In Greek they clasp their lovers. We allow
These fooleries to girls, indeed; but thou,
Who tremblest on the verge of eighty-eight,
To Greek it still! O, 'tis a day too late.-
Foh! how it savours of the dregs of lust,
When an old hag, whose blandishments disgust,
Affects the infant lisp, the girlish squeak,

And mumbles out, my life! my soul!" in Greek.
Words which the secret sheets alone should hear,
But which thou trumpet'st in the public ear.-
And words, we know, possess a magic power,
To heighten, or prolong the extatic hour:

But though thou speak'st them in a tend'rer strain
Than Hamus, or Carpophorus,-'tis vain :

Thy face alone employs thy lover's cares,

And while thou sigh'st soft things, he counts thy years.
But tell me ;-if thou canst not love a wife,
Made thine by every tie, and thine for life,

VER. 294. And mumbles out, “my life! my soul !" in Greek.] Zwn xai Luxm These expressions were familiar to the Roman ladies. We find them again in Martial, in an epigram patched up from the passage before us :

"Cum tibi non Ephesos, nec sit Rhodos, aut Mitylene,

"Sed domus in vico, Lælia, patricio,—

"Zwn xai Juxn lascivum congeris usque,

"Proh pudor! Hersiliæ civis, et Ægeria." Lib. x. Ep. lxviii.

Why should'st thou wed at all? why, my good friend,
Lavish thy fortune to no earthly end?

Why waste the wedding-supper, and the cakes
The queazy-stomach'd guest, at parting, takes,
And the rich present, which the bridal right
Claims for the favours of the happy night,
The charger, where, triumphantly inscroll❜d,
The Dacian hero shines in current gold?
If thou canst love, and thy besotted mind
Is so uxoriously to one inclin'd,

Then bow thy neck, and, with submissive air,
Receive the yoke thou must for ever wear.

VER. 312. The Dacian bero, &c.] Dacicus, (says the scholiast,) boc est, solidi ita signati, qui pro virginitate deposita novæ nuptæ donantur. The custom was not peculiar to Rome; it prevailed, under the name of morgengab, or morning-present, over a great part of the North of Europe; where, indeed, some faint traces of it are still to be found.

The kind of money which was given to the bride, is not specified without reason. It was coined, we see, in consequence of Domitian's victories in the Dacian war; and there is no doubt, as I have already said, (p. 135,) but that Juvenal mightily enjoyed this indirect allusion to them.

The Dacian war was one of the most dishonourable circumstances of Domitian's reign. He aspired to the conduct of it himself: and the consequences were precisely such as might have been predicted. His cowardice kept him at a distance from danger, and his voluptuousness ruined the discipline of the camp: thus every thing went on ill under his auspices. Happily for the army, he left it at last yet not till he had dispatched his "laurell❜d letters" to Rome: where the senate (nearly as contemptible as their master) decreed that MEDALS SHOULD BE STRUCK, and statues raised to his success; and that he should come among them at all times, in the habit of triumph!

:

Women no mercy to a lover show

Who once declares his passion; though they glow
With equal fires, no warm return they deign,
But triumph in his spoils,-but mock his pain.
Less hope has then a man of blameless life,
Less prospect of enjoyment, with a wife,
When e'en his virtue (such the fatal curse
Of their perverseness,) makes his case the worse.
Nought must be given, if she opposes; nought,
If she opposes, must be sold or bought :

She tells thee where to love, and where to hate,
Shuts out the ancient friend, whose beard thy gate,
Knew, from its downy to its hoary state:
And when pimps, parasites, of all degrees,
Have power to Will their fortunes as they please,
She dictates thine, and impudently dares,
To name thy very rivals for thy heirs.

"Go, crucify that slave." For what offence? Who's the accuser? where the evidence?

Hear all no time, whatever time we take,
To sift the cause, when a MAN'S life's at stake,

VER. 336. No time, &c.] Thus Amm. Marcellinus, De vitâ et spiritu hominis laturum sententiam diu multumque cunctari oportere, nec præcipiti studio, ubi irrevocabile sit factum, agitari. But both Ammianus, and our author, had been long preceded in this humane sentiment, by the Grecian legislator. Nou αλλά περι θανατε, μη μιαν μονον ἡμεραν κρίνειν, αλλα πολλάς. Plato Apol. de

Can e'er be long; hear all, then I advise—
"Dolt! idiot! is a slave a man?" she cries,
"He's innocent; be't so:-'tis my command,
"My will; let that, sir, for a reason stand."

Thus the she-tyrant triumphs, thus she reigns.Anon she sickens of her first domains,

And seeks for new; husband on husband takes,

Till of her bridal veil one rent she makes.
Again she tires, again for change she burns,
And to the bed she lately left returns,

While the fresh garlands, and th' unfaded boughs,
Yet deck the threshold of her wondering spouse.
Thus swells the number, thus the list appears

Gloriously full; EIGHT HUSBANDS IN FIVE YEARS!

Socrat. I find a very notable piece of advice on this subject, among the wise sayings of D. Cato,

"Nil temerè uxori de servis crede querenti,"

which every husband should get translated, and hung over his parlour-chimney.

VER. 351. — EIGHT HUSBANDS IN FIVE YEARS!] I have already mentioned the facility with which divorces might be obtained, (v. 51,) it only remains to add here, that the licence was most grievously abused. Women of fashion do not now, says Seneca, reckon their years by the number of Consuls, but by the husbands they have had.

Britannicus, taking an epigram of Martial's too literally, (Lib. vi. Epig. vii. affirms that Juvenal mentions eight husbands, because the law allowed no more ; all beyond that number being esteemed adultery. In this he is followed by Holyday; but surely both are wrong: no such licentiousness ever was, or ever

While thy wife's mother lives, expect no peace. She teaches her, with savage joy, to fleece The wretched husband; she, kind soul! befriends The lover's hopes, and when her daughter sends An answer to his prayer, the style inspects, Softens the cruel, and the wrong corrects. Experienc'd bawd! she blinds, or bribes all eyes, And brings the adulterer in despite of spies.And now the farce begins; the lady falls

"Sick, sick, Oh! sick;" and for the doctor calls : Sweltering she lies, 'till the dull visit's o'er, While the rank letcher, at the closet door,

could be, allowed by law. But Juvenal adds, titulo res digna sepulchri! Upon which Lubin (not Britannicus, as Holyday has it) says, it was customary to inscribe the number of husbands a woman had taken, on her sepulchre; and he fancies he proves it by this distich of Martial's, which, as usual, is little more than a transcript from our author:

"Inscripsit tumulo septem celebrata virorum

"Se fecisse Chloe.-Quid pote simplicius?"

But I doubt the fact itself. To have been the wife of one man only, was looked upon as an honourable distinction, it is true, and therefore was carefully noted on the tombs of such as were intitled to it, but that a lady's executors ever recorded that she had buried seven or eight husbands, I cannot bring myself to think. The exclamation of Juvenal is merely a bitter sarcasm on the wives of his time, who were so lost to every sense of the ancient honour, as to be ready to perpetuate their want of chastity on their tomb-stones!