not commend them fo generally as Cicero, | under him, who (though a very bad writer nor fpeak against them fo ftrongly as Horace; himself) knew how to encourage the beft; and is perhaps more to be depended upon, in and who admitted the best, poets in parti this cafe, than either of them. He compares cular, into a very great fhare of friendship the works of Ennius to fome facred grove, in and intimacy with him. Virgil was one of which the old oaks look rather venerable than the foremoft in this lift; who, at his firft pleafing. He commends Pacuvius and Ac-fetting out, grew foon their most applauded tius for the ftrength of their language and the force of their fentiments; but fays, "they wanted that polifh which was fet on the Roman poetry afterwards." He fpeaks of Plautus and Cæcilius, as applauded writers; of Terence, as a most elegant, and of Afranius, as an excellent one; but they all, fays he, fall infinitely fhort of the grace and beauty which is to be found in the Attic writers of comedy, and which is, perhaps, peculiar to the dialect they wrote in. To conclude: according to him, Lucilius is too much cried up by many, and too much run down by Horace; Lucretius is more to be read for his matter than for his ftyle; and Catullus is remarkable in the fatirical part of his works, but fcarce fo in the rest of his lyric poetry. Spence. § 47. Of the flourishing State of Poetry among the ROMANS. The firft age was only as the dawning of the Roman poetry, in comparison of the clear full light that opened all at once afterwards, under Auguftus Cæfar. The ftate, which had been fo long tending towards a monarchy, was quite fettled down to that form by this prince. When he had no longer any dangerous opponents, he grew mild, or at leaft concealed the cruelty of his temper. He gave peace and quiet to the people that were fallen into his hands, and looked kindly on the improvement of all the arts and elegancies of life among them. He had a minister, too, writer for genteel paftorals; then gave them the most beautiful and most correct poem that ever was wrote in the Roman language, in his rules of agriculture (fo beautiful, that fome of the ancients feem to accufe Virgil of having ftudied beauty too much in that piece); and, laft of all, undertook a political poem, in fupport of the new eftablishment. I have thought this to be the intent of the Æneid, ever fince I first read Boffu; and the more one confiders it, the more I think one is confirmed in that opinion. Virgil is faid to have begun this poem the very year that Auguftus was freed from his great rival Anthony; the government of the Roman empire was to be wholly in him; and though he chose to be called their father, he was, in every thing but the name, their king. This monarchical form of government muft naturally be apt to difpleafe the people. Virgil feems laid the plan of his poem to reconcile them to it. He takes advantage of their religious turn; and of fome old prophecies that must have been very flattering to the Roman people, as promifing them the empire of the whole world: he weaves this in with the moft probable account of their origin, that of their being defcended from the Trojans. T be a little more particular: Virgil, in his Æneid, fhews that Æneas was called int their country by the exprefs order of the gods; that he was made king of it, by the will of Heaven, and by all the human rights that could be; that there was an unin terrupted Author's Genius. terrupted fucceffion of kings from him to fof government must have fallen into the hands Romulus; that his heirs were to reign there of fome one perfon or another; and might for ever; and that the Romans, under them, probably, on any new revolution, have fallen were to obtain the monarchy of the world. into the hands of fome one lefs mild and inIt appears from Virgil, and the other Roman dulgent than Augustus was, at the time when writers, that Julius Cæfar was of the royal Virgil wrote this poem in his fervice. But race, and that Auguftus was his fole heir. whatever may be faid of his reafon for writThe natural refult of all this is, that the ing it, the poem itself has been highly appromifes made to the Roman peeple in and plauded in all ages, from its first appearance through this race, terminating in Auguftus, to this day; and though left unfinished by its the Romans, if they would obey the gods, author, has been always reckoned as much and be mafters of the world, were to yield fuperior to all the other epic poems among obedience to the new establishment under that the Romans, as Homer's is among the prince. As odd a fcheme as this may feem Greeks. Spence. now, it is scarce fo odd as that of fome§ 48. Obfervations on the NEID, and the people among us, who perfuaded themselves, that an abfolute obedience was owing to our kings, on their fuppofed defcent from fome unknown patriarch: and yet that had its effaft with many, about a century ago; and foems not to have quite loft all its influence, even in our remembrance. However that be, I think it appears plain enough, that the two great points aimed at by Virgil in his Eneid, were to maintain their old religious tenets, and to fupport the new form of government in the family of the Cæfars. That poem, therefore, may very well be confidered as a religious and political work; or rather (as the vulgar religion with them was fearce any thing more than an engine of state) it may fairly enough be confidered as a work merely political. If this was not the cafe, Virgil was not fo highly encouraged by Auguftus and Maceras for nothing. To fpeak a little more plainly: be wrote in the fervice of the new ufurpation on the fat and all that can be offered in vindication of him, in this light, is, that the uforper he wrote for was grown a tame one; and that the temper and bent of their conftitution, at that time, was fach, that the reins It preferves more to us of the religion of the Romans than all the other Latin poets (excepting only Ovid) put together; and gives us the forms and appearances of their deities, as ftrongly as if we had fo many pictures of them preferved to us, done by fome of the beft hands in the Augustan age. It is remarkable, that he is commended by fome of the ancients themselves, for the ftrength of his imagination as to this parti cular, though, in general, that is not his character fo much as exactness. He was certainly the most correct poet even of his time; in which all falfe thoughts and idle ornaments in writing were difcouraged: and it is as certain, that there is but little of invention in his Eneid; much lefs, I believe, than is generally imagined. Almoft all the little facts in it are built on history; and even as to the particular lines, no one per haps ever borrowed more from the poets that preceded him, than he did. He goes fo far back as to old Ennius; and often inferts whole verfes from him, and fome other of feems to have been the height of his ambition. His next point of merit, as it has been ufually their carlieft writers. The obfoleteness of a level; for there is fome room to conjecture, their style did not hinder him much in this: that he haftened himself out of this world to for he was a particular lover of their old lan- accompany his great friend in the next. Hoguage; and no doubt inferted many more race has been moft generally celebrated for antiquated words in his poem than we can his lyric poems; in which he far excelled all difcover at prefent. Judgment is his dif- the Roman poets, and perhaps was no untinguished character: and his great excel-worthy rival of feveral of the Greek: which lence confifted in chuting and ranging things aright. Whatever he borrowed he had the fkill of making his own, by weaving it foreckoned, was his refining fatire; and bring well into his work, that it looks all of a ing it from the coarfenefs and harfhnefs of piece; even thofe parts of his poems, where Lucilius to that genteel, eafy manner, which this may be moft practifed, refembling a fine he, and perhaps nobody but he and one perpiece of Mofaic, in which all the parts, for more, in all the ages fince, has ever pofthough of fuch different marbles, unite toge, feffed. I do not remember that any one of ther; and the various fhades and colours are the ancients fays any thing of his epiftles:" fo artfully difpofed, as to melt off infenfibly and this has made me fometimes imagine, that into one another. his epiftles and fatires might originally have One of the greatest beauties in Virgil's paffed under one and the fame name; perhaps private character was his modefty and good-that of Sermones. They are generally writ nature. He was apt to think humbly often in a ftyle approaching to that of converhimfélf, and handfomely of others: and was fation; and are fo much alike, that several of ready to fhew his love of merit, even where the fatires might juft as well be called epiftles, it might feem to clash with his own. He as feveral of his epiftles have the spirit of fa was the first who recommended Horace to tire in them. This latter part of his works, ·Spence. by whatever name you pleafe to call them (whether fatires, or epiftles, or difcourfes in verfe on moral and familiar fubjects), is what, Horace was the fitteft man in the world I must own, I love much better even than the for a court where wit was fo particularly en-lyric part of his works. It is in these that he couraged. No min feems to have had more,thews that talent for criticifm in which he fa and all of the genteeleft fort; or to have been very much excelled; efpecially in his long better acquainted with mankind. His gaiety, epiltle to Auguftus: and that other to the and even his debauchery, made him ftill the Pifs, commonly called his Art of Poetry. more agreeable to Mecenas: fo that it is They abound in ftrokes which thew his great no wonder that his acquaintance with that knowledge of mankind, and in that pleafing minifter grew up to fo high a degree of friend-way he had of teaching philofophy, of laughthip, as is very uncommon between a firft mi-ing away vice, and infinuating virtue into the nifter and a poet; and which had poffibly fuch minds of his readers. They may ferve as an effect on the latter, as one fhail scarce ever much as almost any writings can, to make hear of between any two friends, the nfolt on men wifer and better: for he has the most Mæcenas. 1 : $49. Of HORACE. agreeabic anachus; in another, he talks of rivalling Philetas: and he is faid to have ftudied Mimnermus, and fome other of the Greek lyric writers, with the fame view. You may fee by this, and the practice of all their pocts in general, that it was the conftant method of the Romans (whenever they endeavoured to excel), to fet fome Greek pattern or other greeable way of preaching that ever was. He was in general an honeft, good man himfelf; at least he does not feem to have had any one ill-natured vice about him. Other posts we admire, but there is not any of the ancient poets that i could with to have been acquainted with, fo much as Horace. One Cannot be very converfant, with his writings, without having a friendship for the man; before them. and longin; to have just fuch another as he was for one's friend. Spence. 50. Of TIBULLUS, PROPERTIÛS, and OVID.. Propertius, perhaps, might have fucceeded better, had he fixed on any one of thefe; and not endeavoured to improve by all of them indifferently. Ovid makes up the triumvirate of the elegiac writers of this age and is more loofe and incorrect In that happy age, and in the fame court, than either of the other. As Propertius folfearifhed Tibullus. He enjoyed the ac-lowed too many mafters, Ovid endeavoured quaintance of Horace, who mentions him in a kind and friendly manner, both in his Odes at the fame time. Befides he had a redundant and in his noft exact and moft beautiful writer of love-indulge, than to give any restraint to it. If verfes among the Romans, and was ofteemed one was to give any opinion of the different fome, it feems, even by their best judges; though there were merits of his feveral works, one fhould not in their better ages of perhaps be much befide the truth, in faying, writing and judging, who preferred Pro- that he excels moft in his Fafti: then perpertius to him. Tibullus's talent feems to haps in his love-verfes; next in his heroic have been only for elegiac verfe; at leaft his epifties; and laftly, in his Metamorphofes. compliment on Meffala (which is his only As for the verfus he wrote after his misforfoam out of it) fhews, I think, too plainly, tunes, he has quite loft his fpirit in them: that he was neither defigned for herois verfe, and though you may difcover fome differnor panegyrie. Elegance is as much his diftinguished character, among the eligiac wri- came to fit a little lighter on him, his gecomic writers of the former: and if his fub- ftroke. His very love of being witty had ment at least always keeps him from being have grown upon him, when it was leaft faulty. His rival and cotemporary, Proper- becoming, toward his old age; for his Me, fis, feems ferent models, to copy either of them to well wrote at Rome, and which indeed was not as he might otherwife have done, place, he calls himself the Roman Calli- nifhment) has more inftances of falfe wit in In one quite finished when he was fent into ba to fhine in too many different kinds of writing ence in his manner, after his banishment it, than perhaps all his former writings put together. One of the things I have heard hum moft 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 part of his Fafti; and in his Medea, which is much commended. Dramatic poetry feems not to have flourished, in proportion to the other forts of poetry, in the Auguftan age. We fearce 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 fo far back as to thofe of Actius and Pacuvius. Indeed their own critics, in fpeaking of the dramatic writings of this age, boaft rather of fingle pieces than of authors: and the two particular tragedies, which they talk of in the highest 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 poetry were in their greatest excellence at Rome. $51. Of PHEDRUS. Spence. Under this period of the beft 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 style 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 fopee, was probably the title which he gave his fables. | He profeffedly follows Efop in them; and declares, that he keeps to his manner, even where the fubject is of his own invention. By this it appears, that fop's way of telling ftories was very thort 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 ufed thofe critics as they deferved: he tells a long, tedious ftory to those who objected against the concifcnels of his ftyle; and anfwers fome others, who condemned the plainnefs of it, with a run of bombaft verfes, that have a great many noily elevated words in them, without any fenfe a the bottom. Ibid. § 52. Of MANILIUS. Manilius can fearce 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 leng 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 verfification, 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 |