Roman poetry is pervaded also by a peculiar vein of imaginative emotion. There is no feeling so characteristic of the works of Roman genius as the sense of majesty. This feeling is called forth by the idea or outward manifestation of strength, stability, vastness, and order; by whatever impresses the imagination as the symbol of power and authority, whether in the aspect of Nature, or in the works, actions, and institutions of man. It is in their most serious and elevated writings, and chiefly in their epic and didactic poetry, that the Romans show their peculiar susceptibility to this grave and dignified emotion. Even the plain and rude diction of Ennius rises into rugged grandeur when he is moved by the vastness or massive strength of outward things, by 'the pomp and circumstance' of war, or by the august forms and symbols of government. The majestic tones of Lucretius seem to give a voice to the deep feeling of the order and immensity of the universe, which possessed him. The sustained dignity of the Aeneid, and the splendour of some of its finest passages--such for instance as that which brings before us the solemn and magnificent spectacle of the fall of Troy--attest how the imagination of Virgil was moved to sympathy with the attributes of ancient and powerful sovereignty[4]. Further, in the fervour and dignity of their moral feeling, the Roman poets are true exponents of the genius of Rome. Their spirit is more authoritative, and less speculative than that of Greek poetry. They speak rather from the will and conscience than from the wisdom that has searched and understood the ways of life. Greek poetry strengthens the will or purifies the heart indirectly, by its truthful representation of the tragic situations in human life; Roman poetry appeals directly to the manlier instincts and more magnanimous impulses of our nature. This glow of moral emotion pervades not the poetry only, but the oratory, history, and philosophy of Rome. It has cast a kind of religious solemnity around the fragments of the early epic, tragic, and satiric poetry: it has given an intenser fervour to the stern consistency and desperate fortitude of Lucretius: it has added the element of strength to the pathos and fine humanity in the Æneid. It is by his moral, as well as his national enthusiasm, that Horace reveals the Roman gravity that tempered his genial nature. The language of Lucan, Persius, and Juvenal still breathed the same spirit in the deadening atmosphere of the Empire. Of all the great poets of Rome, Catullus alone shows little trace of this grave ardour of feeling, the more usual accompaniment of the firm temper of manhood than of the prodigal genius of youth.