Cardinals and reformers, statesmen and scholars, disported themselves in heroics, elegiacs, sapphics, iambics, and ĥendecasyllabics; the doctrines of natural philosophy were embodied in didactic poems, theological triumphs were celebrated in verse, the historical facts of Scripture formed the groundwork of epics and tragedies, the animosities of hostile critics vented themselves in satire, and the births and marriages of princes, and the great events of the age, regularly called forth a tribute of classical dolour or exultation. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries may be esteemed the great age of modern Latin poetry. Its cultivation, through causes which will easily suggest themselves to the reader, has declined; and while England and France, Holland, Italy, and Scandinavia, send forth poets, historians, philosophers, and theologians, in their native languages, Latin prose has become, in a great measure, confined to the commentaries and treatises of classical scholars, and Latin verse to prize poems and school exercises. We do not intend here to speculate either upon the causes or the consequences of this decadence. That Latin composition will cease to be cultivated in the modern nations of Europe, we do not apprehend; circumstances appear to render it impossible; and certainly it would not be desirable. But we have no time to dwell on the various topics which the subject suggests to us. Daniel Heinsius, best known as a critic, was, in his own time, of no small repute as a Latin poet. He was acquainted with many, or most of the great scholars of his time; and the small closely printed volume containing his poems, has at the end, by way of colophon, a gay pendant of laudatory verses by the Grotiuses, Dousas, and Scaligers of that age. He imitated almost all the Latin poets in turn, and seems more formed for a kind of free imitation than for original composition. His excellence consists in a small, but visible portion of talent, which pervades his verses, and gives to their best parts a pleasing and equable, though never a surpassing, beauty. Like some others, he seems every now and then to be for a moment on the verge of excellence, but disappoints the reader by forthwith sinking. There is a sprinkling of individual feeling in some of his pieces, which makes them not uninteresting. His largest work is a didactic poem, in four books, " De Contemptu Mortis." The subject was a noble one, and it has in some degree elevated the writer. A solemnity pervades his expositions of the Platonic and the Christian tenets concerning death and the soul, which operates as a charm to those who are sensible to the grandeur of the subject. The following lines, on the exalted nature of the soul, may be quoted as a fair specimen. 66 Ergo, non stellarum orbes, non lucidus æther, Quamquam igni illustris formoso ac cornibus aureis, Quantum animus, possunt, nec se illi aut sedula tellus Nec verò, immensus quanquam in se vertitur orbis Aversatus opum splendorem, & commoda vitæ, p. 264. The first lines of the following passage remind us strongly of a description of Young: 66 Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne, In rayless majesty, now stretches forth Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumb'ring world. "Nonne vides, quoties nox circumfunditur atra Et sacram Phoebi nemorum divertitur umbram, Cuncta animo sæpe explorans, cuncta ante pererrans, : Ex aliis eademque manent, mutataque surgunt, Molitur leges, queis fortunata juventus Pareat, ac pace imperium tutetur & armis." The same book (the first) contains a happy imitation of Virgil's "Primus ego," &c. clausæ "Hoc opus, illustres animæ, dum corpore Primus ego, magna ingrediens sacraria vates, Tum pulchri quæcunque animos sub nomine ducunt inane Volvimus, & primo ignari deflectimus ortu ; Clari ingens operis vixque enarrabile textum." The following description of Paradise is from Book IV. "Illic sub tremulis argutæ frondibus auræ Assidue suspirabant, & odoriferum ver Crystallo similis, formoso natus in horto; Nec pictæ florum facies, cantusque volucrum, Et vacui curarum, aut circum in gramine læto p. 325. The work concludes with an address to Christ, which we will extract. "Nam quamquam neque Tarpeias bellator ad arces Ibis ovans, procul augusto comitante Senatu, Murali neque tormento Mavortia rumpes Aërias equitantem auras, nubesque secantem, Salve autor, salve omnipotens, qui sanguine nobis Hinc, lethi immemores, venturo incumbimus ævo, His minor poems present a variety of metres and subjects, through part of which alone we have made our way— a book of satires in iambic metre, several books of elegies, poems on the nuptials of Grotius, the death of Turnebus, &c. &c. &c. The following ode is a pleasing imitation of Horace. Ad Reinerum Bontium, amicorum suavissimum, hospitem suum, discessurus: invidiam pasci in vivos, mortuis parcere. "Jam ter benignum ver aperit caput, Et ter nivali sidere Jupiter Ex Decussit arbustis honorem, Sæpe innocenti lætitia diem Traxisse tecum, sæpe totas Nec inclytæ pulchræque laudis, |