now at the head of the government, and showed symptoms of reviving that system of favouritism which had nearly ruined the empire under Claudius, by his unbounded partiality for a young pantomime dancer of the name of Paris. Against. this minion, Juvenal seems to have directed the first shafts of that satire which was destined to make the most powerful vices tremble, and shake the masters of the world on their thrones. He composed a few lines on the influence of Paris, with considerable success, which encouraged him to cultivate this kind of poetry: he had the pru dence, however, not to trust himself to an auditory, in a reign which swarmed with informers; and his compositions were, therefore, secretly handed about amongst his friends. + By degrees,,

*

Deinde paucorum versuum satira non absurde composita in Paridem pantomimum, poetamque Claudii Neronis, (the writer seems, in this and the following clause, to have referred to Juvenal's words; it is therefore probable that we should read Calvi Neronis, i. e. Domitian; otherwise the phrase must be given up as an absurd interpolation,) ejus semestribus militiolis tumentem: genus scripturæ industriose excoluit. Suet.

↑ Et tamen diu, ne modico quidem auditorio quicquam committere ausus est. Suet. On this Dodwell observes: Tam lònge aberant illa a Paridis ira concitanda, si vel superstite Paride fuissent scripta, eum irritare non possent, cum nondum emanassent in publicum. 161. He then adds that " Martial knew nothing of his poetical studies, who boasted that he was as familiar with Juvenal as Pylades with Orestes!" It appears indeed that they were acquainted; but I suspect, notwithstanding the vehemencé of Martial's assertions, that there was no great cordiality between minds so very dissimilar. Some one, it seems, had accused the epigrammatist to the satirist, not improbably, of making too free" with his thoughts and expressions. He was seriously offended;"

But how is this ascertained? Very easily; he calls him fa cundus Juvenalis. Here the question is finally left; for none of the commentators suppose it possible that the epithết can ▸

he grew bolder; and, having made many large additions to his first sketch, or perhaps recast it,

and Martial, instead of justifying himself, (whatever the charge might be,) imprecates shame on his accuser in a strain of idle rant not much above the level of a schoolboy. Lib. VII. 24.

But if he had been acquainted with his friend's poetry, he would certainly have spoken of it. Not quite so certainly. These learned criticks seem to think that Juvenal, like the poets he ridicules, wrote nothing but trite fooleries on the Argonauts and the Lapithe. Were the Satires of Juvenal to be mentioned with approbation? and, if they were, was Martial the person to do it? Martial, the most devoted sycophant of the age, who was always begging, and sometimes receiving, favours from the man whose castigation was, in general, the express object of them. Is it not more consonant to his character, to suppose that he would conceal his knowledge of them with the most scrupulous care?

But when Domitian was dead, and Martial removed from Rome; when, in short, there was no danger of speaking out, he still appears, continue they, to be ignorant of his friend's poetick talents. I am almost ashamed to repeat what the criticks so constantly forget-that Juvenal was not only a satirist, but a republican, who looked upon Trajan as an usurper, no less than Domitian. And how was it " safe to speak out," when they all assert that he was driven into banishment by a milder prince than Trajan, for a passage "suspected of bearing a figurative allusion to the times?" What inconsistencies are these!

applied to any but a rhetorician. Yet it is applied by the same writer, to a poet of no ordinary kind;

Accipe facundi Calicem, studiose, Maronis
Ne, nugis positis, arma virumque canas.

Lib. XIV. 185.

And, by the author himself, to one who had grown old in the

art:

66

tunc seque suamque
"Terpsichoren odit facunda et nuda senectus."

Let it be remembered too, that Martial, as is evident from the frequent allusions to Domitian's expedition against the Catti, wrote this epigram (lib. v11. 91) in the commencement of that. prince's reign, when it is acknowledged that Juvenal had produced but one or two of his Satires.

produced what is now called his Seventh Satire, which he recited to a numerous assemblage. The consequences were such as he had probably anticipated Paris, informed of the part he bore in it, was seriously offended, and complained to the Emperour, who, as the old account has it, sent

Mox magna frequentia, magnoque successu bis ac ter auditus est; ut ea quoque que prima fecerat, inferciret novis scriptis, "Quod non dant proceres dabit histrio, &c."

Sat. VII. 90-92.

Erat tum in delitiis aulæ histrio, multique fautorum ejus quotidie provehebantur. Venit ergo in suspicionem quasi tempora figurate notasset: ac statim per honorem militiolæ, quanquam octogenarius, urbe summotus, missusque ad præfecturam cohortis in extrema parte tendentis Egypti. Id supplicii genus placuit, ut levi atque joculari delicto par esset. Verum intra brevissimum tempus angore et tædio periit. Suet. Passing by the interpolations of the old grammarians, I shall, as before, have recourse to Dodwell. Recitavit ni fallor, omnia, emisitque in publicum cxv111. (Juvenal was now fourscore!) postquam Romam venissit Hadrianus. quem ille principem à benevolo ejus in hæc studia animo, in hac ipsa satira, in qua occurrunt verba illa de Paride commendat. 161. Salmasius supposed that the last of his Satires only were published under Hadrian; Dodwell goes further, and maintains that the whole, with the exception of the 15th and 16th † (si tamen vere et illa Juvenalis fuerit) were then first produced! Illa in Paridem dicteria histrionem, in suum (cujus nomen non prodidit auctor) histri

The former of these, Dodwell says, was written in exile, after the author was turned of eighty. Salmasius, more rationally, conceives it to have been produced at Rome. Giving full credit, however, to the story of his late banishment, he is driven into a very awkward supposition. An non alio tempore, atque alia de causa Egyptum lustrare juvenis potuit Juvenalis? animi nempe gratia, na rns isopas xapir, ut urbes regionis illius, populorumque mores cognosceret? Would it not be more simple to attribute his exile at once to Domitian ?

With respect to the 16th Satire, Dodwell, we see, hesitates to attribute it to Juvenal; and indeed the old Scholiast says that, in his time, many thought it to be the work of a different hand. So it always appeared to ine. It is unworthy of the author's best

the author, by an easy kind of punishment, into Egypt with a military command. To remove

onem dicta interpretabatur Hadrianus. Inde exilii causa. Scripsit ergo in exilio Sat. xv. Sed cum nuper Consulem Junium" fuisse dicat, ante annum ad minimum cxx. scribere illam non potuit Juv. Nec vero postea scripsisse, exinde colligimus, quod intra brevissimum tempus" perierit. 164. Such is the manner in which Dodwell accommodates Suetonius to his own ideas: which seem also to have been those of a much higher name, Salmasius; and, while I am now writing, to be sanctioned by the adoption of the learned Ruperti. I never affected singularity; yet I find myself constrained to differ from them all but I will state my reasons. In his 7th Satire, after speaking of Quintilian, Juvenal adds,

"Si fortuna volet, fies de rhetore consul:

"Si volet hæc eadem fies de consule rhetor."

Which, taking it for a proverbial expression, I have loosely rendered, Fortune can make kings of pedants, and pedants of kings. Dodwell, however, understands it literally. Hac sane cum Quintiliani causa dicat, vix est quin Q. talem ostendant è rhetore nimirum "nobilem, senatorium, consularem," et quidem illis divitiis instructum, quæ essent etiam ad censum senatorium necessariæ. 152. Now as Pliny, who probably died before Trajan, observes that Quintilian was a man of moderate fortune, it follows that he must. have acquired the wealth and honours of which Juvenal speaks,

days, and seems but little suited to his worst. He was at least eighty-one, they say, when he wrote it, yet it begins

"Me pavidum excipiet tyronem porta secundo
"Sidere, &c."

Surely, at this age, the writer resembled Priam, the tremulus miles, more than the timid tyro! Nor do I believe that Juvenal would have been much inclined to amuse himself with the fancied advantages of a profession to which he was so unworthily driven. But the satire must have been as ill-timed for the army as for himself, since it was probably, at this period, in a better state of subjection than it had been for many reigns. I suppose it to be written, in professed imitation of our author's manner, about the age of Commodus. It has considerable merit, though the first and last paragraphs are feeble and tautological; and the execution of the whole is much inferiour to the design.

such a man from his court, must undoubtedly have been desirable to Domitian; and,' as he

A1 ! # at a later period. Dodwell fixes this to the time when Hadrian entered Rome CXVIII, which he states to be also that of the author's banishment. It must be confessed, that Juvenal lost no time in exerting himself: he had remained silent fourscore years; he now bursts, forth at once, as Dodwell expresses it, recites all his Satires without intermission, (unis continuisque recitationibus,) celebrates Quintilian, attacks the Emperour, and is immediately despatched to Egypt! 162. Here is a great deal of business crowded into the compass of a few weeks, or, perhaps, days;but let us examine it a little more closely. Rigaltius, with several of the commentators, sees in the lines above quoted a sneer at Quintilian, and he accounts for the rhetor's silence respecting our author, by the resentment which he supposes him to have felt at it. As this militates strongly against Dodweil's ideas, he will not allow that any thing severe, was intended by the passage in question; and adds that Quintilian could not mention Juvenal as a satirist, because he had not then written any satires. 160. I believe that both are wrong. In speaking of the satirists, Quintilian says that Persius had justly acquired no inconsiderable degree of reputation by the little he had written. Lib. x. c. 1. He then adds, sunt clari hodieque et qui olim nominabuntur. There are yet some excellent ones, some who will be better known hereafter. It always appeared to me, that this last phrase alluded to our author, with whose extraordinary merits Quintilian was probably acquainted, but whom he did not choose, or, perhaps, did not dare to mention in a work composed under a prince whose crimes this unnamed satirist persecuted with a severity as unmitigated as it was just. Quintilian had no political courage. Either from a sense of kindness or fear, he flatters Domitian almost as grossly as Martial :-but his life was a life of innocence and integrity I will therefore say no more on this subject; but leave it to the reader to consider whether such a man was likely to startle the "god of his idolatry" by celebrating the Satires of Juvenal.

:

Nor do I agree with the commentators whom Dodwell has followed, in the literal interpretation of those famous lines. Unde igitur tot, &c. Sat. vii. v. 188-194. Quintilian was rich, when the rest of his profession were in the extremes of want. Here then was an instance of good fortune. He was lucky; and, with Juck, a man may be any thing; handsome, and witty, and wise, and noble, and high-born, and a member of the senate. Who does not see in this a satirical exaggeration? Wisdom, beauty,

C