Skill'd on the roof his vacant eyes to roll,
And snore, with wakeful nostrils, o'er the bowl!
When he presumes to ask a troop's command,
Who spent on horses all his father's land,
While, proud the experienced driver to display,
He mark'd with glowing wheels the publick way:-
For there, our young Automedon first tried
His powers, there loved the rapid car to guide,
While great Pelides sought superiour bliss,
And toy'd and wanton'd with his master-miss,

VER. 85. When he presumes, &c.] He probably alludes to Cornelius Fuscus, who fell in the Dacian war. (Sat. Iv.) Fuscus had assisted Nero in his mad follies, to the ruin of his patrimony; and on that founded his claim to promotion. Hence the indignation of Juvenal.

The two concluding lines of this paragraph have given the commentators some trouble:

puer Automedon nam lora tenebat, "Ipse lacernatæ cum se jactaret amicæ."

If I understand Holyday, he refers ipse to Fuscus, and amica lacernata to his "warlike mistress:" but from the mention of Automedon, the charioteer of Achilles, it should seem as if ipse was meant of the Emperour, who, while Fuscus was showing his dexterity in driving, employed himself in exhibiting his talents in some other way, to one of his favourites.

If this be allowed, the amica lacernata must relate to Sporus, whom this monster of lust espoused in Greece, afterwards brought to Italy, and exhibited publickly in the streets of Rome, and elsewhere, as his wife. Hunc Sporum, augustarum ornamentis excultum, lecticaque vectum, et circa conventus mercatusque Græciæ, ac mox Romæ circa Sigillaria comitatus est, identidem exosculans. Suet. Nero. xxviii.

The end of Sporus is singular enough to deserve a line. A few years after this transaction, he was ordered by Vitellius (then Emperour) to personate a nymph, who, in some pantomime, was to be carried off by a ravisher: and this creature-branded in the face of the whole world with infamy of the deepest die, actually put an end to himself, to avoid appearing on the stage in the dress of a female!

Who would not, reckless of the swarm he meets,
Fill his wide tablets in the publick streets,
With angry verse? when, through the mid-day
glare;

Born by six slaves, and in an open chair,
The forger comes, who owes his lavish state,
To a wet seal, and a fictitious date;

Comes, like the soft Mæcenas, lolling by,
And impudently braves the publick eye! [thirst
Or the rich dame, who stanch'd her husband's
With generous bowls, but-drugg'd them deeply
Now, baffling old Locusta in her skill, [first!
She shows her simpler neighbours how to kill,
And bids them bear the spotted corpse along,
Nor heed the curses of the indignant throng.

VER. 99. Comes, like the soft Macenas, &c.] This great man was at once a beau and a sloven. Seneca says, he used to walk abroad with his tawdry tunick about his heels. He was so indolent, that when the præfect of the guards came to him for the countersign, or watchword, he generally received him half undrest. His effeminacy is again noticed in the twelfth Satire.

VER. 101. Or the rich dame, &c.] The person here alluded to, says Madan, was Agrippina, the wife of Claudius. It is not unusual (and I speak it for the sake of criticks of a much higher order than Mr. Madan) for a commentator to note what is immediately before him, without deigning to cast an eye to the right hand or the left. The husband, in the text, is poisoned by a draught of wine; Claudius was despatched by a mushroom! but it is needless to pursue the subject. Poisoning husbands, unluckily, was not so rare an event in those days, that we should set an author at variance with himself to appropriate it. Madan was probably misled by Britannicus: but I observe that Ruperti has fallen into the same errour, for such I still think it to be. On matrona potens he says, poisoner," (I believe that some particular fact and some particular female were alluded to,)" or rather Agrippina, who poisoned her husband, Claudius." Vol. II. p. 28.

any

VER. 103. Now, baffling old Locusta, &c.] This superannu ated wretch, who seems to have reduced the art of poisoning to

C

Dare nobly, man, if greatness be thy aim,
And practise what may chains and exile claim:
On Guilt's broad base thy towering fortunes raise,
For Virtue starves-on universal praise;
While Vice controls the penury of Fate,
Bestows the figured vase, the antique plate,
The lordly mansion, and the fair estate!

O! who can see the step-father impure,
The greedy daughter to his bed allure;
See, and suppress his feelings while he sees,
Unnatural brides, and stripling debauchees ?
When crimes like these on every side arise,
Anger shall give what mother-wit denies,
And pour, in Nature and the Nine's despite,
Such strains as I, or Cluvienus, write!

a science, is frequently mentioned by the writers of Juvenal's time, with execration. She had been condemned to die for a thousand crimes; but was kept alive by the besotted Claudius, as an useful instrument of state vengeance: and, at length, employed against the very person whose dark designs she was reserved to facilitate! But so it ever is: the man who formed the brazen bull, first proved its tortures; and, as Shakspeare beaufully observes,

'tis the sport, to have the engineer

"Hoist with his own petar."

Nero made use of her afterwards to destroy Britannicus, and, perhaps, Burrhus; but upon the accession of Galba, she was dragged to execution amidst the shouts and insults of the populace.

VER. 110. For Virtue starves-on universal praise ;] This is prettily noticed by Massinger:

66

in this partial avaricious age
"What price bears honour? virtue? long ago
"It was but praised, and freezed; but now-a-days
""Tis colder far, and has nor love nor praise."

Fatal Dowry, Act II. Sc. i.

E'er since Deucalion, while, on every side, The bursting clouds upraised the whelming tide, Reach'd, in his little skiff, the forked hill,

And sought at Themis' shrine the Immortals' will; When softening stones with gradual life grew

warm,

And Pyrrha show'd the males each virgin charm;
Whatever wild desires have swell'd the breast,
Whatever passions have the soul possest;
Joy, Sorrow, Fear, Love, Hatred, Transport, Rage,
Shall form the motley subject of my page.

And when could Satire boast so fair a field?
Say, when did Vice a richer harvest yield?
When did fell Avarice so inflame the mind?
And when the lust of play so curse mankind?
For now no more the pocket's stores supply
The boundless charges of the desperate die:
The chest is staked! muttering the steward stands,
And scarce resigns it, at his lord's commands.
Is it a SIMPLE MADNESS, I would know,
To venture countless thousands on a throw,
Yet want the soul a single piece to spare,
To clothe the slave that shivering stands and bare!

VER 122. E'er since Deucalion, &c.] It will be sufficient to observe, for the less learned reader, that Deucalion was the son of Prometheus, and reigned in Thessaly. He was the only good man of his time, and therefore, when the rest of the world was swept away by a deluge, he and his wife Pyrrha were preserved, and wafted to mount Parnassus. On the abatement of the waters, they inquired of the Oracle how the earth might be replenished, and were answered, by throwing their mother's bones behind them. Pyrrha revolted at such impiety, but Deucalion satisfied her by proving that their "mother" meant the earth, and her "bones" consequently, the stones. These, therefore, they took up, and

Who call'd, of old, so many seats his own, Or on seven sumptuous dishes supp'd alone?ONCE all were welcomed; Now, a dole awaits The hungry clients, at the outward gates,

flung over their heads; those thrown by Deucalion produced men, those by Pyrrha, women: thus the world was repeopled! This absurd tale, which is prettily told by Ovid and others, is, as the reader sees, a wretched depravation of sacred history. VER. 144. Who call'd, of old, so many seats his own,

Or on seven sumptuous dishes supp'd alone?—] Juvenal might well ask this; for the ancients did neither. Their usual eating-room was the atrium, or common-hall, which was open to the view of every passer-by; and they had rarely more than two plain dishes. Even the first men of the state, says Val. Max. (lib. 11. c. 5.) were not ashamed to dine and sup there; nor had they any dish which they blushed to expose to the meanest of their fellow-citizens.

The old republicans used to admit the clients, who attended them from the forum, to supper. Under the Emperours, this laudable custom was done away, and a little basket of meat given to each of them to carry home. Nero (Suet. xvi.) ordered a small sum of money to be distributed instead of meat, and Domitian brought back the former practice. Whether any changes were subsequently introduced, is not certainly known, but we here find, that money was again distributed: perhaps, the choice was in the patron. The sum was a hundred quadrantes, pieces something less than a farthing, and making in all about fifteen-pence of our money.

As this is the first passage, in which the names of patron and client occur, it may not be amiss to say a few words on the relative situation of two classes of men, which comprehended nearly all the citizens of Rome. A patron then, was a man of rank and fortune, under whose care the meaner people voluntarily put themselves, and, in consequence of it, were denominated his clients. The patron assisted his client with his influence and advice, and the client, in return, gave his vote to his patron, when he sought any office for himself, or friends. The client owed his patron respect, the patron owed his client protection. Indeed, the early Romans seem to have given a degree of sanctity to the obligation of the patron towards the client. It was expressly enforced by a law of the Twelve Tables: Patronus, si clienti fraudem fecerit, sacer esto, If a patron injure his client, let him be held accursed.