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Kings; and thus attacks Ambition in its Head-Quarters. For if it is a Folly in fo great a Prince, what shall we think of it, when indulged by a private Perfon? Horace paffes from one Article to another, without giving us Notice of it; and fo this Scene feems to be abruptly introduced. And yet it is naturally connected with what precedes. It is only the Turn, and the Vivacity of the Action, which makes it appear detached.

Stertinius had propofed to fhow, that the Ambitious are no lefs mad than the Mifers. To prove this Point, he brifkly, and at once, attacks Agamemnon; and demonftrates by this Example, that Ambition tranfports Men to fuch a Height of Madnefs, as to facrifice their very Children to footh their Vanity.

Stertinius ftill fpeaks, and reviews the various Kinds of Madmen, one after another, as he had propofed in his Summons, Vos ordine adite.

DACIER. Notwithstanding this Apology is very ingenious, and has fome Foundation in Truth; yet it were to be wifhed, that the Connection had been more clear and explicit.

28 Maxime Regum, &c.] The Greeks, and all the People of the Eaft, began their Addreffes to Princes by Withes for their Health and Benedictions. This Paffage is an Imitation of thofe Lines in the Iliad, where Chryfes demands his Daughter of dgamemnon,

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So may th' immortal Gods your Cause befriend;
So may you Priam's lofty Bulwarks burn,
And rich in gather'd Spoils to Greece return!

TICKELL.

29 Cur Ajax putrefcit ? This alludes to that Paffage in Sophocles, in which he feigns that Agamemnon would not confent that Ajax fhould receive the Honours of a Burial, though at laft he fubmitted to the prefling Intreaties of Teucer.

30 Gaudeat ut populus Priami, &c.] This is alfo an Imitation of a Paffage in the firft Iliad, in the Speech of Neftor;

Alas

Alas for Greece! he cries, and what with Joy
Shall Priam hear, and every Son of Troy !

TICKELL.

31 Mille ovium, &c.] After the Arms of Achilles had been adjudged to Ulyffes, fo deep a Melancholy feized Ajax, as turned his Head. One Night, in a Fit of it, he fell upon a Flock of Sheep, and thought he was killing Agamemnon, Menelaus, and the other Grecian Generals: And he drove Oxen into his Tent as fo many Prifoners; among whom he took Ulysses to be one.

This occafioned the following Line in Juvenal's fourteenth Satire;

32

Hic, bove percuffo, mugire Agamemnona credit.

When with his mighty Arm he struck an Ox,
He fancy'd Agamemnon low'd

Uxore & nato, &c.

abftinuit vim

He neither hurt his Wife Tecmessa, nor his Son Euryfaces.
On the contrary, he addreffles himself to them with great
Mildness and Compofure; as may be feen in the Ajax of
Sophocles, where he orders his Boy, then very young, to
be brought in, and thus accosts him ;

May't thou, my Son, be happier than thy Sire!
In all Things clfe be like him-

Virgil has imitated this Paffage in his 12th Eneid, where Eneas thus accofts Afcanius;

Difce, puer, virtutem ex me, verumque laborem;
Fortunam ex aliis.

Virtue, my Son, and Labour learn from Me;
Success from others

33 Qui fpecies alias veri, &c.] Sanadon thus reads, and points this Paffage;

Qui fpecies alias veri fcelerifque, tumultu

Permiftas capiet, commotus habebitur

By alias he understands different, or oppofite; and by tumultu the Disorder of the Pafions.

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He who, blinded

by his Pailions, confounds the diftinct Ideas of Virtue and Vice, Good and Evil, should be deemed a Madman.'

I 2

This

This, fays Dacier, is a Divine Sentiment. According to this Definition, Madness is either an Error of the Understanding, or a Depravity of the Will. So ver. 43. Quem mala ftultitia et-infcitia veri

Cacum agit.

Stertinius does not give Agamemnon an Opportunity to explain the Reasons of his Conduct, because he already knew what they were. He might have urged, That the Goddess Diana had commanded Iphigenia to be • facrificed; that otherwise the Grecian Fleet must have • remained Wind-bound, and could not have failed for Troy; that private Claims fhould fubmit to public; and therefore, that he ought to lose the Father in the 'King.' But the Philofopher thought all these Reasons weak and inconclufive. He knew, the King conftrued that which was only the Effect of his own Vanity and Ambition, as proceeding from a Zeal for Religion and the Love of his Subjects; and that, if he had been difpaffionate, he would have understood, that GoD cannot delight in the Blood of Mankind : And therefore, instead of taking the Oracle in the literal Senfe of the Words, he would, by the common Principles of Reason, have apprehended, that the Meaning of it was, to divert him from a Voyage and Enterprize, which, in its Confequences, would prove fatal both to himself and to his Family.

Stertinius forms a truer Judgment of Agamemnon's Motive than thofe, who, like Lucretius, afcribe it to Superftition only. It was Ambition, which lurked in his Heart, and concealed itself under the Pretext of Religion. He was deceptus cupidine falfo, as Horace fpeaks in his firft Satire. None but a Stoic could have traced the Labyrinths of his Heart, and removed that fpecious Veil which covered his Ambition. DACIER.

fcelus ob titulos admittis inanes.] Such as The King of Kings, The Light of the Grecians, The Conqueror of

Barbarians.

35 Si quis ledica nitidam geftare amet agnam, &c.] Horace happily makes use of this agreeable Similé, which was neceflary to temper Stertinius's Lecture, the Subject of which is harsh and severe: And in this his Addrefs is admirable.

The

The Images made use of by the Poet bear a great Refemblance to those of the Prophet Nathan, in his Parable to David, 2 Sam. Chap. XII. But the poor Man had nothing fave one little Erwe-Lamb, which he had bought and nourished; And it grew up together with him and his Children; it did eat of his own Bread, and drank of his own Cup, and lay in bis Bofom, and was unto him as a Daughter.

36

interdi&to buic omne adimat jus

Prætor, et ad fanos abeat tutela propinquos.] Xerxes prefented a gold Bracelet to a beautiful PlaneTree, and appointed one of his own Guards constantly to attend it. See Herodotus, B. VII. In like manner the Emperor Caligula built a stately House for his Horse, furnished it with Goods, appointed Slaves to attend him, &c. and named him Conful. See his Life by Suetonius, Chap. LV. According to the rational Doctrine of Startinius, they both ought to have been treated as Lunatics, deprived of Power, confined, &c.

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Et furiofus erit.]

This Sentiment is no lefs excellent than that which Dacier declares to be Divine.

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38 Clodius, the Son of Æsopus, the celebrated Tragedian, was, like his Father, extremely luxurious and extravagant. Thus Pliny Antony and Cleopatra shall not carry the Prize, but fhall lofe the Glory of being pre' eminent in Luxury. For, before their Time, Clodius, the Son of Efop, the Tragedian, being left Heir to his ' immenfe Wealth, had done the fame at Rome with • Pearls of great Price; fo that Antony has no Right to be 'proud of his Triumvirate, fince one, who was little better than a Stage-Player, could vie with him; who had laid no Wager, but, in a more princely Manner, did it merely for the Glory of knowing how Pearls tasted; and when he found them to be very delicate, (not being willing to be fingular in his Pleasures,) he enter⚫tained every one of his Guests alío with a Pearl.' B. II. Ch. 25.

39 This Story is related by Diogenes Laertius, and others. Polemon afterwards fucceeded his Mafter Xeno

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crates in his School, in the Year 313 before the Birth of our Saviour, and was the third after Plato. Plato, PfeuJippus, Xenocrates, Polemon.

40 See Terence's Eunuch, at the Beginning..

41 This was looked upon as an Omen of Succefs in Love. Even we Chriftians have many fuch Whims. See the Connoiffeur, Vol. II. No. 56.

·

Excerpens femina, Taking out the Seeds, or Kernels.' Mr. Francis tranflates it thus;

When from the Roof the darted Pippins bound.

He was probably led into this Mistake by the Word Pepins (Kernels) in Dacier's Translation.

42 Compita.] Auguftus had ordered the Lares, or Houfhold-Gods, to be worshipped in the Crofs-ways.

43 The following Charm, ftill practifed by the good People of Devenbire for the Cure of the Sciatica, (which they call the Bone-fbave.) and thought almot infallibl, will show, that we are not lefs aptitious than the old

Romans:

The Patient muft lie on his Eack, on the Bank of a • Kiver, or Brook, with a strait Staff by his Side, between him and the Water, and must have the following Words • repeated over him;

44

Bone-fhave right;

Eone-fhave ftrait;

As the Water runs by the Stave, • Good for Bone-thave.

In the Name, &c.

Mater delira necabit, &c]

Juvenal, in his fixth Satire, treats the Superftition of the Sex fans façon:

45

That Sex is fill obnoxious to the Prieft.

Through ye they beat, and plunge into the Stream,
If fo the God has warn'd 'em in a Dream.

DRYDEN.

tim re Deorum.] The Ancients defined Superftition by the L read of the Gods. So thoroughly were they convinced, that the true Worship of GOD mult confift in the Love, and not in the Fear, of him. DACIER.

46 Horace

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