SATIRES OF PERSIUS. TO CESIUS BASSUS. SAT. VI. V. 1-2.] SAY, have the wintry storms, which round us beat, Chased thee, my Bassus, to thy Sabine seat? destroyed, together with his country residence, in that great eruption of Vesuvius, in which, as some say, Pliny the elder also perished. Bassus (apparently the person before us) is noticed by Quintilian, as the only lyrick poet whose odes could be borne immediately after those of Horace. He wrote, it seems, on many subjects: on the origin of things; on the gods; on the stars; &c. To some of these works, our author elegantly and poetically refers in the introductory lines of his Satire. For rerum (v. 3.) Marcilius and a few others read vocum : this delights the criticks; because they find that one Bassus wrote something on the metre of Nero, who is thus secured for the Satire, when least hoped. A composition of this kind could scarcely be very poetical, much less could it call forth the lofty terms in which Persius notices it :-but, not to trifle with the reader's patience, the work on metre just mentioned, was in prose, and is expressly said to be so by Aul. Gellius, from whom the commentators have taken the circumstance. Holyday, who Jamne lyra, et tetrico vivunt tibi pectine chordæ? Mire opifex numeris veterum primordia rerum, Atque marem strepitum fidis intendisse Latinæ ! Mox juvenes agitare jocos, et pollice honesto Egregios lusisse senes!-Mihi nunc Ligus ora Intepet, hybernatque meum mare; qua latus in gens Dant scopuli, et multa littus se valle receptat. Cor jubet hoc Ennî, postquam destertuit esse adopts the text of Marcilius, translates it, with more taste than fidelity, "Great workman! whose blest muse sweet lines affordes, Full of the native beauty of old wordes;" by which, however, he ingeniously escapes the absurdity of confounding the grammarian with the lyrick poet. VER. 2 to thy Sabine seat.] Persius had left his friend at Rome when he withdrew, for the winter months, to the coasts of Liguria; and he commences with inquiring whether the cold had driven him to follow his example, and shelter himself at his country seat. Had the weather alone been in question, Bassus would have found it quite as favourable at Rome as among the Sabine hills; but the fact was, that men of studious and retired habits, like our poets, were glad of any pretence to escape from the riotous excesses, and the anarchy of the Saturnalia. Campania offered a more genial climate; but Naples was not less disturbed by the liberty of December than the capital; and Vesuvius with its treacherous luxuriance, was preferred, in evil hour, to the rugged security of Mons Tetricus. VER. 14. Liguria's coast, &c.] Persius was fortunate in his Does musick there thy sacred leisure fill, To me, while tempests howl and billows rise, The Port of Luna, friends, is worth your note Thus, in his sober moments, Ennius wrote, retreat. Luna, where his villa stood, was one of the many convenient and beautiful situations in which the Gulf of Spezia abounded. The town itself has lain in ruins for ages; what now occupies a part of its site is called Larice. It was frequently visited by the officers of our fleet, while occupied in the blockade of Genoa, and always with new delight. Strabo makes particular mention of the capaciousness of its port, which, he says, would afford shelter to all the navies of Europe. Silius Italicus is equally warm in its praise: "Tunc quos à niveis exegit Luna metallis, VER. 18. Thus, in his sober moments, Ennius, &c.] Mæonides Quintus pavone ex Pythagoreo. Heic ego, securus vulgi, et quid præparet Aus ter Infelix pecori; securus et, angulus ille Vicini, nostro quia pinguior: et si adeo omnes Curvus ob id minui senio, aut cœnare sine uncto, “Lunaï portum est operæ cognoscere, cives." "Thus” (it is Holyday who speaks) "Thus said wise Ennius aft'r h' had dreamed he was "His peacockes soul" When Warburton produced his dulcet " emendation" of Shakspeare, i' th' presence 't's death, Edwards observed that it must have been intended for the use of Cadmus, in his serpent state; but neither in that, nor in any other transformation, could he have enunciated Holiday's opening line :-In a long and learned note, however, (which those who are desirous of falling into the dream out of which Ennius awoke, may consult with advantage,) he labours exceedingly hard to ascertain the succession of bodies into which the soul of Pythagoras migrated on its way to Ennius: the true station of the peacock perplexes him above measure, and he cannot decide, after all, whether this bird should take the first or the third place among the five; for "that Quintus (he says) does not here signify a name but a number, is probable from the received tradition of the Pythagoreans, mentioned by St. Jerome." Holyday's innoxious gravity may raise a smile; but we must contemplate with other feelings, the obliquity of those who extol this insane doctrine, at which Persius justly laughs, as containing in itself the germs of profound science, sublime philosophy, and a system of ethicks worthy of all the gods. When, all his dreams of transmigration past, Here to repose I give the cheerful day, -Nor, Bassus, though capricious Fortune grace, Give crooked age upon his youth to steal, The plain sense of the words Cor jubet hoc, &c. seems to be, Such was the description given of this port by Ennius, when he had recovered his senses, and ceased to dream (see page 3) that he was Quintus Homer, instead of Quintus Ennius. "Concerning this man (Holyday says) I may yet add somewhat remarkable. He writ the 12th book of his Annals when he was 67 years of age. It is also related of him that he lived to great age and poverty, which he did bear with a brave spirit; and that he was buried in the monument of Scipio Africanus, whose wars he writ." It will not occupy much space to subjoin that Ennius must have known the port of Luna well. It was there that the Romans usually took shipping for Corsica and Sardinia, the latter of which islands the poet often visited in company with the elder Cato. |