And pours them, fat with a whole winter's ease, To the dominion of its ancient lord. VER. 62. And to the Pontiff's board, &c.] Britannicus thinks Juvenal calls Domitian Pontiff, in allusion to his condemnation of the Vestals, which was the peculiar province of the High-priest. Others again suppose there is an allusion to the sottish vanity of the Emperor, in accumulating upon himself every office of power, and every title of honour. But can Britannicus be right? Surely there were vices enough belonging to Domitian, and appropriate to his character. Our author could hardly mean to impute it to him as a crime that he was Pontifex Max. when he assumed that title only in compliance with the custom of his predecessors. He might, indeed, mean to contract the real viciousness of his character with the outward sanctity of office :-after all, I cannot much admire Juvenal's taste in the selection of this word; he should rather have fixed on some title, by virtue of which the fish might be claimed. For the rest, the charge of assuming dignities improperly, might have been justly urged against him in the case of the Consulate and Censorship. He was Consul for ten years together, and Censor for life; and he was the first of the Romans that so usurped these honours, πρωτο δη καὶ μονῶν, καὶ ἰδιωτῶν καὶ αυτοκρατόρων. Is forfeit to the crown, and you may seize The obnoxious dainty, when and where you please. Now were the dog-star's sickly fervours o'er, Earth, pinch'd with cold, her frozen livery wore ; The old began their quartan fits to fear, And wintry blasts deform'd the beauteous year, VER. 69. Nay, if Palphurius, &c.] This is not much unlike what we find in Blackstone, that sturgeon and whale were anciently called Royal fish with us, on account of their excellence, and, as such, appropriated to the sovereign. Palphurius, indeed, goes farther than our ancestors, and would confiscate every rare and precious fish, to the imperial use. The history of this Palphurius is curious. He had been a buffoon and a parasite at the court of Nero; occupations for which Vespasian disgracefully turned him out of the senate; when he commenced Stoic, in spite, and talked (which Suetonius says he could do very eloquently) of abstinence and virtue, till Domitian, who wanted little other recommendation of a man, than the having justly incurred the contempt and anger of his father, made him his own lawyer, and gave him the management of his informations, proscriptions, &c.; in which, says my author, he bestirred himself to some purpose. VER. 82. Where Alba, &c.] Alba, where Domitian now was, stood on the declivity of a hill, near a pretty spacious lake, famous in Roman story. It was built by Ascanius, after the death of his mother, and the Trojans seem to have The Trojan fire, that but for her were lost, "This, which no subjects' kitchen can contain, "This fish, reserv'd for your auspicious reign, "O, chief, accept :-to free your stomach haste, "And here at large indulge your princely taste; deposited there the sacred fire brought from Ilium. When the city was destroyremnant of this fire was still ed, and Rome made the capital of the nation, a left there from some superstitious motive, and piously preserved through all the vicissitudes of the commonwealth. Domitian, as I have elsewhere observed, was attached to Alba. Here he spent much of his time, and here he usually kept the Quinquatria, or Festival of Minerva, whom, with matchless propriety, he had chosen for his patron and protectress. Madan, in the true spirit of a commentator, tells us, that the occasion of Domitian's being there at this time, might be the celebration of this holiday. This is excellent; the Quinquatria began on the 19th of March, and Juvenal has just told us, that the fish was presented at the close of autumn! VER 92. This fish, reserv'd for your auspicious reign, O, chief, accept :-&c.] I suppose no one ever expected to see this sublime flight of the Anconian fishermen seriously imitated; and yet there is something extremely like it, in a little poem written by a very grave doctor of the 16th century: "I sought him not,-he long'd his lord to treat, "And rush'd, a willing victim, to the net." Was flattery e'er so rank? yet he grows vain, And his crest rises at the fulsome strain. But when was joy unmix'd? no pot is found VER. 99. When to divine, &c.] "O what is it proud slime will not believe "Of his own worth, to hear it equal prais'd "Thus with the gods?" Sejanus. But Ben was not so much the imitator as the translator of the ancients. VER. 103. In this distress, he calls the chiefs of state, &c.] This brings to my recollection an anecdote of Nero, worthy in every respect, to be placed by the side of this before us. When the empire was now in a state of revolt against him, (a revolt which was soon followed by his flight and death,) he affected to despise the general commotion. One day, however, he summoned the senate in great haste; they assembled (as Domitian's counsellors did) žais σHIN, expecting to hear something about the alarming state of public affairs. To their utter amazement, he merely wanted to inform them of an improvement he had made on the hydraulic organ! Ežɛupnxa (for I will use, says the historian, his very words) πως ή υδραυλις καὶ μείζον και εμμελέςερον φθεγξεται! In whose wan cheeks distrust and doubt appear, Scarce was the loud Liburnian heard to say VER. 109. Ere the new bailiff of the affrighted town, &c.] "Pegasus attonitæ positus modò villicus urbi." his gown, "I consulted," Mr. Gibbon says, "the first volume de l'Academie des Belles Lettres, for the meaning of attonite. De Valois applies it to the astonishment which prevailed at Rome on the revolt of L. Antonius. This is not impossible. But I am surprised he has not drawn from it the only conclusion that could render it interesting. Antonius' revolt happened in the year of Rome 840: the tyranny of Domitian had then reached its meridian,” (no, not quite,) “ yet the Romans had the baseness to endure it nine years longer!" This is good; and yet the observation on which it is founded, is not correct. Fuscus, who was called to this famous council, fell in battle about the same time that Antonius revolted in Lower Germany: some other cause of the affright must, therefore, be sought. It need not be long in finding; for, besides the Dacians, who were now keeping Rome in a constant state of alarm, the Catti, the Sicambri, and other barbarous nations, were on the eve of commencing hostilities. After all, little more, perhaps, is meant than that the town was amazed and terrified at the suddenness of the summons. The caprices of the emperor were always bloody:—and, indeed, Pliny mentions it, as a striking instance of the happiness which the senate enjoyed under Trajan, that when they met, they did it without fear of losing their heads! VER. 110. For what were Præfects more?] Præfects were first appointed by Romulus, and his successors, and after them by the Consuls; but their authority was so much enlarged by Augustus, that he may be almost considered |