hand clutches his hair, while his left hangs down loosely by his side: 'Ipse autem vacuus cutis, humentia subter Theb. x. 106. The dreams, which in Ovid are merely innumerable and vain, appear to Statius in thick cohorts, the true confounded with the delusive, the sad with the joyful, and either swarm on the floor or cleave to the walls and posts of the dwelling: 'Adsunt in numero circum vaga somnia vultu, Vera simul falsis, permixtaque tristia blandis, Noctis opaca cohors, trabibusque, aut postibus hærent .... Ibid. x. 112. The conclusion of the imitation is ludicrous. Iris finding Morpheus pays no attention to the long speech she addresses to him, shakes him up precisely as a policeman would rouse & drunken fish woman, and repeats her message three or four times Over: 'increpitans languentia pectora dextra, Ne pereant voces, iterumque, iterumque monebat. Ibid. x. 132. The point which Ovid has so lavishly developed is then dismissed with the most laconic brevity : 'Ille Deæ jussis dubium mixtumque sopori Annuit.' Ibid. From these citations, which have been selected at random, and which are far from presenting the worst instances of Statius's distortions, who does not see that the object of the poet has been to develope the material aspect of the pictures whose general outlines he copies, and sink the spiritual traits, which alone can impart to them life and reality? The impression that would naturally arise from these comparisons is that the Taste of the Neapolitan was radically diseased; but we are inclined to attribute the cause of the phenomena to the character of the poet's times as well as to the complexion of his genius. The generation among whom he lived had grown up under the influence of licentious manners and a tyrannical government, which crushed the finer feelings of their nature, and coarsened its character. Everything like nobility of sentiment was dead, and in its place wild passions ruled, and the material element was thrown out in bold projection. The character of the foremost minds had become emasculated through the long imprisonment to which a succession of tyrants had subjected the intellectual powers; and instead of domineering over the tastes and predominances of the epoch, merely reflected their features. This appears to us to be the rational account of the one-sided and imperfectly developed views which Statius took of nature. Had the contraction been the effect of Statius's organization it would have been peculiar to himself alone; but it equally disfigures the page of his cotemporaries as well as that of his successors, and of those who immediately preceded him. The development of man's social nature was equally cramped under Valentinian as under Nero and Domitian. Humanity in its pagan aspect was rapidly losing its prominent characteristics, and the images reflected in the Pharsalia of Lucan or the Argonautics of Valerius Flaccus, in the Punics of Italicus, in the Proserpina of Claudian, as well as in the Thebaid of Statius, were but feeble copies of an outworn design. There were times in which even a poet so indefatigable as Statius must need repose from such wearisome topics as the ancient myths presented; and though of a melancholy temperament and a shrinking disposition, he occasionally sought relief in the distraction of society. Before quitting the world his father had introduced him to a numerous circle of acquaintances which otherwise he never would have had the courage to cultivate; and his nature, under the pressing exigencies of want, was forced to affect a sympathetic concern in their fantastic sorrows, and a fictitious hilarity over their quixotic pleasures. For widows he made verses on the loss of their husbands; wrote epitaphs on dogs, and elegies on dead parrots; he composed natal odes for the beautiful; celebrated the luxuries he was invited to partake of; and cried up every monstrosity that might please his patrons. Hence Statius is the consoler of every grief, the congratulator of every good fortune. He has smiles for the gay, tears for the sad, and even can be philosophic when he finds a rich Cato in company. This piece is destined to flatter the Minister of the Interior, Abascantius, and there's another for his charming wife Priscilla; a third is reserved to captivate the heart of Gallicus, if the fat old prefect has a heart. In these moments of relaxation Statius's muse was like one of those Swiss whom we find it so convenient to hire upon solemn occasions, and was equally at home at a wedding and a funeral. He sung epithalamiums with the sunny gaiety of Waller, and putting on crape bands by the light of funereal torches, sorrowed over buried vanities with the affected pathos of Young and Crebillon. The want of earnest feeling and moral truth evinced in these vers de societé, which constitute his Sylva, is still further increased by the spirit of exaggeration which invariably accompanied his descriptions, and the introduction of the Olympian deities into actions whose petty details were beneath the notice of humanity. Atedius Melior had a plantain tree which attracted the notice of Statius. The poet, however, could not versify its history without calling up all the agricultural deities-the naiads and the fauns, Pan and his satyrs, Diana and her darts, whose movements he describes in verses as cold and pretentious as those of Dorat. Gallicus falls into a lethargy, and though only a prefect, Apollo is made to descend from the summits of the Alps, where he has a temple, to Epidamnus, when Esculapius is introduced on the scene; and, by the united assistance of these divinities, a fat old man is made to rise from his sleep. Lucan cannot be fêted without Calliope bending over his cradle, and telling the nascent poet that his birth makes her cease to regret Orpheus, apparently because between Orpheus and Lucan there were only two such indifferent poets as Virgil and Homer. Salinus, a favourite eunuch of the emperor, undergoes the common operation of hair-cutting. Statius, by the aid of his Olympian machinery, makes out of this trifling subject a complete poem. The eunuch is transported by Venus and her swans across the seas to the palace of the Cæsars. Neptune ensures for the precious freightage a safe passage. The hair of the favourite is perfumed by the Paphian goddess, and combed by the three Graces. Every lock has its guardian sylph, whose principal care is to entangle Cæsar in its meshes. They are cut by the darts of Cupids, crossed in the form of scissors, and dispatched in a box of ivory to Epidamnus for the inspection of Apollo and Esculapius. All these incidents are recited with an earnest gravity which, in an age of general scepticism, must have been as solemnly ludicrous as the Rape of the Lock in the eighteenth century. In the poem of Pope there is not the fifth part of the supernatural agency employed as in the poem of Statius, yet it suffices to convulse the world with laughter through the absolute disproportion between the machinery introduced and the objects about which the verses are employed. Statius saw nothing in concentrating all the cares of Olympus upon a castrated youth but matter for the most solemn earnestness. The gravest verses of ancient times are the mock-heroics of our own !* Though we are not aware that any of Pope's commentators have noticed it, there is nothing so clear to our minds as that Pope took his idea of the Rape of Crusade against Myths. 301 All the poetry of the age, however, was not overrun with this mythological mania. Martial and Juvenal clearly saw the tendency of such a practice to degrade their art, and wished to restore the Horatian maxim 'Nee Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus Inciderit.' Epist. ad Pis. 191. They even disclaimed the old legends on which the Olympian tales were engrafted, and sought to recall the attention of their cotemporaries to men and manners as the only subjects fit for sober and legitimate disquisition. Juvenal restricts his muse to plain matters of everyday life. 'Quicquid agunt homines, votum, timor, ira, voluptas, Sat. i. 86. And Martial, in allusion to the mythological legends, asks Mamurra 'Quid te vana juvant miseræ ludibria chartæ ? * * * 'Non hic Centauros, non Gorgonas, Harpyasque lib. x. Ep. 4. On one Flaccus, who arraigned Martial's attempts at epigram as unworthy of his high powers, and pointed out epics and tragedies as the marks at which a great poet ought to aim, Martial successfully turns the tables, in showing his adviser the things he recommended were the real trifles-the ludicrous solemnities of the epoch, and that the gravest topics he could sing about in his times were the jests and follies of a licentious city. 'Nescis, crede mihi, quid sunt epigrammata Flacce Qui tantum lusus illa, jocosque putas. Ille magis ludit, qui scribit prandia sævi Tereos; aut cœnam, crude Thyesta, tuam ; A nostris procul est omnis vesica libellis ; Musa nec insano syrmate nostra tumet. lib. iv. Ep. 49. the Lock from this poem on Salinus. At all events, the supernatural machinery of both poems is identically the same, and Pope's sylphs perform the same functions in precisely the same manner as those of Statius. That Pope was well acquainted with our author is manifest from his translation of the first book of the Thebaid, and from the encomiums which he lavished upon him in his early years. When Pope's judgment became more perfectly developed, he retracted his unripe panegyric, and held Statius in judicious contempt. The causes which gave rise to or perpetuated these mythological ravings were condemned by Martial and Juvenal along with the effects. They never allude to public recitations unless with a biting sneer, and unmistakeably hint that the corrupt taste of the people, and degenerate political institutions, were already making wide rents in the magnificent language of Rome. These writers struggled against the tide of innovation, and, though aided in some respects by Quintilian, they struggled in vain. When the current had carried away such writers as the younger Pliny, what could Martial essay With all his defects the writings of the epigrammatist present the nearest approach to the purity of the Augustan epoch, while those of Juvenal, combining the primitive force of the language with its riper elegancies, may be said to surpass the writers of the Augustan epoch itself. But the light which the satirist cast around him was only the garish blaze of a flickering language, collecting all its energies into a dying struggle for existence. The momentary brilliancy only served to make the darkness more profound that followed its extinction. It was these attempts at reformation that estranged Statius from Martial, and produced that mutual silence between the two poet laureates of Domitian that has perplexed the commentators of recent times. On the side of Statius the taciturnity was natural, being a part of his general system, but why the Biblian, who went out of his way to constellate every other luminary of the epoch, should forget one whom he elbowed at every corner, and met in every street, can only be accounted for by personal pique and jealousy, originating in or perpetuated by opposite tastes and repugnant sentiments. Their minds presented the antipodes of being: the one lived in a state of almost savage isolation, free as the air he breathed, independent in his opinions, and brutal in his loves. The other was quite a versifying machine-not even self-acting-which moved in the direction the operating forces imparted, shackled with domestic ties, and as devoid of passion as he was of opinion. Statius was atrabilious and melancholy, shunning society rather than courting it. Martial was joyous and hilarious, intruding upon the privacy of all the great men in Rome, quite regardless of slammed doors or repulsive countenances. What the one fled from with horror, the other sought with eagerness. The pleasures of Martial were the griefs of Statius. We cannot help thinking that the Spaniard, as was his wont, represents his rival under the feigned name of Dindymus as one separated from him by the whole diameter of being. 'Insequeris, fugio; fugis, insequor; hæc mihi mens est: Velle tuum nolo, Dindyme, nolle volo.' lib. v. Ep. 83. |