Who fell, unjustly fell, in early years,
A victim to the tyrant's jealous fears:
But long ere this, were hoary hairs become
A prodigy, among the great, at Rome;
Hence, had I rather owe my humble birth,
Frail brother of the giant-brood, to earth.
Poor youth! in vain the well-known sleight you try;
In vain, with frantick air, and ardent eye,
You fling your robes aside, and battle wage
With bears and lions, on the Alban stage.
All see the trick: and, spite of Brutus' skill,
There are who take him for a driveller still;
Since, in his days, it cost no mighty pains
T'outwit a prince with much more beard than
brains.

Rubrius, though not, like these, of noble race,
Follow'd with equal terrour in his face;
And, labouring with a crime too foul to name,
More than the pathick satirist, lost to shame.

which the historians of that period have agreed in omitting, that he and Dio do not speak of the same person :—but I leave it to the reader.

VER. 147. Rubrius, &c.] Who this was is also doubtful. There were several of the name; but the inquiry is not worth pursuing. His terrours, notwithstanding his obscure birth, might have taught our author that there was not so much safety in being a son of nobody, or "of earth," as he just before appears to have imagined. Tyranny knows no distinctions.

Holyday has a long note on his "fault," which "to name," as he poetically phrases it, " is no wit": and indeed, so it should seem; for, what he says of it, is at variance with his author. Juvenal has purposely wrapped it up in obscurity, and his commentators will do well to leave it there:

"Non ego variis obsita frondibus
"Sub dio rapiam."

Montanus' belly next appear'd in sight, Then, his legs tottering with the unwieldy weight. Crispinus follow'd, daub'd with more perfume, Thus early than two funerals consume. Then bloodier Pompey, practised to betray, And hesitate the noblest lives away.

VER. 151. Montanus' belly &c.] If this be the Montanus mentioned by Tacitus, (Hist. iv. 42,) of which there can be little doubt, he must have deviated widely from that firm and honourable conduct which he is there represented as pursuing, to provoke the contempt of Juvenal. The designation of him by his overgrown belly, fully prepares us for the part he takes in the memorable debate which ensues.

VER. 153. Crispinus follow'd, &c.] Ecce iterum Crispinus! But he now makes his appearance in a subordinate character, matutino sudans amomo, dripping with early ointments. Holyday says that some of the commentators take matutino for eastern, and some for morning, and that both are right. This I doubt. He himself properly takes it in the last sense; but he misrepresents the manners of the Romans, (a thing altogether unusual with him,) and totally overlooks the sense of his author. It was the custom of the Romans, says he, to bathe in the morning, and then to use ointments. Now it was not the custom of the Romans to bathe in the morning, but at two or three in the afternoon; and the satire is evidently levelled at this voluptuous upstart, for a scandalous breach of that practice, by bathing and anointing himself at so early an hour. In the eleventh Satire, indeed, Juvenal tells his friend Persicus, that he may go into the bath before noon, without being ashamed. But Persicus was an old man, and the concession was professedly meant as an extraordinary indulgence to him.

VER. 155. Then bloodier Pompey, &c.] Of this wretch nothing is known, but what Juvenal tells us. Fuscus (v. 157) seems to have been a favourite with the Emperour, by whom he was raised to the command of a pretorian cohort, and trusted with the conduct of the Dacian war, in which he perished, with a great part of his army. Martial honoured his memory with a very good epitaph, (lib. vi. 76,) from which it appears, that his successour in the command had better fortune. He probably studied the art of war in the field.

Juvenal doubtless enjoyed this passing allusion to the Dacian war-but see Sat. VI.

Then Fuscus, who, in studious ease at home,
Plann'd future triumphs for the arms of Rome:
Blind to the event! those arms, a different fate,
Inglorious wounds, and Dacian vultures, wait.
Last, shrewd Veiento with Catullus came,
Cruel Catullus, who, at beauty's name,

VER. 161. Last, shrewd Veiento with Catullus came,] For Veiento, see Sat. III. and VI. The only circumstance worth recording of him in this place is, that though he appears here as a base and servile flatterer, he was once in the greatest danger of losing his life for a crime of a very different nature. He was accused (Tacit. Ann. xiv. 50) in the reign of Nero of drawing up and publishing what he called the last wills of persons deceased, in which he inserted strokes of satire on several of the senate, and, as it should seem, from the report of T. Germinus, his accuser, on the Emperour himself! He escaped with banishment.

Catullus is mentioned by Pliny, and the character which he gives of him is not a whit more favourable than this of Juvenal. He was a wretch, he says, who added to the loss of sight, a most savage disposition; he was equally void of pity and remorse, of shame and fear; and therefore used by Domitian as his most formidable weapon in the destruction of all that was virtuous.

His death may be added to the innumerable instances of retribution, which "vindicate the ways of God to man." He was afflicted with an incurable disease, attended by the most excruciating, and unremitting torture: yet the agonies of his body were perfect case, compared to those of his mind. He was constantly haunted with the thoughts of his past cruelties; the ghosts of those he had accused seemed ever before him, and he used to leap from his bed with the most dreadful shrieks, as if avenging flames had already seized upon it. Worn out at length by his mental sufferings, he expired one livid mass of putrefaction!

This note is already too long;-but in the dearth of virtue, to which the subject condemus me, I cannot resist the temptation of recording one instance of noble-mindedness, to which the man just mentioned gave birth; and I do it the rather, as it is connected with the history of the two last names quoted above. Nerva was supping with a few select friends. Veiento lay next him, and almost in his bosom; the conversation turned on the crimes and cruelties of the execrable Catullus, of whom all the guests spoke with the greatest freedom: when the Emperour (who was probably warned by the conversation into a momentary con

Took fire, although unseen: a wretch whose crimes
Struck with amaze even those prodigious times.
A base, blind parasite, a murderous lord,
From the bridge-end, raised to the council-board;
Yet fitter still to dog the traveller's heels,
And whine for alms to the descending wheels!
None dwelt so largely on the turbot's size,
Or raised with more applause his wondering eyes;
But to the left (O treacherous want of sight!)
He pour'd his praise ;-the fish was on the right.
Thus would he at the fencers' matches sit,
And shout with rapture at some fancied hit;

tempt for such characters) exclaimed, "I wonder what would be his fate, were he now alive.” His fate,' replied Junius Mauricus, (casting his eyes on Veiento, who was little less criminal than Catullus,) his fate,' replied he, with the dauntless spirit of an old Roman, would be to-sup with us!" Plin. Epist. iv. 22.

In his translation of this epistle, Lord Orrery observes that the answer of Mauricus was levelled at Veiento." No: it was levelled at the Emperour, and well levelled too.

VER. 166. From the bridge-end, &c.] Bridges appear to have been the usual stands for beggars among the Romans. Juvenal seldom introduces a beggar without mentioning a bridge at the same time. Another favourite station was those steep descents in the high road, which, by obliging the traveller to proceed step by step, subjected him for a longer period to their importunate clamours. The descent mentioned in the text was that which led from Aricia, a village in the Appian Way, a few miles from Rome. This stand is mentioned by Martial:

"Debet Aricino conviva recumbere clivo,
"Quem tua felicem, Zoile, cœna facit."

Lib. 11. 19.

And to this Persius declares that he will have recourse for an heir, if his next of kin should displease him:

And thus applaud the stage-machinery, where
The youths were rapt aloft, and tost in air.

Nor fell Veiento short:-as if possest
With all Bellona's rage, his labouring breast
Burst forth in prophecy; "I see, I see
"The omens of some glorious victory!

VER. 175. And thus applaud the stage-machinery, &c.] This stage-machinery, or pegma, as Juvenal calls it, I am utterly unable to describe, so as to convey an adequate idea of what it really was, to the reader. It seems to have been a huge frame or platform of light materials, which, on its gradually projecting arms, supported men and boys, who by the pressure of enormous weights on the machinery below, were suddenly forced upwards to a considerable height.

The Roman theatres were open at the top: during the performance, however, they were usually covered with an immense veil (velarium) which was stretched across, and formed a kind of ceiling. Immediately under this, where the extremities were fastened to the wall, sat the common people, and, as I collect from the poets, the ladies of a gayer turn. Thus Ovid says to Corinna: "Sive ego marmorei respexi summa theatri, 66 Elegis e multis unde dolere velis.

And Cynthia to Propertius,

"Colla cave inflectas ad summum obliqua theatrum.”

Holyday calls the velarium a feigned cloud. If he supposed that it bore any analogy to the painted ceilings of our theatres, he evidently mistook, for there was no idea of deception in it: he has, however, misled Dryden, who strangely renders the passage,

"So did the scenes, and stage-machines admire,

"And boys that flew through canvas clouds in wire."

To return to the pegma; when it was to be lowered, and the boy at the top brought down again, the weights were removed, and the machine gradually reduced itself, and took another form :

"Mobile ponderibus descendat pegma reductis,

"Inque chori speciem spargentes ardua flammas
"Scena rotet."

Claudian, de Cons. M. Theod.

Whatever the pegma was, it was always a favourite exhibition. In Calph, Siculus, a clown is introduced giving an account to his