author is so very graceful, that the beauty would not have been greater, in such a poetical epistle, if the negligence had been less; but, had his principal view been the theatre in general, and a secondary design the improvement of that of Rome, it is quite inconceivable why he should have taken the course he has done, and should have been so totally regardless of method, as to wander from the road on every the smallest occasion. It appears, that, in writing this piece, our poet had a quite different design, without any reference whatever to the Roman theatre, that only a small part of his precepts or admonitions regard the drama, and that, in most instances where the commentators have imagined they saw rules for the theatre, he was only borrowing from it examples, to illustrate general rules which belong to all kinds of poetry, especially of the narrative kind, as well as to the dramatic. Not to detain the reader any longer, I shall now come to the point, and, with all due deference, lay my hypothesis before the public, declaring, at the same time, my readiness to give it up, if it shall be shown to be illfounded, or if it do not remove difficulties better than any of the former hypotheses. each referred to the person to whom it was addressed, and his connection with the writer, as is naturally the case in any ordinary letter. In some of them we have the clearest and most unequivocal marks, in others we have, at least, sufficient traces and hints to justify such a supposition; and though it should be granted, that the particular circumstances and views which have been assigned as a key for rightly understanding them, may, with respect to some, amount to no more than conjecture, yet it will hardly be denied, that such conjecture, if it throws light on what is dark, and resolves, in a satisfactory manner, what is enigmatical, has as much probability as in things of this nature can be required. I see no reason why this epistle should not be treated in the very same manner; nay, I am convinced, that the true key to its meaning lies in our poet's particular view in addressing it to the family of the Pisos; and that this view may fairly be concluded from various hints or notices which, with the utmost clearness, are to be found in the epistle itself. To make this plain, we must begin, as usual, by making ourselves as well acquainted as may be with the persons to whom the piece is addressed. Though, from the epistle itself, we cannot collect a great deal concerning them, yet there is not any doubt that Piso the father was the same L. C. Piso, who, in the year of Rome 739, was consul along with M. L. Drusus; was afterwards appointed governor of Pamphilia, and to whom, in the year 743, Augustus gave a commission to quell certain disturbances, which Vologeses, a priest of Bacchus, had raised at the head of a fanatical army in Thrace At the time when Velleius Paterculus wrote his Roman history, 40 years at least after Horace wrote this epistle, this Piso, then at an advanced age, held the important office of Præfectus urbis, or lieutenant of police, under the wretch Tiberius, with whom he was in the highest favour. That historian speaks of him in such terms, that we see tolerably well, through the pretty transparent colouring of his panegyric, what sort of man this L. Piso must have been, who, with a name which must continually have reminded him of what his ancestors, in the days of Roman liberty, had been, had had suppleness enough to maintain himself in the confidence of Augustus, and even of Tiberius. It is some excuse for him, however, that he had never seen the free constitution of Rome; and Senaca himself, who is not very prone to say flattering things of the dead, gives this testimony in his favour, " That, notwithstanding his unroman custom of passing the night over the bottle, and sleeping till late in the day, he was an excellent magistrate of police, and that he kept the city in the great est order and tranquillity." can Among the little poetical pieces of Antipater of Thessalonica, which are preserved in the Anthologia, there are several addressed to this L. Piso, from which it may be inferred, that Piso was a patron of that Greek poet. In one of them which Antipater sends him, along with a poem upon his victories over the Thracians, we find a pretty enough compliment: "The muse," says the Greek poet, never approach thee at an unseasonable hour; however busy thou art, thy ear is ever open to her." This compliment, along with one which Horace, in the 366th verse of this epistle, seems to pay to Piso the father's taste, may explain to us how an old scholiast could, in his style and manner, say, "Nam et ipse Piso,' &c. which I, in the language of those who weigh their words more scrupulously, translate: "Piso had, at a time when every body in Rome made verses, likewise produced some pretty things in this way; and was, as Mæcenas had been before him, an admirer of the belles lettres, and the patron of those by whom they were cultivated." The precise time when this epistle was written cannot be ascertained, but it is more probable that it was before than after the consulship of Piso, and, consequently, before the year 739. At that time this noble Roman must have been a young man himself, and his sons little more than boys; for we must not be misled by the word juvenes, (patre digni,) as it does not here signify youths but sons, in which sense the word is often used by the best Roman writers. If we consider that in the year 783, when Velleius Paterculus wrote his history, L. Piso, the father, was still præfectus urbis; it is scarcely to be supposed that his eldest son had, in the year 738, put on the toga virilis. He was, consequently, at the very age when the young Ro mans of rank and education chiefly devoted themselves to the Belles Let tres. This being allowed, it is more than probable, that the occasion of this epistle was as follows: In the course of his studies at school, the young Piso may have showed a particular des light in poetry, and such a strong predilection for versifying, that his father at last became uneasy at it. Every body knows, that, without any shining talents, a person may be plagued by an ardent and never-ceasing pruritus for poetising. This, which is frequently the case with young people, was perhaps the case with Master Piso. Our young gentleman did not look upon the matter as a boyish pastime or a fashionable amusement, but set about it as the main business of life. To the father, who was one of the first Roman families, and who naturally wished to preserve, under the new government, as much as possible of the lustre which had come down to him from his ancestors, it must have been mortifying to see his son, by attempting what was beyond his reach, expose himself to ridicule. Accordingly, he would think it necessary to use every gentle art to wean him from such a passion. The Calpurnian family had probably, from the time of its founder Calpus, the son of Numa, produced no poet, good or bad, and was his son to be the first who should wish to found his reputation on an art, in which it is so extremely, difficult to be among the foremost, and in which pretensions, without genius, are as common as contemptible? Not to mention the unfavourable impression that would be made on the public by the first sorry dramatic piece by which a young Calpurnian might make his de bût on the theatre, how disadvantageous might such a passion prove to his fortune? Augustus, at that time the source of riches and honours, did not, among the young Roman nobility, look for poets, but observant courtiers and useful servants of the state. Piso, the father, loved, indeed, the Belles Lettres, and even if he had had no decided inclination that way, he must have conformed to the fashion of the times; but though he occasionally made verses himself, he might not wish to see a reputation for scribbling hereditary in his house, nor that his son should become a poet by profession. REMARKS ON THE LIFE OF WILLIAM It is certainly very natural for a THE agitating period of wonder man, situated as Piso was, to view and vicissitude which the present race things in this light; and even if the of mankind have witnessed, seems risk which his son ran, from his de- to have exerted a sinister influence sire of obtaining the poetic crown, both on intellect and that literature had not appeared to him of such mag- which may be considered as its food. nitude, it was still great enough to Tremendous concussions-unwonted make his friend Horace think of giving and unequalled horrors-changes the young man juster ideas of the violent, sudden, and destructive, as difficulties and dangers attending such the tornadoes of our sultry Western pursuits. The father, it may well India, and having, like them, their be supposed, was on such a footing thickest gloom illuminated by tranwith our poet, that the latter would sient flashes of intolerable brightness, very readily do him a favour which such as the loftiest human powers was attended with so little trouble. often scatter through the darkness of A performance, in which the princi- the deepest human depravity,-fertile pal rules, and, as it were, the mysteries regions instantaneously blasted and of the art, were unfolded, was chosen desolated by the explosion of the great as an indirect, but sure way of attain revolutionary volcano,-and new uning the desired end. Perhaps the heard of domains rising amidst these young Calpurnius himself had begged horrors, like those islands which some Horace to furnish him with some great convulsion of nature has suddenrules and directions; and then, un- ly created in the ocean: Such are the der the appearance of introducing the scenes that have, in our eventful days, young man to poetry, our author roused even the dullest spirits, and might, , without showing his design, fixed the attention of the most indogive such a turn to his poetical epistle lent and careless. What, then, must as to deter the youth from poetry al- have been their effect on those powertogether. The Horatian manner of ful intellects and ardent spirits who philosophizing, as exhibited in his sa- love to ride the whirlwind in imaginatires and his other epistles, was per- tion, even where they cannot direct the fectly adapted to this design. The storm? With regard to the operation unrestrained freedom of following, of those mighty changes on our moral without any regard to method, wher- feelings, it is hard to decide whether ever his thoughts led him, allowed they have been beneficial or the conour author to introduce all such epi- rary, witnessing, as we have, by turns, sodes or digressions, as his fancy or the cold and feeble cowardice with humour might suggest; his main de- which whole nations bent beneath the sign was so much the less visible, and iron yoke of despotism, and the hethus too he could make his piece in- roic ardour of resistance that kindled teresting to other readers besides those the virtuous, though fatal, zeal of La to whom it was immediately addres- Vendee, and dazzled Europe with the sed. But what he chiefly gained by consuming flames of Moscow. We this was a new, and, as it appears, al- have actually felt what Claudio only ways welcome, opportunity of telling anticipated, and been suddenly transthe poetasters, who swarmed in Rome, planted from "chilling regions of thick some important, though disagreeable, ribbed ice" to the dreadful intensity of truths, and of making them feel, with fires kindled by the agony of sufferall that contempt which they deserving and fed by the fury of despair. It ed, that they did not comprehend the very elements of an art which they had the hardihood to profess. So much may be said in general: a more minute examination of this Epistle will, I flatter myself, confirm the truth of my hypothesis. (To be continued.) is the opinion of many, that, in the habit of daily witnessing, as it were, such an aggregate of crime and misery, as scarce allowed the mind time for the exercise of human sympathy to individual suffering, our best feelings have become obtuse, and scarce vulnerable to the softer sorrows of hu manity. To account for that complication of crimes and horrors by which the most popular German tragedies are distinguished, it has been said that the delicacy of feeling which is cherished by refinement did not exist among the worthy Teutons, and that, therefore, when their feelings were to be roused, the end could only be fully attained, by having recourse to some dark tale of aggravated guilt, or un natural horror, such as the ballads of rude times, or some of the earliest Grecian dramas presented to a people yet strangers to the softer civilities of life, consequently unacquainted with that fine awakened tact which renders the mind s susceptible of the acutest suffering, and the liveliest enjoy ment springing from sources incomprehensible to the less cultivated. Perhaps it is to the obtuseness produced by a familiarity with real horrors, that we must impute the taste for terrible and astounding fictions that has of late become so prevalent. It required minds trained to view the revolutionary atrocities, to relish the high coloured paintings of that Noble Author, who, though approved by none, is admired by all. We must have been prepared by a familiarity with the Giaour and Lara in the closet, to endure Bertram on the stage, Our appetite for sitting in security to view human souls on the rack of anguish, or in the agonies of remorse, was more cheaply satisfied formerly, by witnessing all that humanity could suffer on this side time, and our human sympathies were soothed by the bright retribution awaiting the virtuous sufferer when beyond the reach of sorrow, and even by the tremulous hope that hovers round the grave of the penitent criminal. But this chas tened sorrow is not sufficient for our present agitators. They drive the impenitent wretch glorying in his crimes, and disdainful of offered mercy, to the brink of the gulf which yawns to receive him, and lift, as far as fancy can, the veil of that dread futurity that awaits him. How different the sensations thus excited from the deep, yet tender emotions with which less hardened minds were wont to regard a dying Clarissa, while celestial hope shed a soft lustre even over the last struggles of the expiring saint; or, to quit fic tion for reality, how is the heart wrung by the spectacle presented to us in the memoir we are considering, where a nobleman, young, amiable, universally beloved and esteemed, happy beyond the common lot of humanity as a son, father, brother, and, above all, the husband of the most beloved and most excellent of her sex, having all those private virtues that endear, and all those public ones that exalt the human character, hallowed by a deep sense of grateful devotion to the Author of this ample portion of felicity; to see such a being dragged from the bosom of his family, and after the iniquitous mockery of a trial, exhibited on a scaffold to a gazing multitude, and pouring out that pure blood, so precious to his family and to his country, to appease the vengeance of a malicious and inveterate enemy. Here every virtuous sympathy is awakened, and the heart, melted by such a spectacle of woe, is purified by the example of the noble sufferer. The faith by which he is supported, the divine tranquillity with which he resigns all that was so very dear to him," in the sure and certain hope of a blessed immortality," all conspire to give a kind of sacred character to his sufferings, and to our sympathy, and we regard the victim of Patriotism only with less veneration than we should do the martyr of Religion! We owe much to the noble writ er, whose narrative of the life of his illustrious ancestor recalls to our minds the memory of worth so exemplary, and renews impressions early inade on every British mind not shamefully ignorant of that most important period of our history during which that lamented nobleman flourished and fell. Our late notice of the life and letters of his admirable partner, Lady Rachel, has anticipated much of the mere narrative detail of this work, in which the reader will admire with us the nervous plainness and simplicity of the style, and still more the moderation and impartiality which are preserved throughout. If the lingering heat which lurks in the ashes of party animosity could be in any case allowed to mingle in a narrative of facts, such a deviation might appear venial in a descendant of the house of Russell; but the noble writer claims no such indulgence, seeming on all occasions guided by a sense of perfect rectitude, if, indeed, he is not too lenient in the only instance wherein the shadow of blame attaches to his ancestor. The blind credulity with which Lord Russell and his compatriots listened to the monstrous fabrications of Oates and Bedloe in regard to the Popish plot, and the very severe measures which they adopted in consequence of that imposition, cannot, or ought not to be justified. Rash in itself, it was fatal in its consequences. The eagerness with which they followed out accusations admitting of very doubtful proof, kindled in the breast of the Duke of York, and his adherents, that deadly hatred which pursued the most virtuous and most popular nobleman in England to the grave, singling him out as the most distinguished victim to strike terror into the party which he sup ported. We are told, that " Oft at wisdom's gate suspicion sleeps, and to simplicity resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill." The moderation and calm good sense which seem to have peculiarly distinguished Lord Russell from the rest of his party, was not proof, at that nost unhappy period, against the current of popular opinion, and the eagerness by which his friends were actuated in the pursuit of an object certainly most desirable, that of excluding from power those whom they foresaw likely to use it for the worst purposes. But the terror of popery, and the just indignation against tyranny, were at that time so high-wrought, that credulity, almost amounting to delirium, prevailed among the friends of liberty, and to doubt of the base perjuries of Oates and Bedloe would have been considered as lukewarmness, or rather betraying the good cause. The lives of eminent persons who act an important part on the stage of public life afford useful materials for what may be called the Biography of History. Such biography, when written with such good taste, impartiality, and accurate care in selecting authorities, as this under consideration, is invaluable, both as throwing light into what may be called the dark passages, where the historian has to struggle through the intricacies of contradictory evidence, and as coming home to men's business and bosoms more than those grave and important facts which it is the business of the historian to relate. The meretricious ornaments of style are now so common and easily had, that they have fallen into a vulgar cheapness; yet, when one considers how much the public taste has been vitiated by modes of expression, in some instances pert and flippant, in others ornate and laboured, we must respect the dignified simplicity of this author, who has not stooped to gather any of those flowers so profusely scattered in the common paths of modern literature, but relating, with manly plainness, and unquestioned truth, facts of too deep interest in themselves, and too self-evident in their consequences, to require either ornament or comment, leaves the strength of his arguments, and the true pathos of his story, to work their own effects. The generation now growing up are, from circumstances peculiar to the present time, to which we have already adverted, deplorably ignorant of history, and shamefully indifferent about the past, we fear too often about the future. For the first there is some excuse. Those who stand to witness the conflagration of a city, or an eruption of Mount Vesuvius, may be pardoned for being wholly engrossed by the agitating scenes passing before them. Amidst all those horrors, however, which we have contemplated in comparative safety, the progress of luxury, and of exterior and artificial refinement, has been rapid and incessant. It is melancholy to consider how much the mind may be hardened, and even barbarized, while the senses are gratified, and the fastidious taste indulged, with all the visible requisites of elegant voluptuousness. There is no need for going back to the declining years of the Roman empire, to show how much cruelty, avarice, and general corruption, consist with the highest refinements of luxury. Countries called Christian afford nearer examples. It was amidst the festive gaieties of that court where Catharine de Medicis infused the refinements of Italian taste and science among the buoyant and gallant spirits of the nation, that the massacre of St Bartholomew was planned and executed. It was from the most polished and magnificent court ever known in Europe that the fatal mandate proceeded which abolished the edict of Nantz, and inflicted miseries on the exiled Protestants, only exceeded by the sufferings of those detained to taste every variety of cruel |