1808.] 
notary, fixed the rank of Claudian in the 
imperial court, To the powerful inter- , 
cession of the Princess Serena, he was 
indebted his marriage with a rich 
heiress of Africa, of which he gives a 
pompous description in his second Epistle 
ad Serenam. But after enjoying for some 
time the favour of Stilicho, he was bim- 
self overwhelmed in the ruin of his pa- 
‘tron. When the praises of Stilicho be- 
came offensive, Claudian was exposed to 
the powerful and malignant enmity of a 
courtier whom he had provoked in the 
insolence of wit. He had compared ima 
lively epigram, the opposite characters 
of two Pretorian Prefects of Italy. He 
contrasts the innocent repose of the phi- 
losopher, who sometimes resigned the 
hours of business to slumber, perhaps to 
study; with the interested diligence of a 
rapacious minister, indefativable in the 
pursuit of unjust or sacrilegious gain. 
*Malliys indulget somno noctes diesque, 
Insomnis Pharius sacra profana Rapit: 
Omnibus hoc, Italz gentes, exposcite votis, 
Mallius ut vigilet, dormiat ut Pharius. 
The repose of Mallius was not dis- 
turbed by this friendiy and gentle admo- 
nition; but the cruel diligence of Ha- 
drian, (whom Claudian names Pharius, 
from his being a native of Alexandria,) 
watched the opportunity of revenge, and 
easily obtained from the enemies of Sti- 
licho the trifling sacrifice of an obnox- 
jous poet. Claudian concealed himself 
however, during the tumult of the revo- 
lution, and consulung the dictates of 
prudence, rather than of honour, he ad- 
dressed, in the form of an epistle, a sup~ 
pliant and humble recantation to the 
offended prefect. He deplores in mourn- 
ful strains the fatal indiscretion into which 
he had been hurried by passion and folly; 
submits to the imitation of his adversary 
the generous examples of the clemency 
of the gods, of heroes, and of lions; and 
expresses his hope that the magnanimity 
of Hadrian will not trample on a defence- 
less and contemptible foe, already hum- 
bled by disgrace, and deeply wounded by 
the exile, the tortures, or the death of his 
dearest friends. W hatever might be the 
success-of his prayer, or the accidents of 
his future life, the period of a few years 
levelled in the grave the minister and the 
poet ; but the name of Hadrian is almost 
sunk in oblivion, while Claudian is read 
with pleasure in every country which has 
retained or acquired the knowledge of 
the Latin language. If we fairly balance 
his merits and his defects, we must ac- 
Lyceum of Ancient Literature—Claudian. 
559 
knowledge that Claudian does not either 
satisfy or silence our reason, I[t would 
not be easy to produce a passage that 
deserves the epithet of sublime or pa- 
thetic, to select a verse that melts the 
heart, or enlarges the mind. We should 
vainly seek in his miscellaneous. poems, 
the happy imvention and artificial con- 
duct of an interesting fable, or the just 
and lively representation of the charac- 
ters and situation of real life. For the 
service of his patron, he published occa- 
sional panegyrics and invectives, and the 
design of those slavish compositions en- 
couraged his propeasity to exceed the 
limits of truth and nature. These im- 
perfections, however, are compensated, 
in some degree, by his poetical virtues. 
He was endowed with the rare and pre- 
cious talent of raising the meanest, of 
adorning the most barren, and of diver- 
sifying the most singular topics. Tlis co- 
louring, more es pecially in descriptive 
poetry, is soft and splendid, and he sel- 
dom fails to display, and even to abuse, 
the advantages of a cultivated under- 
standing, a copious fancy, an easy and 
sometimes forcible expressron, and a per- 
petual flow of harmonious versification. 
To these commendations, independent 
of the accidents of time a place, we 
must add the peculiar merit which Clau- 
dian derived from the unfavourable cir= 
cumstances of his birth, In the decline 
of arts and empire, anative of Egypt who. 
had received the education of a Greek, 
assumed in a mature age the familiar 
use and absolute command of the Latin 
language, soared above his feeble contem- 
poraries, and, aiter an interval of three 
hundred years, seated himself among the 
poets of ancient Rome. 
The occasional poems of Claudian are 
ntimerous, consisting of panegyrics, in- 
vectives, or satires, epistles and epigrams. 
He had also compiled in Greek the An- 
tiquities of Tarsus, Anazarbus, Berytus, 
Nice, &c:. But (etal e Cnnach gives 
him a place among the heroic poets, ts 
the Rape of Proserpine, in four books— 
the poem on which he intended to found 
his reputation, and which, as he himself 
insinuates, being a work of considerabie 
labour and difficulty, he did not begin till 
he had tried his genius in the number 
and variety of his lesser compositions. 
The story upon which it is founded 
is one of the most celebrated in the an= 
cient mythology, but is too well known to 
require insertion here. Though the poem 
be not strictly formed upon an epic pean 
it has too many of the properties that 
belong 
