynthia's shade comes to give him warning; [31] and the patriotic elegy which begins the last book. Maecenas, [32] it appears, had tried to persuade him to attempt heroic poetry, from which uncongenial task he excuses himself, much as Horace had done. In reading these poets we are greatly struck by the free and easy way in which they borrow thoughts from one another. A good idea was considered common property, and a happy phrase might be adopted without theft. Virgil now and then appropriates a word from Horace, Horace somewhat oftener one from Virgil, Tibullus from both. Propertius, who is less original, has many direct imitations, and Ovid makes free with some of Virgil and Tibullus's finest lines. This custom was not thought to detract from the writer's independence, inasmuch as each had his own domain, and borrowed only where he would be equally ready to give. It was otherwise with those thriftless bards so roughly dealt with by Horace in his nineteenth Epistle-- "O imitatores, servum pecus! ut mihi saepe Bilem, saepe iocum movistis."