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No female, strange perversion! dares appear,
For males, and only males, officiate here;

"Far hence," they cry, "unhallow'd sex, be found, "Hence, with your yelling minstrel's barbarous sound!"

rites were performed with an extraordinary appearance of sanctity, by women only (see Sat. vI.); and it would seem that a number of men, in those days of irreligion, had formed themselves into a society for the sole purpose of burlesquing them :

"Atque utinam ritus veteres, et publica saltem
"His intacta malis agerentur sacra.”-

but the memory of my readers will supply them with an instance, where rites more sacred, and mysteries more divine were polluted—quin velut occultum pereat scelus!

To make the ridicule more complete, the ancient society adopted as much of the established ceremony as possible; the object of worship, and the sacrifices, were the same; and as the women, for the sake of greater secrecy and security, met in the house of the Consul or Præfect, these assembled in a private house, and not in a temple; but here the resemblance ceased, and all besides was debauchery and profanation.

The commentators, however, maintain that Juvenal alludes, in the above passage, to a college or brotherhood founded by Domitian at Alba, in honour of Minerva, to whom (on account of his superior wisdom and virtue, I suppose) he fancied himself related. But this appears to be altogether improbable, from Suetonius's account of the institution: Celebrabat et in Albano quotannis Quinquatria Minerva, cui collegium instituerat; ex quo sorte ducti magisterio fungerentur, ederentque eximias venationes et scenicos ludos, superque oratorum ac poetarum certamina. There are no features of similarity. Add too, that Statius (in a poem to his wife) boasts of having obtained three prizes in these contests; and he was a man little likely to be connected with a band of catamites and atheists.

(At Athens thus, while all the city slept,
Cotytto's priests her secret orgies kept,
And in such wanton rites their vigils past,
That e'en Cotytto thought them too unchaste.)
THESE with a tiring-pin their eye-brows dye,
Till the full arch give lustre to the eye,

VER. 137. THESE with a tiring-pin their eye-brows "dye, &c.] We are now admitted into the interior of this society, and behold the members at their several employments. These are well imagined and strongly painted and if the mention of Otho had not, unfortunately, brought Domitian to the author's recollection, and occasioned a long digression for the sole purpose of attacking one who was probably dear to that prince, I know not where we should have found a higher-coloured picture, than that of the detestable group before us.

The custom of darkening and extending the arch of the eye, seems to have been derived from the East, where it prevailed from the earliest ages. We read of Jezebel (2 Kings, c. ix. v. 30) that she "painted her face and tired her head, and looked out of the window." In the Hebrew, it seems, it is "she put her eyes in paint," that is, says Bishop Patrick, in stibium (the word employed by Juvenal's commentators) "which made the eyes look black, and was accounted beautiful; and also dilated the eyebrows, and made the eyes appear big; which in some countries was also thought amiable." Britannicus seems to have thought with our translators of the Bible; per oculos, says he, intellige genas, quæ inficiebantur; while the Septuagint renders the Hebrew, and rightly,

as I suppose, καὶ Ιεζάβελ ηκεσε, καὶ εςιμμισατο τες οφθαλμες αυτής, κ. το

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To effect this, an impalpable violet-coloured powder was taken up with the sharp point of a steel or silver needle, and applied to the inner surface of the lids this was supposed to give the eye a brilliant humidity, a lascivious lustre, altogether irresistible. From the East it travelled to Greece, where we find

:

frequent allusions to it.

an eye, that the portrait

Anacreon desires the painter to give his mistress such
may resemble the original.
Εχετω δ', όπως ΕΚΕΙΝΗ,
Το λεληθότως συνόρων,
Βλεφαρων δ ̓ στον κελαινην.

That, trembling, darts lascivious glances; Those Swill from a glass Priapus, and inclose,

In Rome too, the custom seems to have been pretty general among the ladies, before the period we are arrived at; for Ovid mentions it among many other notable receipts for increasing the power of their charms. Only instead of antimony (which appears to have been the Grecian pigment) the Romans used burnt coal indeed, they used something stranger still-raritatem, says Pliny, superciliorum emendant cum fungis lucernarum, et fuligine quæ est in rostris earum. Lib. XXVIII. This is the composition in the text.

Holyday says (and it is a very singular saying) that "the balls of their eyes were painted:" In this case trementes will not have the idea of lustful, (his word) but, quivering from the tenderness of the application: but this learned man was misled, I suspect, by too literal a translation of his authorities; as the art he supposes, seems altogether impracticable. However this may be, the custom of which I have spoken, continued to prevail even in the decline of the empire, though it was zealously combated by some of the fathers. Naumachius, among much excellent advice which he gives the young women of his time, warns them not to blacken their eyes—which I the rather mention, because, though Holyday probably was not aware of the passage, it seems to favour his interpretation:

Μη δε μελαινε τεοισιν υπό βλεφάροισιν όπωπας.

VER. 140. Swill from a glass Priapus, &c.] This vice is represented by the fabulist (at least it would seem so from the imperfect remains of a little apologue which have come down to us) as introduced in the days of Prometheus. The vice, as Shakspeare says, is "of good kindred," though not quite so highly descended: but it was not unusual with the ancients, when they could not satisfactorily account for the introduction of any abomination, to refer it to the "unwiser son of Japhet." A tacit acquiescence, as it appears to me, in the Scripture doctrine of original depravation.

On the line before us it will be sufficient to remark, that it strongly characterises the profligacy of those wretches, who not only assumed the dress and manners of women; but ostentatiously imitated the most abandoned part of them, in their unnatural propensities.

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In cawls of golden wire, their length of hair,
Light filmy vests of azure shield-work wear,
And by their Juno bid their servants swear.
These grasp a mirror-pathic Otho's boast,
(Auruncan Actor's spoil) where, while his host,

Pliny the Elder complains of this detestable custom (Proem. Lib. XXXIII.) Auxere et artem vitiorum irritamenta, in poculis libidines cælare juvit, ac per obscenitates bibere-bibere! say the commentators, imo edere: thus Martial,

"Si vis esse satur, nostrum potes esse Priapum
"Ipsa licet rodas inguina, purus eris."

Lib. x1v. lxix.

And thus a more ancient writer,

"Fulget, et in patinis ludit pulcherrima Nais,
"Prandentûm inflammans ora decore suo
"Congrua non tardus diffundat jura minister,
"Ut lateat positis tecta libido cibis."

I do not know whether it be worth while to add, that in the cabinet of curiosi ties, collected by the profligate Commodus, and after his death, exposed to sale by Pertinax, there were several of these toys, these drillopotæ, argento, auro, ebore, citroque composite.

VER. 143. And by their Funo bid their servants swear.] Men swore by the male, and women by the female deities; there are exceptions to be found, no doubt, but Juno was always considered as exclusively belonging to the latter. For a man, therefore, to swear by her, was the extreme of effeminacy and irreligion; and this probably was what chiefly recommended it to this worshipful fraternity.

VER. 144. These grasp a mirror-pathic Otho's boast,] Our author seems extremely hostile to Otho: he recollected, perhaps, the influence he possessed

With shouts, the signal of the fight requir'd,

He view'd his mailed form; view'd, and admir'd!

in the court of Nero, to whose pleasures he administered in the most shameless manner. With the usual versatility of favourites, he was the first to join Galba, against his too indulgent master; and we now see him murdering the man whom he had contributed so much to advance.

And yet he had some virtues. When his compliances with the vices of Nero had procured him the Province of Lusitania, he conducted himself like a just and merciful governor and there is great reason to suspect, that the report of his effeminate behaviour in the struggle with Vitellius, is a satirical exaggeration. Let us hear Tacitus. Nec illi segne aut corruptum luxu iter; (not a word of the speculum) sed lorica ferrea, et ante signa pedester, borridus, incomptus, famæque dissimilis. This rough and soldier-like appearance, so unlike his former habits, added to his voluntary death, and the alleged motives for it, should have exempted him from the sarcastic triumph with which Juvenal pursues his end. But the truth is, he was actuated by a spirit of hostility to the Flavian family, with whom Otho was a favourite-for Vespasian, who suspected Galba of a design upon his life, and therefore persecuted his memory, could not but be well pleased with his murderer.

"Pathic Otho's boast" is pleasantly parodied from Virgil's validi gestamen Abantis; as is Auruncan Actor's spoil, in the next line, from Actoris Aurunci spolium-shewing, as Holyday expresses it from Lubin, "that these base sinners as much esteemed of Otho's looking-glass, as Turnus did of the mighty spear which he won from Actor Auruncus." But these "base sinners” were not in possession of Otho's looking-glass, nor does Juvenal say so.-They had, indeed a glass, and so had Otho-the indignation of the poet supplied the

rest.

Otho obtains no favour with Mr. Ireland: speaking of v. 151, he says, "amidst the obscurity of this passage, which is very abrupt and unconnected, the meaning of Juvenal may be seen in some degree, perhaps, by referring to the history of the time. Galba entered Rome, Dio says, with his sword, hanging from his neck by a string, being too much crippled to hold it in his hand. What a triumph, the conquest of such a foe! Otho's treachery, too, was remarkable in this affair. He attended the Emperor, as his friend, to the Capi

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