warm enough to declare itself to the world, but in defence of the great, or the popular.

Again, if the author of the notes knew, that A. H. related not to me, what reason had he to allude to that character, as mine, by observing, that I had published pieces bordering upon bombasta circumstance so independent on any other purpose of the note, that I should forget to whom I am writing, if I thought it wanted explanation.

As to your oblique panegyric, I am not under so blind an attachment to the goddess I was devoted to in the Dunciad, but that I knew it was a commendation; though a dirtier one than I wished for; who am, neither fond of some of the company, in which I was listed the noble reward, for which I was to become a diver;-the allegoric muddiness, in which I was to try my skill; nor the insti tutor of the games, you were so kind to allow me a share in.

Since, however, you could see, so clearly, that I ought to be satisfied with the praise, and forgive the dirt it was mixed with, I am sorry, it seemed not as reasonable, that you should pardon me for returning your compliment, with more, and opener, praise, mixed with less of that dirtiness, which we have, both, the good taste to complain of.

The Caveat, Sir, was mine. It would have been ridiculous to suppose you ignorant of it: I cannot think, you need be told, that it meant you no harm ;-and it had scorned to appear under the borrowed name it carries, but that the whimsical turn of the preface, would have made my own a contradiction.-I promise you, however, that for the future, I will publish nothing, without my name, that concerns you, or your writings. I have now, almost finished, An Essay on Propriety, and Impropriety, in Design, Thought, and Expression, illustrated, by Examples, in both Kinds, from the Writings of Mr. Pope; and, to convince you how much more pleasure it gives me, to distinguish your lights, than your shades-and that I am as willing as I ought to be, to see, and acknowledge my faults; I am ready, with all my heart, to let it run thus, if it would, otherwise, create the least pain in you:-An Essay on Propriety, and Impropriety, etc. illustrated by Examples, of the first, from the Writings of Mr. Pope, and of the last, from those of the Author.

I am sorry to hear you say, you never thought any great matters of your poetry.It is, in my opinion, the characteristic you are to hope your distinction from: to be honest is the duty of every plain man! Nor, since the soul of poetry is sentiment, can a great poet want morality. But your honesty you possess in common with a million, who will never be remembered; whereas your poetry is a peculiar, that will make it impossible you should be forgotten.

If you had not been in the spleen, when you wrote me this letter, I persuade myself, you would not, immediately after censuring the pride of writers, have asserted, that you, certainly, know your moral life, above that of most of the wits of these days: at any other time, you would have remembered, that humility is a moral virtue, It was a bold declaration; and the certainty with which you know it, stands in need of a better acquaintance than you seem to have had with

the

the tribe; since you tell me, in the same letter, that many of ther names were unknown to you.

Neither would it appear, to your own reason, at a cooler juncture, over-consistent with the morality you are so sure of, to scatter the letters of the whole alphabet, annexed, at random, to characters of a light and ridiculous cast, confusedly, with intent to provoke jealous writers into resentment, that you might take occasion, from that resentment, to expose and depreciate their characters.

The services you tell me, you would do Mr. Dennis, even though he should abuse you, in return, will, I hope, give him some title to expect an exertion of your recommendatory influence in his behalf: a man, so popular, as you, might secure him a great subscription: this would merit to be called a service; and, the more the world should find you abused in the works you had recommended, so much the more glorious proof would they see, that your morals were, in truth, as superior, as you represent them, to those of your cotemporaries. Though you will pardon me the pride of wondering, a little, how this declaration came to be made to me, whose condition not standing in need of such services, it was not, I think, so necessary, should have taken the trouble to talk of them.

you

Upon the whole, Sir, I find, I am so sincerely your friend, that it is not in your own power, to make me your enemy: else, that unnecessary air of neglect and superiority, which is so remarkable, in the turn of your letter, would have nettled me to the quick; and I must triumph, in my turn, at the strength of my own heart, who can, after it, still find, and profess myself, most affectionately and sincerely Your, etc.'

This was one of those unpleasant difficulties in which Pope was involved by his propensity to satirize, where he had not the courage to avow his meaning; and from which he could not extricate himself without some loss of honour.

We must now conclude the remarks which suggest themselves respecting this edition. It is certainly an improvement on that of Warburton; negatively so, in correcting or omitting his frequent perversions of the author's sense; - positively so, in the addition of a great many valuable facts and observations, either immediately connected with the text, or bearing a general reference to it. At the same time, we must take the liberty of expressing a degree of disappointment as to the care and attention bestowed on the work. There is too much of mere transcription in it from the editor's former labours; which, though respectable, were yet for the most part the product of a less matured taste and judgment, and are not always in harmony with later opinions:-the transcription has even been so careless, that facts long past are sometimes mentioned as having just occurred; and the same circumstances are not unfrequently repeated. We might have expected, from an editor of such various reading, something more in the tracing of imitations, and

in the comparison of similar passages in other poets; on which points Mr. Wakefield has displayed so much taste and industry.. We are sorry, likewise, to add that sufficient attention has not been paid by Dr. Warton to the correction of the press; many of the proper names, and particularly quotations from foreign languages, being erroneously printed. On the whole, indeed, we are constrained to observe that marks of haste are too conspicuous throughout.

A full length sketch of Pope is prefixed, taken by stealth by Mr. Hoare; which the editor calls an invaluable relic, but A frontispiece, which, in truth, is an ill-drawn caricature. however, gives us a fine bust of Mr. Pope, from a painting by

Richardson.

ART. II. Travels through Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and Sicily. Translated from the German of Frederic Leopold Count Stolberg, 2 Vols. pp. 500 and 656, and 19 by Thomas Holcroft. 4to. Plates. 31. 3s. Boards. Robinsons.

1796.

OF r the original work of this distinguished traveller, a detailed account occurs in the Appendix to our xviiith vol.; and we are happy in announcing a proper, elaborate, and elegant translation of it: although we think that the poetic style attempted by Count Stolberg is too much subdued, and that his condensed significance is too much enfeebled, by the expansion of the English version. It cannot be indifferent to the forma tion of a just taste in opinion among us, that the English public should become acquainted with the point of view in which the recent events, that have convulsed the Continent, were seen by so polite a scholar and so accomplished a gentleman as A friend to liberty, to republithe author of "The Island.” canism, and to the people, he is yet the patron of order, of religion, and of morals; and he views with the conscious disdain of superior rectitude those corrupt Gallican doctrines and practices, which, in 1791, (the date of these letters,) were so extensively patronized on the Continent by the populace of literature; which threatened to absorb all independence and nationality of character, and to transform the fortunate citizens of the democracies of Switzerland into apes of the debaucheries and satellites of the insolence of Paris.

The visit to the Colosseum at Rome introduces a dissertation on gladiatorial exhibitions, and on their abolition by Saint Telemachos, (one of the most meritorious men to whom the catholics have erected altars,) which we deem worthy of our selection on the present occasion:

• Dramatic representations were not performed in stationary theatres; but on scaffolding, which was quickly erected and removed.

The

The law did not permit them to build durable theatres: but the law seldom can repress the spirit of luxury, which here had the unfortunate property of combining the creations of genius with the madness of folly. In the year of Rome 599, the Censors, Marcus Valerius Messala, and Caius Cassius Longinus, whose duty it was to restrain the increase of luxury, built a superb theatre; which was pulled down before it was finished, because P. Scipio Nasica, whom the senate declared to be a man of just intentions, opposed it with his whole power.

In the year of Rome 694, Æmilius Scaurus, the step-son of Sylla, built a theatre which would contain eighty thousand spectators. The scenes were of three partitions: the undermost of marble, the middle of glass, and the upper of gilded wood. It was adorned by three hundred and sixty marble pillars, and three thousand brazen statues; and, when the performance of the games was ended, the whole was removed by Scaurus.

• The expence, in pictures, tapestry, dress, and other articles, was so great that, when his country house was set on fire by his mutinous slaves, the loss was estimated at three millions of rix-dollars; which unheard-of sum the theatre itself must have cost. These sums were the fruit of the robberies which Metella, the wife of Sylla, had shared with her blood-thirsty husband. Scaurus however was so deeply in debt that the province of Sardinia, which, as Prætor, he oppressed and plundered, was insufficient for the reinstatement of his affairs.

In the year of Rome 701, Curio, whose wealth, as Pliny tells us, originated in the contests of the principal men of Rome, determined to excel Scaurus as much in novelty of invention as he was inferior to him in enormity of expence. At the death of his father, he caused two theatres to be built. You know that the theatres of the antients had always the figure of a semicircle; and that their amphitheatres were either circular or oval. The theatre which was dedicated to the exercise of genius was of Greek invention: the amphitheatre of Roman; that the citizens, in the latter, might be spectators of racing, wrestling, leaping, the fighting of wild beasts, and the combats of gladiators. The two theatres of Curio were built with their backs toward each other; but so that there was an empty space between them. A dramatic piece was performed in each of them, in the morning. In the afternoon, the theatres were both changed; for, while the people were seated upon high gradations of benches, the hinges were so artfully contrived that the theatres met each other: so that the whole suddenly formed an amphitheatre, in which combatants presented a new spectacle t. In the year 488, after the building of the city, the sanguinary combats between gladiators were first exhibited in the Circus, by M. and D. Brutus; who intended by this means to honour the funeral of their father. The people of

• * Pliny xxxvi. 15. Ima pars scena e marmore fuit, media e vitro, inaudito et postea genere luxuria.-Glass can mean nothing but ornamented with glass however, we have but a very imperfect idea of the ornamental magnificence of the antients.

† Pliny xxxvi. 15.2

Campania

Campania indulged in the combats of the gladiators more early, and even during their banquets. This frantic love of cruelty rapidly increased. In the year of Rome 536, the sons of M. Æmilius Lepidus, intending to honour their father's memory, had games performed which continued three days, and in which twenty-two pair of gladiators combated. Thirty-three years afterward, seventy gladiators fought.

It became customary for every general, before he undertook any expedition, to present this prelude of murder to the people. Cæsar maintained some thousands of gladiators, at his own expence; and, when Edile, exhibited games in which three hundred and twenty pair entered the field of battle. Trajan, that pride of the Pagan world! Trajan, the greatest and most benevolent of the Emperors! Trajan, whose virtue, after he became Emperor, was proverbial, "As fortunate as Augustus, as virtuous as Trajan!" even Trajan indulged this practice. He gave games during a hundred and twenty days successively, in which there were ten thousand gladiators.

Augustus made a law by which private individuals, who thought proper to present the people with such spectacles, should be limited not to expend above half their substance.

The people expressed their joy, when a gladiator received his death wound, with wild shouts: crying, Habet! Hoc habet! Some of the combatants engaged each other with similar

weapons: such were often called Samnites; not because they really were Samnites, but because the Romans, full of ignoble antipathy against a people who had resisted their arms for a hundred years, delighted in beholding the murder of a Samnite.

Cruelty once indulged is not easily satiated. It requires variety of murder, and its horrible necessities make it inventive. Gladiators, who held an elastic net in their right hand, and a three pronged weapon in the left, endeavoured to cast the net over the head of their opponent; and then to pierce him with their prongs. If the attempt failed, the antagonist pursued the assailant to death. Hence the latter was called the Secutor, pursuer; and the former Retiarius, the

net bearer.

The net bearers combated also with armed Gauls, who were called Mirmillones. The latter bore the figure of a fish on a helmet. These Mirmillones endeavoured to escape the net bearer, by ducking the head, and at the same moment to give a blow in the foot, that should disable his enemy; that he might afterward destroy him. It was usual for the net bearer, as he followed the Mirmillon, to exclaim, Non te peto, piscem peto: Quid me fugis, Galle? I do not aim at thee, but at thy fish: Why dost thou fly me, Gaul*?

If a gladiator expressed a sense of pain, after being wounded, or asked for his life, the people, enraged, would frequently exclaim, Occide! ure! verbera! + Kill! burn! whip him! I remember some

*An allusion is no doubt made to the gladiators, and perhaps to this kind of gladiator, by Terence; when he makes his old man, Simo, storming at his son for being in love with a girl, exclaim, Captus est; habet. Ter. An. act. I. sc, I.

Seneca.'

where