Follow his burning wheels, attentive hear, him the first satirist, which he was not, for Ennius preceded him by many years; while Quintilian, with his accustomed accuracy, terms him the first regular one. His works appear to have been highly esteemed, even in the Augustan age, when Horace, with doubtful success, endeavoured to qualify the general prejudice in his favour. Quintilian observes, that he had a great deal of wit and learning, and that his boldness was equal to his severity. It was this latter quality which endeared him to Juvenal, who, as well as his immediate predecessor, Persius, always mentions him with respect. VER. 31. and the bold fair &c.] Under Domitian such instances were common; for he not only exhibited combats of men with wild beasts, but of women also; and the noblest of both sexes were sometimes engaged in them! The amazon in the text is named Mævia, of whom I can find no account: there is, indeed, a strumpet so called in Martial, but she was poor: her profligacy, however, may have tempted Juvenal to transfer her name to this noble gladiatrix. VER. 33. When one that oft, &c.] "Quo tondente gravis juveni mihi barba sonabat;" Juvenal seems pleased with this line, for he introduces it in a subsequent passage. I suppose he meant it for a specimen of the mock-heroick. Holyday's translation of it is sufficiently curious: "One whose officious scissars went snip, snip, This "snipper" was Cinnamus, who, from the servile employment here mentioned, raised himself, by ministering to the pleasures of the ladies, to a knight's estate, and a prodigious fortune. He is brought forward again in the tenth Satire; and, indeed, his fate affords another striking illustration of the great truths contained in that admirable piece; for soon after it was written, he was prosecuted for some offence not now known; and, to avoid In wealth outvies the senate; when a vile, condemnation, left all his wealth behind him, and fled into Sicily: where Martial, who is frequently the best commentator on Juvenal, honours him with an epigram; in which, after bitterly condoling with him on his helpless old age, and reckoning up a variety of employments for which he is not fit, he points out to him the necessity of turning barber again! "Non rhetor, non grammaticus, ludive magister, Lib. v11. Ep. 64. To this man, and his fortunes, might justly be applied the fine sarcasm of Claudian on the eunuch Eutropius: "Culmine dejectum vitæ Fortuna priori Reddidit, INSANO JAM SATIATA JOCO!" Fortune, who raised him, leaves him now bemired In his old stye, OF HER MAD FROLICK TIRED! I know not why all the translators, at least all whom I have had an opportunity of consulting, dwell so much upon the author's youth: the term juvenis extended to the middle period of life, to which the words gravis barba appear to refer it. The object of the satirist, which has been altogether overlooked, is to point out the rapid rise of his quondam tonsor. "When one that has frequently shaved me since I arrived at man's estate, in wealth outvies, &c." With respect to the verse itself, it is a manifest parody of Virgil's postquam mihi barba cadebat, which alone seems sufficient to prove that it was not meant of a young man. VER. 37. Cum pars Niliaca plebis, cum verna Canopi, Crispinus, -] This man rose, under Nero, from the condition of a slave, to riches and honours. His connexion with that monster recommended him to Domitian, with whom he seems to have been in high favour: he shared his counsels, ministered to his amusements, and was the ready instrument of his cruelties. For these, and other causes, Juvenal regarded him with perfect detestation: he cannot speak of him with temper; and whenever he introduces him, which he does on all occasions, it is with mingled contempt and horrour. Here he is not only a And, as his fingers sweat beneath the freight, Niliacan, (an expression which conveyed more to Juvenal's mind than it does to ours,) but a Canopian, a native of the most profligate spot in Egypt: not only one of the dregs of the people, but a slave; and not only a slave, but a slave born of a slave! Hence the poet's indignation at his effeminate luxury. Martial, always begging, and always in distress, has a hue and cry after a purple cloak, stolen from this minion while he was bathing: "Nescit cui dederit Tyriam Crispinus abollam,* "Dum mutat cultus," &c. and in an epigram equally contemptible for baseness and impiety, entreats his favourable word with Domitian: Sic, says he, "Sic placidum videas semper, Crispine, tonantem, But he has his reward: his adulation was then neglected, and is now despised; while the severity of his manlier friend was the admiration of his own age, and will be the delight of posterity. I know not whether Ammianus Marcellinus had the character of *The abolla (which I suppose to be the lacerna of our author) was a loose upper garment or wrapper, worn by philosophers, magistrates, senators, &c.: "That it was a grave habit" (says Holyday, on another occasion) "I nothing doubt, from Pegasus taking it with him to the council." This, however, depended on circumstances. A cloak of coarse gray cloth was neither repugnant to the age, nor gravity of the præfect: but the abolla of Crispinus was a very different thing; it was died in Tyrian purple, the most expensive of all colours; and, from its size, must have cost an inconceivable sum. It may seem odd, that he who could scarce bear the weight of a summer ring, should nevertheless load his shoulders with a robe of this kind; but it was the splendour and extravagance of it, which influenced his choice. Vanity, as Shakspeare somewhere says of misery," makes a man acquainted with strange"-garments! So patient of the town, as to forbear; Crispinus, as here described, in his thoughts, when he wrote the following elegant passage; but it certainly throws light on the humero revocante lacernas, the flinging back and recovering of the purple cloak. Alii summum decus in ambitioso vestium cultu ponentes, sudant sub ponderibus lacernarum, quas collis insertas cingulis ipsis adnectunt, nimia subteminum tenuitate perflabiles, expectantes crebris agitationibus, maximeque sinistra, ut longiores fimbrie tunicæque perspicue luceant. VER. 38. his summer rings; &c.] The dainty pride of the Romans, as Holyday calls it, had arrived at such a pitch, that they had different rings for different seasons! So absurd a refinement in luxury could scarcely be general; it serves, however, to mark the affected delicacy of Crispinus. VER. 44. When Matho passes, &c.] This man originally fol lowed the profession of a lawyer; but meeting, perhaps deserving, no encouragement, he fell into the extremes of poverty, and broke. He then turned informer; the dreadful resource of men of desperate fortunes and desperate characters. In this he seems to have been successful: he has a chair, which Juvenal takes care to tell us had not been long in his possession, and he is grown immoderately fat, for he fills it himself. Ruperti differs from me. He cannot conceive, he says, whence the notion of Matho's being an informer is derived. Evidently from the company in which he is found. He supposes the newbuilt chair" may be explained from the seventh Satire, where it is said that Matho ruined himself by endeavouring to emulate the splendour of Æmilius. This learned man seems to forget that the characters here passed in review are culprits of the most flagitious kind. Did he think that Juvenal would speak with such abhorrence of a simple attempt to procure business by an affectation of finery and show! Impossible. I am convinced that Matho was placed at the head of this execrable set, as an informer of the most pernicious description, and that he had recourse to this employ after he failed; on which account, perhaps, the author sarcastically twits him with his old profession; causidicus Matho! lawyer Matho! Criticks are divided about the man who followed Matho. The old Scholiast says it was Heliodorus the Stoick, who informed against his friend and pupil Silanus; or it was Egnatius Celer, or Betray'd one noble, and now seeks to wrest, The poor remains of greatness from the rest: Whom Massa dreads, Latinus, trembling, plies With a fair wife, and anxious Carus buys! When those supplant thee in thy dearest rights, Who earn rich legacies by active nights, Demetrius, the lawyer, &c. It was more probably, however, Marcus Regulus, who carried on the trade of an informer under Nero, and again under Domitian. Pliny gives an entertaining account of his cowardly apprehensions for himself after the death of the latter; and pronounces him to be the wickedest of all twolegged creatures, omnium bipedum nequissimus. The difficulty of fixing on any particular name affords matter for deep reflection. That so many people should at the same period be guilty of the complicated crimes of treachery and ingratitude, (for such is the charge,) could only be believed on the credit of concurring testimonies; and gives us a dreadful picture of the state of corruption into which Rome was now fallen. VER. 49. Whom Massa dreads,] He speaks of Bæbius Massa, who took up the trade of an informer under Domitian, and rose to great eminence in guilt. Tacitus calls him a pernicious enemy to all good men, and the cause of many evils to the state. He was prosecuted in his turn for malepractices in his government, (of the province of Bætica,) and condemned to refund his ill-gotten property. It seems, however, from Pliny, who was one of his prosecutors, that there was some collusion among the judges; and that the sentence was never enforced. But though Massa might be rich, he was no longer powerful: for Martial, who was never accused of temerity, attacks him without fear. Humorously exaggerating the thievish propensities of one Hermogenes, a thief by descent, he observes, that he was as great a stealer of napkins, wherever he went, as Massa was of money! VER. 50. and anxious Carus, &c.] This was Carus Metius, no less conspicuous for villainy than Massa. He did not, indeed, begin so early; for when Tacitus was writing the life of Agricola, he had obtained "but one victory;" that, probably, over the virtuous Senecio, who assisted Pliny in the prosecution of Massa. The first draught of this Satire (for it was afterwards considerably improved and enlarged) might be formed, I should think, soon after the above event: since we find Carus, infamous as he |