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been gradually improving it for above two centuries; and in Augustus found a prince, whose own inclinations, the temper of whose reign, and whose very politics, led him to nurse all the arts; and poetry, in a more particular manner. The wonder is, when they had got so far toward perfection, that they should fall as it were all at once; and from their greatest purity and simplicity, should degenerate so immediately into a lower and more affected manner of writing, than had been ever known ainong them. Ibid.

Romans.

gave

These are but small remains for an age in which poetry was so well cultivated and followed by very great numbers, taking the good and the bad together. It is probable, § 54. Of the Fall of Poetry among the most of the best have come down to us. As for the others, we only hear of the elegies of Capella and Montanus: that Proculus imitated Callimachus; and Rufus, Pindar: that Fontanus wrote a sort of piscatory eclogues; and Macer, a poem on the nature of birds, beasts, and plants. That the same Macer, and Rabirinus, and Marsus, and Ponticus, and Pedo Albinovanus, and several others, were epic writers in that time, (which, by the way, seems to have signified little more, than that they wrote in hexameter verse): that Fundanius was the best comic poet then, and Melissus no bad one: that Varius was the most esteemed for epic poetry, before the Æneid appeared; and one of the most esteemed for tragedy always: that Pollio (besides his other excellencies at the bar, in the camp, and in affairs of state) is much commended for tragedy; and Varius, either for tragedy or epic poetry; for it does not quite appear which of the two he wrote. These last are great names; but there remain some of still higher dignity, who are, or at least desired to be thought poets in that time. In the former part of Augustus's reign, his first minister for home affairs, Mæcenas; and in the latter part, his grandson Germanicus, were of this number. Germanicus in particular translated Aratus; and there are some (I do not well know on what grounds) who pretend to have met with a considerable part of his translation. The emperor himself seems to have been both a good critic, and a good author. He wrote chiefly in prose; but some things in verse too; and particularly good part of a tragedy, called Ajax.

It is no wonder, under such encourage ments, and so great examples, that poetry should arise to a higher pitch than it had ever done among the Romans. They had

There are some who assert, that the great age of the Roman eloquence I have been speaking of, began to decline a little even in the latter part of Augustus's reign. It certainly fell very much under Tiberius; and grew every day weaker and weaker, till it was wholly changed under Caligula. Hence therefore we may date the third age, or the fall of the Roman poetry. Augustus, whatever his natural temper was, put on at least a mildness, that a calm to the state during his time: the succeeding emperors flung off the mask; and not only were, but openly appeared to be, rather monsters than men. We need not go to their historians for proofs of their prodigious vileness: it is enough to mention the bare names of Tiberius, Caligula, Nero. Under such heads, every thing that was good run to ruin. All discipline in war, all domestic virtues, the very love of liberty, and all the taste for sound eloquence and good poetry, sunk gradually; and faded away, as they had flourished, together. Instead of the sensible, chaste, and manly way of writing, that had been in use in the former age, there now rose up a desire of writing smartly, and an affectation of shining in every thing they said. A certain prettiness and glitter, and luxuriance of ornaments, was what distinguished their most applauded writers in prose; and their poetry was quite lost in high flights and obscurity. Seneca, the favourite prose writer of those times; and Petronius Arbiter, so great a favourite with many of our own; afford too many proofs of this. As to the prose in Nero's time; and as to the poets, it is enough to say, that they had then Lucan and Persius, instead of Virgil and Horace.

Ibid.

$55. of LUCAN.

Persius and Lucan, who were the most celebrated poets under the reign of Nero, may very well serve for examples of the faults I just mentioned, one of the swelling, and the other of the obscure style, then in fashion. Lucan's manner in general runs too much into fustian and bombast. His muse was a kind of Dropsy, and looks like the soldier described in his own Pharsalia, who in passing the desert sands of Africa, was bit by a serpent, and swelled to such an immoderate size, "that he was lost (as he expresses it) in the tumours of his own body." Some critics have been in too great haste to make Quinctilian say some good things of Lucan, which he never meant to do. What this poet has been admired for, and what he will ever deserve to be admired for, are the several philosophical passages that abound in his works; and his generous sentiments, par ticularly on the love of liberty and the contempt of death. In his calm hours, he is very wise; but he is often in his rants, and never more so than when he is got into a battle, or a storm at sea; but it is remarkable, that even on those occasions, it is not so much a violence of rage, as a madness of affectation, that appears most strongly in him. To give a few instances of it, out of many: In the very beginning of Lucan's storm, when Cæsar ventured to cross the sea in so small a vessel: "the fixt stars themselves seem to be put in motion." Then "the waves rise 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 suppose to increase their force. The sea opens in several places, and leaves its bottom dry land. All the foundations of the universe are shaken; and nature is afraid of a second chaos. His little skiff, in the mean time, sometimes cuts along the clouds with her sails; and sometimes seems in danger of being stranded on the sands at the bottom of the sea; and must inevitably have been lost, had not the storm (by good fortune) been so strong from every quarter, that she did not know on which side to bulge first.

When the two armies are going to join battle in the plains of Pharsalia, we are told, that all the soldiers 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 occasion, the hills about them, according to his account, seem to be more afraid than the men; for some 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 vallies at their feet. And these disturbances in nature were universal: for that day, every single Roman, in whatever part of the world he was, felt a strange gloom spread all over his mind, on a sudden; and was ready to cry, though he did not know why or wherefore. Spence.

§ 56. His Description of the Sea-fight off Marseilles.

The sea-fight of Marseilles, is a thing that might divert one, full as well as Erasmus's Naufragium Joculare; and what is still stranger, the poet chooses to be most diverting in the wounds he gives the poor soldier. The first person killed in it is pierced at the same instant by two spears; one in his back, and the other in his breast; so nicely, that both their points meet together in the middle of his body. They each, I suppose, had a right to kill him; and his soul was for some time doubtful which it should obey. At last, it compounds the matter; drives out each of the spears before it, at the same instant; 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 sea to recover the former; but there (as misfortunes seldom come single) 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 Witherington that ever was.-When the battle grows warmer, there are many who have the same misfortune with this Greek. In endeavouring to climb up the enemies' ships, several have their arms struck off; fall into the sea; leave their hands behind them! Some of these swimming combatants encounter their enemies in the water; some supply their friends' ships with arms; some that had no arms, entangle themselves with their enemies; cling to them, and sink together to the bottom of the sea; others stick their bodies against the beaks of their enemies' ships, and scarce a man of them flung away the use of his carcass, even when he should be dead.

But among all the contrivances of these posthumous warriors, the thing most to

be admired, is the sagacity of the great Tyrrhenus. Tyrrhenus was standing at the head of one of the vessels, when a ball of lead flung by an artful slinger, struck out both his eyes. The violent dash of the blow, and the deep darkness that was spread over him all at once, uade him at first conclude that he was dead: but when he had recovered his senses a little, and found he could advance one foot before the other, he desired his fellow-soldiers to plant him just as they plant their Balista: he hopes he can still fight as well as a machine: and seems mightily pleased to think how he shall cheat the enemy, who will fling away darts at him, that might have killed people who were alive.

Such strange things as these, make me always wonder the more, how Lucan can be so wise as he is in some parts of his poem. Indeed his sentences are more solid than one could otherwise expect from so young a writer, had he wanted such an uncle as Seneca, and such a master as Cornutus. The swellings 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 farthest removed from Greece and Rome; nay, of that very city, which is marked by Cicero as particu. larly overrun with a bad taste. After all, what I most dislike him for, is a blot in his moral character. He was at first pretty high in the favour of Nero. On the discovery of his being concerned in a plot against him, this philosopher (who had written so much and so gallantly, about the pleasure of dying) behaved himself in the most despicable manner. He named his own mother as guilty of the conspiracy, in hopes of saving himself. After this, he added several of his friends to his former confession; and thus continued labouring for a pardon, by making sacrifices to the tyrant of such lives, as any one, much less of a philosopher than he seems to have been, ought to think dearer than their own. All this baseness was of no use to him: for in the end, Nero ordered him to execution too. His veins were opened: and the last words he spoke, were some verses of his own.

Spence.

§ 57. Of PERSIUS, Persius is said to have been Lucan's school-fellow under Cornutus; and, like him, was bred up more a philosopher than a poet. He has the character of a good man: but scarce deserves that of a good

writer, in any other than the moral sense of the word: for his writings are very virtuous; but not very poetical. His great fault is obscurity. Several have endeavoured to excuse or palliate this fault with him, from the danger of the times he lived in; and the necessity a satirist then lay under, of writing so, for his own security. This may hold as to some passages in him; but to say the truth he seems to have a tendency and love to obscurity in himself; for it is not only to be found where he may speak of the emperor or the state; but in the general course of his satires. So that in my conscience, I must give him up for an obscure writer; as I should 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 short tumultuous reigns. Then the Flavian family came in. Vespasian, the first emperor of that line, endeavoured to recover something of the good taste that had formerly flourished in Rome; his son Titus, the delight of mankind, in his short reign, encouraged poetry by his example, as well as by his liberalities; and even Domitian loved to be thought a patron of the muses. After him, there was a succession of good emperors, from Nerva to the Antonines. And this extraordinary good fortune (for indeed, if one considers the general run of the Roman emperors, it would have been such, to have had any two good ones only toge ther) gave a new spirit to the arts, that had long been in so languishing a condition, and made poetry revive, and raise 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.

Ibid.

§ 58. Of SILIUS, STATIUS, and VA

LERIUS FLACCUS.

This period produced three epic poets, whose 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 soar throughout his whole work. It is plain, however, though it is low; and if he has but little of the spirit of poetry, he is free at least from the affectation, and obscurity, and bombast, which prevailed so much among his immediate predecessors. Silius was honoured with the consulate ; and lived to

see his son in the same high office. He was a great lover and collector of pictures and statues; some of which he worshipped; especially one he had of Virgil. He used to offer sacrifices too at his tomb near Naples. It is a pity that he could not get more of his spirit in his writings: for he had scarce enough to make his offerings acceptable to the genius of that great poet. -Statius had more of spirit, with a less share 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 description of Achilles's behaviour at the feast which Lycomedes makes for the Grecian ambassadors, and some other parts of it, read more pleasingly to me than any part of the Thebaid. I cannot help thinking, that the passage quoted so often from Juvenal, as an encomium on Statius, was meant as a satire on him. Martial seems to strike at him too, under the borrowed name of Sabellus. As he did not finish his Achilleid, he may deserve more reputation perhaps as a miscellaneous than as an epicwriter; for though the odes and the other copies of veres in his Sylvæ are not without their faults, they are not so faulty as his Thebaid. The chief faults of Statius, in his Sylve and Thebaid, are said to have proceeded from very different causes: the former, from their having been written incorrectly and in a great deal of haste; and the other, from its being over corrected and hard. Perhaps his greatest fault of all or rather the greatest sign of his bad judgment, is his admiring Lucan so 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 see his son obtain the laurel-crown at the Alban games: as he had formerly done himself. Valerius Flaccus wrote a little before Statius. He died young, and left his unfinished. We have but seven poem books of his Argonauts, and part of the eighth, in which the Argonauts are left on the in their return homewards. Several of the modern critics, who have been some way or other concerned in publishing Flaccus's works, make no scruple of placing him next to Virgil, of all the Roman epic poets; and I own I am a good deal inclined to be seriously of their opinion:

sea,

-

for he seems to me to have more fire than Silius, 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 less embarrassed and confused than the Thebaid. Some of the ancients themselves speak of Flaccus with a great deal of respect; and particularly Quinctilian; who says nothing at all of Silius or Statius; unless the latter is to be included in that general expression of several others,' whom he leaves to be celebrated by posterity.

age were

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 some bad grammarian; for either the Roman tragedies of this very indifferent, or these are not their best. They have been attributed to authors as far distant as the reigns of Augustus and Trajan. It is true, the person who is so positive that one of them in particular must be of the Augustan age, says this of a piece that he seems resolved to cry up at all rates: and I believe one should do no injury to any one of them, in supposing them all to have been written in this third age, under the decline of the Roman poetry.

Of all the other poets under this period there are none whose 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 insects, prettily enough. If Martial made a newyear's gift, he was sure to send a distich with it: if a friend died, he made a few verses to put on his tomb-stone: if a statue was set up, they came to him for an inscription. These were the common offices of his muse. If he struck 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 highest employments. He was, how

ever, a good writer in his way; and there are instances even of his writing with some dignity on higher occasions. Spence.

$60. Of JUVENAL

Juvenal began to write after all I have mentioned; and, I do not know by what good fortune, writes with a greater spirit of poetry than any of them. He has scarce any thing of the gentility of Horace: yet he is not without humour, and exceeds all the satirists in severity. To say the truth, he flashes too much like an angry executioner; but the depravity of the times, and the vices then in fashion, may often excuse some degree of rage in him. It is said he did not write till he was elderly; and after he had been too much used to declaiming. However, his satires have a great deal of spirit in them; and shew a strong hatred of vice, with some very fine and high sentiments of virtue. They are indeed so animated, that I do not know any poem of this age, which one can read with near so much pleasure as his satires.

Juvenal may very well be called the last of the Roman poets. After his time, poetry continued decaying more and more, quite down to the time of Constantine; when all the arts were so far lost and extinguished among the Romans, that from that time they themselves may very well be called by the name they used to give to all the world, except the Greeks; for the Romans then had scarce any thing to distinguish them from the Barbarians.

There are, therefore, but three ages of the Roman poetry, that can carry any weight with them in an inquiry of this nature. The first age, from the first Punic war to the time of Augustus, is more remarkable for strength, than any great degree of beauty in writing. The second age, or the Augustan, is the time when they wrote with a due mixture of beauty and strength. And the third, from the beginning of Nero's reign to the end of Adrian's, when they endeavoured after beauty more than strength; when they lost much of their vigour, and run too much into affectation. Their poetry, in its youth, was strong and nervous; in its middle age, it was manly and polite; in its latter days it grew tawdry and feeble; and endeavoured to hide the decays of its former beauty and strength, in false ornaments of dress, and a borrowed flush on the face; which did not so much render

it pleasing, as it shewed that its natural
complexion was faded and lost. Ibid.
§ 61. On the Literary Character of
JULIUS CÆSAR.

men distinguished by genius, began to Julius Cæsar, like the greater part of display his inventive powers in the pleasant walks of poesy. In early youth he the Praise of Hercules, which I imagine wrote a Tragedy called Edipus, and prohibited the publication of them both, was a kind of epic poem; but Augustus lest they should expose any marks of juvenile imperfection, and disgrace the imperial family. It should be mentioned also, as an instance of Julius Cæsar's industry, that he compiled a volume, to which he gave the name of Dicta collectanea, consisting of the remarkable apophthegms of remarkable men, Augustus suppressed this also, from a scrupulous regard for the honour of the house of Cæsar.

One cannot help wishing that the juveman, had been preserved as curiosities. nile productions of so distinguishing a Though they might not have been exempt from the defects of immature judgment, there is every reason to conjecture that they abounded in elegance,

a poem, entitled Iter, or the Itinerary. At a later period, this great man wrote It gave an account of his expeditious progress from Rome to Hispania ulterior; and was probably in the style and manner of Horace's Iter Brundusium.

I am the rather induced to believe that Cæsar wrote in the Horation manner sermoni propriora, because the little specimen which remains of Cæsar's poetry is in that style. ment on Terence, preserved by Donatus. It is the well-known frag

Tu quoque, tu in summis, O dimidiate Menander, &c.

on the causes of the corruption of eloIn the dialogue of an admirable author quence, there is a passage which reflects but little honour on Cæsar as a poet. Cæsar and Brutus, says he, wrote verses and deposited them in libraries; they did not make better verses than Cicero, but yet more happily, since fewer knew that they made them at all. Non melius quam Cicero, at felicius, quia illos fecisse pauciores sciunt.

Cæsar's verses, it is probable, were not very striking, as may be collected from an

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