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It is meet to part from Propertius with this lay on his lips, which might make us fain to believe what, in truth, the facts and probabilities appear to forbid—the story of Pliny that, after Cynthia's death, the poet contracted a lawful union, and transmitted to a lawful issue the inheritance of his name and genius. It is pretty certain that the poems to Cynthia are the chief memorial and representatives of these; and indeed the sole, if we were to except the two exquisite poems last quoted, one or two others to his patrons, and a song apropos of his "Lost Tablets." His comparatively early death allows us, by the light of a brief but brilliant life, to conceive what he might have been. His extant books, and the loving pains bestowed on them by commentators and translators, have been of use in picturing, in some measure, the man and the poet as he was.