Decius Laberius, born at Puteoli, B.C. 45, under the dictatorship of Julius Cæsar, was a Mīme who became distinguished in this sort of composition, and won even the praise of Horace. Another was C. Valerius Catullus, born B.C. 86, and who was nine years younger than the great didactic poet and philosopher, Lucretius, whom we shall notice under the head of philosophy. Catullus belonged to a respectable family, residing on the Lago di Garda, near Verona. At an early age he went to Rome, became very erudite, and plunged into the licentious excesses of the capital. Catullus possessed captivating talents, but of a perverted use; satire as vindictive in spirit as it was varied in power. His poetry was such as might be expected from the tenor of his life, and a career which began in extravagant debauchery terminated in hopeless ruin. P. Virgilius Maro, born B.C. 70, was a citizen of Mantua. Most of his early training was at Cremona, whence he removed to Milan, and afterward to Naples, where he studied Greek literature and philosophy under the direction of Parthenius. Congenial tastes recommended him to Assinius Pollio, who aided the poet in his pecuniary distress, and introduced him to the wealthiest patron of literature at Rome. By that means the favor of Octavius was reached, and bright fortunes were secured. In the maturity of his faculties, Virgil visited Greece for the purpose of giving the final polish to his great epic poem. At Athens he met Augustus, who was on his way back from Samos, and both returned together. But the beautiful spirit that yet reigned over the scenes of his recent visit evidently inspired his latest and finest writing. The favorite haunts of the muses, the time-honored contests of Olympia, the living and breathing masterpieces which he admired in that home of art, adorn the opening of the third Georgic. But Virgil had all his life borrowed so unsparingly from Grecian invention, that we may infer his intention to have been, not to produce much, if any thing, new, but skillfully to collect and smoothly repeat in his rougher tongue what long before had been much more elegantly and vividly expressed. His Æneid was artificially polished to a high degree, but can never be taken as a specimen of what great unassisted invention might effect. If from the structure of its fable, one should deduct the portions taken from the Iliad and Odyssey, together with what was appropriated from the Troades of Euripides, and the lost poem of the lesser Iliad, doubtless but little original matter would remain to glorify the best specimen of Augustan poetry in its best time.