And why not every thing? Since THESE are they Whom Fortune, midst her wild and wanton play

combats of gla

The dead (I scarce know why, unless from a principle of revenge in the living) were anciently supposed to delight in human blood. Prisoners of war, therefore, were sometimes put to death at the grave of a favourite chief who had fallen in battle, as the readiest way to appease his manes. From this practice, undoubtedly, sprang the one of which we are treating diators having been primarily exhibited in Rome, at the funerals of eminent persons; to which indeed they were for some time restricted. The magistrates themselves first broke through this restraint, and produced them for the entertainment of the city at the Saturnalia, and other festivals. As they were much followed, ambitious men soon discovered that the readiest road to power, was to gratify the people in these their favourite amusements, and they, therefore, became extremely frequent.

They seem to have received their first check from Cicero, who introduced a law for preventing candidates for public offices from exhibiting them. Augustus afterwards decreed, that they should be given only twice a year; and these regulations continued in force during the reign of his immediate successor. Caligula again permitted all the citizens to give them as often as they pleased. Domitian, who snuffed the scent of blood like a vulture, encouraged them by every means in his power; and even the "mild virtues" of Trajan were not thought disgraced by the horrid spectacle of 10,000 wretched victims, whom he exhibited in his triumph over the Dacians!

Besides the checks above mentioned, there were others of a secondary nature. Tacitus quotes a decree of the senate, by which it was provided, ne quis gladiatorum munus ederet cui minor quadringentorum millium res esset. Even thus, it seems to have been confined to the free citizens; for Harpocras, the freedman of Claudius, is mentioned by Suetonius as exhibiting them by the Emperor's special indulgence." We may now account for the indignation with which the poet speaks of those arrogant upstarts, "Arturius and his colleague," who, puffed up by the success of their sordid contracts, presumed to put forth those bloody shews, and dispose of the lives of their fellow-creatures at the caprice of a barbarous rabble.

With human state, her toy, in some blind hour Lifts, from the dregs of earth, to wealth and power. What should I do at Rome! I know not, I,

Το

cog and flatter; I could never lie,

Combats of gladiators continued to the days of Constantine, who, to the honour of Christianity, first prohibited them by an edict. Some faint traces of them, however appeared under the succeeding emperors; but they were finally done away by Arcadius and Honorius.

VER. 63. What should I do at Rome! &c.] Martial has conveyed (“ convey, the wise it call,") this and the following lines from our author, and worked them up into a tolerable epigram. Here is Cowley's translation of it; which is not so good as it might be :-for the concluding couplets I am answerable.

"Honest and poor, faithful in word and thought,
"What has thee, Fabian, to the city brought?
"Thou neither the buffoon nor bawd can'st play,
"Nor with false whispers th' innocent betray;
"Nor wives corrupt, nor from rich beldames get
"A living by thy industry and sweat ;

"Nor with vain promises and projects cheat,

"Nor bribe nor flatter any of the great,

"What means hast thou to thrive? Ho! thou art just,

"A man of courage, firm, and fit for trust.

66

Nay then, thou canst not fail ;-but, hie thee home,

"For seriously, thou art not made for Rome."

Lib. IV. V.

In Wyatt's epistle to his friend Poines, there are several passages which shew that he had this Satire before him :

"But how may I this honour now attain,

"That cannot dye the colour black a lyar?

"My Poines, I cannot frame my lips to feigne,
"To cloke the truth," &c.

VOL. I.

X

Nor when I heard a great man's verses, smile,

And beg a copy, if I thought them vile.
A sublunary wight, I have no skill

To read the stars; I neither can, nor will,
Presage a father's death; I never pried

In toads for poison, nor in aught beside.

In consequence of this attachment to truth, he protests (among other things) that he cannot prefer Chaucer's tale of Sir Topas to his Palemon and Arcite :

he cannot

VER. 69.

Approve Sir Topas for a noble tale,

"And scorn the story that the knight he told.

"Praise him for counsel that is drunk of ale,

"Grinne when he laughs that beareth all the swaye,

"Frowne when he frowns, and groan when he is pale ;
"In others lust to hang both night and day.”—

I never pried

In toads for poison, &c.] Either our toad is not the rana rubeta of the ancients, or it has lost its destructive qualities in this country; where it is generally understood to be altogether innoxious. In Juvenal's time, no doubt was entertained of its poisonous nature. It is frequently alluded to by the elder Pliny, and once in strong terms, as extremely hostile to life. The compounders of these doses, (and, as Rabelais says, there was a world of people at Rome then, as well as now, that got an honest livelihood by poisoning,) might probably give out such a report, to conceal the real fact; but I should imagine the substances they used were either vegetable, or mineral, and of a much more subtle, and deleterious nature than any thing the genus of toads could supply. It is no great reflection, however, on our author, that he was ignorant of the

secret.

Madan has a curious note on this line: "The language here is metaphorical, and alludes to augurs inspecting the entrails of beasts slain in sacrifice, on the

Others, with subtler art, and nicer care,
The adulterer's billets to the wife may bear;
No pimp of pleasure, I such deeds detest,
And honest, let no thief partake my breast.
For this, without a friend, the world I quit;
A palsied limb, for every use unfit!

For who is lov'd, in these degenerate times,
But he whose conscious bosom swells with crimes,
With monstrous crimes, he never must impart,
Though the dire secret burst his labouring heart?
They owe, they pay thee nothing, who prepare
To trust an honest secret to thy care;
But, a dishonest!—there they feel thy power,
And buy thy friendship high from hour to hour:
But let not all that Tagus' waves contain,

Nor all the gold they pour into the main,
Be deem'd a bribe sufficient, to requite

Thy loss of peace by day, of sleep by night.

view of which they drew their good or ill omens." With a degree of carelessness inexcusable in a school-boy, Mr. Madan confounds augurs with auruspices; and the consequences are such as might be expected. Umbritius, whose sole employment was inspecting the entrails of beasts, (Mr. Madan's "metaphorical" toads,) is made to declare, that he never looked into them; while the augurs, who always divined by the flight of birds, are said to take their omens from the beasts slain in sacrifice, with which they never meddled!

O take not, take not what thy soul rejects,
Nor sell the faith, which he who buys suspects!
Who flourish now the favourites of the state,
A supple crew I must for ever hate;

Unaw'd by fear, and unrestrain’d by shame,
I haste to shew, nor thou my transport blame :
I cannot rule my spleen, and calmly see
Rome dwindling to a Grecian colony.
Grecian! O, no: to this vast sewer compar'd,
The dregs of Greece are scarcely worth regard.
Long since the stream that wanton Syria laves,
Has disembogued its filth in Tiber's waves,
Its language, arts; o'erwhelm'd us with the scum
Of Antioch's streets, its minstrels, harp, and drum.
Hie to the Circus! ye who pant to prove

A barbarous mistress, an outlandish love;
Hie to the Circus! there in crowds they stand,
'Tires on their head, and timbrels in their hand.

VER. 97. Grecian, 0, no, &c.] Quamvis quota portio fæcis Achææ? As if, says Britannicus, the vices of the Greeks were so great, that a small portion of them was sufficient to corrupt the city. O bone Tolov σs & Quyay! Surely Juvenal means to say-I have called Rome a Grecian colony; yet when I consider what a multitude of Syrians, &c. the Orontes has poured into the Tiber, I must confess that the filth of Greece forms but a small part of that inundation of impurity with which we are overwhelmed.