776 
POE 
the deplorable fate of Troy, which will attend his rape 
of Helen, he warns Antony not to give himfelf up to the 
charms of Cleopatra, which mull inevitably end in his 
ruin ; and in the preceding Ode, he, by a beautiful alle¬ 
gory, exhibits to the Romans all the calamities of their 
civil wars, and exhorts them to peace. Having inclined 
to the Stoic philofophy towards the latter part of his life, 
he confequently armed himfelf with their principles 
againft the fear of death. Thus he defcribes his wife man 
as braving adverfity, and expefling mortality to put an 
end to any misfortunes that may befal him. This is done 
allegorically, under the charafilers of Pentheus and Bac¬ 
chus ; that is, the wife man will then difplay the fame 
courage which Bacchus did in his anfwer to Pentheus, in 
a tragedy ef Euripides. 
As Horace amufed himfelf with gently caftigating 
errors in manners; Juvenal, his rival, occupied his whole 
foul in lathing with a ftrong arm vices and morals. Juve¬ 
nal was more in earneft than Horace. He withed to fpread 
confternation among the vicious, and exterminate corrup¬ 
tion, which had become almoft natural to the Romans. 
He wrote at a deteftable period, when the laws of nature 
were violated with impunity; when all patriotifm was 
extinft in the hearts of his countrymen. Such an age, 
brutified by fervitude, by luxury, and all its accompany¬ 
ing crimes, required an executioner, rather than a cenfor. 
Juvenal, therefore, defpifing the feeble weapon of ridicule, 
fo familiar to his predeceffor, himfelf feized the dagger of 
fatire, and running from the palace to the tavern, ftruck, 
without diftin&ion, all who deviated from the paths of 
virtue. It was no longer, as with Horace, a fupple poet, 
armed with philofophical indifference, who amufed him¬ 
felf with the follies of the day, and whofe flyle, eafy and 
familiar, flowed at the will of a voluptuous inftimSl. It 
was an incorruptible cenfor, a Roman with the tone of 
the ancient Fabii, Manlii, and Reguli; it was an inflamed 
poet, who fometimes rofe with his fubjedl, to the fublitne 
pitch of tragedy. Auftere and uniform in his principles, 
every thing he uttered had a charafterof gravity and im¬ 
portance. His ridicule was more fevere than his cenfure ; 
his laugh dill more terrible than his anger. He could 
fpeak of nothing but vice and virtue, flavery and liberty, 
folly and wifdom. On thele fubjefls, he declaimed with 
animation, feverity, and dignity. It may be faid of him 
in his own words, that “ he flaked his life on what was 
true,” vitam impendere vero. He is accufed of being too 
fparingin his praifes : all that he did, was to compaflionate 
a few that were fecretly virtuous, but who were borne 
away by the torrent. He was too generous to flatter ty¬ 
rants, too high fpirited to folicit the fuffrages of their rni- 
nifters or flaves. Panegyrics are generally given in the 
expectation of fome return : and this was a traffic he de- 
fpifed. His love for mankind was too fincere to permit 
him to flatter them ; he was indignant at every attempt 
to injure their fame or their virtue ; and to this noble 
principle we owe the fineft and mod confiderable part of 
his works. 
Perfius, like Juvenal, was earned and fincere. His know¬ 
ledge was great; and the melancholy farcafm which per¬ 
vades his Satires increafes its force. But he is extemely 
obfcene and unpolifhed; often very dull. 
Martial .—This famous epigrammatid was the idol of 
the Roman poets, and a very general favourite among all 
nations. He introduced to the notice of the Latins a 
new flyle of writing ; for the Greek epigrams are nothing 
compared to his keen productions. He complimented, 
abuled, or ridiculed, equally well. His fatire was biting 
and fevere; often perfonal ; his wit poignant; and his 
mode of expreflion terfe. His Epigrams lafli neatly hu¬ 
man follies and vices ; and they curioufly difplay the 
Roman character. But he has written the mod beaftly 
lines that ever difgraced the licentious pens of the Roman 
poets. He was cowardly, time-ferving, and ungrateful, 
in his writings; and his life was in every point equally 
bad, Neverthelefs he is the bed of epigrammatifts. As 
a whole, his own criticifm of his works is the bed: 
T R Y. 
Sunt bona, funt quaedam mediocra. 
Sunt mala plura. 
We give three of the bona. 
Cum fids fimiles pares que vita 
Uxor peflima peflimus maritus 
Miror non bene convenire vobis. 
Ergo ero Virgilius fi numero mceanates 
Res mihi: Virgilius non ero: Martius ero. 
Difficilis, facilis, jucundus, acerbus, es idepi: 
.Nec tecum poffem vivere, nec fine te.' 
There was no original tragedy written at Rome ; and 
their comic authors were content to copy Menander 
with the clofed fidelity. We find in Terence much hu¬ 
mour, great regularity, and fome interefting plots; but 
no virtue was inculcated, nor error fatirized. His come¬ 
dies are neat dialogues; but nothing more. 
We {hall clofe our account of the Latin poets with the 
fables of P ha dr us; and, this brings to our recollection 
the crooked JEj’op, whom we had forgotten. There is a 
great deal of dramatic (kill in a fable. It is no eafy mat¬ 
ter to (ketch in a few words a diftinCl charafter; and this 
iEfop has done repeatedly. His .Lions, Tigers, &c. are 
all men haying fome peculiar or predominant error that 
human nature is liable to. Another difficulty is the 
beauty which is required ; for a fable fiiould be an epigram 
in dialogue; and this difficulty Asfop triumphs over in 
a confummate flyle. Phasdrus,of courfe, borrowed entire¬ 
ly from JEfop; and therefore we cannot accord him any 
great fame; but he is praifewerthy for his boldnefs in 
attacking the vices of the great. But this virtue drew on 
him the vengeance ofSejanus, the favourite of Tiberius ;> 
as to which, and the few other particulars known of Ph^- 
drus, fee that article, p. 34, 5, of this volume. 
Later periods of the Roman empire 'were not entirely 
deficient in poets. Aufonius and many others fupported 
in their writings the purity of the Auguftan age. But in 
thefe writings there are no original thoughts. There 
are beautiful verfes publiflied in Latin by all the civilized 
nations who admired the poet s of Rome : but mere beauty 
of verfification is not worth the attention of the ftudent, 
feeing that there is fufficient of this quality in the noted 
dallies who unite with it excellence of thoughts. We 
pafs over, therefore, the many Latin poems that have been 
written by the later Romans or the Italians. 
It is impofiible to afeertain by what caufes a nation, 
arrived at fo high a pitch of literature as the Romans un¬ 
der Auguftus, gradually funk into indolence, and even 
negleCled the Itudy of their own tongue. This, however, 
was the cafe : the indolence of this people feems to have 
prevented that deeper fiudy which the complex nature cf 
Latin conflruffion required; and the common raftie 
language which had long been fpoken in the provinces, 
and by the vulgar even at Rome, ufurped the feat of the 
language of the republic; and thus the foftand effeminate 
Italian arofe, 
II. Of Poetry from its revival till the time of 
the French Revolution. 
With the general decline of knowledge which attended 
the fall of the Roman empire, Poetry became extinfl, 
that is to fay, written poetry of fo much importance as 
to reach our time. The firfl appearance of its revival 
(hows it in the hands of certain ininftrels, fome of whom 
recited, others fang to mufic, a variety of rude Odes, 
The remains of thele odes (how that the plain and digni¬ 
fied appeals to heaven, and the glorious truths of morality 
which the Greek bards dil’played, were unknown to thefe 
poets; but neverthelefs the produ&ions that have ema¬ 
nated from their fongs, have a character of deep and myl- 
ferious intereft, which we look for in vain in the poetry 
of the ancienfs. 
Antiquarians have bellowed much pains in endeavouring 
to afeertain who were the firfl poets of the barbarous ages. 
The French have produced fpecimens of early poetry 
7 from 
