And far-fam'd gem, which on the finger glow'd
Of Berenice, (dearer thence,) bestow'd
By an incestuous brother, in that State,

Where kings the sabbath, barefoot, celebrate;

insignibus, maxime Parthici regni; præcique tamen in Carmania. Here it is manifest that Pliny took them for gems; and so, indeed, he elsewhere terms them; in which he is followed by Martial, and others. Hardouin inclines to Propertius.

I am aware that all this is very unsatisfactory; but I know not where to look for any thing more to the purpose. Salmasius is confused and contradictory on the subject, and Scaliger, who agrees with Propertius, introduces a circumstance which is incompatible with his own explanation. Ainsworth says, murra is a "stone of divers colours, of which cups are made :" this is well enough; yet he refers to this passage of Juvenal, under another word, myrrhina; i. e. says he, "of myrrh, or scented with myrrh." In some modern travels, I find that the districts mentioned by Pliny, still afford a gem that answers, in some measure, to his description: it is a species of agate; and this, after all, may be the substance alluded to.

VER. 238. Of Berenice, &c.] Jortin observes, on a passage in the 14th Satire, that the commentators have poured out a flood of nonsense or profaneness, in attempting to explain it. He might have said the same of this before us, with equal justice. Briefly, (for here is nothing after all, very obscure, though Dusaulx thinks it, "beyond doubt, the most difficult place in Juvenal,") the Berenice mentioned above, was the daughter of Agrippa, whose youngest son, called after his father, was suspected of an incestous commerce with her. She was a woman equally celebrated for her lewdness and her beauty; and had prevailed on Titus to promise her marriage; a promise which nothing but his dread of an insurrection, prevented him from carrying into execution: tum reginam Berenicem dimisit, invitus invitam.

This young Agrippa was the Tetrarch of Galilea who heard Saint Paul at Cæsarea, during his visit to the Proconsul.

And old indulgence grants a length of life
To hogs, that fatten fearless of the knife.

What! and is none of all this numerous herd,
Worthy thy choice? not one to be preferr'd ?—
Suppose her from a line of heroes sprung,
An ancient line; of fruitful blood, and young;

VER. 239.

in that State,] That is, says the old scholiast,

in Judæa, where the Synagogue is, and where they spare the old hogs because they prefer eating the young ones! This is very good eating the young hogs is certainly not the way to have old ones. The truth, however, is that this good man knew not what he was writing about. Juvenal himself is sufficiently inThe ancients observed that the Jews did not eat swine's flesh, and they, therefore, conjectured, that they held swine in reverent estimation. The fact is, that they neither ate old nor young; they kept them indeed, but it was for their neighbours; and hogs in Judæa, I fancy, had no particular indulgences.

correct.

It is well known that Plutarch is sufficiently credulous: he is less reprehensible for this, however, than for his unaccountable propensity to give reasons for all the nonsensical things he relates. He says that the Jews worshipped swine. And why? Out of gratitude, forsooth, to the animals who first taught them to plow the ground!-the journey to Laputa will hereafter rank with the treatise on Isis and Osiris.

In the next line Juvenal says, mero pede (barefoot); if it were not for his general ignorance of the Jewish ritual, I should be almost tempted to think, with Holyday, that he had looked into Josephus for this circumstance. See Bell Jud. Lib. II.

Apropos of Holyday. It may tend to relax the severity of the critic at an awkward phrase, when he sees to what hard shifts the wicked necessity of rhyme, sometimes drives this most excellent scholar. The verse in question, he translates;

"Kings on their sabbath, barefoot go, tho' cold!
"And where kind custom lets their hogs grow old."

Perfect in every duty, rich and fair,

And (though a black swan be not half so rare,)
Chaste as the Sabine wives, who rush'd between
The kindred hosts, and clos'd the dreadful scene.
Yet who could bear to lead an humbled life,
Curst with that veriest plague, a faultless wife!
Some simple rustic at Venusium bred,
Would I, much sooner than Cornelia, wed,
If to great virtues, greater pride she join,

And count her ancestors as current coin.

VER. 254. "Would I, much sooner than Cornelia, wed,"] This Cornelia was the daughter of Scipio Africanus, the wife of Cornelius, and the mother of Caius, and Tiberius Gracchus. She had, the reader sees, some reason to be proud, and it appears she was not wanting to herself; for Plutarch says, she was fond of boasting of the victories of her father over Hannibal and Syphax. To this laudable propensity Juvenal alludes; he had also in view, perhaps, a circumstance that seems to have escaped the critics. So great was her haughtiness, that when Ptolemy, king of Egypt, asked her in marriage, after the death of her husband, she was seriously offended, and rejected the proposition with every mark of indignation. The unhappy fate of her two sons has been already mentioned; (see Sat. 11. v. 36;) their cloquence and spirit were hers, their turbulence, I hope, was their own:-not that she seems altogether to have disapproved of it, for on the basis of a statue raised to her memory, we find CORNELIA MATER GRACCHORUM; the very words of Juvenal.

Boileau has imitated this passage very happily:

"Ainsi donc au plûtôt délogeant de ces lieux,

"Allez, princesse, allez avec tous vos aieux,
"Sur le pompeux débris des lances Espagnoles,

"Coucher, si vous voulez, aux champs de Cerizoles." Sat. x. v. 479.

Hence with thy Hannibal! go, prithee tramp,
With vanquish'd Syphax, and his sooty camp !
Plague me no more with Carthage! I'd be free
From all this pageantry of worth, and thee.
O let, Apollo, let my children live,
And thou, Diana, pity, and forgive,
Amphion cries; they, they are guiltless all :
The mother sinn'd, let then the mother fall.
In vain he cries; Apollo bends his bow,
And, with the children, lays the father low.
Such were the effects of Niobe's mad pride!
Vain of her numerous offspring, she descried
Latona; nay, the sow Æneas found,

With thirty snow-white sucklings grunting round.

VER. 269.

nay, the sow Æneas found, &c.] This famous sow, who is introduced more than once, was found by Æneas near Lavinium, on the spot where Alba was afterwards built. Ridiculous as the incident is, it makes a conspicuous figure in the Æneid, where it is given with wonderful gravity. Juvenal has fallen into a curious anachronism in mentioning it; but of this he was as well aware as we can be; he produced it, I am persuaded, merely to vex Domitian, (whom he never forgets,) who being, as Owen observes, extremely attached to Alba, and probably interested in its glory, might be mortified at having this idle story brought forward, and ridiculed.

Extulit ergo gregem natorum, ipsumque parentem, Owen translates," and sons, and mother slew." Perhaps it is an error of the press; though I observe the same expression in Dryden. The satire evidently requires that we should understand it of Amphion, who fell upon the bodies of his sons, ferro per pectus adacto, as Ovid says. It is true, Niobe herself perished not long after; but this Juvenal purposely drops: his business was to shew the fatal consequences of her pride, on those who had no share in her guilt.

Beauty and worth are purchas'd much too dear,
If a wife ding them hourly in your ear;
For say, what pleasure can you hope to find,
E'en in this boast, this phoenix of her kind,
If, warp'd by pride, on all around she lour,
And in your cup more gall than honey pour?
Ah! who (though blindly wedded to the state)
Who would not shrink from such a perfect mate,
Of every virtue feel th' oppressive weight,

And curse the worth he loves, seven hours in eight? Some faults, though small, there are, which none can bear:

For, shame to sense! none fancies she is fair,
Unless her thoughts in Attic terms she dress;
A mere Cecropian of a Sulmoness!

All now is Greek in Greek their souls they pour,
In Greek their fears, hopes, joys;—what would you

more?

VER. 284. A mere Cecropian of a Sulmoness!] The satire of this line will be understood by recollecting, that the inhabitants of Sulmo, a town of Pelignum, spoke a barbarous Latin dialect; while the Cecropians, or people of Athens, made use of the purest and most elegant Greek.

After this line there follows in the original, cum sit turpe magis nostris nescire Latine which I believe, with Barthius and others, to be spurious, and have therefore omitted. It is unworthy of Juvenal; who seldom deals in those modicums of wisdom; those trite observations, which every body can make, and which, when made, are good for nothing.