51 
their literary knowledge, who are ignorant 
that he posh in the time of Tiberius, 
and that Q.. Curtius lived ata Brties not 
far distant. ‘The opinion of the learned 
Bentley will appear the best founded; 
and by that. acute and judicious critic, , 
Manilius is placed among the authors of 
the Augustan age. The stvle, he says, 
will perhaps be found not altogether cou- 
sistent with the elegance ae purity of 
that enlightened period; but if it be as- 
sumed that Manilius was not a native of 
We 
Rome, that may be accounted for. 
nay add, that the dedication of the po-- 
em to Augustus sufficiently proves: his 
living under that Prince; and that it 
could be no other Prince than Augustus, 
wil appear from the corroborating testi- 
mony ofa passage or two, which will un- 
questionably fix the time to where we 
have placed it. The dedication runs 
thas, and strongly points out Augus- 
tus :— 
Nunc mihi tu, Cesar, patrie princepsque pa- 
terque 
Qui regis Augustis paréntem lecibus orbem,_ 
Concessumque patri mundum deus ipse nie- 
reris,* 
Das animum viresque facis ad tanta canen- 
dum. Lib. i. v. 7. 
What follows, will support what has 
been already advanced on this. head. 
He alludes to the closing of the temple 
of Janus: 
Sed satis hoc fatis fuerit: jam bella quiescant 
Atque adamanteis Discordia cincta catenis 
féternors habeat fraenos in carcere clausa. 
Sit pater Invictus patria, sit Roma sub illo, 
Cumgque deum celo dederit, non querat in 
illo. L. i. v. 919. 
In these, and a variety of other pas- 
sages which might be adduced, he can 
mean no other than Augustus, who was 
the adopted son of Julius Cesar; who 
overthrew Brutus and Cassius at Phi- 
hppi; who defeated the son of the great 
Pompey; who routed Antony and Cleo- 
patra at Actium; preserved the Roman 
empire, by turning that vast and unset- 
tled republic into a well-regulated mo- 
narcby; and having conquered or outlived 
all his enemies, gave peace to the world. 
‘These are the different characters and 
events to which the poet alludes, and 
‘which can only apply to the great Augus- 
_ tus. Ele again‘says, 
Ne dubites homini divinos credere visus, 
Jam facit ipse deos, mittitque ad sidera nu- 
men, 
Blajus et Augusto crescit_sub principe ce~ 
lum. 
By explaining this passage, we shall, 
4 
Lyceum of Ancient Literature DLanilius. 
we hope, satisfy the reader that Augus-. 
tus only can be intended here. The poet 
vaiuly argues the power of man to com- 
prehend what passes in heaven, because 
he can even make gods. His meaning 
is, that Casar, or the Emperor, had lately 
deitied his adopted tather, and thereby. ° 
augmented the number of the gods; or, 
asan astronomer and poet, he attributes 
the new star, which was said te appear 
soon after the death of Cwsar,.to that. 
ereat man, as Ovid and Virgil had done. 
before him. And lastly, the following 
lines'are decisive of his haying written 
towards the latter: oud of the. reign of. 
Augustus— HO 
Virgine er casta felix terraque matique 
us Rhodos, hospitium recturi principis orbem. 
Teque domus vere solis, cul tota sacrataes, 
Cum caperes lumen magni sub Czsare mundi. 
Lu. iv. v. 763¢ 
. Tiberius had retired to Rhodes, and re« 
sided there some time, before his acces- 
sion to-the empire. Upon a review of 
alf these corroborating passages, 1t4s-difs 
ficult not to concur in the opinion of 
Bentley, that our author was a mative of 
some part of Asia; that from the circum- 
stance of his name not occurring in the 
first MSS, or being mentioned by himself 
or any of his contempor aries, it is impossi+ 
ble to ascer tain what it really was;, but 
that he most certainly belongs to the age 
of Augustus. 
Under the head of ee we 
thought it Beara to present the read- 
eran outline of the philosophy of Epicu- 
rus, upon which the poem of Lucretius 
is founded. It may be equally proper to 
ete him an idea ef the scientific princi- 
ples of the followers of Zeno, among 
whom Manilius is ranked. They ac- 
knowledged one infinite, eternal, al- 
mighty intelligence, which, being dif ’ 
fused through the whole universe gf well- 
ordered and regularly-disposed matter, 
actuates every part, and is, as it were, 
the soul of this vast body. The parts of 
this body, they asserted, are of two sorts, 
the celestial, z. e. the planets and the fixt 
stars——and the terrestrial, viz. the earth 
aud all the otherelements aboutit. The 
celestial bodies continue still the same, 
without any change or variation; but the 
whole sublunary 5 world as. riot only liable - 
to dissolution, but often has been, and 
will be agai, dissolved by fire. From 
this chaos, which, because 1 was made | 
by fire, they called fire, they asserted 
that another system would arise, its.se- 
veral particles ‘settling, according to their 
respective weights. _ Thus the earth 
would 
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[July ty 
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