And rush'd to council. From the ivory chair
He dealt out justice with no common care;
But yielded oft to those licentious times,

And, where he could not punish, wink'd at crimes.
Then old, facetious Crispus hastes along,

Of gentle manners, and persuasive tongue :

as having instituted them. He is said to have done this by the advice of Mecenas; and the choice of those on whom he successively conferred the office, shews his opinion of its importance.

The Præfect was, indeed, trusted with extraordinary powers. His jurisdiction was no longer confined, as before, to the city, but extended a hundred miles beyond it-intra centesimum lapidem. He decided in all causes between masters and slaves, patrons and clients, guardians and wards, &c.; he had the inspection of the mints, the regulation of the markets, and the superintendence of the ublic amusements.

But this was in better days: the Præfect, like every other popular magistrate, was now reduced to insignificance; and the expressions of Juvenal contain a bitter sarcasm on the supineness of the Romans, who had carelessly seen this great officer degraded, by the overbearing tyranny of Domitian, and his immediate predecessors, to the humiliating situation of a bailiff, or country steward.

Lubin says that Pegasus was made Præfect of the city by Vespasian. I know not how to reconcile this to our author's modo positus, just appointed; and I suspect the accuracy of the critic; who is, however, followed by Holyday. For the rest, Pegasus was an upright and worthy magistrate; and, according to the scholiast, had presided over many of the provinces with honour to himself, and satisfaction to the people. He was, besides, a man of great learning, and a most profound lawyer. Pegasus, I believe, was succeeded by Rutilius Gallicus, a man of extraordinary merit; in that case, the adventure of the turbot must have taken place before the year 87.

VER. 115. Then old facetious Crispus, &c.] Crispus is characterised nearly in the same manner by Statius. One of his good things is on record. He was met by a friend coming out of the palace, and asked whether any body was with

None fitter to advise the lord of all,

Had that pernicious pest, whom thus we call,
Allow'd a friend to check his savage mood,

And give him counsel, wise at once and good.
But who shall dare this liberty to take,

When every word you speak your life's at stake,
Though all your theme be cold, or showery springs?—
For tyrants' ears, alas! are ticklish things.
So did the good old man his tongue restrain;
Nor strove to stem the headlong tide in vain.
Not one of those, who, valuing life at nought,
With freedom utter'd, what with truth they thought,
He wisely temporised, and, thus secur'd,

To fourscore springs, e'en in that court, endur'd!

the emperor. "No," replied he, "not even a fly:"-for Domitian, to keep his hand in, used to amuse his leisure hours with hunting these poor insects, and sticking them upon a stile, or sharp pointed instrument for writing.

Tacitus, from what motives it is not easy to say, speaks less favourably of Crispus than our author. It could not surely be for his cautious conduct; for this is what he expressly commends in his life of Agricola. "He did not choose," says he, "to imitate the zeal of those who by their intemperance provoked their fate, and rushed on sure destruction, without rendering any kind of service to their country."-Happily for mankind, the historian himself had the prudence to copy the example of his father-in-law. But whatever Crispus's demerits might be, we may be sure, from the language of Juvenal, who, though not so good a politician as Tacitus, was as honest a man, and as sincere a hater of tyranny in all its modes and forms, that a base compliance with any dangerous caprice of the emperor was not one of them. Like Pegasus, where he could not approve, he was probably silent.

Next him, appear'd Acilius hurrying on,

Of equal years, and follow'd by his son;

Who fell, unjustly fell, in early age,

A victim to the tyrant's jealous rage:

The old scholiast makes a pleasant mistake about this man: he confounds him with Crispus Passienus, who was put to death by Claudius.

VER. 131. Next him, appear'd Acilius, &c.] Little is known of Acilius, but that little is favourable. How he could become dangerous to Domitian, at the advanced age of eighty, is not easily explained; but we find in Suetonius, that soon after the event here so worthily celebrated, he was driven into banishment on a suspicion of treason. His treasons were probably his virtues; for Pliny, speaking of him many years after his death, describes him as a man of singular prudence and worth. In the next line I have supposed, with most of the commentators, that the young man who followed Acilius was his son: this, however, is doubtful.

Why the youth, be he who he may, was induced to feign fatuity, after the example of the elder Brutus; and for what crime, real or pretended, he finally fell, are circumstances which have not come down to us. Juvenal lightly touches on the story, as one well known to his contemporaries; and the multiplied murders of Domitian, unfortunately took away all inclination, and indeed, all power, from the historians to particularize them.

There is, however, a singular story in Dio which I have been sometimes tempted to think might allude to the person who accompanied Acilius. A. Glabris, (the name seems to correspond) was put to death by Domitian, on an accusation of impiety, and of having fought in the arena. The impiety is explained by his attachment to what Dio calls, Ta Twv ledaiwv non, perhaps Christianity. The fighting (or xai Inpiois euxxeto) was thus: when he was Consul (to this his youth is no objection, considering the times in which he lived*) Domitian sent for him to Alba, (here we have our author's Albana arena,) and compelled him to engage a lion at the celebration of the Juvenilia. He killed the beast, and Domitian put him to death, through envy of the applause he ac

* He was Consul with Trajan, who must also have been young.

But long ere this, was hoary hair become
A prodigy, amongst the great, at Rome;

Hence would I rather choose the humblest birth,
And, like the giants, rise from mother earth-
Poor youth! in vain the well-known sleight you try ;
In vain, with frantic air, and ardent eye,
You rend your vest, and desperate battle wage
With bears, and lions, on the Alban stage.

All smell the trick; and, spite of Brutus' skill,
There are who take him for a driveller still;
Since, in his days, it ask'd no mighty pains,
T'outwit a prince with much more beard than brains.
Rubrius, though not, like these, of noble race,
Came next, with equal terror in his face;

quired by it. This also agrees with the text, profuit ergo nibil misero, &c. What follows, however, in Juvenal, seems to shew, unless something occurred which the historians of that period have agreed in omitting, that he and Dio do not speak of the same person: but I leave it to the reader.

VER. 147. Rubrius, &c.] Who this was is also doubtful. There were several of the name; but the inquiry is not worth pursuing. His terrors, notwithstanding his obscure birth, might have taught our author that there was not so much safety in being a son of nobody, or "of earth," as he just before appears to have imagined. Tyranny knows no distinctions.

Holyday has a long note on his "fault," which "to name," as he poetically phrases it, "is no wit": and indeed, so it should seem; for, what he says of it, is at variance with his author. Juvenal has purposely wrapped it up in obscurity and his commentators will do well to leave it there:

And,-labouring with a crime I dare not name,-
More than the pathic satirist, lost to shame.
Montanus' belly next appear'd in sight,

Then, his legs tottering with th' unwieldy weight.
Crispinus follow'd daub'd with more perfume,
Thus early! than two funerals consume.

"Non ego variis obsita frondibus

"Sub dio rapiam."

VER. 151. Montanus' belly, &c.] If this be the Montanus mentioned by Tacitus, (Hist. IV. 42,) of which there can be little doubt, he must have deviated widely from that firm and honourable conduct which he is there represented as pursuing to provoke the contempt of Juvenal. The designation of him by his overgrown belly, fully prepares us for the part he takes in the memorable debate which ensues.

VER. 153. Crispinus follow'd, &c.] Ecce iterum Crispinus! But he now makes his appearance in a subordinate character, matutino sudans amomo, dripping with early ointments. Holyday says that some of the commentators take matutino for eastern, and some for morning, and that both are right. This I doubt. He himself properly takes it in the last sense; but he misrepresents the manners of the Romans, (a thing altogether unusual with him,) and totally overlooks the sense of his author. "It was the custom of the Romans," says he, "to bathe in the morning, and then to use ointments." Now it was not the custom of the Romans to bathe in the morning, but at two or three in the afternoon; and the satire is evidently levelled at this voluptuous upstart, for a scandalous breach of that practice, by bathing, and anointing himself at so early an hour. In the eleventh Satire, indeed, Juvenal tells his friend Persicus, that he may go into the bath before noon, without being ashamed. But Persicus was an old man, and the concession was professedly meant as an extraordinary indulgence to him. See the conclusion of that Satire.