Persius, Petronius, Juvenal,-all these are affected. But in his own chosen field there is no peer to the artist whose pregnant poems Augustus "took in good part," 54 predicting their immortality. Immortality they have won, but what would the Emperor have thought of the sense in which they have been read? Against a background of the welfare and grandeur of Rome. their dramatic theme is clear, and has been sufficiently indicated by their author:

"Prima dicte mihi summa dicende camena. . . . Maecenas."

BASIL LANNEAU GILDERSLEEVE: AN

INTIMATE VIEW*

Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve was born in Charleston, South Carolina, October 25, 1831. "I was," he says, "Charlestonian first, Carolinian next, and then a Southerner-on my mother's side a Southerner beyond dispute." The old Charlestonian's patriotic pride in that city by the sea he completely understood, as witness this remark: "Those who could not travel were intense Charlestonians and those who could were not much less intense. Men who knew both Paris and Charleston spoke respectfully of Charleston." His father came from the North to be one of the principals of Mount Zion Academy in Georgia, and although he became, and continued for the rest of his life to be, editor of church papers, he resumed teaching whenever stress of fortune required it; so that both teaching and editing came to the son by inheritance. Until his thirteenth year his father was his only teacher-as James Mill of John Stuart-the lessons heard at odd hours, often when the father was tired from work.

He had a certain satisfaction in my literary bent, but my performances in construing and doing sums often moved him to wrath, which I never considered righteous until many years afterward, when I in my turn took the double part of parent and teacher-a most undesirable occupation.

He could read between three and four and signalized the completion of his fifth year by reading the Bible from cover to cover. The reading was "not with understanding," he remarks; but at least one sees the results everywhere in his

* The relations of the author with Dr. Gildersleeve are brought out incidentally in the course of this paper. They first met at the Cornell meeting of the American Philological Association in 1886, and later at other meetings. Especially pleasant were the few days spent as fellow-guests in the home of Professor Benjamin L. Wiggins, when Dr. Gildersleeve was giving his third successive summer course of lectures at Sewanee, in 1888. Professional work brought them into correspondence, and Dr. Smith preserved every letter, including even postcards, written by his friend-the source of much of the material used in this article.-EDITORIAL NOTE.

In

style. Latin he learned early and "got through" Cæsar, Sallust, Cicero, Vergil, Horace before the time when boys of a later age have learned the rudiments-although he admits that it was a false start and had to be done over. Greek also he began early; for a copy of Plato was given him by the scholarly family physician at twelve and he made then a version of the Crito and only a little later turned Anacreon into English verse. French he had read before fourteen sundry plays of Corneille, Racine and Molière. German came later. Milton was the only poet his father cared for or quoted. Shakespeare, being "immoral", was not tolerated; but Saturdays he used to resort to the house of "an ungodly uncle" and there read the coveted dramas. Scott's novels "the dear old Scotch librarian of the Apprentices' Library" was wheedled into putting into the boy's hands, although the little fellow had to hold himself ready, whenever a certain heavy step was heard, to tuck the volume under the pillow. He tells these things, because "all that came after lay implicit in that first period." "An imaginative, impulsive, prime sautier boy"-- he calls himself- "proud, shy, self-conscious, cursed with a poetic temperament and unblessed with poetic power."

He studied first at the College of Charleston-a freshman at fourteen-later transferred to Jefferson College, and finally to Princeton in 1847, being graduated-not yet eighteen-fourth in a class of seventy-nine. It is fair to infer that he did not place a high estimate upon the Princeton teaching of his day, and he gave nearly all his time to the study of literature, laying out his work and time with great exactness, making extracts of what he read, and "considering, then as always afterwards, punctuality in the fulfillment of every species of engagement an indispensable virtue." After graduation he was for a time classical master in Maupin's private school in Richmond, of which period he leaves this record:

The necessity of close observation, the necessity of formulating rules, first for my own guidance, then for the guidance of my pupils, made me in time a fair grammarian, and has given me my only claim to have contributed something to the science of my chosen province.

At this time he was morally much under the influence of Carlyle, who introduced him to Goethe-"the most important of all the teachers I ever had." In 1850 he went to Germany, studying at Berlin, Bonn, and Göttingen, at which last-named university he took his Ph. D. at twenty-three. Among his teachers he mentions especially Boeckh, Franz, K. F. Hermann, Schneidewin, Bernays, Welcker, and, "above all, Ritschl." "To Germany and the Germans," he says, "I am indebted for everything, professionally, in the way of apparatus and method, and for much, very much, in the way of inspiration." Three years of waiting followed until finally he cursed his day and had resolved to quit an ungrateful calling; but in 1856 he was elected, at twenty-five, Professor of Greek in the University of Virginia. His motto was "Grow, not climb," and he gave his whole time to "preparing lectures and correcting exercises," never writing a line for the press or lecturing in public for seven years. In the summer of 1864 he joined General Gordon's staff and was with Early in the Valley of Virginia. "In that campaign I lost my pocket Homer, I lost my pistol, I lost one of my horses, and finally I came near losing my life by a wound which kept me five months on my back." Returning after the war to the University of Virginia, he remained there until he rounded out exactly twenty years, making a name for himself in the lecture-room with his students and with his pen outside, especially as editor of books-notably his Latin Grammar and an edition of Persius.

When President Gilman was planning how to begin the first American University he received from a wise scholar this advice: "Enlist a great mathematician and a distinguished Grecian; your problem will be solved." He got Sylvester in mathematics and Gildersleeve in Greek. The rest were all young men who had their careers to make, but when one thinks of Martin, Remsen, Rowland, Brooks, Herbert Adams, Ely and Bloomfield, one must believe that Dr. Gilman was either a genius for choosing men or a wizard for luck. It was, however, not only a great faculty, but a remarkable student-body, for it has long been a recognized fact in American educational history that there was in the early days more promising talent in the

students that resorted to Hopkins than has ever been found, or probably will ever be found again, in one American university at one time.

Dr. Gildersleeve will be remembered longest as a productive scholar, that is, by his grammatical publications, but the reputation which he early won as an inspiring teacher followed him to the end, and it is probable that during his whole lifetime his fame has been due to his teaching even more than to his writings. He became recognized very early in his career at the University of Virginia as one of the foremost of the band of eminent scholars that gave that institution a unique position, first in the Southern states, and then all over the Union. His own reputation was due above all to his Latin Grammar, which was widely used in Southern colleges. The two things which students in other Southern colleges heard most about in connection with the classical teaching in the University of Virginia were Greek and Latin prose composition and the severity of the examinations. In most American institutions the writing of Greek and Latin was sadly neglected, usually only a general reading knowledge at best being acquired. The change for the better that characterized the post-bellum period has been due unquestionably to the University of Virginia more than to any other influence. Clever young men do not mind working hard if only they can be sure that they are getting something worth while for their pains. If they see that they are accomplishing something, they work willingly. Dr. Gildersleeve's pupils prided themselves on the severity of his discipline, because they recognized in him a master who himself set an example of hard work; and they doubtless came to recognize the tasks expected of them as something of a personal compliment, as implying confidence in their ability. Then there was his wit to enliven the drudgery that is inseparable from some phases of hard work. He was, too, a unique personality that amused, attracted and stimulated men wherever he was. An incident of the Cornell meeting (1886) of the American Philological Association-the first I ever attended— may illustrate this quality of his. I never think of that meeting without seeing again a group of men of all ages gathered in