faults Ijuft mentioned, one of the fwelling, and the other of the obfcure ftyle, then in fashion. Lucan's manner in general runs too much into fuftian and bombaft. His muse has a kind of dropfy, and looks like the foldier described in his own Pharfalia, who in paffing the defart fands of Africa, was bit by a ferpent, and fwelled to fuch an immoderate fize, " that he was loft (as he expreffes it) in the tumours of his own body."

Some critics have been in too great hafte to make Quinctilian fay fome good things of Lucan, which he never meant to do. What this poet has been always for, and what he will ever deferve to be admired for, are the feveral philofophical paffages that abound in his works; and his generous fentiments, particularly on the love of liberty and the contempt of death. In his calm hours, he is very wife; but he is often in his rants, and never more fo than when he is got into a battle, or a ftorm at fea: but it is remarkable, that even on those occafions, it is not fo much a violence of rage, as a madness of affecta tion, that appears moft ftrongly in him, To give a few instances of it, out of many: In the very beginning of Lucan's ftorm, when Cæfar ventured to cross the fea in fo fmall a veisel; "the fixt ftars themselves feem to be put in motion." Then "the waves rife over the mountains, and carry away the tops of them." Their next step is to heaven; where they catch the rain "in the clouds:" I fuppofe, to increase their force. The fea opens in feveral places, and leaves its bottom dry land. All the foundations of the universe are fhaken; and nature is afraid of a fecond chaos. His little fkiff, in the mean time, fometimes cuts along the clouds with her fails; and fometimes feems in danger of being ftranded on the fands at the bottom of the fea; and muft inevitably have been loft, had not the ftorm (by good fortune) been fo frong from every quarter, that the did not know on which fide to bulge first.

When the two armies are going to join battle in the plains of Pharfalia, we are told, that all the foldiers were incapable of any fear for themselves, because they were wholly taken up with their concern for the danger which threatened Pompey and the commonwealth. On this great occafion, the hills about them, according to his account, feem to be more afraid than the men; for fome of the mountains looked as if they would thrust their heads into the clouds; and others, as if they wanted

to hide themselves under the valleys at their feet. And these disturbances in nature were univerfal: for that day, every fingle Roman, in whatever part of the world he was, felt a ftrange gloom spread all over his mind, on a fudden; and was ready to cry, though he did not know why or wherefore. Spence.

§ 56.

$56. His Defcription of the Sea-fight off Marseilles.

The fea-fight off Marseilles, is a thing that might divert one, full as well as Erafmus's Naufragium Joculare; and what is ftill ftranger, the poet chufes to be most diverting in the wounds he gives the poor foldier. The first perfon killed in it, is pierced at the fame inftant by two fpears; one in his back, and the other in his breaft; fo nicely, that both their points meet together in the middle of his body. They each, I fuppofe, had a right to kill him; and his foul was for fome time doubtful which it fhould obey. At laft, it compounds the matter; drives out each of the fpears before it, at the fame inftant; and whips out of his body, half at one wound, and half at the other.-A little after this, there is an honest Greek, who has his right hand cut off, and fights on with his left, till he can leap into the fea to recover the former; but there (as misfortunes feldom come fingle) he has his left arm chopt off too: after which, like the hero in one of our ancient ballads, he fights on with the trunk of his body, and performs actions greater than any Withrington that ever was. When the battle grows warmer, there are many who have the fame misfortune with this Greek. In endeavouring to climb up the enemies fhips, feveral have their arms ftruck off; fall into the fea; leave their hands behind them! Some of these swimming combatants encounter their enemies in the water; fome fupply their friends fhips with arms; fome, that had no arms, entangle themfelves with their enemies; cling to them, and fink toge ther to the bottom of the fea; others flick their bodies against the beaks of their enemies fhips: and fcarce a man of them flung away the ufe of his carcafe, even when he fhould be dead.

But among all the contrivances of thefe pofthumous warriors, the thing moft to be admired, is the fagacity of the great Tyrrhenus. Tyrrhenus was standing at the head of one of the veffels, when a ball of lead, flung by an artful flinger, ftruck

out both his eyes. The violent dafh of the blow, and the deep darkness that was fpread over him all at once, made him at first conclude that he was dead: but when he had recovered his fenfes a little, and found he could advance one foot before the other, he defired his fellow foldiers to plant him just as they did their Ballista: he hopes he can ftill fight as well as a machine; and feems mightily pleafed to think how he fhall cheat the enemy, who will fling away darts at him, that might have killed people who were alive.

Such ftrange things as thefe, make me always wonder the more, how Lucan can be fo wife as he is in fome parts of his poem. Indeed his fentences are more folid than one could otherwife expect from fo young a writer, had he wanted fuch an uncle as Seneca, and fuch a master as Cornutus. The fwellings in the other parts of his poem may be partly accounted for, perhaps, from his being born in Spain, and in that part of it which was the fartheft removed from Greece and Rome; nay, of that very city, which is marked by Cicero as particularly over-run with a bad taste. After all, what I moft diilike him for, is a blot in his moral character. He was at first pretty high in the favour of Nero. On the difcovery of his being concerned in a plot against him, this philofopher (who had written fo much, and fo gallantly, about the pleasure of dying, behaved himfelf in the moft defpicable manner. He named his own mother as

guilty of the confpiracy, in hopes of faving himself. After this, he added feveral of his friends to his former confeffion; and thus continued labouring for a pardon, by making facrifices to the tyrant of fuch lives, as any one, much lefs of a philofopher than he feems to have been, ought to think dearer than their own. All this bafeness was of no ufe to him: for, in the end, Nero ordered him to execution too. His veins were opened; and the last words he Spoke, were fome verfes of his own.

Spence.

fault is obfcurity. Several have endea voured to excufe or palliate this fault in him, from the danger of the times he lived in; and the neceffity a fatirift then lay under, of writing fo, for his own fecurity. This may hold as to fome paffages in him; but to fay the truth, he feems to have a tendency and love to obfcurity in himself: for it is not only to be found where he may fpeak of the emperor, or the flate; but in the general courfe of his fatires. So that, in my conscience, I must give him up for an obfcure writer; as I fhould Lucan for a tumid and swelling one.

Such was the Roman poetry under Nero. The three emperors after him were made in an hurry, and had fhort tumultuous reigns. Then the Flavian family came in. Vefpafian, the firft emperor of that line, endeavoured to recover fomething of the good tafte that had formerly flourished in Rome; his fon Titus, the delight of mankind, in his fhort reign, encouraged poetry by his example, as well as by his liberalities: and even Domitian loved to be thought a patron of the mutes. After him, there was a fucceffion of good emperors, from Nerva to the Antonines. And this extraordinary good fortune (for indeed, if one confiders the general run of the Roman emperors, it would have been fuch, to have had any two good ones only together) gave a new fpirit to the arts, that had long been in fo languishing a condition, and made poetry revive, and raile up its head again, once more among them. Not that there were very good poets even now; but they were better, at least, than they had been under the reign of Nero.

§ 58.

Ibid.

Of SILIUS, STATIUS, and VA-
RERIUS FLACCUS.

This period produced three epic poets, whofe works remain to us; Silius, Statius, and Valerius Flaccus. Silius, as if he had been frightened at the high flight of Lucan, keeps almost always on the ground, and scarce once attempts to foar throughout his whole work. It is plain, however, though it is low; and if he has but little of the fpirit of poetry, he is free at least from the affectation, and obfcurity, and bombaft, which prevailed fo much among his immediate predeceffors. Silius was honoured with the confulate; and lived to fee his fon in the fame high office. He was a great lover and collector of pictures and ftatues; fome of which he worshipped;

efpecially

efpecially one he had of Virgil. He used to offer facrifices too: his tomb near Naples. It is a pity that he could not get more of his fpirit in his writings: for he had fcarce enough to make his offerings acceptable to the genius of that great poet. -Statius had more of fpirit, with a lefs fhare of prudence for his Thebaid is certainly ill conducted, and scarcely well written. By the little we have of his Achilleid, that would probably have been a much better poem, at least as to the writing part, had he lived to finish it. As it is, his defcription of Achilles's behaviour at the feaft which Lycomedes makes for the Grecian ambaffadors, and fome other parts of it, read more pleasingly to me than any part of the Thebaid. I cannot help thinking, that the paffage quoted fo often from Juvenal, as an encomium on Statius, was meant as a fatire on him. Martial feems to ftrike at him too, under the borrowed name of Sabellus. As he did not finish his Achilleid, he may deserve more reputation perhaps as a mifcellaneous than as an epic writer; for though the odes and other copies of verfes in his Sylvæ are not without their faults, they are not fo faulty as his Thebaid. The chief faults of Statius, in his Sylva and Thebaid, are faid to have proceeded from very different caufes: the former, from their having been written in correctly and in a great deal of hafte; and the other, from its being over corrected and hard. Perhaps his greateft fault of all, or rather the greateft fign of his bad judgment, is his admiring Lucan fo extravagantly as he does. It is remarkable, that poetry run more lineally in Statius's family, than perhaps in any other. He received it from his father; who had been an eminent poet in his time, and lived to fee his fon obtain the laurel-crown at the Alban games; as he had formerly done himfelf. Valerius Flaccus wrote a little before Statius. He died young, and left his poem unfinished. We have but feven books of his Argonautics, and part of the eight, in which the Argonauts are left on the fea, in their return homewards. Several of the modern critics, who have been fome way or other concerned in publishing Flaccus's works, make no fcruple of placing him next to Virgil, of all the Roman epic poets; and I own I am a good deal inclined to be feriously of their opinion; for he seems to me to have more fire than 5.lius, and to be more correct than Statius;

and as for Lucan, I cannot help looking upon him as quite out of the question. He imitates Virgil's language much better than Silius, or even Statius; and his plan, or rather his story, is certainly lefs embarraffed and confufed than the Thebaid. Some of the ancients themselves fpeak of Flaccus with a great deal of respect; and particularly Quinctilian; who fays nothing at all of Silius or Statius; unless the latter is to be included in that general expreffion offeveral others,' whom he leaves to be celebrated by pofterity.

As to the dramatic writers of this time, we have not any one comedy, and only ten tragedies, all published under the name of Lucius Annæus Seneca. They are probably the work of different hands; and might be a collection of favourite plays, put together by fome bad grammarian; for either the Roman tragedies of this age were very indifferent, or thefe are not their beft. They have been attributed to authors as far diftant as the reigns of Auguftus and Trajan. It is true, the person who is fo pofitive that one of them in particular must be of the Auguftan age, fays this of a piece that he feems refolved to cry up at all rates; and I believe one fhould do no injury to any one of them, in fuppofing them all to have been written in this third age, under the decline of the Roman poetry.

Of all the other pc-ts under this period, there are none whofe works remain to us, except Martial and Juvenal. The former flourished under Domitian; and the latter under Nerva, Trajan, and Adrian. Spence

§ 59. Of MARTIAL.

Martial is a dealer only in a little kind of writing; for Epigram is certainly (what it is called by Dryden) the lowest step of poetry. He is at the very bottom of the hill; but he diverts himself there, in gathering flowers and playing with infects, prettily enough. If Martial made a newyear's gift, he was fure to fend a distich with it: if a friend died, he made a few verfes to put on his tomb-ftone: if a statue was fet up, they came to him for an infcription. Thefe were the common offices of his mufe. If he ftruck a fault in life, he marked it down in a few lines; and if he had a mind to please a friend, or to get the favour of the great, his style was turned to panegyric; and these were his higheft employments. He was, however, a good writer in his way; and there

are

$62. The Condition of the ROMANS in the Second PUNIC War.

Such was the ftate of this imperial city, when its citizens had made fo great a progrefs in arms as to have conquered the better part of Italy, and to be able to engage in a war with the Carthaginians; the trongest power then by land, and the abfolute matters by fea. The Romans, in the first Punic war, added Sicily to their dominions. In the fecond, they greatly increafed their strength, both by fea and land; and acquired a tafte of the arts and elegancies of life, with which till then they had been totally unacquainted. For tho' before this they were mafters of Sicily (which in the old Roman geography made a part of Greece) and of feveral cities in the eastern part of Italy, which were inhabited by colonies from Greece, and were adorned with the pictures, and ftatues, and other works, in which that nation delighted, and excelled the rest of the world fo much; they had hitherto looked upon them with fo careless an eye, that they had felt little or nothing of their beauty. This infenfibility they preferved fo long, either from the groffnefs of their minds, or perhaps from their fuperftition, and a dread of reverencing foreign deities as much as their own; or (which is the most likely of all) out of mere politics, and the defire of keeping up their martial spirit and natural roughness, which they thought the arts and elegancies of the Grecians would be but too apt to destroy. However that was, they generally preferved themfelves from even the leaft fufpicion of tafte for the polite arts, pretty far into the fecond Punic war; as appears by the behaviour of Fabius Maximus in that war, even after the fcales were turned on their fide. When that general took Tarentum, he found it full of riches, and extremely adorned with pictares and statues. Among others, there were fome very fine coloffeal figures of the gods, reprefented as fighting against the rebel giants. Thefe were made by fome of the moft eminent mafters in Greece; and the Jupiter, not improbably, by Lyfippus. When Fabius was difpofing of the ipoil, he ordered the money and plate to be fent to the treafury at Rome, but the ftatues and pictures to be left behind. The fecretary who attended him in his furvey, was formewhat ftruck with the largeness and noble air of the figures juft mentioned; and alked, Whether they too must be left

with the reft? "Yes," replied Fabius, "leave their angry gods to the Taren"tines; we will have nothing to do with "them." Spence.

$ 63. MARCELLUS attacks SYRACUSE, and fends all its Pictures and Statues to ROME.

Marcellus had indeed behaved himself very differently in Sicily, a year or two before this happened. As he was to carry on the war in that province, he bent the whole force of it against Syracufe. There was at that time no one city which belonged to the Greeks, more elegant, or better adorned, than the city of Syracuse; it abounded in the works of the best mafters. Marcellus, when he took the city, cleared it entirely, and fent all their ftatues and pictures to Rome. When I fay all, I ufe the language of the people of Syracufe; who foon after laid a complaint against Marcellus before the Roman fenate, in which they charged him with ftripping all their houfes and temples, and leaving nothing but bare walls throughout the city. Marcellus himself did not at all difown it, but fairly confeffed what he had done: and used to declare, that he had done fo, in order to adorn Rome, and to introduce a taste for the fine arts among his countrymen.

Such a difference of behaviour in their two greatest leaders, foon occafioned two different parties in Rome. The old people in general joined in crying up Fabius.

Fabius was not rapacious, as fome others were; but temperate in his conquefts. In what he had done, he had acted, not only with that moderation which becomes a Roman general, but with much prudence and forefight. "These fineries," they cried, "are a pretty diverfion for an idle "effeminate people: let us leave them to "the Greeks. The Romans defire no "other ornaments of life, than a fimpli

city of manners at home, and fortitude "against our enemies abroad. It is by "these arts that we have raifed our name "fo high, and fpread our dominion so far: "and hall we fuffer them now to be ex