duration. That Juvenal was in Egypt is certain; but he might have gone there from motives of personal safety, or, as Salmasius has it, of curi osity. However this may be, it does not appear that he was ever long absent from Rome, where a thousand internal marks clearly show that all his Satires were written. But whatever punishment might have followed the complaint of Paris,* it had no other effect on our author, than that of increasing his hatred of tyranny, and turning his indignation upon the Emperour himself, whose hypocrisy, cruelty, and licentiousness, becamę, from that period, the object of his keenest reprobation. He profited, indeed, so far by his danger or his punishment, as to recite no more in publick; but he continued to write during the remainder of Domitian's reign, in which he finished, as I conceive, his second, third, + fifth, * But why should he complain at all? Was he ashamed of being known to possess an influence at the imperial court? Those were not very modest times, nor is modesty, in general, the crying vice of the " quality." He was more likely to have gloried in it. If Bareas, or Camerinus, or any of the old nobility, had complained of the author, I should have thought it more reasonable :-but Domitian cared nearly as little for them as Paris himself did. + I hold, in opposition to the commentators, that Juvenal was known in Domitian's time, not only as a poet, but as a keen and vigorous satirist. He himself, though he did not choose to commit his safety to a promiscuous audience, appears to make no great secret of his peculiar talents. In this Satire, certainly prior to many of the others, he tells us that he accompanied Umbritius, then on his way to Cumæ, out of the gates of Rome. Umbritius predicted, as Tacitus says, the death of Galba, at which time he was looked upon as the most skilful aruspex of the age. He could not then be a young man ; yet, at quitting the capital, he still talks of himself as in the first stage of old age, nova canities, et prima et recta senectus. His voluntary exile, therefore, could not possibly have taken place long after the commencement of Domitian's reign; when he speaks of Juvenal as already celebrated for his sixth,* and perhaps thirteenth + Satires; the eighth I have always looked upon as his first. Satires, and modestly doubts whether the assistance of so able a coadjutor as himself would be accepted. This, at least, serves to prove in what light the author wished to be considered for the rest, there can, I think, exclusively of what I have urged, be little doubt that this Satire was produced under Domitian. It is known, from other authorities, that he revived the law of Otho in all its severity, that he introduced a number of low and vicious characters, pinnirapi cultos juvenes, juvenesque lanista, into the Equestrian Order, that he was immoderately attached to building, &c. circumstances much dwelt on in this Satire, and applicable to him alone. *The following line, Dacicus et scripto radiat Germanicus auro, seems to militate against the early date of this Satire. Catanæus and Arntzenius say that Juvenal could not mean Domitian here, because he did not think well enough of him to do him such honour; whereas he was fond of commending Trajan." I see no marks of this fondness: nor were the titles, if meant of Domitian, intended to do him honour, but to reprove his vanity. Whether medals were ever struck with the inscription of Dacicus and Germanicus in honour of Domitian, I am not qualified to determine. Certain it is, however, that he assumed both these titles; the latter, indeed, in common with his predecessors from the time of Germ. Cæsar; and the former, in consequence of his pretended success in the Dacian war, for which he is bitterly sneered at by Pliny, as well as Dio. It is given to him, amongst others, by Martial, who dedicates his eighth book, Imper. Domit. Cas. Augusto Germanico DACICO. Dodwell gives, as I do, the line to Domitian-a little inconsistently, it must be confessed; but that is his concern. If, however, it be adjudged to Trajan, I should not for that bring down the date of the Satire to a later period. Juvenal revised and enlarged all his works, when he gave them to the publick: this under consideration, in particular, has all the marks of having received considerable additions; and one of them might be the line in question. This Satire has contributed as much perhaps as the seventh to persuade Lipsius, Salmasius, and others, that Juvenal wrote his best pieces when he was turned of fourscore. Stupet hæc, qui jam post terga reliquit There were four consuls of this name. The first is out of the In xcv, when Juvenal was in his 54th year, Domitian banished the philosophers from Rome, question; the second was consul A. D. 13, the third in 59, and the fourth in 68. If we take the second, and add any inter mediate number of years between sixty and seventy, for Calvinus had passed his sixtieth year, it will just bring us down to the early part of Domitian's reign, which I suppose to be the true date of this Satire; for I cannot believe, as I have already observed, that this, or indeed any part of Juvenal's works, was produced when he was trembling on the verge of ninety, as must be the case if either of the latter periods be adopted. But he observes, Hæc quota pars scelerum quæ custos Gallicus urbis, &c. Now Rutilius Gallicus was præfect of Rome from the end of 85 to 88, (Domitian succeeded his brother in 81,) in which year he died. There seems to be no necessity for mentioning a magistrate as sitting, who was not then in existence; nor can any reason be assigned, if the Satire was written under Hadrian, for the author's recurring to the times of Domitian for a name, when that of the custos urbis of the day would have better answered his purpose. It is probable that Gallicus succeeded Pegasus, who was præfect when the ridiculous farce of the turbot took place (Sat. Iv.); this would fix it to 85, the year before Fuscus, who was present at it, was sent into Dacia. This Satire is referred by the criticks to the reign of Trajan, because Marius, whose trial took place under that prince, is mentioned in it. I have attributed it to an earlier period; principally moved by the consideration that it presents a faithful copy of the state of Rome and the conquered provinces under Nero, and which could scarcely have been given in such vivid colours after the original had ceased to affect the mind. What Rome was under Domitian, may be seen in the second Satire, and the difference, which has not been sufficiently attended to, is striking in the extreme. I would observe too, that Juvenal speaks here of the crimes of Marius :-they might be, and probably were, committed long before his condemnation; but under Domitian, it was scarcely safe to attempt bringing such gigantick peculators to justice. Add to this, that the other culprits mentioned in it, are all of them prior to that prince; nay, one of them, Capito, was tried so early as the beginning of Nero's reign. The insertion of Marius, however, (which might be an afterthought,) forms a main argument with Dodwell for the very late date of this Satire; he observes that it had escaped Lipsius and Salmasius; and boasts of it, as longe certissimum &c. 156. and soon after from Italy, with many circumstances of cruelty; an action, for which, I am sorry to observe, he is covertly praised by Quintilian. Though Juvenal, strictly speaking, did not come under the description of a philosopher, yet, like the hare in the fable, he might not unreasonably entertain some apprehensions for his safety, and, with many other persons eminent for learning and virtue, judge it prudent to withdraw from the city. To this period I have always inclined to fix his journey to Egypt. Two years afterwards the world was happily relieved from the tyranny of Domitian; and Nerva, who succeeded him, recalled the exiles. From this time, there remains little doubt of Juvenal's being at Rome, where he continued his studies in tranquillity. His first Satire, after the death of Domitian, seems to have been what is now called the fourth. About this time, too, he probably thought of revising and publishing those which he had already written; and composed that introductory piece, which now stands at the head of his works. As the order is every where broken in upon, it is utterly impossible to arrange them chronologically; but I am inclined to think that the eleventh Satire closed his poetical career. * * I have often wondered at the stress which Dodwell and others lay on the concluding lines of this Satire: Experiar quid concedatur, &c. They fancy the engagement was seriously made, and religiously observed. Nothing was ever further from the mind of Juvenal. It is merely a poetical, or if you will, a satirical, flourish; since there is not a single Satire, I am well persuaded, in which the names of many, who were alive at the time, are not introduced. Had Dodwell forgotten Quintilian? or, that he had allowed one of his Satires, at least, to be prior to this ?" All else is conjecture; but in this, he speaks of himself as an old man, "Nostra bibat vernum contracta cuticula solem;" and indeed he had now passed his grand climacterick. This is all that can be collected of the life of Juvenal; and how much of this is built upon uncertainties! I hope, however, that it bears the stamp of probability; which is all I contend for; and which, indeed, if I do not deceive myself, is somewhat more than can be affirmed of what has been hitherto delivered on the subject. Little is known of Juvenal's circumstances; but, happily, that little is authentick, as it comes from himself. He had a competence. The dignity of poetry is never disgraced in him, as it is in some of his contemporaries, by fretful complaints of poverty, or clamorous whinings for meat and clothes the little patrimony which his fosterfather left him, he never diminished, and pro-. bably never increased. It seems to have equalled. all his wants, and, as far as appears, all his wishes. Once only he regrets the narrowness of his fortune: but the occasion does him honour; it is solely because he cannot afford a more costly sacrifice to express his pious gratitude for the preservation of his friend: yet "two lambs and a youthful steer" bespeak the affluence of a philosopher; which is not belied by the entertainment provided for his friend Persicus, in that beautiful Satire which I have called here the last of his works. Further it is useless to seek from pride or modesty, he has left no other notices of himself; or they have perished. Horace and Persius, his immediate predecessors, are never weary of speaking of themselves. The life of |