Page:Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius.djvu/114

102 where they exhibit any, were the work of some other poet in Messala's circle, whose name, or else nom de plume, may have been Lygdamus. As to the elegies of the fourth book (apart from the first poem, which is epic or heroic, and is panegyrical of Messala, though, for the most part, a raw and juvenile production, not worthy of Tibullus's genius), the general view is that they are worthier of Tibullus than the third book, but more probably the work of a female hand; and with one or two exceptions, that of the Sulpicia, a woman of noble birth, and of Messala's circle, whose love for Cerinthus or Cornutus is their chief feature. One thing is certain, that the range of the two earlier books will furnish abundant samples of each characteristic vein of the genuine Tibullus, who, though Dr Arnold coupled him as a bad poet with Propertius, and Niebuhr charged him with sentimentality, is nevertheless a poet of singular sweetness of versification, though unequal to his later elegiac brother in force and strength. Perhaps the adverse criticisms made upon him are due to the narrow range of his themes; but he is worth a study, no less for the independence of his mind and muse, than for the almost utter absence of any Alexandrine influence on his style, syntax, and language. Of pure taste and great finish, his genius is Italian to the core; and whilst he may lack the various graces of other poets of the empire before and after him, he is second to none in a tender simplicity and a transparent terseness, which are peculiarly his own. It may not be amiss to close this chapter with the just eulogium of this poet by Mr Crans-