there were a great many dreadful ftories of him handed about by tradition among the multitude; and even men of fenfe might give credit to them so far as to forget his clemency, and remember his ambition, to which they imputed all the cruelties and devastations committed by his fucceffors. Resentments of this kind in the foul of a man, fond of the ancient conftitution of the commonwealth, fuch as Lucan was, might betray him to believe, upon too flight grounds, whatever was to the difadvantage of one he looked upon as the subverter of that conftitution. It was in that quality,, and for that crime alone, that Brutus afterwards ftabbed him; for perfonal prejudice against him he had: none, and had been highly obliged by him and it was upon that account alone, that Cato fcorned to owe his life to him, though he well knew, Cæfar would have efteemed it one of the greatest felicities of his, to have had it in his power to pardon him. I would not be thought to make an apology for Lucan's thus traducing the memory of Cæfar; but would only beg the fame indulgence to his partiality, that we are willing to allow to most other authors; for I cannot help believing all hiftorians are more or lefs guilty of it. : I beg leave to obferve one thing further on this head, that it is odd, Lucan fhould thus mistake this part of Cæfar's character, and yet do him fo much juftice in the reft. His greatness of mind, his intrepid courage, his indefatigable activity, his magnanimity, his generofity, his confummate knowledge in the art of war, and the power and grace of his eloquence, are all fet forth in the best light, upon every proper occafion. He never makes him speak, but it is with all the ftrength of argument, and all the flowers of rhetoric. It were tedious to enumerate every inftance of this; and I fhall only mention the fpeech to his army before the battle of Pharfalia, which in my opinion furpaffes all I ever read, for the eafy nobleness of expreffion, the proper topics to animate his foldiers, and the force of an inimitable` cloquence. Among Lucan's few mistakes in matters of fact, may be added thofe of geography and aftronomy; but finding Mr. Rowe has taken some notice of them in his notes, I fhall fay nothing of them. Lucan had neither time nor opportunity to vifit the fcenes where the actions he defcribes were done, as fome other hiftorians both Greek and Roman had, and therefore it was no wonder he might commit fome minute errors in thefe matters. As to afronomy, the schemes of that noble science were but very conjectural in his time, and not reduced to that mathematical certainty they have been fince. The method and difpofition of a work of this kind, must be much the fame with those observed by other historians, with one difference only, which I fubmit to better judgments: an hiftorian who like Lucan has chofen to write in verfe, though he is obliged to have ftrict regard to truth in every thing he relates, yet perhaps he is not obliged to mention all facts, as other other historians are. He is not tied down to relate every minute paffage, or circumftance, if they be not abfolutely neceffary to the main ftory; especially if they are fuch as would appear heavy and flat, and consequently incumber his genius, or his verfe. All these trifling parts of action would take off from the pleafure and entertainment, which is the main scope of that manner of writing. Thus the particulars of an army's march, the journal of a fiege, or the fituation of a camp, where they are not fubfervient to the relation of fome great and important event, had better be fpared than inferted in a work of that kind. In a profe writer, thefe perhaps ought, or at least may be properly and agreeably enough mentioned; of which we have innumerable inftances in most ancient hiftorians, and particularly in Thucydides and Livy. There is a fault in Lucan against this rule, and that is his long and unneceffary enumeration of the feveral parts of Gaul, where Cæfar's army was drawn together in the First Book. It is enlivened, it is true, with fome beautiful verfes ne throws in, about the ancient Bards and Druids, but till in the main it is dry, and but of little confequence to the story itself, The many different people and cities there mentioned were not Cæfar's confederates, as thofe in the third book were Pompey's; and these laft are particularly named, to exprefs how many nations efpoufed the fide of Pompey. Thofe reckoned up in Gaul were only the places where Cæfar's troops had been quartered, and Lucan might with as great propriety have men tioned the different routes by which they marched, as the garrifons from which they were drawn. This therefore, in my opinion, had been better left out; and I cannot but likewise think, that the digression of Theffaly, and an account of its first inhabitants, is too prolix, and not of any great confequence to his purpose. I am fure, it fignifies but little to the civil war in general, or the battle of Pharfalia in particular, to know how many rivers there are in Theffaly, or which of its mountains lies Eaft or Weft. But if these be faults in Lucan, they are fuch as will be found in the most admired poets, nay, and thought excellencies in them; and befides, he has made us most ample amends in the many extraordinary beauties of his poem. The story itself is Noble and Great ; for what can there be in history more worthy of our knowledge and attention, than a war of the highest importance to mankind, carried-on between the two greatest Leaders that ever were, and by a people the most renowned for arts and arms, and who were at that time mafters of the world? What a poor fubject is that of the Æneid, when compared with this of the Pharfalia! And what a defpicable figure does Agamemnon, Homer's King of Kings, make, when compared with chiefs, who, by faying only, "be thou a King," made far greater kings than him! The scene of the Iliad contained but Greece, fome iflands in the Egean and Ionian feas, with a very little part of the Leffer Afia: this of the civil war of Rome drew after it almost all the nations of the then known world. Troy Troy was but a little town, of the little kingdom of Phrygia; whereas Rome was then mistress of an empire, that reached from the ftraits of Hercules, and the Atlantic ocean, to the Euphrates, and from the bottom of the Euxine and the Cafpian feas, to Æthiopia and Mount Atlas. The inimitable Virgil is yet more straitened in his subject. Æneas, a poor fugitive from Troy, with a handful of followers, fettles at last in Italy; and all the empire that immortal pen could give him, is but a few miles upon the banks of the Tiber. So vast a disproportion there is between the importance of the subject of the Æneid and that of the Pharfalia, that we find one fingle Roman, Craffus, master of more flaves on his estate, than Virgil's hero had fubjects. In fine, it may be said, nothing can excufe him for his choice, but that he defigned his hero for the ancestor of Rome, and the Julian race. I cannot leave this parallel, without taking notice, to what a height of power the Roman empire was then arrived, in an inftance of Cæfar himself, when but proconful of Gaul, and before it is thought he ever dreamed of what he afterwards attained to: it is in one of Cicero's letters to him, wherein he repeats. the words of Cæfar's letters to him fome time before. The words are thefe; "As to what concerns Marcus "Furius, whom you recommended to me, I will, if you please, make him king of Gaul; but, if you "would have me advance any other friend of yours, fend him to me." It was no new thing for citizens of Rome, fuch as Cæfar was, to difpofe of kingdoms as |