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of each district; which being viewed, he ordered the soldiers to return the rest. Those, which, by frequent marches, or were made new, he divided in the morning among the centurions then too - he provided with arms the garments, which pay given to the smiths and then required an account of what shops bitumen * * *, and an account being given, how much could be procured each day. All the instruments of war were therefore prepared at once. Nor did the workmen want materials pecially being prepared, nor were they wanting to their respective work. At length, the ambassadors of all the nations being assembled, the things, which he himself and what he had done in taking the enemies' towns, he laid before them, and urged them to finish the remainder of the war, briefly informing them how much it was the interest of the province of Spain, that his party should be superior. The assembly then being dismissed, and having ordered ** *. In the beginning of the spring he sent M. Perperna† with twenty thousand foot and fifteen hundred horse into the country of the Ilurçaones to guard its seacoast; giving him instructions what road he should take to defend the allied towns, which Pompey might besiege, and how his own army might escape the ambuscades of Pompey. At the same time he sent letters to Herennuleius, who was in the same place, and into another province to L. Hertuleius, directing how he would have the war carried on; above all, that he would so defend the allied states, as not to venture a battle with Metellus, to whom he was no match, either in authority or in strength, lest he himself should✶✶ counsel, towards

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*The word in the original here is inixogivitium-udio, which, corrupted as it is, the editor acknowledges himself unable to supply. The letters, he adds, are remarkably distinct, especially X and VITIVM. Whether there is one letter or two between M and V is not clear. IXO perhaps may be substituted for IPSO. See Suetonius in vita Augusti, § 88, where IXI occurs for IPSI.

Editor.

†This Perperna was the traitor, who afterwards assassinated Sertorius.

It appears both from Livy and Orosius b. 5, that Hertuleius, afterwards giving battle to Metellus in the province of Bætica, lost 20,000 of his troops, and, escaping into Lusitania, was there slain at Segovia,

" that if the war should

nor did he think him in be protracted, the enemy, as he had the sea at his back, and all the provinces in his power, would receive provisions from all parts by ships; but they, after consuming what had been provided the preceding summer, would be in want of every thing. **Perperna to the seacost, that those things, which were yet safe from the * * of the enemy and, if occasion offered, might attack them unawares.

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He himself with

his own army determined to march to the Hiberones and Autalcones, from whom when the towns of Celtiberia were

and guides

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attacked, his assistance being entreated, being sent to show the Roman army the way, er he should turn to the seacost in order to drive Pompey from Ilurcaonia and Contestania, both nations his allies, or towards Metullus and Rusitania.* Meditating on these things, Sertorius led his army unmolested beyond the river, Hiberus, through a peaceable country, without offending any one. Proceeding thence into the territories of the Bursaones, Casuantini, and Graccuritani, the corn being all destroyed, and trodden down, he came to Calaguris Nasica, a friendly city, and, passing the river near the town on a bridge, which he made, there encamped. The next day he sent M. Masius, Quæstor, to the Arvaci and Cerindones, to enlist soldiers in those states, and to carry forage from thence to Contrebia, which is otherwise called Leucada, near which town was the most convenient passage to the Berones, into which country he had resolved to march his army; and sent C. Instelus, general of the horse, to Segovia, and into the country of the Vacrei to procure horses, ordering him with his horsemen to wait for him at Contrebia. Dismissing them, he himself, marching his army through the country of the Umcones, encamped on the borders of the Virones. On the next day, marching forward with his horse to view the roads, and ordering his foot to follow in a square, he arrived at Vareia, the strongest town in that district. He came upon them unexpected, and on all sides with the horse of his own nation and of the Autric

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APOLOGY FOR EPICURISM.

"Inter sapores fertur alitum primus
"Ionicarum gustus attagenarum."

Martial.

Ir will doubtless be considered a crime against mor

T

als to tell and to defend the pleasures of the Epicure. We are so enslaved to the authority of Addison and Johnson, that nothing can be proper, which is condemned by their moral speculations. We are so wedded to the Spartan cookery of our country, merely because we have always been used to it, that, when a stranger tells us of the luxurious dainties of England and France, we are disposed to think, that he talks largely, like a traveller; and, if at length we are forced to believe the narration, our ignorance of good living is changed into moral sensibility, and immediately ensues a violent philippic against the pleasures of the table. Besides we are afraid, that the steady habits of the country will be altered or destroyed by the introduction of foreign luxuriousness; and therefore we think, that any elogy of this corrupting cause should be read with indifference, and dismissed with forgetfulness. But the grave and learned professors and sages of literature will consider it a crime, far beyond allpossibility of excuse or extenuation, to introduce the praises of good living among students, who will learn the more, the less they eat ; who ought to reverence Minerva, as the chief of divinities, and Parnassus, as the consecrated ground of science, with more awfulness and zeal, than the follower of Ma homet venerates the holy prophet of God, and prays towards the holy city of Mecca. These charges perhaps cannot be eluded. I shall leave them to the reader's refutation, and shall content myself with observing, that the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge have seldom been accused of inattention to literature, and yet in those venerable gothic monas teries the novices and monks, on the celebration of benefac

tors' days, chaunt high mass to St Epicurus. On ordinary Occasions the commons' tables are covered with most excellent food in great profusion. Often the students at their rooms riot in daintiness and choice wines; and, when the fellows meet together, a spectator may wonder at the beauty of the China, at the selection of nice things for dinner and supper, and at the quantity of rich, embossed, old fashioned silver plate, which has descended for many generations from the noble founders and patrons of the colleges to the present possessors, and which once graced the feasts of scholars and dignitaries, like Chancellor William of Wykeham and Archbishop Laud.

enes.

It is customary to refer to the moralists of antiquity to exemplify the duty of abstemiousness, and the excellence of simple fare. But there are some reasons to suppose, that their conduct was governed by different principles from those of rigid virtue. I am afraid, that some of the strictest sect were remarkable for great roughness of throat, that they did not possess palates of nice sensations ; and therefore their contempt of luxurious banquets is to be ascribed to the apathy of the papille of the tongue, and not to their elevated conceptions of the true dignity of man. Among the most celebrated of these philosophers were Antisthenes and DiogThe former carried his wallet, and was covered with rags. He depended on the miserable pittances of charity for support, and, when this source failed, it might not be injurious to believe, that he was obliged to steal. The latter lived in a tub, and dined on the scraping of bones. He had a cup, out of which he drank; yet so great was his folly, that he threw it away, when he saw a child take up water in the palm of his hand. Besides these there were many other practical and speculative sophists among the Greeks, who railed against the delicate sensibility of the mouth, and the well covered tables of the rich. They pretended to prefer the black broth of Sparta to the savoury meats of a Persian kitchen. They would swear, that water was better than wine, and, like their worthy successor in "the Tale of the

"Tub," that bread was the staff of life, and the quintessence of good cookery. But this enlightened age has learned to lessen the commendations in favor of snarling philosophers. Many suppose with Socrates and Plato, that the Cynics were governed by the folly of affectation. Others think, and probably justly, that they thundered their imprecations, as little children cry, only when they were hungry; and that they condemned the exquisite entertainments of the Athenians, only because they were not invited to sup.

A fine taste is a valuable gift. I mean not a taste, which delights in the graces of architecture, the beauties of painting, or the curves of sculpture; but which is conversant with the dainties of the table. Unfortunately it is oftener desired, than possessed. It is highly prized, because it procures a continual fund of varying felicity. Its excellence, like the value of virtue, is evidenced by the numerous acts of hypocrisy, which are practised to obtain a belief from the world, that it exists, when it does not. Many are the little practices, which a soi-disant connoisseur of Russian throat exerts to make it generally credited, that he has a palate, which startles, like a sensitive plant, at the approach of what is contrary to its nature; and yet such a barbarian could not tel the best part of a hare, and could hardly discern the difference between a greasy Lapland medley, and the delicious olla podrida at the sumptuous banquet of the renowned Marquis de Escalona. Far different is the man of real taste. Far superior is the epicure of tremulous sensibility. I reverence such a being; "mihi erit magnus Apollo." I love to view such a hero at a well covered table, and willingly acknowledge the greatness of one, who can exquisitely relish the flavor of game; who can discern with precision the peculiar properties and different vintages of various wines; and who can immediately ascertain by niceness of texture and firmness of fat the rank of a wild bird in the catalogue of a connoisseur. Such a man is not transported by a ravenous appetite to satisfy the demands of hunger; but is merely inelined to gratify a natural delicacy by suitably appreciating

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