Amnem Trojugena Cannam Romane fuge, etc.[15], suggest no more idea of poetical inspiration than the occasional notices, in Latin authors, of the oracles of the Sibylline books. The language of prophecy naturally assumes a metrical or rhythmical form, partly as an aid to the memory, partly, perhaps, as a means of giving to the words uttered the effect of a more solemn intonation. In Greece, the oracles of the Delphian priestess, and the predictions of soothsayers, collected in books or circulating orally among the people, were expressed in hexameter verse and in the traditional diction of epic poetry; but they were never ranked under any form of poetic art. The verses of the Vates, so far as any inference can be formed as to their nature, appear to have been products and proofs of unimaginative superstition, rather than of any imaginative inspiration among the early inhabitants of Latium. 3. Another class of metrical compositions, of native origin, but of a totally opposite character, was known by the name of the 'Fescennine verses.' These arose out of a very different class of feelings and circumstances. Horace attributes their origin to the festive meetings and exuberant mirth of the harvest-home among a primitive, strong, and cheerful race of husbandmen. He points out how this rustic raillery gradually assumed the character of fierce lampoons, and had to be restrained by law:-- Fescennina per hunc inventa licentia morem Versibus alternis opprobria rustica fudit; Libertasque recurrentes accepta per annos Lusit amabiliter, donec jam saevus apertam In rabiem coepit verti jocus et per honestas Ire domos impune minax. Doluere cruento Dente lacessiti; fuit intactis quoque cura Conditione super communi; quin etiam lex Poenaque lata, malo quae nollet carmine quemquam Describi; vertere modum, formidine fustis Ad bene dicendum delectandumque redacti[16].