terefts of my country, did I trespass upon your time with a long difcourfe. Romulus and father Bacchus, and Caftor and Pollux, after great atchievements, received into the temples of the Gods, while they were improving the world and human nature, compofing fierce diffenfions, fettling property, building cities; lamented that the esteem they might have expected was not paid in proportion to their merits. He who crushed the dire hydra, and fubdued the renowned monsters by his fore-fated labour, found envy was to be tamed by death alone. For he burns with his fplendor, whofe fuperiority is oppreffive to the arts beneath him after his decease he shall be had in honour. On you, while present amongst us, we confer mature honours, and rear altars where your name is to be sworn by, confeffing that nothing equal to you has hitherto rifen, or will hereafter rife. But here your people, wife and juft in this one point, for preferring you, to our own, you to the Grecian heroes, by no means eftimate other things with like proportion and meafure; and difdain and detest every thing, but what they fee removed from earth and already past; fuch favourers are they of antiquity, as to affert that the Mufes themselves, upon mount Albanus, dictated the Twelve Tables, forbidding to tranfgrefs, which the Decemviri ratified; the leagues of our kings concluded with the Gabii, or the rigid Sabines: the records of the Pontifices and the antient volumes of the Augurs. If, because the most antient writings of the Greeks are also the best, Roman authors are to be weighed in the same scale; there is no need we should say much : there's nothing hard in the infide of an olive, nothing bard in the outfide of a nut. We are arrived at the highest pitch of fuccefs in arts: we paint, and fing, and wrestle more skilfully than the anointed Greeks. genius, a correct judgment, and an extraordinary compafs of erudition. The length of it feems alio to have been occafioned by the emperor's raillev, where he banter'd him with being afraid of making his poems disproportioned to his ftature. If Si meliora dies, ut vina, poemata reddit; Scire velim, chartis precium quotus arroget annus. 35 Eft vetus atque probus centum qui perficet annos. 45 Paulatim vello; et demo unum, demo etiam unum ; Qui redit ad faftos, et virtutem æftimat annis, Ennius et fapiens, et fortis, et alter Homerus, 50 Ut critici dicunt, leviter curare videtur Quo promiffa cadant, et fomnia Pythagorea. Nævius in manibus non eft, at mentibus hæret Pene recens: adeo fanctum eft vetus omne poema. Ambigitur quoties, uter utro fit prior; aufert 55 Pacuvius docti famam fenis, Accius alti : Dicitur Afrani toga conveniffe Menandro; Plautus ad exemplar Siculi properare Epicharmi; Hos edifcit, et hos arcto stipata theatro 60 Spectat Roma potens; habet hos numeratque poetas Ad noftrum tempus, Livi Scriptoris ab ævo. Interdum vulgus rectum videt: eft ubi peccat. Si veteres ita miratur laudatque poetas, Ut nil anteferat, nihil illis comparet; errat: 65 (a) Veterefne probufque. Bentl. (b) Poftera refpuet ætas. ᏚᎥ If length of time makes poems better, as it does wine; I would fain know how many years will stamp a value on writings. A writer who died an hundred years ago, is he to be reckoned among the perfect and antient, or among the mean and modern authors? Let fome fixed period exclude all difpute. He is an old and good writer who completes a hundred years. What? one that died a month, or a year later; among which he is to be ranked? Among the old poets, or among those whom both the prefent age and pofterity will difdainfully reject: He may fairly be placed among the antients; who is younger either by a hort month only, or even by a whole year. I take the advantage of this conceffion, and pull away by little and little, as if they were the hairs of a horse's tail; and I take away one, and then again another fingle one; till, like a tumbling heap, my adverfary, who has recourfe to annals, and estimates excellency by the year, and admires nothing but what Libitina has made facred, falls to the ground. Ennius the wife, the nervous, and, as our criticks fay, a fecond Homer, feems flightly to regard what becomes of his promifes and Pythagorean dreams. Nævius is not in people's hands, but ftill fticks almost fresh in their memory: fo facred is every antient poem. As oft as a debate arifes whether this poet, or the other is preferable; Pacuvius bears away the character of a learned, Accius of a lofty writer: Afranius's gown is faid to have fitted Menander; Plautus is faid to hurry after the pattern of the Sicilian Epicharmus; Cæcilius to excel in gravity, Terence in contrivance. Thefe mighty Rome learns by heart, and thefe fhe views crouded in her too narrow theatre ; these she esteems and accounts her poets from * Livy the writer's age, down to our time. Sometimes the populace fee right: they are fometimes wrong: if they admire and extol the antient poets fo as to prefer nothing before, to compare nothing with them; they Livius Andronicus, the oldest of the Latin poets, and the first of them who composed a play in form. err; 70 75 Si quædam nimis antique, fi pleraque dure (a) Dicere cedet eos. (c) Imberbes didicere. (b) Carmina Lævi 80 85 90 Ut err if they think and allow that they express fome things in an obfolete, moft in a ftiff, many in a careless manner; they both think fenfibly, and agree with me, and determine with the affent of Jove himfelf. Not that I bear an ill-will against Livy's epics, and would doom them to destruction, which I remember the fevere Orbilius taught me when a boy; but that they should feem correct, beautiful, and very little short of being perfect; this is what I wonder at: Among which, if by chance a bright expreffion fhines forth, and if one line or two happen to be somewhat terfe and mutical; this unreasonably carries off and fells the whole poem. I am difgufted that any thing should be found fault with, not because it is a lumpish compofition, or inelegant, but because it is modern ; and that, not a favourable allowance, but honour and rewards are demanded for the old writers. Should I fcruple whether or no Atta's drama trod the * faffron and flowers in a proper manner; almost all the fathers would cry out, that modefty was loft: fince I attempted to find fault with those pieces which the pathetic fopus, which the skilful Rofcius acted: either because they esteem nothing right but what has pleased themselves; or because they think it difgraceful to fubmit to their juniors, and to confefs now they are old, that what they learnt when young, deferves only to be deftroyed. Now he who extols Numa's Salian hymn, and would feem only to understand that which, as well as me, he is ignorant of; does not by that favour and applaud the geniufes that have been long buried, but attacks ours, enviously hating us moderns and every thing of ours. Whereas if novelty had been detefted by the Greeks, as much as by us; what at this time would there have been antient; or what would there have been to be read, and thumbed in common by every body. Perfumed waters were sprinkled thro' the Roman theatres, and the flage was covered with flowers. Titus Quintius had the furname of Atta given him, which fignifies a man who walks on tip-toe. His fingular gait is here alluded to. VOL. II. M When |