66 us, fhall read his and mine together: My Phar“ falia shall live, and no time nor age fhall confign it "to oblivion." This is all that I can trace from the ancients, or himfelf, concerning Lucan's life and writings; and indeed there is fcarce any one author, either ancient or modern, that mentions him but with the greatest respect and the highest encomiums, of which it would be tedious to give more instances. I defign not to enter into any criticism on the Pharfalia, though I had ever so much leisure or ability for it. I hate to oblige a certain fet of men, that read the ancients only to find fault with them, and seem to live only on the excrements of authors. I beg leave to tell these gentlemen, that Lucan is not to be tried by thofe rules of an Epic Poem, which they have drawn from the Iliad or Æneid; for if they allow him not the honour to be on the fame foot with Homer or Virgil, they must do him the justice at least, as not to try him by laws founded on their model. The Pharfalia is properly an Historical Heroic Poem, becaufe the fubject is a known true ftory. Now with our late critics, Truth is an unnecessary trifle for an Epic Poem, and ought to be thrown afide as a curb to invention. To have every part a mere web of their own brain, is with them a diftinguishing mark of a mighty genius in the Epic way. Hence it is, thefe critics obferve, that the favourite poems of that kind do always produce in the mind of the reader the highest wonder and surprize; and the more improbable the the ftory is, ftill the more wonderful and furprizing. Much good may this notion of theirs do them; but, to my taste, a fact very extraordinary in its kind, that is attended with furprizing circumstances, big with the highest events, and conducted with all the arts of the most confummate wisdom, does not strike the lefs ftrong, but leaves a more lasting impreffion on my mind, for being true. If Lucan therefore wants thefe ornaments, he might have borrowed from Helicon, or his own invention; he has made us more than ample amends, by the great and true events that fall within the compass of his ftory. I am of opinion, that, in his first design of writing this poem of the civil wars, he resolved to treat the subject fairly and plainly, and that fable and invention were to have had no fhare in the work: but the force of cuftom, and the defign he had to induce the generality of readers to fall in love with liberty, and abhor flavery, the principal defign of the poem, induced him to embellish it with some fables, that without them his books would not be fo univerfally read: fo much was fable the delight of the Roman people. If any fhall object to his privilege of being examined and tried as an historian, that he has given in to the poetical province of invention and fiction, in the Sixth book, where Sixtus enquires of the Theffalian witch Eritho the event of the civil war, and the fate of Rome; it may be answered, that perhaps the ftory was true, or at least it was commonly believed to be fo in his time, which is a fufficient excufe for Lucan to have inferted it. It is true, no other author mentions it. But it is ufual to find fome one paffage in one hiftorian, that is not mentioned in any other, though they treat of the same subject. For though I am fully perfuaded that all these Oracles and Refponfes, fo famous in the pagan world, were the mere cheats of priests; yet the belief of them, and of magic and witchcraft, was univerfally received at that time. Therefore Lucan may very well be excused for fallingin with a popular error, whether he himself believed it or no, especially when it ferved to enliven and embellish his story. If it be an error, it is an error all the ancients have fallen into, both Greek and Roman : And Livy, the prince of the Latin historians, abounds in fuch relations. That it is not below the dignity and veracity of an hiftorian to mention fuch things, we have a late inftance in a noble author of our time, who has likewife wrote the civil wars of his country, and intermixt in it the story of the ghost of the duke of Buckingham's father. In general, all the actions that Lucan relates in the courfe of his hiftory are true; nor is it any impeachment of his veracity, that fometimes he differs in place, manner, or circumftances of actions, from other writers, any more than it is an imputation on them, that they differ from him. We ourselves have seen, in the courfe of the late two famous wars, how differently almost every battle and fiege has been reprefented, and fometimes by thofe of the fame fide, when at the fame time there be a thousand living witneffes, ready to contradict any falfehood, that partiality should impofe upon the world. This 1 may affirm, the most important events, and the whole thread of action in Lucan, are agreeable to the univerfal confent of all authors, that have treated of the civil wars of Rome. If now and then he differs from them in leffer incidents or circumftances, let the critics in hiftory decide the question: for my part, I am willing to take them for anecdotes firft difcovered and published by Lucan, which may at least conciliate to him the favour of our late admirers of Secret History. After all I have faid on this head, I cannot but in fome measure call in queftion fome parts of Cæfar's character as drawn by Lucan; which feem to me not altogether agreeable to truth, nor to the univerfal confent of history. I wish I could vindicate him in fome of his perfonal representations of men, and Cæfar in particular, as I can do in the narration of the principal events and feries of his ftory. He is not content only to deliver him down to pofterity, as the fubverter of the laws and liberties of his country, which he truly was, and than which, no greater infamy can poffibly be caft upon any name: but he defcribes him as purfuing that abominable end, by the most execrable methods, and fome that were not in Cæfar's nature to be guilty of. Cæfar was certainly a man far from revenge, or delight in blood; and he made appear, in the exercife of the fupreme power, à noble and generous inclination to clemency upon all occafions: C-3 even Lucan, Lucan, though never so much his enemy, has not omitted his generous ufage of Domitius at Corfinium, or of Afranius and Petreius, when they were his prifoners in Spain. What can be then faid for Lucan, when he represents him riding in triumph over the field of Pharfalia, the day after the battle, taking delight in that horrid landskip of Slaughter and Blood, and forbidding the bodies of fo many brave Romans to be either buried or burnt? Not any one paffage of Cæfar's life gives countenance to a story like this: and how commendable foever the zeal of a writer may be, against the oppreffor of his country, it ought not to have tranfported him to fuch a degree of malevolence, as to paint the most merciful conqueror that ever was, in colours proper only for the most favage natures. But the effects of prejudice and partiality are unaccountable; and there is not a day of life, in which even the beft of men are not guilty of them in some degree or other. How many inftances have we in history of the beft princes treated as the worft of men, by the pens of authors that were highly prejudiced against them! Shall we wonder then, that the Roman people, fmarting under the lashes of Nero's tyranny, should exclaim in the bittereft terms against the memory of Julius Cæfar, fince it was from him that Nero derived that power to use mankind as he did? Thofe that lived in Lucan's time, did not confider fo much what Cæfar was in his own perfon, or temper, as what he was the occafion of to them. It is very probable, there |