And while at every turn a look he stole,

Snor'd unsuspected o'er the social bowl:
Or when He hopes, presumptuous! a command,
Who spent on horses all his father's land,
While, meanly proud the charioteer to shew,
O'er the Flaminian way he bade the axle glow-

VER. 98. Or when He hopes, presumptuous! a command, &c.] He probably alludes to Cornelius Fuscus, who fell in the Dacian war. (See Sat. Iv.) Fuscus had assisted Nero in his mad follies, to the ruin of his patrimony; and on that founded his claim to promotion. Hence the indignation of Juvenal. The two concluding lines of this paragraph have given the commentators some trouble :

If I understand Holyday, he refers ipse to Fuscus, and amica lacernata to his "warlike mistress:" but from the mention of Automedon, it should seem as if ipse was meant of the Emperor, who, while Fuscus was shewing his dexteri ty in driving, employed himself in exhibiting his talents in some other way, to one of his favorites.

If this be allowed, the amica lacernata must relate to Sporus, whom this monster of lust espoused in Greece, afterwards brought to Italy, and exhibited publicly in the streets of Rome, and elsewhere, as his wife. Hunc Sporum lecticæ vectum, et circa conventus mercatusque Græciæ, ac mox Rome circa Sigillaria comitatus est, identidem exosculans! Suet. Nero. xxviii.

* The assertion of Dio may be a comment on the complex term (amica lacernata) applied to this master-miss by our author. Nero hoped to impose his eunuch-wife on the people, by giving him a female name-ωνομαζε δε Σαβιναν τον Logo-and thus excused his public kisses. Lib. LXIII. C. xiii.

For there, our young Automedon first tried
His powers, there loved the rapid car to guide,
While great Pelides sought superior bliss,

And toy'd and wanton'd with his master-miss.
WHO would not, reckless of the swarms he meets,
Fill his wide tablets in the public streets

With angry verse? when, through the mid-day glare,
Borne by six slaves, and in an open chair,
The forger comes, who owes his lavish state
To a wet seal, and a fictitious date;
Comes, like the soft Mæcenas lolling by,
And impudently braves the public eye!
Or the rich widow, who, in secret, bruised
A filthy toad, and the rank juice infused

The end of Sporus is singular enough to deserve a line. A few years after this transaction, he was ordered by Vitellus (then Emperor) to personate a nymph, who, in some pantomime, was to be carried of by a ravisher: and this creature -branded in the face of the whole world with infamy of the deepest dye, actually put an end to himself, to avoid appearing on the stage, in the dress of a female!

VER. 112. Comes, like the soft Mecenas, &c.] This great man seems to have been, at once, a beau and a sloven. Seneca says, he used to walk abroad with his tawdry tunic about his heels. He was so indolent, that when the præfect of the guards came to him for the countersign, or watch-word, he generally received him half undrest. His effeminacy is again noticed in the twelfth Satire.

VER. 114. Or the rich widow, &c.] The person here alluded to, says Madan, was Agrippina, the wife of Claudius, &c. It is not unusual (and I speak it

Into sweet Calene wine, and, tender soul!

Reach'd to her thirsty spouse, the treacherous bowl.—
Now baffling old Locusta in her skill,

She shows her simpler neighbours how to kill,
And how to bear the spotted corpse along,
Deaf to the murmurs of th' indignant throng.

for the sake of critics of a much higher order than Mr. Madan,) for a commentator to note what is immediately before him, without deigning to cast an eye to the right hand or the left. The husband, in the text, is poisoned by a draught of wine; Claudius was dispatched by a mushroom: but it is needless to pursue the subject. Poisoning husbands, unluckily, was not so rare an event in those days, that we should set an author at variance with himself to appropriate it. It is sad to see Britannicus fall into this error; sed aliquando bonus.—For the next line, see Sat. 111. ver. 5.

VER. 118. Now baffling old Locusta, &c] This superannuated wretch, Locusta (or, as the commentators on Dio call her, Lucusta,) who seems to have reduced the art of poisoning to a science, is frequently mentioned by the writers of Juvenal's time, with execration. She has been condemned to die for a thousand crimes; but was kept alive by the besotted Claudius, as an useful instrument of state vengeance: and was, at length, employed against the very man, whose dark designs she was reserved to facilitate! But so it ever is the man who form'd the brazen bull, first proved its tortures; and, as Shakspeare beautifully observes,

'tis the sport to see the engineer

"Hois'd with his own petar."

Nero made use of her afterwards to destroy Britannicus, and, perhaps, Barr. hus; but upon the accession of Galba, she was dragged to execution amidst the shouts and insults of the populace.

Dare nobly, man, if greatness be thy aim,
And practise what may chains and exile claim;
On Guilt's broad base, thy towering fortunes raise,
For Virtue starves on-universal praise;

While Vice controls the penury of Fate,
Bestows the sculptured vase, the antique plate,
The lordly mansion, and the fair estate.
O! who can see the step-father impure,

The greedy daughter to his bed allure;
See, and suppress his feelings while he sees,
Unnatural brides, and stripling debauchees ?
When crimes like these on every side arise,
Anger shall give the verse, that wit denies;
Force every dolt in Virtue's cause to write;
And make a poet in Minerva's spite.

E'er since Deucalion and his Pyrrha stood
On old Parnassus, (by the general flood

Upraised,) and, taught by Heaven, behind them threw Their mother's bones, that soften'd as they flew,

VER. 125. For Virtue starves on—universal praise ;] This is prettily alluded to by Massinger.

in this avaricious age

"What price bears Honour? Virtue? Long ago
"It was but praised, and freezed; but now-a-days,
""Tis far more cold, and has nor love, nor praise."

Fatal Dowry.

Soften'd, and with the breath of life made warm,
Assumed, by slow degrees, the human form;
Whatever wild desires have swell'd the breast,
Whatever passions have the soul possess'd,

Joy, Sorrow, Fear, Love, Hatred, Transport, Rage,
Shall form the motley subject of my page.
And when could Satire boast so fair a field?
Say, when did Vice a richer harvest yield?
When did fell Avarice so inflame the mind?
And when the lust of play so curse mankind?
For now no more the pocket's stores supply
The boundless charges of the desperate die :
The chest is staked! Muttering the steward stands,
And scarce resigns it at his lord's commands.
Is it a SIMPLE MADNESS, I would know,
To venture countless thousands at a throw,
Yet want the soul a single piece to spare,

To clothe the slave, that shivering stands, and bare?
Who call'd, of old, so many seats his own,
Or on seven sumptuous dishes supp'd alone?

VER. 159. Who call'd of old, so many seats his own,

Or on seven sumptuous dishes supp'd alone ?] Juvenal might well ask this; for the ancients did neither. Their usual eating-room was the atrium, or common hall, which was open to the view of every passer-by; and they had rarely more than two plain dishes. Even the first men of the state, says Velleius, (lib. 11. c. iii.) were not ashamed to dine and sup there; nor had they any dish, which they had blushed to expose to the meanest of their fellow-citizens.