joined it. He was condemned to die, and
his veins were opened in a hot bath by his
physician. He expired, repeating some
lines from his Pharsalia, being then only
twenty- seven years of age.

Besides the poem just mentioned, which
he left unfinished, Lucan is said to have
written one on the combat of Hector and
Achilles, another on Orpheus, another on
the fire of Rome, in which he covertly
accused Nero as the author of the calamity,
and some books of Saturnalia, together
with some miscellaneous productions, an
imperfect tragedy of Medea, and a poem
on the burning of Troy.

The Pharsalia, Lucan's great poem, is
not an epic, but an historical narrative in
verse. When Lucan commenced it Nero
had promised to restore the moderation
and clemency of Augustus, and the poet
wished to improve the opportunity by
setting the character of Cato in a true
heroic light. His other characters are
Brutus, Julius Caesar, and Pompey. All
are carefully drawn. The sentiments with
which the poem abounds are noble and
large minded. Many of them have a strange
resemblance to those in the Pauline epistles;
but both have a common origin in prior
tradition, since not a few of them are found
in Ovid. Lucan too frequently gave an
epigrammatic turn to his finest descriptions,
which somewhat impaired their
beauty. We need not, however, dwell on
this poem, which is well known to the
English reader by Rowe's excellent
translation.

But not only was history communicated
in verse, but science. Thus astronomy was
indebted to Manilius, a poet either of the
Augustan age or that of Theodosius, who
has been much neglected. He publicly
professed and taught mathematics. His
poem, however, is defective, for his account
of the planets is incomplete. He is, too,
rather an astrologer than an astronomer;
and among philosophers he clearly belongs
to the sect of the Stoics.

Statius, whose name has been mentioned
more than once in these papers, was a
disciple of Virgil, whose natal day he was
accustomed to solemnise, and whose tomb he
frequently visited. His great work, the
Thebaid, is modelled on the Æneid, but is
defective in epic properties, and depicts
manners thrown too far back into the
barbarous ages. He was unlike Virgil, too,
in being poor; so that he is mentioned by
Juvenal as an evidence of the low state of
men of letters, and the small encouragement
given to men of talent, who were
often reduced to the necessity of writing
for their bread. He also tells us that Statius
wrote a tragedy, which the player Paris
purchased, the poet being reduced to sell
it for a subsistence to the histrion who
became a minion of the emperor. The
poet's circumstances seem to have
improved from that period, and in his Thebaid
he was said to have been assisted by the
most learned men of the time, and by
Maximus Junius, a nobleman of great
accomplishments. Statius himself was of a
good family, and was born at Naples about
the beginning of the reign of Claudius
the precise time is uncertain. Having made
his fortune in Rome, he returned to his
native place and dwelt there until he died.
His wife Claudia is supposed to have
assisted him in his Thebaid, and was in high
repute as a woman of intelligence and
virtue. He was occupied twelve years in
the composition of the Thebaid, and then
commenced the Achilleid, which he left
unfinished. His early efforts consisted of
occasional poems, which he wrote with
great facility, and published in five books,
under the title of Silvæ, or Miscellanies.
One of these compliments, in hyperbolical
terms, the Emperor Domitian, who once
invited him, at the instance of Paris, to a
splendid banquet. But this gross flattery
of the emperors belongs to all the Latin
poets, who uniformly treat the Cæsar as a
divinity. Having absolute tyrants to deal
with, they deemed it prudent rather to be
too profuse in compliment than to fall short
of what might possibly be expected.

Any survey of Latin poetry which did
not include the Satirists would manifestly
be incomplete, for the indulgence of the
satiric vein was one of its most ancient and
characteristic features. This vein seems
to have been peculiar to the national
idiosyncrasy, for Roman satire borrowed
nothing but its measure from the Greeks,
unless, as Horace intimates, the free
exposures of individual vices in the old Greek
comedy may be accepted as examples.
Take what Horace says on the point, " in
the very words of Creech:"

Cratin and Eupolis, that lashed the age,
Those old comedian furies of the stage;
If they were to describe a vile, unjust,
And cheating knave, or scourge a lawless lust,
Or other crimes: regardless of his fame,
They showed the man, and boldly told his name.
This is Lucilius' way, he follows those,
The wit the same, but other numbers chose.

To the Lucilius here mentioned Latin
satire was indebted for its regulation and