Mr. URBAN, Shaftesbury, July 20.
N the Chace of Cranborne, within a

house called King John's Hunting seat, in the parish of Tollard Royal, Wilts. The interior part bears evident marks of antiquity; the walls are of great thickness, and the rooms very large and lofty. It is now a farmhouse; see Plate II. Fig. 1. Fig. 2 is the staircase to the principal rooms; Fig. 3 is a chimney-piece in one of the bed-chambers, of carved oak. The present building appears to be only a small part remaining of the Royal

Mansion.

Mr. URBAN, Dec. 9, 1810. Taken of the remains of the Ro. HE inclosed is a sketch lately man Pharos at Dover Castle. This venerable structure may probably soon be completely demolished, as there is a talk of building officers' barracks on its site. It has a casing of Norman workmanship, which is continually falling off, and again disclosing to view the old work. Adjoining to it are the ruins of a church, which some conjecture to be as old as the Tower itself, and to have been originally built as a place for Pagan worship, but afterwards consecrated by St. Austin, and dedicated to the Virgin. Here are said to have been interred many persons of rank and eminence, but of whom no monumental memorial is at this day to be found. The ground on the South side has been used as a burial-place for the soldiers of the garrison. On one of the grave-stones is inscribed the following Singular Epitaph:

"In memory of Hans White, Gunner in Major George J. Lewis's Company, 3d battalion Royal Regiment of Artillery, aged 31 years; and Anne his Wife, aged 25 years; also two of their Sons, viz. James, aged 4 years, and Charles, 2 years GENT. MAG. September, 1811.

And this is the truth of his pedigree:
He oft was proved a soldier in the field,
And his conduct always was
To abhor to fly or yield.

It was his delight, both early and late,
To be submissive to a Soldier's fate.
But striking was his death, as you'll un-
derstand-

It was by a stroke of the Almighty's hand.
'Twas by the falling of his but
The threads of him, his wife,
And children's lives, were cut.
Brothers all, to whom life and strength is
Must, like him, submit
given,
To the will of God in heaven.
And to the honour of his fame
This was erected by his brother Soldiers,
In memory of his name."

ILLUSTRATIONS OF HORACE,

BOOK II. SATIRE VI.

X.

HORACE had hitherto been writing either for the Roman publick, or for the select company who had The present piece appears to me to their rendezvous at Mæcenas's house. have been composed with a particular view to the rural connexions in which he was placed by the Sabine estate with which Maecenas had some time since presented him, and, so to speak, to please his honest neighbours. Our poet (as has been more than once remarked on other occasions) possessed, in common with Aristippus, the aruiable quality, that every colour and condition and circumstance of life sat easy upon him; whether poor or rich, in the elegant court-dress or in the threadbare gown, he was uniformly self-consistent, always just as he was, pleased and contented, yet so as that nothing better was too good for him. Among his Sabine agricultural neighbours the good old manners generally prevailed; that simplicity, domesticity, good humour, and joility which had for ages been the character of the inhabitants of Latium. Horace, under the appearance of a courtier, a commensal of Mæcenas, who at that time at least was considered as the third after Cæsar, and (which we cannot deny) bearing the reputation of a young man of a tolerably free way of

thinking

thinking and not very strict morals; in short, under the aspect of an urbanus and facetus of the first class, could not well avoid having numerous prepossessions against him in the minds of these home-bred rustics; and would probably have been necessitated to live much alone in his rude mountainous Sabinum; unless ne condescended betimes to shew himself to his neighbours, in another, though to him just as natural a shape, in a less resplend ent but milder and more conciliat ing light, in short with sentiments and manners more analogous to their own. Unquestionably he had already done so in his converse with them; but a Poem, in which he openly presents himself in that light, must, in the circle for which it was particularly designed, have produced a so much greater effect, as he thereby obtained an opportunity to notice, in an engaging and honourable manner, his new Sabine friends, and the interest they took in his rural felicity. I would not by any means have it understood as though all the sentiments that reign in the piece before us were mere affectation, and that he was only acting a farce with his honest Sabines. However various the forms under which he appeared in his life, I am nevertheless persuaded that in every one of them be intended to act himself. In the can p of Brutus he was a sincere republican; in the house of Mæcenas an entertaining and witty companion; with Cynara, Chloe, Lydia, &c. an ardent though inconstant lover; at Rome a politician; amongst his Sabine neighbours a man of the golden age; everywhere and at all times, however, a generous, liberal, frank, and amiable character, and in an eminent degree what we Englishmen call a goodnatured man. His vivacity hurried him occasionally into excesses, for which he found but too much apology in the prevalent manners of his times; but these were only moments of intoxication which had no influence on his heart; and if, in the great and brilliant society in which he lived at Rome, he even sometimes appeared perhaps different from what he really was, yet he always preserved the utmost possible independence; never lost, even in the luxurious mansion of Mæcenas, the vigour and elasticity of his mind; always reverted to his own character, and main

tained it, especially in his riper years, with a discretion and consistency continually increasing. To he brief, notwithstanding I think I observe here an evident design to establish his credit with his Sabine neighbours: yet from the whole texture of his writings, and a certain physiognomy of mind proceeding from it, it evidently appears, that the beautiful sentiments which give such an interest to this Poem, were not feigned, but were the real feelings of his heart and indelible features of his character. The only exception that is perhaps to be made, might be the somewhat surprising piety of Horace (whom we know as a parcum deorum cultorem, no very constant churchgoer) which prevails in it; particularly the devout apostrophe to Mercury, from the 4th to the 15th line. How quick soever the disposition to religious enthusiasm which the scenes of rural life in the lap of nature have a tendency to communicate to a susceptible uncorrupted mind; I am under no apprehension of wronging my favourite, by supposing that his prudence had a greater share in this exhibition of old Roman orthodoxy, than his head and his heart. Upon this article there was no joking with the Sabines; and in order to place himself upon a respectable foot with them, it was before all things necessary to wipe away the prejudices, that, not without reason, might have been conceived unfavourable to his piety.

Dives amico Hercule.] Persius seems to have had this passage in view, when in his second Satire he makes the hypocrite pray aloud, so as to be heard, to the Deities for wisdom, virtue, and a good reputation. but secretly muttering within the wish,

Hercules presided over all treasures, says the old Scholiast; why, I cannot tell. Torrentius thinks, because that Deity (who had temples all over Italy), by the custom of the Romans to Vow to him the tithes of their income, or testamentarily to bequeath to him a tithe of all the property they left behind them, was one of the most opulent of all the Deities.

Seu Jane libentiùs audis.] A divinity unknown to the Greeks, was held

in peculiar honour by the Romans. His theology, not over definite and clear, is delivered by Ovid at the commencement of his poetical calendar, from the very mouth of that God, from whom, upon the question,

Quem tamen esse deum, te dicam, June biformis?

he assures us he had an immediate apparition. We learn from it, among other things, that he was door-keeper in chief in heaven and earth, and that all egress and ingress, through the heaven-gate by which the day went forth, to the meanest house-door in Rome, were under his patronage, Hence a gate is called janua, and every unclosed vaulted passage that led from one street or square to another, a ja nus*. For the same reason he was the god of the day and of the year; the first day of the latter, and the first hour of the former, were peculiarly sacred to him, and at all solèmin sacrifices the rites began with Father Ja nus. The founder of the city of Rome erected to him the celebrated temple Janiculum, which in pursuance of the religious statutes instituted by King Numa, whenever the Romans engaged in any war, was unbarred, remained open while the war lasted, and not till there was peace in all the countries subject to their supremacy, again shut. The latter happened, during a period of seven hundred years, only thrice; under Numa himself, after the first Punic war, and after the battle of Actiuni, which constituted Cæsar Octavianus sole regent of the Roman empire, extending over three quarters of the globe t. Janus, besides this famous temple of war and peace, had two other public temples at Rome, and in each of the twelve regions of the city an altar. This Deity was usually represented with two faces, one looking forwards, the other backwards, holding a sceptre in the right hand, and a key in the left, sitting on a radiant throne, and had in all probability been an aboriginal deified King of Italy.

De re communi scribe. This passage puts out of all doubt the circumstance related by the anticut author of the Vita Horatii, namely, that Horace, after the unfortunate battle of Actium, purchased the office of a

* Cicero de Nat. Deor. lib. ii. cap. 27. Liv. Hist. Rom. lib. i. cap. 19.

scriba quæstorius. These scribes (or registrars, or actuaries, or secretaries, as the reader pleases) were divided into several decuries, i. e. orders or classes; and in the antient authors we meet scribas prætorios, ædilicios, tribunicios, quæstorios, whose functions were not of the same kind. Notwithstanding they represented a very inferior class of subaltern officers of the administration, and generally were people of humble origin, yet their station appears about this time to have become somewhat more respectable, and was now pretty near upon an equality with the novi homines of the equestrian order. Horace, however, though not entitled by his birth to any higher office in the civil department, yet as he had been commander of a legion under M. Brutus, would hardly have condescended to return to the profession of a scriba, had he not been urged by dire necessity, after the overthrow at Philippi, to procure himself such an income as would enable him to live. But, a few years afterwards, by the favour of the all-powerful Macenas, being placed in circumstances that allowed him to pass his days in ease and independence, we may easily imagine, that he no longer made any use of his scriptus quastorius; and that therefore the importunity of the gentlemen scribes (who naturally were proud of having a favourite of Mæcenas of their body, and unwilling that he should leave a connexion whereby he might, as opportunity served, be of use to them) must have been no small seccatorio (anglice BORE) to him.

In numero.] If the composition of the present poem, agreeably to Dr. Bentley's conputation, fell in the year 721 u. c. it would follow from the date here furnished us by Horace himself, to wit, that since the time when Mæcenas admitted him amongst his familiares, above seven years and a half had elapsed; that this latter cpocha is to be placed about a year far

ther back than was stated in the sixth Satire of the first Book, at the words Esse in amicorum animo.

But it will never be possible to settle the Horatian chronology with precision, and without leaving some what here and there inexplicable. In the present Poem, for instance, we find some indications, though none competent, that it was wrote prior to

the

-

the hostilities which broke out afresh between Cæsar and Anthony, in the year 122. This is inferred merely from the interrogatories of the inquisitive folks, who were always wanting to know of Horace what he, notwithstanding he was so near the Divinities, as little knew as they, and about which he probably troubled himself less. But the question, "Will Cæsar allot to the soldiers the promised demesnes in Italy or in Sicily?" would, in the year 721, have been made too late; for the divisio agrorum, to which it refers as somewhat yet undone, ensued, as we are informed by Dio, so early as in the year 718, immediately after the defeat of S. Pompeius. If therefore the argument whereon that conclusion rests were sufficiently as certained, then this Poem must have been wrote two or three years earlier than Bentley states. On the other hand the question "What news about the Dacians?" referring (as the Cruquian scholiast thinks) to an insurrection of the Dacians against the Romans, would prove that the date of it should be carried forward to the year 725, when that warlike people were, by a son of the celebrated M. Crassus, presently subdued. That remark, how ever, of the scholiast proves nothing more than his ignorance in the Roman history. The Dacians (a people inhabiting the major part of those countries which at present bear the names of Transilvania, Moldavia, and Vallachia) could not then rebel, as they had always remained unsubdued; although the Roman provinces bordering upon them were frequently harassed by their incursions. Several passages in the odes of Horace seem to intimate, that they continued to be formidable to the Romans even long subsequent to the defeat just mentioned, and until their total subjuga tion under Trajan. Shortly before the breaking out of the war with Autonius and Cleopatra, they made some movements, from whence it was inevitably concluded that they intended to be no idle spectators of the contest, but resolved to avail themselves of this opportunity for obtaining advantageous terms, either from Octavianus or Antonius. The former declining to treat with them, they declared for the latter; but intestine feuds and commotions springing up amongst themselves, they were prevented from

undertaking any thing of consequence against Cæsar. To these movements of the Dacians the question, Num quid de Dacis undisti? undoubtedly relates. A question by which Horace (as we may easily perceive) banters the political pot-companions and badauds of Rome, who unnecessarily heated their heads with such topicks, and since Octavianus had disburdened them of all cares for the public weal, might have slept perfectly quiet and undisturbed on account of the Dacians.

Ducere sollicita jucunda oblivia vita.] An elegant allusion to the stream of oblivion, the water whereof (agreeably to an ingenious fiction of antiquity) had the virtue of purg ing the souls that were entering Elysium of all recollection of whatever had happened to them in their former state.

O quando faba Pythagoræ cognata.] Horace, as it appears, was a lover of beans, and has a fling by the way at the religious awe of the Pythagoreans for that kind of pulse, which was carried so far, that it is related of Pythagoras himself, that, on some particular occasion being obliged to flee from a pursuing enemy, and his nearest and safest way lying through a bean-field, he chose rather to risk his life by taking a circuitous course, than save himself by running across this bean-field. Horace, by ludicrously calling the bean a relation of Pythagoras, seems to have entertained the opinion that this singular kind of religious abstinence was grounded upon certain mysterious analogies which that philosopher had supposed between beans and mankind. Wherein, however, these analogies or this mystical affinity was alleged to consist, is a point on which, after all the trouble bestowed upon this ridiculous subject, nothing intelligible, not to mention satisfactory, has been told us by the commentators. As the Pythagoreans themselves made such a profound mystery of this article of their philosophical creed, that they preferred rather to lay down their lives than give an explanation of it, the most prudent part for us to take seems to be, that of leaving the matter just as it is; and, instead of wasting our time in diving into this and so many other riddles and problems of equal importance, to rest assured, that the mystery