writers of this age; and is more loose and incorrect than either of the other. As Propertius followed too many mafters, Ovid endeavoured to fhine in too many different kinds of writing at the fame time. Befides, he had a redundant genius; and almost always chofe rather to indulge, than to give any restraint to it. If one was to give any opinion of the different merits of his feveral works, one fhould not perhaps be much befide the truth, in faying, that he excels moft in his Fafti; then perhaps in his love-verfes; next in his heroic epiftles; and lastly, in his Metamorphofes. As for the verfes he wrote after his misfortunes, he has quite loft his fpirit in them; and though you may difcover fome difference in his manner, after his banishment came to fit a little lighter on him, his genius never fhines out fairly after that fatal ftroke. His very love of being witty had forfaken him; though before it feems to have grown upon him, when it was leaft becoming, towards his old age: for his Metamorphofes (which was the laft poem he wrote at Rome, and which indeed was not quite finished when he was fent into banish ment) has more inftances of falfe wit in it, than perhaps all his former writings put together. One of the things I have heard him most cried up for, in that piece, is his tranfitions from one story to another. The ancients thought differently of this point; and Quinctilian, where he is fpeaking of them, endeavours rather to excufe than to commend him on that head. We have a confiderable lofs in the latter half of his Fafti; and in his Medea, which is much commended. Dramatic poetry seems not to have flourished, in proportion to the other forts of poetry, in the Auguftan age. We fcarce hear any thing of the comic poets of that time; and if tragedy had been much cultivated then, the Roman writers would certainly produce fome names from it, to oppofe to the Greeks, without going to far back as to thofe of Actius and Pacuvius. Indeed their own critics, in fpeaking of the dramatic writings of this age, boat rather of fingle pieces, than of authors: and the two particular tragedies, which they talk of in the higheft ftrain, are the Medea of Ovid, and Varius's Thyeftes. However, if it was not the age for plays, it was certainly the age in which almost all the other kinds of

poe

try were in their greatest excellence at Spence.

Rome.

$51. Of PHÆ D R US.

Under this period of the best writing, I fhould be inclined to infert Phædrus. For though he published after the good manner of writing was in general on the decline, he flourished and formed his ftyle under Auguftus: and his book, though it did not appear till the reign of Tiberius, deferves, on all accounts, to be reckoned among the works of the Auguftan age. Fabula fopeæ, was probably the title which he gave his fables. He profeffedly follows Afop in them; and declares, that he keeps to his manner, even where the subject is of his own invention. By this it appears, that

fop's way of telling ftories was very fhort and plain; for the diftinguishing beauty of Phædrus's fables is, their concifenefs and fimplicity. The tafte was fo much fallen, at the time when he published them, that both thefe were objected to him as faults. He used those critics as they deferved. He tells a long, tedious flory to thofe who objected against the concifenefs of his ftyle; and anfwers fome others, who condemned the plainnefs of it, with a run of bombait verfes, that have a great many noify elevated words in them, without any fenfe at the bottom. Ibid.

§ 52. Of MANILIUS. Manilius can scarce be allowed a place in this lift of the Auguftan poets; his poetry is inferior to a great many of the Latin poets, who have wrote in thefe lower ages, fo long fince Latin has ceafed to be a living language. There is at leaft, I believe, no inftance, in any one poet of the flourishing ages, of fuch language, or fuch versfication, as we meet with in Manilius; and there is not any one ancient writer that fpeaks one word of any fuch poet about thofe times. I doubt not, there were bad poets enough in the Auguftan age; but I queftion whether Manilius may deferve the honour of being reckoned even among the bad poets of that time. What must be faid, then to the many paffages in the poem, which relate to the times in which the author lived, and which all have a regard to the Auguftan age? If the whole be not a modern forgery, I do not fee how one can deny his being of that age: and if it be a modern forgery, it is very lucky that it should agree fo exactly, in fo many little particulars, with the ancient globe of the heavens, in the Farnefe palace. Al

$53. Of the Ports whyje Works have not

come down to us.

Thefe are but small remains for an age in which poetry was fo well cultivated and followe! by very great numbers, taking the good and the bad together. It is probable, moit of the best bave co.ne 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 fort of piicatory eclogues; and Macer, a poem on the nature of birds, beafts, and plants. That the fame Macer, and Rabirinus, and Marfus, and Ponticus, and Pedo Albinovanus, and feveral others, were epic writers in that time (which, by the way, feems to have fignified little more, than that they wrote in hexameter verfe): that Fundanius was the beft comic poet then, and Meliffas no bad one: that Varius was the most efteemed for epic poetry, before the Encid appeared; and one of the moft efteemed for tragedy always: that Pollio (beides his other excellencies at the bar, in the camp, and in affairs of flate) is much commended for tragedy; and Varias, ether for tragedy or epic poetry; for it do uite appear which of the two he wi Thefe lait are great names; but there remain fome of fil higher dignity, who are, or at leaft defired to be thon ut, poets in that time. In the forme: part of Auguftus's reign, his firft minilter for home affairs, Macenas; and in the litter part, his grandfon Germanicus, were of this number. Germanicus in particular tranflated. Aratus; and there are fome (I do not well know on what grounds) who pretend to have met with a confiderable part of his tranflation. The emperor himself feems to have been both a good critic, and a good author. He wrote chiefly in profe; but fome things in verfe too; and particularly good part of a tragely, called Ajax.

It is no wonder, under fuch encouragements, and fo great examples, that poetry fhould arife to a higher pitch than it had ever done among the Romans. They had been gradually improving it for above two centuries; and in Auguftus found a

is, when they had got fo far toward perfection, that they fhould fall as it were all at once; and from their greateft purity and fimplicity, fhould degenerate fo immediately into a lower and more affected manner of writing, than had been ever known among them. Ibid.

954. Of the Fall of Poetry among the

Romans.

There are fome who affert, that the great age of the Roman eloquence I have been fpeaking of, began to decline a little even in the latter part of Auguftus's reign. It certainly fell very much under Tiberias; 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. Auguf tus, whatever his natural temper was, put on at least a mildnefs, that gave a calm to the ftate during his time: the fucceeding emperors flung off the mafk; and not only were, but openly appeared to be, rather monsters than men. We need not go to their hiftorians for proofs of their prodi gious vilene fs: it is enough to mention the bare names of Tiberius, Caligula, Nero. Under fuch heads, every thing that was good run to ruin. All difcipline in war, all domeftic virtues, the very love of liberty, and all the taste for found eloquence and good poetry, funk gradually; and fad. ed away, as they had flourished, together. Inftead of the fenfible, chafte, and manly way of writing, that had been in ufe in the former age, there now rofe up a defire of writing fmartly, and an affectation of fhining in every thing they faid. A certain prettiness, and glitter, and luxuriance of ornaments, was what diftinguished their most applauded writers in profe; and their poetry was quite left in high flights and obfcurity. Seneca, the favourite profe writer of thofe times; and Petronius Arbiter, fo great a favourite with many of our own; afford too many proofs of this. As to the profe in Nero's time; and as to the poets, it is enough to fy, that they had then Lucan and Perfius, inftead of Virgil and Horace. Ibid.

$55. Of LUCAN. Perius and Lucan, who were the moff celebrated poets under the reign of Nero, may very well ferve for examples of the

faults

faults I just 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 mufe was a kind of dropfy, and looks like the foldier defcribed in his own Pharfalia, who in pafing the defert fands of Africa, was bit by a ferpent, and fwelled to fuch an immoderare 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 thofe occafions, it is not fo much a violence of rage, as a madnefs of affectation, that appears moft ftrongly in him. To give a few inftances of it, out of many: In the very beginning of Lucan's ftorm, when Cæfar ventured to cross the fea in fo fmall a veffel; "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 shaken; and nature is afraid of a fecond chaos. His little skiff, 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 must inevitably have been loft, had not the storm (by good fortune) been fo ftrong from every quarter, that he did not know on which de to bulge firft.

When the two armies are going to join battle in the plains of Pharfalia, we are old, that all the foldiers were incapable if any fear for themfelves, becaufe they were wholly taken up with their concern for the danger which threatened Pompey and the commonwealth. On this great occafion, the hills about thein, according to bis 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

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

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

The fea-fight off Marfeilles, 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 breast; 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 lait, 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 honeft 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 Witherington 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 together to the bottom of the fea; others flick their bodies against the beaks of their enemics fhips: and scarce a man of them flung away the ufe of his carcafe, even when he should be dead.

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

out

out both his eyes. The violent dash of the blow, and the deep darknefs 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 juft as they did their Ballifta: 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 otherwise expect from fo young a writer, had he wanted fuch an uncle as Seneca, and fuch a mafter 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 tafte. After all, what I moft diflike 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 himself in the moft defpicable manner. He named his own mother as guilty of the confpiracy, in hopes of faving himfelf. 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 laft words he spoke, were fome verfes of his own.

$57. Of PERSIUS.

Spence.

Perfius is faid to have been Lucan's fchool-fellow under Cornutus; and, like him, was bred up more a philofopher than a poet. He has the character of a good man; but fcarce deferves that of a good writer, in any other than the moral fenfe of the word: for his writings are very virquons, but not very poetical. His great

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 speak of the emperor or the ftate; but in the general courfe of his fatires. So that, in my confcience, 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 it. Vefpafian, the firft emperor of that line, endeavoured to recover fomething of the good taste 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 mufes. 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 spirit to the arts, that had long been in fo 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 leaft, than they had been under the reign of Nero.

Ibid.

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 Lu can, 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 spirit of poetry, he is free at least from the affectation, and obfcurity, and bombaft, which prevailed fo much among his immediate predeceffors. Silius was ho noured with the confulate; and lived to fee his fon in the fame high office. He was a great lover and collector of pictures and flatues; fome of which he worshipped;

efpecially

efpecially one he had of Virgil. He ufed to offer facrifices too at his tomb near Naples. It is a pity that he could not get more of his fpirit in his writings: for he had scarce enough to make his offerings acceptable to the genius of that great poet. -Statius had more of fpirit, with a lefs thare of prudence: for his Thebaid is cer. tainly ill-conducted, and fcarcely well written. By the little we have of his Achilleid, that would probably have been a much bet ter 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 Achil'eid, he may deferve more reputation pertaps as a mifcellaneous than as an epic writer; for though the odes and other copies of verfes in his Sylva are not without their faults, they are not fo faulty as his Thebaid. The chief faults of Statius, in his Sylvæ and Thebaid, are faid to have proceeded from very different caufes: the former, from their having been written in Correaly 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 extrava gantly as he does. It is remarkable, that poetry run more lineally in Statius's family, than perhaps in any other. He re ceived 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 Limfelf-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 eighth, 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 clined to be feriously of their opinion; for he feems 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 flory, 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 expreflion 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 Auguflus and Trajan. It is true, the perfon 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 poets under this period, there are none whofe works remain to us, except Martial and Juvenal. The former flourished under Domitian; and the latter under Neiva, Trajan, and Adrian. Stenie.

$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 diftich 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 ftyle was turned to panegyric; and these were his highest employments. He was, however, a good writer in his way; and there

are