What a strained, unnatural similitude must this seem to a modern reader, but how full of humour, if we suppose it alludes to any celebrated statues of these two champions, that stood perhaps in some public place or highway near Rome! And what makes it more than probable there were such statues, we meet with the figures which Juvenal here describes, on antique intaglios and medals. Nay, Propertius has taken notice of the very statues.

Antæus here and stern Alcides strive,

Lib. iii, Car. i.

And both the grappling statues seem to live.

I cannot forbear observing here, that the turn of the neck and arms is often commended in the Latin poets among the beauties of a man, as in Horace we find both put together, in that beautiful description of jealousy:

Dum tu Lydia Telephi

Cervicem roseam, et cerea Telephi
Laudas brachia, væ meum

Fervens difficile bile tumet jecur:
Tunc nec mens mihi, nec color

Certâ sede manent: humor et in genas

Furtim labitur, arguens

Quàm lentis penitus macerer ignibus.

While Telephus's youthful charms,
His rosy neck, and winding arms,
With endless rapture you recite,
And in the tender name delight;
My heart, enraged by jealous heats,
With numberless resentments beats;
From my pale cheeks the colour flies,
And all the man within me dies;
By fits my swelling grief appears
In rising sighs, and falling tears,
That show too well the warm desires,
The silent, slow, consuming fires,
Which on my inmost vitals prey,
And melt my very soul away.

This we should be at a loss to account for, did we not observe in the old Roman statues, that these two parts were always bare, and exposed to view, as much as our hands and face are at present. I cannot leave Juvenal without taking notice that his

Ventilat æstivum digitis sudantibus aurum
Nec sufferre queat majoris pondera Gemmæ,

Sat. 1.

Charged with light summer rings his fingers sweat,
Unable to support a gem of weight,

DRYDEN.

was not anciently so great an hyperbole as it is now, for I have seen old Roman rings so very thick about, and with such large stones in them, that 'tis no wonder a fop should reckon them a little cumbersome in the summer season of so hot a climate.

It is certain that satire delights in such allusions and instances as are extremely natural and familiar: when therefore we see anything in an old satirist that looks forced and pedantic, we ought to consider how it appeared in the time the poet writ, and whether or no there might not be some particular circumstances to recommend it to the readers of his own age, which we are now deprived of. One of the finest ancient statues in Rome is a Meleager with a spear in his hand, and the head of a wild boar on one side of him. It is of Parian marble, and as yellow as ivory. One meets with many other figures of Meleager in the ancient basso relievos, and on the sides of the Sarcophagi, or funeral monuments. Perhaps it was the arms or device of the old Roman hunters; which conjecture I have found confirmed in a passage of Manilius, that lets us know the pagan hunters had Meleager for their patron, as the Christians have their St. Hubert. He speaks of the constellation which makes a good sportsman.

Quibus aspirantibus orti

Te Meleagre colunt

MANIL. lib. i.

I question not but this sets a verse, in the fifth Satire of Juvenal, in a much better light than if we suppose that the poet aims only at the old story of Meleager, without considering it as so very common and familiar a one among Romans.

Flavi dignus ferro Meleagri

the

Spumat aper

Juv. Sat. 5.

A boar entire, and worthy of the sword
Of Meleager, smokes upon the board.

MR. BOWLES.

In the beginning of the ninth Satire, Juvenal asks his friend why he looks like Marsya when he was overcome ?

Scire velim quare toties mihi Nævole tristis
Occurris fronte obductâ, seu Marsya victus?

Tell me, while sauntering thus from place to place,
I meet thee, Nevolus, with a clouded face?

DRYD. JUV.

Some of the commentators tells us, that Marsya was a lawyer who had lost his cause; others say that this passage alludes to the story of the satyr Marsyas, who contended with Apollo; which I think is more humorous than the other, if we consider there was a famous statue of Apollo flaying Marsya in the midst of the Roman forum, as there are still several ancient statues of Rome on the same subject. There is a passage in the sixth Satire of Juvenal, that I could never tell what to make of, till I had got the interpretation of it from one of Bellorio's ancient basso relievos.

Juv. Sat. 11.

DRYD. JUV.

Magnorum artificum frangebat pocula miles Ut phaleris gauderet equus: cælataque cassis Romulea simulachra feræ mansuescere jussæ Imperii fato, et geminos sub rupe Quirinos, Ac nudam effigiem clypeo fulgentis et hastâ, Pendentisque Dei, perituro ostenderet hosti. Or else a helmet for himself he made, Where various warlike figures were inlaid : The Roman wolf suckling the twins was there, And Mars himself, armed with his shield and spear, Hovering above his crest, did dreadful show, As threatening death to each resisting foe. Juvenal here describes the simplicity of the old Roman soldiers, and the figures that were generally engraven on their helmets. The first of them was the wolf giving suck to Romulus and Remus: the second, which is comprehended in the two last verses, is not so intelligible. Some of the commentators tell us, that the god here mentioned is Mars, that he comes to see his two sons sucking the wolf, and that the old sculptors generally drew their figures naked, that they might have the advantage of representing the different swelling of the muscles, and the turns of the body. But they are extremely at a loss to know what is meant by the word pendentis; some fancy it expresses only the great embossment of the figure, others believe it hung off the helmet in alto relievo, as in the foregoing translation. Lubin sup

poses that the god Mars was engraven on the shield, and that he is said to be hanging, because the shield which bore him hung on the left shoulder. One of the old interpreters is of opinion, that by hanging is only meant a posture of bending forward to strike the enemy. Another will have it, that whatever is placed on the head may be said to hang, as we call hanging gardens, such as are planted on the top of

the house. Several learned men, who like none of these explications, believe there has been a fault in the transcriber, and that pendentis ought to be perdentis; but they quote no manuscript in favour of their conjecture. The true meaning of the words is certainly as follows. The Roman soldiers, who were not a little proud of their founder, and the military genius of their republic, used to bear on their helmets the first history of Romulus, who was begot by the god of war, and suckled by a wolf. The figure of the god was made as if descending upon the priestess Ilia, or, as others call her, Rhea Silvia. The occasion required his body should be naked,

Tu quoque inermis eras cum te formosa sacerdos

Cepit: ut huic urbi semina magna dares. Ov. DE FAS. lib. iii.
Then too, our mighty Sire, thou stood'st disarmed,
When thy rapt soul the lovely priestess charmed,
That Rome's high founder bore-

Though on other occasions he is drawn, as Horace has described him, Tunicâ cinctum adamantina. The sculptor, however, to distinguish him from the rest of the gods, gave him what the medallists call his proper attributes, a spear in one hand and a shield in the other. As he was represented descending, his figure appeared suspended in the air over the vestal virgin, in which sense the word pendentis is extremely proper and poetical. Besides the antique basso relievo, that made me first think of this interpretation, I have since met with the same figures on the reverses of a couple of ancient coins, which were stamped in the reign of Antoninus Pius, as a compliment to that emperor, whom for his excellent government and conduct of the city of Rome, the senate regarded as a second kind of founder.

Ilia Vestalis (quid enim vetat inde moveri)
Sacra lavaturas manè petebat aquas:
Fessa resedit humi, ventosque accepit aperto
Pectore; turbatas restituitque comas.
Dum sedet; umbrosæ salices volucresque canoræ
Fecerunt somnos, et leve murmur aquæ.
Blanda quies victis furtim subrepit ocellis,
Et cadit a mento languida facta manus ?

Mars videt hanc, visamque cupit, potiturque cupitâ :
Et sua divinâ furta fefellit ope.

Somnus abit: jacet illa gravis, jam scilicet intra
Viscera Romanæ conditor urbis erat.

OV. DE FAST. lib. iii. Eleg. 1.

As the fair vestal to the fountain came,
(Let none be startled at a vestal's name,)
Tired with the walk, she laid her down to rest,
And to the winds exposed her glowing breast
To take the freshness of the morning air,
And gathered in a knot her flowing hair :
While thus she rested on her arm reclined,
The hoary willows waving with the wind,

And feathered choirs that warbled in the shade,
And purling streams that through the meadow strayed,
In drowsy murmurs lulled the gentle maid.

The god of war beheld the virgin lie,

The god beheld her with a lover's eye,

And by so tempting an occasion pressed,

The beauteous maid, whom he beheld, possessed:
Conceiving as she slept, her fruitful womb
Swelled with the founder of immortal Rome.

I cannot quit this head without taking notice of a line in Seneca the tragedian.

Primus emergit solo
Dextrâ ferocem cornibus premens taurum
Zetus-

SEN. EDIP. act. iii.

First Zetus rises through the ground,
Bending the bull's tough neck with pain,

That tosses back his horns in vain.

I cannot doubt but the poet had here in view the posture of Zetus in the famous group of figures, which represents the two brothers binding Dirce to the horns of a mad bull.

It

I could not forbear taking particular notice of the several musical instruments that are to be seen in the hands of the Apollos, muses, fauns, satyrs, bacchanals, and shepherds, which might certainly give a great light to the dispute for preference between the ancient and modern music. would, perhaps, be no impertinent design to take off all their models in wood, which might not only give us some notion of the ancient music, but help us to pleasanter instruments than are now in use. By the appearance they make in marble, there is not one string-instrument that seems comparable to our violins, for they are all played on, either by the bare fingers, or the plectrum, so that they were incapable of adding any length to their notes, or of varying them by those insensible swellings and wearings away of sound upon the same string, which give so wonderful a sweetness to our modern music. Besides, that the string-instruments must have had very low and feeble voices, as may be guessed from