history of the best princes treated as the worst of men, by the pens of authors that were highly prejudiced against them!

Shall we wonder then, that the Roman people, smarting under the lashes of Nero's tyranny, should exclaim in the bitterest terms against the memory of Julius Caesar, since it was from him that Nero derived that power to use mankind as he did? Those that lived in Lucan's time did not consider so much what Cæsar was in his own person, or temper, as what he was the occasion of to them. It is very probable, there were a great many dreadful stories of him handed about by tradition among the multitude; and even men of sense might give credit to them so far as to forget his clemency, and remember his ambition, to which they imputed all the cruelties and devastations committed by his successors. Resentments of this kind in the soul of a man, fond of the ancient constitution of the commonwealth, such as Lucan was, might betray him to believe, upon too slight grounds, whatever was to the disadvantage of one he looked upon as the subverter of that constitution. It was in that quality, and for that crime alone, that Brutus afterwards stabbed him; for personal prejudice against him he had none, and had been highly obliged by him: and it was upon that account alone, that Cato scorned to owe his life to him, though he well knew, Cæsar would have esteemed it one of the greatest felicities of his, to have had it in his power to pardon him. I would not be thought to make an apology for Lucan's thus traducing the memory of Cæsar; but would only beg the same indulgence to his partiality, that we are willing to allow to most other authors; for I cannot help believing all historians are more or less guilty of it.

I beg leave to observe one thing further on this head, that it is odd, Lucan should thus mistake this part of Cæsar's character, and yet do him so much justice in the rest. His greatness of mind, his intrepid courage, his indefatigable activity, his magnanimity, his generosity, his consummate knowledge in the art of war, and the power and grace of his eloquence, are all set forth in the best light upon every proper occasion. He never makes him speak, but it is with all the strength of argument and all the flowers of rhetoric. It were tedious to enumerate every instance of this; and I shall only mention the speech to his army before the battle of Pharsalia, which in my opinion surpasses all I ever read, for the easy nobleness of expression, the proper topics to animate his soldiers, and the force of an inimitable eloquence.

Among Lucan's few mistakes in matters of fact, may be added those of geography and astronomy; but finding Mr. Rowe has taken some notice of them in his notes, I shall say nothing of them. Lucan had neither time nor opportunity to visit the scenes where the actions he describes were done, as some other historians both Greek and Roman had, and therefore it was no wonder he might commit some minute errours in these matters. As to astronomy, the schemes of that noble science were but very conjectural in his time, and not reduced to that mathematical certainty they have been since.

The method and disposition of a work of this kind must be much the same with those observed by other historians, with one difference only, which I submit to better judgments: an historian who like Lucan has chosen to write in verse, though he is obliged to have strict regard to truth in every thing he relates, yet perhaps he is not obliged to mention all facts, as other historians are. He is not tied down to relate every minute passage, or circumstance, if they be not absolutely necessary to the main story; especially if they are such as would appear heavy and flat, and consequently encumber his genius, or his verse, All these trifling parts of action would take off from the pleasure and entertainment, which is the main scope of that manner of writing. Thus the particulars of an army's march, the journal of a siege, or the situation of a camp, where they are not subservient to the relation of some great and important event, had better be spared than inserted in a work of that kind. In a prose writer, these perhaps ought, or at least may be properly and agreeably enough mentioned; of which we have innumerable instances in most ancient historians, and particularly in Thucydides and Livy.

There is a fault in Lucan against this rule, and that is his long and unnecessary enumeration of the several parts of Gaul, where Cæsar's army was drawn together, in the first book. It is enlivened, it is true, with some beautiful verses he throws in, about the ancient Bards and Druids; but still in the main it is dry, and but of little consequence to the story itself. The many different people and cities there mentioned were not Cæsar's confederates, as those in the third book were Pompey's; and these last are particularly named, to express how many nations espoused the side of Pompey, Those reckoned up in Gaul were only the places where Cæsar's troops had been

quartered, and Lucan might with as great propriety have mentioned the different routes by which they marched, as the garrisons from which they were drawn. This therefore, in my opinion, had been better left out; and I cannot but likewise think, that the digression of Thessaly, and an account of its first inhabitants, is too prolix, and not of any great consequence to his purpose. I am sure, it signifies but little to the civil war in general, or the battle of Pharsalia in particular, to know how many rivers there are in Thessaly, or which of its mountains lies east or west.

But if these be faults in Lucan, they are such as will be found in the most admired poets, nay, and thought excellencies in them; and besides, he has made us most ample amends in the many extraordinary beauties of his poem. The story itself is noble and great; for what can there be in history more worthy of our knowledge and attention, than a war of the highest importance to mankind, carried on between the two greatest leaders that ever were, and by a people the most renowned for arts and arms, and who were at that time masters of the world? What a poor subject is that of the Æneid, when compared with this of the Pharsalia? And what a despicable figure does Agamemnon, Homer's king of kings, make, when compared with chiefs, who, by saying only," be thou a king," made far greater kings than him! The scene of the Iliad contained but Greece, some islands in the Ægean and Ionian seas, with a very little part of the Lesser Asia: this of the civil war of Rome drew after it almost all the nations of the then known world. Troy was but a little town, of the little kingdom of Phrygia; whereas Rome was then mistress of an empire, that reached from the Straits of Hercules, and the Atlantic Ocean, to the Euphrates, and from the bottom of the Euxine and the Caspian seas, to Æthiopia and Mount Atlas. The inimitable Virgil is yet more straitened in his subject. Æneas, a poor fugitive from Troy, with a handful of followers, settles at last in Italy; and all the empire that immortal pen could give him, is but a few miles upon the banks of the Tiber. So vast a disproportion there is between the importance of the subject of the Æneid and that of the Pharsalia, that we find one single Roman, Crassus, master of more slaves on his estate, than Virgil's hero had subjects. In fine, it may be said, nothing can excuse him for his choice, but that he designed his hero for the ancestor of Rome, and the Julian race.

I cannot leave this parallel, without taking notice, to what a height of power the Roman empire was then arrived, in an instance of Cæsar himself, when but proconsul of Gaul, and before it is thought he ever dreamed of what he afterwards attained to: it is in one of Cicero's letters to bim, wherein he repeats the words of Cæsar's letters to him some time before. The words are these: “As to what concerns Marcus Furius, whom you recommended to me, I will, if you please, make him king of Gaul; but, if you would have me advance any other friend of yours, send him to me." It was no new thing for citizens of Rome, such as Cæsar was, to dispose of kingdoms as they pleased: and Cæsar himself had taken away Deiotarus's kingdom from him, and given it to a private gentleman of Pergamum. But there is one surprising instance more, of the prodigious greatness of the Roman power, in the affair of king Antiochus, and that long before the height it arrived to, at the breaking forth of the civil war. That prince was master of all Egypt; and, marching to the conquest of Phoenicia, Cyprus, and the other appendixes of that empire, Popilius overtakes him in his full march, with letters from the senate, and refuses to give him his hand till he had read them. Antiochus, startled at the command that was contained in them, to stop the progress of his victories, asked a short time to consider of it. Popilius makes a circle about him with a stick he had in his hand. "Return me an answer," said he, "before thou stirrest out of this circle, or the Roman people are no more thy friends." Antiochus, after a short pause, told him with the lowest submission, he would obey the senate's commands. Upon which, Popilius gives him his hand, and salutes him a friend of Rome. After Antiochus had given up so great a monarchy, and such a torrent of success, upon receiving only a few words in writing, he had indeed reason to send word to the senate, as he did by his ambassadors, that he had obeyed their commands with the same submission, as if they had been sent him from the immortal gods.

To leave this digression. It were the height of arrogance to detract ever so little from Homer or Virgil, who have kept possession of the first places, among the poets of Greece and Rome, for so many ages: yet I hope I may be forgiven, if I say there are several passages in both, that appear to me trivial, and below the dignity that shines almost in every page of Lucan. It were to take both the Iliad and Æneid in pieces, to prove this: but I shall only take notice of one instance, and that is, the different colouring of Virgil's hero, and Lucan's Cæsar, in a storm. Æneas is

drawn weeping, and in the greatest confusion and despair, though he had assurance from the gods that he should one day settle and raise a new empire in Italy. Cæsar, on the contrary, is represented perfectly sedate, and free from fear. His courage and magnanimity brighten up as much upon this occasion, as afterwards they did at the battles of Pharsalia and Munda. Courage would have cost Virgil nothing, to have bestowed it on his hero; and he might as easily have thrown him upon the coast of Carthage in a calm temper of mind, as in a panic fear.

St. Evremont is very severe upon Virgil on this account, and has criticized upon his character of Eneas in this manner. When Virgil tells us,

Extemplo Æneæ solvuntur frigore membra,

Ingemit, et duplices tendens ad sidera palmas, &c.

"Seized as he is," says St. Evremont, "with this chillness through all his limbs, the first sign of life we find in him, is his groaning; then he lifts up his hands to Heaven, and, in all appearance, would implore its succour, if the condition wherein the good hero finds himself would afford him strength enough to raise his mind to the gods, and pray with attention. His soul, which could not apply itself to any thing else, abandons itself to lamentations; and like those desolate widows, who upon the first trouble they meet with, wish they were in the grave with their dear husbands, the poor Æneas bewails his not having perished before Troy with Hector, and esteems them very happy who left their bones in the bosom of so sweet and dear a country. Some people," adds he, "may perhaps believe he says so, because he envies their happiness; but I am persuaded," says St. Evremont, "it is for fear of the danger that threatens him." The same author, after he has exposed his want of courage, adds, "The good Æneas hardly ever concerns himself in any important or glorious design: it is enough for him that he discharges his conscience in the office of a pious, tender, and compassionate man. He carries his father on his shoulders, he conjugally laments his dear Creusa, he causes his nurse to be interred, and makes a funeral pile for his trusty pilot Palinurus, for whom he sheds a thousand tears. Here is (says he) a sorry hero in paganism, who would have made an admirable saint among some Christians." In short, it is St. Evremont's

opinion," he was fitter to make a founder of an order than a state."

Thus far, and perhaps too far, St. Evremont: I beg leave to take notice, that the storm in Lucan is drawn in stronger colours, and strikes the mind with greater horrour than that of Virgil; notwithstanding the first has no supernatural cause assigned for it, and the latter is raised by a god, at the instigation of a goddess, that was both wife and sister of Jupiter.

In the Pharsalia, most of the transactions and events, that compose the relation, are wonderful and surprising, though true, as well as instructive and entertaining. To enumerate them all, were to transcribe the work itself, and therefore I shall only hint at some of the most remarkable. With what dignity, and justness of character, are the two great rivals, Pompey and Cæsar, introduced in the first book; and how beautifully, and with what a masterly art, are they opposed to one another? Add to this, the justest similitudes by which their different characters are illustrated in the second and ninth book. Who can but admire the figure that Cato's virtue makes, in more places than one? And I persuade myself, if Lucan had lived to finish his design, the death of that illustrious Roman had made one of the most moving, as well as one of the most sublime episodes of his poem. In the third book Pompey's dream, Cæsar's breaking open the temple of Saturn, the siege of Marseilles, the sea-fight, and the sacred grove, have each of them their particular excellence, that in my opinion come very little short of any thing we find in Homer or Virgil.

In the fourth book, there are a great many charming incidents, and among the rest, that of the soldiers running out of their camp to meet and embrace one another, and the deplorable story of Vulteius. The fifth book affords us a fine account of the oracle of Delphi, its origin, the manner of its delivering answers, and the reason of its then silence. Then, upon the occasion of a mutiny in Cæsar's camp near Placentia, in his manner of passing the Adriatic in a small boat, amidst the storm I hinted at, he has given us the noblest and best image of that great man. what affects me above all, is the parting of Pompey and Cornelia, in the end of the book. It has something in it as moving and tender, as ever was felt, or perhaps imagined.

But

In the description of the witch Erictho, in the sixth book, we have a beautiful picture of

horrour; for even works of that kind have their beauties in poetry, as well as in painting. The seventh book is most taken up with what relates to the famous battle of Pharsalia, which decided the fate of Rome. It is so related, that the reader may rather think himself a spectator of, or even engaged in, the battle, than so remote from the age it was fought. There is, towards the end of this book, a noble majestic description of the general conflagration, and of that last catastrophe, which must put an end to this frame of Heaven and Earth. To this is added, in the most elevated style, his sentiments of the "immortality of the soul," and of rewards and punishments after this life. All these are touched with the nicest delicacy of expression and thought, especially that about the universal conflagration; and agrees with what we find of it in holy writ. In so much that I am willing to believe Lucan might have conversed with St. Peter at Rome, if it be true he was ever there; or he might have seen that epistle of his, wherein he gives us the very same idea of it.

In the eighth book, our passions are again touched with the misfortunes of Cornelia and Pompey; but especially with the death, and unworthy funeral, of the latter. In this book is likewise drawn, with the greatest art, the character of young Ptolemy and his ministers; particularly that of the villain Photinus is exquisitely exposed in his own speech in council.

In the ninth book, after the apotheosis of Pompey, Cato is introduced as the fittest man after him to head the cause of liberty and Rome. This book is the longest, and, in my opinion, the most entertaining in the whole poem. The march of Cato through the deserts of Lybia, affords a noble and agreeable variety of matter; and the virtue of his hero, amidst these distresses through which he leads him, seems every where to deserve those raptures of praise he bestows upon him. Add to this, the artful descriptions of the various poisons with which these deserts abounded, and their different effects upon human bodies, than which nothing can be more moving or poetical.

But Cato's answer to Labienus in this book, upon his desiring him to consult the oracle of Jupiter Hammon about the event of the civil war, and the fortune of Rome, is a master-piece not to be equalled. All the attributes of God, such as his omnipotence, his prescience, his justice, his goodness, and his unsearchable decrees, are painted in the most awful and the strongest colours, and such as may make Christians themselves blush, for not coming up to them in most of their writings upon that subject. I know not but St. Evremont has carried the matter too far, when, in mentioning this passage, he concludes, "If all the ancient poets had spoke as worthily of the oracles of their gods, he should make no scruple to prefer them to the divines and philo sophers of our time. We may see," says he, " in the concourse of so many people, that came to consult the oracle of Hammon, what effect a public opinion can produce, where zeal and superstition mingle together. We may see in Labienus, a pious sensible man, who to his respect for the gods, joins the consideration and esteem we ought to preserve for virtue in good men. Cato is a religious severe philosopher, weaned from all vulgar opinions, who entertains those lofty thoughts of the gods, which pure undebauched reason and a true elevated knowledge can give us of them; every thing here," says St. Evremont, "is poetical, every thing is consonant to truth and reason. It is not poetical upon the score of any ridiculous fiction, or for some extravagant hyperbole, but for the daring greatness and majesty of the language, and for the noble elevation of the discourse. It is thus," adds he, "that poetry is the language of the gods, and that poets are wise; and it is so much the greater wonder to find it in Lucan,” says he, “because it is neither to be met with in Homer nor Virgil." I remember Montaigne, who is allowed by all to have been an admirable judge in these matters, prefers Lucan's character of Cato to Virgil, or any other of the ancient poets. He thinks all of them flat and languishing, but Lucan's much more strong, though overthrown by the extravagancy of his own force.

The tenth book, imperfect as it is, gives us, among other things, a view of the Egyptian magnificence, with a curious account of the then received opinions of the increase and decrease of the Nile. From the variety of the story, and many other particulars I need not mention in this short account, it may easily appear, that a true history may be a romance or fiction, when the author makes choice of a subject that affords so many and so surprising incidents.

Among the faults that have been laid to Lucan's charge, the most justly imputed are those of his style; and indeed how could it be otherwise? Let us but remember the imperfect state, in which his sudden and immature death left the Pharsalia; the design itself being probably but half finished, and what was writ of it, but slightly, if at all, revised. We are told, it is true, he

either corrected the three first books himself, or his wife did it for him, in his own life-time. Be it so: but what are the corrections of a lady, or a young man of six-and-twenty, to those he might have made at forty, or a more advanced age? Virgil, the most correct and judicious poet that ever was, continued correcting his neid for near as long a series of years together as Lucan lived, and yet died with a strong opinion that it was imperfect still. If Lucan had lived to his age, the Pharsalia without doubt would have made another kind of figure than it now does, notwithstanding the difference to be found in the Roman language, between the times of Nero and Augustus.

It must be owned he is in many places obscure and hard, and therefore not so agreeable, and comes short of the purity, sweetness, and delicate propriety of Virgil. Yet it is still universally agreed among both ancients and moderns, that his genius was wonderfully great, but at the same time too haughty and headstrong to be governed by art; and that his style was like his genius, learned, bold, and lively, but withal too tragical and blustering.

I am by no means willing to compare the Pharsalia to the Æneid; but I must say with St. Evremont, that for what purely regards the elevation of thought, Pompey, Cæsar, Cato, and Labienus, shine much more in Lucan, than Jupiter, Mercury, Juno, or Venus, do in Virgil. The ideas which Lucan has given us of these great men are truly greater, and affect us more sensibly, than those which Virgil has given us of his deities: the latter has clothed his gods with human infirmities, to adapt them to the capacity of men: the other has raised his heroes so, as to bring them into competition with the gods themselves. In a word, the gods are not so valuable in Virgil, as the beroes: in Lucan, the heroes equal the gods. After all, it must be allowed, that most things throughout the whole Pharsalia are greatly and justly said, with regard even to the language and expression; but the sentiments are every where so beautiful and elevated, that they appear, as he describes Cæsar in Amyclus's cottage in the fifth book, noble and magnificent in any dress. It is in this elevation of thought that Lucan justly excels: this is his forte, and what raises him up to an equality with the greatest of the ancient poets.

I cannot omit here the delicate character of Lucan's genius, as mentioned by Strada, in the emblematic way. It is commonly known that Pope Leo the Tenth was not only learned himself, but a great patron of learning, and used to be present at the conversations and performances of all the polite writers of his time. The wits of Rome entertained him one day, at his villa on the banks of the Tiber, with an interlude in the nature of a poetical masquerade. They had their Parnassus, their Pegasus, their Helicon, and every one of the ancient poets in their several characters, where each acted the part that was suitable to his manner of writing, and among the rest one acted Lucan. * There was none," says he, "that was placed in a higher station, or had a greater prospect under him, than Lucan. He vaulted upon Pegasus with all the heat and intrepidity of youth, and seemed desirous of mounting into the clouds upon the back of him. But as the hinder feet of the horse stuck to the mountain, while the body reared up in the air, the poet with great difficulty kept himself from sliding off, insomuch that the spectators often gave him for gone, and cried out now and then, he was tumbling." Thus Strada.

I shall sum up all I have time to say of Lucan, with another character, as it is given by one of the most polite men of the age he lived in, and who, under the protection of the same Pope Leo X, was one of the first restorers of learning in the latter end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century; I mean, Johannes Sulpitius Verulanus, who, with the assistance of Beroaldus, Badius, and some others of the first form in the republic of letters, published Lucan with notes at Rome in the year 1514, being the first impression, if I mistake not, that ever was made of him. Poetry and painting, with the knowledge of the Greek and Latin tongues, rose about that time to a prodigious height in a small compass of years; and whatever we may think to the contrary, they have declined ever since. Verulanus, in his dedication to Cardinal Palavicini, prefixed to that edition, has not only given us a delicate sententious criticism on his Pharsalia, but a beautiful judicious comparison between him and Virgil, and that in a style which in my opinion comes but little short of Sallust, or the writers of the Augustan age. It is to the following purpose:

"I come now to the author I have commented upon," says Sulpitius Verulanus, "and shall endeavour to describe him, as well as observe in what he differs from that great poet Virgil. Lucan, in the opinion of Fabius, is no less a pattern for orators than for poets; and always adhering