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In the strange scene the exile loaths to roam, 

 So dear his native haunts, so sweet is home ! 

 For not to man is love of home confined ; 

 It rules as strongly in the savage kind. 



Many great and learned men, when in exile or prison, have 

 prepared their way to future fame and fortune, planned the enter- 

 prize which led to victory, or pursued the meditations which ren- 

 dered their names immortal. Had not Seneca and Boethius been 

 banished, neither of them, especially the latter, had written on the 

 consolations of philosophy. The loss of his Mantuan estate led 

 Virgil to the Court of Augustus ; and poverty was the parent of 

 those verses which secured to Horace the patronage of Maecenas. 

 But Oppian had a higher and more amiable incentive to stimulate 

 his muse, than the desire of riches, or the favour of courts. He 

 wished to be the means of restoring his father to his native coun- 

 try ; and as the genius of poets had been successfully employed 

 before, even under greater difficulties, he did not despair of accom- 

 plishing his wishes, by an exertion of poetic talent accompanied by 

 some seasonable compliments to the imperial family. The cha- 

 racters too, both of the emperor and his wife Julia Domna, may 

 have flattered his hopes, Severus, notwithstanding his cruelty and 

 avarice, was a lover of learning, and exhibited striking proofs of his 

 willingness to encourage its cultivators. He listened with pleasure 

 to the discourses of Hermocrates, and honoured Arria, a lady of 

 distinction, with his particular friendship, because she applied her- 

 self to the study of philosophy and the reading of Plato. Accord- 

 ing to Spartian, Aurelius Victor, and Eutropius, he had himself 

 studied philosophy, and excelled in various branches of polite lite- 

 rature. Though the declaration of Dion were true, that he evinced 



