Behold! a man for rank, for power renown'd, Marries a man!-and yet, with thundering sound, Thy brazen helmet shakes not; earth yet stands Fix'd on its base, nor feels thy wrathful hands! Is thy arm shorten'd? raise to Jove thy prayerBut Rome no longer knows thy guardian care, Quit then thy charge to some diviner power, Of strength to punish in th' obnoxious hour. "To-morrow, with the sun, I must attend "In yonder vale. So early! why? A friend "Takes to himself a husband there:-but who? "Nay, that's a secret ;-and has ask'd a few "Discreet acquaintance." Good!-but wait a while; And this, and other marriages as vile, Will openly affront you, and appear Recorded in the ANNALS OF THE YEAR." Meanwhile, one pang these passive monsters find, One ceaseless pang, that preys upon their mind; VER. 204. Meanwhile, one pang, &c.] See the complaint of the eunuch Eutropius, after his dismission from the arms of the Egyptian soldier. VOL. I. pro sors generis durissima nostri ! "Fœmina cum senuit, retinet connubia partu, "Uxorisque decus matris reverentia pensat : U They cannot shift their sex, nor pregnant prove VER. 212. And the lewd priest of Pan his agile wand apply.] The festival of the Lupercalia (to which Juvenal here alludes) seems to have been instituted in honour of Pan by the herdsmen; and the rites were such as their uncultivated minds would naturally suggest. A goat was sacrificed, and as that animal was the symbol of generation, the rustics who partook of it were supposed to have the faculty of communicating fecundity to whatever they touched: they therefore wrapt themselves in the skin of the victim, and ran about the fields with a thong or light wand in their hands, with which they gently struck the palms of the women who superstitiously threw themselves in their way. This festival was probably introduced into Italy by Evander; who was found sacrificing by Æneas (see the beautiful description of it, Æneid. lib. v111.) in a thick grove near the Palatine hill. As this was also the spot where Romulus and his brother were afterwards suckled by the wolf, it became doubly interesting to the Romans; and here, therefore, they built their temple to Lupercus or Pan. The privilege of rendering the ladies fruitful, was not long confined to the rustics. Two societies of noble Romans were early instituted for this benevolent purpose, and a third was afterwards added by Julius Cæsar, of which Antony was a member: Cæsar. Antonius! Anton. Cæsar, my lord. Cæsar. Forget not, in your speed, Antonius, To touch Calphurnia: for our elders say, The barren, touched in this holy chase, Shakspeare. Yet these, O Heavens! these monstrous acts appear Less monstrous than the net and three-fork'd spear This folly continued long after the introduction of Christianity; and is frequently alluded to, in terms of great indignation, by Lactantius, Minucius Felix, Prudentius, and others. But in their days, some slight innovations had been introduced:-the ladies whe, when Juvenal wrote, only exposed their bare hands to the stroke, began now to strip themselves, to receive it more effectually. To sum up all in a word, this ceremony, indecent as it was, seems to have been one of the last Pagan superstitions that went out. It was abolished by Gelasius, and not without trouble: nay, the discontent ran so high, that the holy father was obliged to justify himself by an elaborate apology, which still exists:-apud illos, says he, nobiles ipsi currebant, et matronæ nudato corpore vapulabant! VER. 214. Less monstrous than the net and three-fork'd spear, &c.] Holyday thinks it strange that Juvenal should fancy it more monstrous in Gracchus to become a gladiator than a wife; "the one being only a fault against honour, the other a crime against nature." He will, therefore, have it, that the poet does not compare the two, for the heinousness, but for the impudence in committing them. But this was far from the mind of Juvenal, who thought as he spoke, and really believed this last action of Gracchus to be his worst.-Yet this, says Mr. Ireland, (in a remark on the passage) may well be doubted. In the eighth Satire, he seems to go a step beyond this, and to consider the stageplaying of the great men, as still worse than their gladiatorship. Yet could he be of that opinion? Perhaps it is an instance of that spirit of aggravating satire which so much distinguishes Juvenal. Whatever the vice is which he lashes, he bestows the whole of his fury upon it; and in many places the climax of moral reprehension is strangely perverted. However this may be, it is certain that the gladiatorship of the nobility was felt with the utmost horror by the writers of Roman history, whether native or Grecian. As I shall have an occasion to return to this subject, I postpone what I have to say on this adventure of Gracchus, to the eighth satire, where it is given more at large. Of Gracchus, when he urg'd th' unequal fight, That angry Justice form'd a dreadful hell, Are now as tales, or idle fables prized, By children question'd, and by men despised: YET THIS, DO THOU BELIEVE. What thoughts, declare, Ye Scipios, (once the thunderbolts of war!) Spirits of many a brave, and bloody plain! -Ye fly, to expiate the blasting view; Fling on the pine-tree torch the sulphur blue, And from the dripping bay dash round the lustral dew. AND yet to these abodes we all must come; Believe or not, these are our final home, "The ancient manner VER. 235. Ye fly, to expiate the blasting view; &c.] of purifying those who were polluted by the sight or touch of impure objects, was with sulphur, and fire made of the unctuous pine:" they were also sprinkled with a laurel branch dipped in water. Juvenal's expression is-cuperent lustrari, si qua darentur, if they could get sulphur, &c. i. e. says Lubin, apud inferos ubi talia FORTE non sunt! I love a careful commentator, like Lubin. In the simplicity of his heart, good man! he sometimes ventures to suspect the veracity of his author; but that he could ever be guilty of the crime of poetry, does not once seem to have entered his thoughts. For the rest; we see here, that the poet attributes the profligacy of the times to the disbelief of a future state, and certainly with great reason; for were it possible that such incredulity could become general, no barrier would remain of sufficient force to check the torrent of vicious propensities, which would burst upon us from a thousand springs, and again, as in the days of Noah, fill the earth with corruption and violence. It is to be lamented that Juvenal, who appears to be extremely anxious to impress upon the minds of his countrymen, the existence of a future state, should yet have given a description of it which, to speak tenderly, borders upon the mean, if not the ridiculous. But he is rather to be pitied than blamed. Such doctrines as his creed supplied, he laboured to enforce. It is true, purer sources of information had been opened, but before we condemn his ignorance, we ought to be sure that he had it in his power to avail himself of them. Mr. Owen has an excellent observation on this passage. "Many strange conceptions have prevailed, even among Christians, with regard to the circumstances of the invisible world. And no wonder: we can only conceive it under sensible images. But the general truth stands independent of all fictions and follies. Scepticism may smile at the croaking frogs, and squallid ferryman, but Nature will not be laughed out of her hopes and fears." These "strange conceptions," however, do not affect Christianity. They are the reveries of men, unmindful alike of the language of their divine Master, and of his Apostle. By the former, a state of reprobation is briefly, but forcibly, described as a place "where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not |