fashionable amusements of the day, the composition of pointed and
unsavoury verse; for the standard of morality in writing was far lower
than the standard of morals in actual life.[162]

The poems repay reading, but call for little comment. They lack
originality. The thought is thin, the expression neat, though scarcely
as pointed as we might expect from such an author, while the metre is
graceful: the treatment of the elegiac is freer than that of Ovid, but
pleasing and melodious. At times powerful lines flash out.

qua frigida semper
praefulget stellis Arctos inocciduis (xxxvi. 6)

Where the cold constellation of the heaven gleams
ever with unsetting stars.

shines out from the midst of banal flattery of the emperor with
astonishing splendour. The poem _de qualitate temporis_ (4) closes with
four fine lines with the unmistakable Senecan ring about them--

quid tam parva loquor? moles pulcerrima caeli
ardebit flammis tota repente suis.
omnia mors poscit. lex est, non poena, perire:
hic aliquo mundus tempore nullus erit.

Why speak of things so small? The glorious vault of
heaven one day shall blaze with sudden self-kindled
flame. Death calls for all creation. 'Tis a law, not
a penalty to perish. The universe itself shall one day
be as though it had never been.