So, in the _Heroides_, the idea of the desolate and love-lorn Ariadne writing a letter from the barren isle of Naxos is in itself ridiculous, nor can all the pathos of her grief redeem the irony. Helen wishes she had had more practice in correspondence, so that she might perhaps touch her lover's chilly heart. Ovid using the language of mythology, reminds us of those heroes of Dickens who preface their communications by a wink of intelligence. His next venture was of a more compromising character. Intoxicated with popularity, he devoted three long poems to a systematic treatment of the _Art of Love_, on which he lavished all the graces of his wayward talent, and a combination of mythological, literary, and social allusion, that seemed to mark him out for better things. He is careful to remark at the outset that this poem is not intended for the virtuous. The frivolous gallants, whose sole end in life is dissipation, with the objects of their licentious passion, are the readers for whom he caters. But he had overshot his mark; The _Amores_ had been tolerated, for they had followed precedent. But even they had raised him enemies. The _Art of Love _produced a storm of indignation, and without doubt laid the foundations of that severe displeasure on the part of Augustus, which found vent ten years later in a terrible punishment. For Ovid was doing his best to render the emperor's reforms a dead letter. It was difficult enough to get the laws enforced, even with the powerful sanction of a public opinion guided by writers like Horace and Virgil. But here was a brilliant poet setting his face right against the emperor's will. The necessity of marriage had been preached with enthusiasm by two unmarried poets; a law to the same effect had been passed by two unmarried consuls; [42] a moral _régime_ had been inaugurated by a prince whose own morals were or had been more than dubious. All this was difficult; but it had been done. And now the insidious attractions of vice were flaunted in the most glowing colours in the face of day. The young of both sexes yielded to the charm. And what was worse, the emperor's own daughter, whom he had forced to stay at home carding wool, to wear only such garments as were spun in the palace, to affect an almost prudish delicacy, the proud and lovely Julia, had been detected in such profligacy as poured bitter satire on the old monarch's moral discipline, and bore speaking witness to the power of an inherited tendency to vice. The emperor's awful severity bespoke not merely the aggrieved father but the disappointed statesman. Julia had disgraced his home and ruined his policy, and the fierce resentment which rankled in his heart only waited its time to burst forth upon the man who had laboured to make impurity attractive. [43] Meanwhile Ovid attempted, two years later, a sort of recantation in the _Remedia Amoris_, the frivolity of which, however, renders it as immoral as its predecessor