CHILDREN IN LATIN POETRY. [TO THE EDITOR OP THE -serealeros....]
SIR,—Surely the briefest survey of " Children in Latin Poetry" (see Spectator, February 27th) should have referred to Martial'S lovely epitaph :--
"./Eolidos Canaco jacet hoc tumulata sepulchre Ultima cui parvae septima vonit hierns."
It is true that in reference to the cause of death (a tumour on the lip) there is a conceit, but it is one most of us would forgive " Sea More vocis iter properavit claudere blandae Ne posset dares fleeter° lingua does."
It is also unfortunately true that the couplet describing the malady has that gross literalness which spoils so many Roman things,—Seneca's " Consolatio ad Marciam," for instance, as exquisite a thing in prose as this in verse. But among poems "which have treated the subject of childhood with the utmost tenderness" this one of Martial's need not fear comparison with some of the best, or with any, in Latin literature. Perhaps no one has ever descended to Martial's depths of degradation who could rise to his heights.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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