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 perished 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 Pifo, yet extant, which I can hardly believe is his, but of a later age. But the Book he taked his fame on was his Pharfalia; the only one that now remains, and which Nero's cruelty has left us imperfect in respect 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 skill in driving "of a chariot. Thou fhalt draw Priam at the feet "of his unrelenting Conqueror, begging the dead "body of his darling fon. Thou shalt set open the "gates of hell for Eurydice, and thy Orpheus fhall "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 "miftrefs of the world; nor fhalt thou be filent in

the praifes that are juftly due to thy beloved wife; and when thou haft attained to riper years, thou "fhalt fing, in a lofty strain, the fatal fields of Philippi, "white with Roman bones, the dreadful battle of "Pharfalia, 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 shalt 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 fhalt, like a true Roman, weep over the "crime of the young tyrant Ptolemy; and fhalt

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 Argonaute through fuch vaft feas 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 leaft 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 promifed 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 thefe 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 hiftory, thofe that read it fhall "alternately hope and fear for the great events therein "contained. In vain (continues be) fhall they offer "up their vows for the righteous cause, and stand "thunderftruck 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 fhall range themfelves, O Pompey, on "thy fide."

The other paflage, which is in the Ninth Book, may be tranflated thus: "Oh! Cæfar, profane thou not through envy the funeral monuments of these

reat 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 shall live after C

"us, fhall read his and mine together: My Phar"falia fhall 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 scarce 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 criticifm on the Pharfalia, though I had ever fo much leifure or ability for it. I hate to oblige a certain set 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, because the subject is a known true ftory. Now with our late critics, Truth is an unneceffary 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 distinguishing 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 furprize; and the more improbable

the

the story 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 circumftances, big with the highest events, and conducted with all the arts of the most confummate wisdom, does not strike the less strong, 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 story. I am of opinion, that, in his first design of writing this poem of the civil wars, he refolved to treat the fubject 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 fome 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 hiftorian, that he has given in to the poetical province of invention and fiction, in the Sixth book, where Sixtus enquires of the Theffalian witch Erictho 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