aim at that more stately furniture, which would have been necessary for the reception of guests. The Roman reckoning by sesterces was tremely troublesome. Decies centena means decies centena millia. Another expression was, decies millia: sometimes decies alone, or decies sestercium. The lesser sesterce was twopence all but half a farthing of our money. This makes the reduction of a large sum to our denominations a delicate operation in arithmetic. A million of sesterces amounted to 78127. 10s. Horace's courtly principles are evinced in the following line: Principibus placuisse viris, non ultima laus est. Epist. lib. i. ep. 17. Horrida tempestas cœlum contraxit; et imbres In this little piece, nothing can be more pleasant than the manner in which Epicurean suggestions are delivered with all the pomp and gravity of the Stoic school. The real drift seems to be, condolence with some friend on a reverse of fortune. The preceptor of Achilles is introduced as delivering the oracles of wisdom to his pupil, which far from being the lecture of a pedagogue, turn out to be an invitation to reflect on the shortness of life, not for the purpose of enhancing care, but of expelling it by music, wine, and company. Horace speaks with indignation of the effeminacy prevalent in the camp of Antony and Cleopatra : and its effect in occasioning the desertion of the Gallogræci : Interque signa turpe militaria Ad hoc frementes verterant bis mille equos Galli, canentes Cæsarem; The KaywжToy was a sort of tent-bed, in common use with the Egyptians as a protection against mosquitos, from the Greek xwes, in Latin culices; but queens and princesses were very splendid and luxurious in the furniture of those beds. The following protest in the Art of Poetry, against destroying the probability of dramatic representation by the introduction of such chimæras as nurses and foolish mothers frighten children with, is well pointed by the spectre which was supposed after seducing to devour young persons, and derived its name from the Greek λapòs, meaning the gullet or gluttony: Ficta voluptatis causa sint proxima veris; Ne, quodcunque volet, poscat sibi fabula credi; Horace seems to think that who drives fat oxen must himself be fat; and that Homer and Ennius must have acquired gout as well as fame by their praises of wine: Laudibus arguitur vini vinosus Homerus. Ennius ipse pater nunquam nisi potus ad arma Epist. lib. i. ep. 19. MISCELLANEOUS PASSAGES FROM JUVENAL. Proximus ejusdem properabat Acilius ævi Unde fit, ut malim fraterculus esse gigantum. Sat. iv. THE Acilius here mentioned was Acilius Glabrio, of whom little is known, but that he was a senator of singular prudence and fidelity. The victim of Domitian's cruelty, alluded to in the following lines, is supposed by some of the commentators, and most of the translators, to have been Domitius, the son of Acilius. They were both charged with designs against the emperor, and condemned to death. The father's sentence was changed into banishment, with a show of mercy, substantially designed as an aggravation, that at the advanced age of eighty, when a good man is prepared to die, he might linger out some superfluous days in the remembrance of his son's undeserved suffering for treason, which, like his own, amounted probably to no more than a suspicion of virtue. Whether they were father and son or not, the young man had imitated the well-known trick of the elder Brutus, in feigning fatuity. When Domitian celebrated his annual games at Alba, in honour of Minerva, this youth fought naked with wild beasts in the amphitheatre: but Domitian was not to be deceived by such affectation of insanity; and sent him to execution with circumstances of extreme cruelty, and under various methods of torture. But Juvenal's allusions are so slight, that sometimes we cannot trace the facts in what remains of history; and, at other times, the innuendo seems to admit of more than one application. At the Quinquatria, Domitian was in the habit of exhibiting pairs of noblemen in combat with wild beasts on the stage. If they conquered, it was imputed as a crime. Dio relates either this, or a similar story. The impiety charged on so many appears to have been a propensity to what he calls Judaism, which the Romans continually confounded with Christianity: — Ὑφ ̓ ἧς καὶ ἄλλοι ἐς τὰ τῶν Ἰουδαίων ἤθη ἐξοκέλλοντες πολλοὶ κατεδικάσθησαν . . . τὸν δὲ δὴ Γλαβρίωτα τὸν μετὰ τοῦ Τραϊανοῦ ἄρξαντα, κατηγορήθεντα τά τε ἄλλα, καὶ οἷα οἱ πολλοὶ, καὶ ὅτι καὶ θηρίοις ἐμάχετο, ἀπέκτεινεν. Thus did Domitian sport with the lives of his subjects. But the practice of cutting off the nobility, from jealousy, fear, or hatred, had prevailed from the days of Nero: so that the poet professes, he would prefer being a Terræ filius and a squab brother of the giants, to a descent from the most illustrious families. The fabulous sons of Titan and Tellus rebelled and fought against Jupiter; but even that hazard is not equal to standing up against the overwhelming power of Domitian. Neither was he to be cajoled by the stratagem of playing the fool, like Tarquin the Proud. Domitius had miscarried in the policy, which had saved Lucius Junius Brutus, when his brother and many of the nobility had been destroyed. David had recourse to a similar device at the court of Achish, king of Gath. Juvenal professes a wish to leave Rome, and banish himself to the most inhospitable regions, rather than hear hypocrites preach morality :— Ultra Sauromatas fugere hinc libet, et glacialem Sat. ii. The Sauromata were the people of Asiatic and European Sarmatia, the Asiatic Sauromatæ being the inhabitants of modern Tartary, the European those of modern Russia. In the following very spirited passage of Lucan, the Northern Ocean, which was perpetually frozen, is called the Scythian Sea, as washing the shores of Scythia: Quis furor, o cives? quæ tanta licentia ferri, |