his country's enemy and his own, and went heartily into the defign. When it was just ripe for execution, it came to be discovered by fome of the accomplices, and Lucan was found among the first of the confpirators. They were condemned to die, and Lucan had the choice of the manner of his death. Upon this occafion fome authors have taxed him with an action, which, if true, had been an eternal itain upon his name, that, to fave his life, he informed against his mother. This story seems to me to be a meer calumny, and invented only to detract from his fame. It is certainly the most unlikely thing in the world, confidering the whole conduct of his life, and that noble fcheme of philofophy and morals he had imbibed from his infancy, and which shines in every page of his Pharfalia. It is probable, Nero himself, or fome of his flatterers, might invent the ftory, to blacken his rival to pofterity; and fome unwary authors have afterwards taken it up on truft, without examining into the truth of it. We have feveral fragments of his life, where this particular is not to be found; and, which makes it ftill the more improbable to me, the writers that mention it, have tacked to it another calumny yet more improbable, that he accufed her. unjustly. As this accufation contradicts the whole tenor of his life, fo it does the manner of his death.. It is univerfally agreed, that, having chofe to have the. arteries of his arms and legs opened in a hot bath, he fupped chearfully with his friends, and then, taking leave of them with the greatest tranquillity of mind

and

and the higheft contempt of death, went into the bath, and submitted to the operation. When he found the extremities of his body growing cold, and death's laft alarm in every part, he called to mind a paffage of his own in the IXth Book of the Pharfalia, which he repeated to the ftanders-by, with the fame grace and accent, with which he used to declaim in public, and immediately expired, in the 27th year of his age, and tenth of Nero. The paffage was that where he defcribes a foldier of Cato's dying much after the fame manner; being bit by a ferpent, and is thus tranflated by Mr. Rowe:

"So the warm blood at once from every part

"Ran purple poifon down, and drain'd the fainting heart. "Blood falls for tears, and o'er his mournful face "The ruddy drops their tainted paffage trace. "Where-e'er the liquid juices find a way, "There fireams of blood, there crimson rivers ftray. His mouth and gufhing noftrils pour a flood, "And even the pores oufe out the trickling blood; "In the red deluge, all the parts lie drown'd, "And the whole body feems one bleeding wound."

He was buried in his garden at Rome; and there was lately to be feen, in the church of Santo Paulo, an ancient marble with the following infcription: MARCO ANNAEO LVCANO CORDVBENSI POETAE,

BENEFICIO NERONIS, FAMA SERVATA.

This infcription, if done by Nero's order, fhows, ́that, even in spite of himself, he paid a fecret homage

to

to Lucan's genius and virtue, and would have atoned in fome measure for the injuries and the death he gave him. But he needed no marble or infcription to perpetuate his memory; his Pharfalia will out-live all thefe.

Lucan wrote feveral books, that have perifhed by the injury of time, and of which nothing remains but the titles. The firft we are told he wrote, was a Poem on the Combat between Achilles and Hector, and Priam's redeeming his Son's Body, which, it is faid, he wrote before he had attained eleven years of age. The reft were, The Defcent of Orpheus into Hell; The burning of Rome, in which he is faid not to have fpared Nero that fet it on fire; and a Poem in Praise of his Wife Polla Argentaria. He wrote likewife feveral Books of Saturnalia; ten Books of Silvæ; an imperfect Tragedy of Medea; a Poem upon the burning of Troy, and the Fate of Priam; to which fome have added the Panegyric to Calphurnius Piso, yet extant, which I can hardly believe is his, but of a later age. But the Book he ftaked his fame on was his Pharfalia; the only one that now remains, and which Nero's cruelty has left us imperfect in refpect of what it would have been, if he had lived to finish it.

Statius in his Sylvæ gives us the catalogue of Lucan's works in an elegant manner, introducing the Mufe Calliope accofting him to this purpose: "When thou art fcarce paft the age of childhood (fays Calliope to Lucan) thou fhalt play with the.

"valour

« valour of Achilles, and Hector's fkill in driving " of a chariot. Thou shalt draw Priam at the feet "of his unrelenting Conqueror, begging the dead "body of his darling fon. Thou shalt fet open the << gates of hell for Eurydice, and thy Orpheus shall "have the preference in a full theatre, in fpite of "Nero's envy ;" alluding to the difpute for the prize between him and Nero, where the piece exhibited by Lucan was Orpheus's-defcent into hell. "Thou "fhalt relate (continues Calliope) that flame which "the execrable tyrant kindled, to lay in afhes the "mistress of the world; nor fhalt thou be filent in "the praises that are justly due to thy beloved wife; "and when thou hast attained to riper years, thou "fhalt fing, in a lofty strain, the fatal fields of Philippi, "white with Roman bones, the dreadful battle of « Pharsalia, and the thundering wars of that great

captain, who, by the renown of his arms, merited "to be inrolled among the gods. In that work "(continues Calliope) thou fhalt paint, in never"fading colours, the auftere virtues of Cato, who "fcorned to out-live the liberties of his country; and "the fate of Pompey, once the darling of Rome. "Thou shalt, like a true Roman, weep over the "crime of the young tyrant Ptolemy; and shalt "raife to Pompey, by the power of thy eloquence,

a higher monument than the Egyptian pyramids. "The poetry of Ennius (adds Calliope) and the "learned fire of Lucretius, the one that conducted "the Argonauts through fuch vast seas to the con

“quest

queft of the golden fleece, the other that could "ftrike an infinite number of forms from the first "atoms of matter, both of them fhall give place to "thee without the least envy, and even the divine "Æneid fhall pay thee a just respect.”

Thus far Statius concerning Lucan's work; and even Lucan in two places of the Pharfalia has promised himself immortality to his Poem. The first is in the Seventh Book, which I beg leave to give in profe, though Mr. Rowe has done it a thousand times better in verfe. "One day (fays he) when these wars fhall "be fpoken-of in ages yet to come, and among na❝tions far remote from this clime, whether from the “ voice of fame alone, or the real value I have given

them by this my history, those that read it shall "alternately hope and fear for the great events therein "contained. In vain (continues he) fhall they offer 66 up their vows for the righteous caufe, and ftand "thunderstruck at fo many various turns of fortune; "nor fhall they read them as things that are already "paft, but with that concern as if they were yet to come, and shall range themfelves, O Pompey, on "thy fide."

The other paffage, which is in the Ninth Book, may be tranflated thus: "Oh! Cæfar, profane thou "not through envy the funeral monuments of these "great patriots, that fell here facrifices to thy ambi"tion. If there may be allowed any renown to a "Roman Mufe, while Homer's verfes fhall be "thought worthy of praife, they that fhall live after