-νἱὸν, πνεῦμα τε προφητικὸν μετὰ λόγου τιμῶμεν· Attamen non negamus illa, in duarum sententiarum confinio posita, de utraque satis commode ἀπὸ κοινοῦ intelligi posse; quemadmodum et nos supra exposuimus. Quod ad ipsam vero phrasin attinet, fallitur plane cum Sylburgio Grabius, qui Justinum allusisse putat ad illa, ἐν πνεύματι καὶ ἀληθείᾳ, Jo. iv. 23. Est enim loquendi modus usitatissimus, præsertim apud Justinum, idque ne longius abeam, in hac ipsa Apologia. Ecce loca! ὑπαγορεύει ὁ ἀληθὴς λόγος, p. 6. ὡς αἰρεῖ λόγος, p. 7. λόγῳ ἀληθεῖ, p. 10. μετὰ λόγου, p. 19. ὡς δείκνυσιν ὁ ἀληθὴς λόγος, p. 65. λόγου καὶ ἀληθείας ἔχεσθαι, p. 99. Нес igitur verba, λόγῳ καὶ ἀληθείᾳ, nihil aliud Latine sonant, quam, Ut vera Ratio dictat, suadet, postulat ; vel, ut recta Ratio evincit, et veritas ipsa efflagitat. Nonnulli hic fortasse lectum mallent πνεῦμά τε προφητικὸν sine τὸ, uti p. 19. et τῶν αὐτῷ [sc. θεῷ] ἑπομένων, loco τῶν ἄλλων-· Nos vero hæc missa facimus; quippe quibus, in re Critica minime versatis, sat erit meriti, si in gravioris momenti re, dum tibi obsequimur, vel lucis aliquid attulisse, vel ansam saltem melius quiddam investigandi aliis præbuisse, vide

amur.

ON THE GENIUS AND WRITINGS OF CLAUDIAN.

PART II.-[Continued from No. XLVI. p. 206.]

Εἰν ἑνὶ Βιργιλίοιο νόον καὶ μοῦσαν Ὁμήρου,
Κλαυδιανὸν, ̔Ρώμη καὶ βασιλεῖς ἔθεσαν.

Inscript. in Stat. Claudian.

FROM our observations in a preceding number, the reader will easily collect our opinion of the " prægloriosissimus Poëta" of the age of Honorius; an opinion consonant to that of the generality of critics. Yet the acceptance which his writings appear to have obtained in his own time, and the extravagant eulogies of which we have recorded a specimen, may be ac

Gesner (Prolegomena, p. xliii.) considers Dryden's celebrated epigram on Milton as an imitation of the above. The two last lines, which he quotes, make a curious figure in his pages:

The force of nature could no further goe
To malle a third: She join'd former two.

counted for on other grounds than the influence of court favor, or the temporary popularity of most of his subjects. His merits, such as they were, were of a species peculiarly adapted to the critical capacity of his contemporaries. Nor, though the poetical halls of the Palatine have ceased to resound with the plaudits which rewarded the eulogist of Stilicho or the adulator of Honorius, has Claudian ever wanted a class of readers prepared to do justice to his undisputed qualifications. He is the favorite of those with whom words are a substitute for things; in whose eyes gorgeousness of diction, luscious sweetness of versification, fantastic and florid description, well wrought antithesis, and scattered happy sentences, are sufficient to compensate for the absence of the higher qualities of a poet; for depth, energy and pathos, beauty of design, grandeur of purpose, and insight into the true riches of language. He is a favorite especially with those of warm fancies, and judgment as yet immature, with whom to be dazzled and astonished is to be satisfied, and whom brilliancy of manner suffices to blind to inanity of matter. Boys admire Claudian, as children are fascinated with Gessner's Death of Abel. We remember, even now, the impressions which accompanied our first perusal of Claudian's poems, at an early age. It was as if a new mine of poetical expression was opened before us. We seemed to have discovered a world of yet unexplored beauties, and our fancy was intoxicated with the dazzling hues and rich fragrance of the flowers which surrounded us. Even Virgil was cast into the shade

as the stars go out,

When with prodigious light,

Some blazing meteor fills the astonished sight.

Nor can we recollect without a smile the pomp and tumidity with which the imitation of our new favorite infected our school exercises. The gloss of novelty, however, soon wore away; we discovered the unsubstantial nature of what had so fascinated us, and returned to Virgil and common sense. We have seen an acquaintance with Claudian and Ovid recommended in the case of young aspirants to the honors of Latin versification, as a means of ripening the fancy and developing the invention; probably on the supposition that the false taste so superinduced, would in the course of things reform itself, while the benefit ⚫ would be permanent.

Claudian, however, is well intitled to the rank he holds among the Classics. If his style and sentiment in general savor of Oriental inflation, there is in his best passages a march and a dignity well becoming the last of the Roman poets; and the fertility of his mind, the command of language which he displays on his own peculiar subjects, and the fine sententiousness of his moral passages, redeem in some degree the wretchedness of hissubjects, and his own deficiencies. He is valuable, too, as an historian. His allusions to the manners and customs of the declining empire, the frequent notices he affords us of the state of the public mind on particular occasions, his sketches of topography and local scenery, and the light he throws on the accounts of contemporary historians, all conspire to repay the classical reader for his perusal. It is in these points of view more especially that he has called forth the warm panegyrics of Gibbon, the " dulcia vitia" of whose style were congenial to his own, and who acknowledges the frequent and effectual aid which he derived to his researches from the labors of the political poet.

There is little skill of arrangement displayed in any of Claudian's productions. With the exception of the De Raptu Proserpinæ and the minor poems, they consist wholly of panegyrics, invectives, epithalamiums, and congratulatory addresses on public occasions. In point of contrivance, they are an incongruous mixture of historical narrative, mythological fiction, and detailed satire or encomium. Every thing is transacted through the medium of a deity. Is an emperor to be married, or a favorite promoted to the consulship, or an obnoxious character to be dismissed from office, or a barbarian invasion to be repelled? a god, or a deified monarch, or the city of Rome represented as a goddess, or one of the cardinal virtues personified, descends, and makes a long speech, generally of supplication, addressed to another god, or to the hero of the piece himself. Then follows a reply of equal length; after which we have an account of the great events consequent upon this "colloquy sublime;" and prefixed to, or intermingled with, or subjoined to all this, the poet's own sentiments on the subject. Such and so inartificial is his plan; and from within this circle he never ventures. It must be allowed, however, that he makes as much of his subject as it is capable of. This is indeed his peculiar praise. Few ever understood so well the art of saying a great deal about nothing. He seizes skilfully upon the producible subject, casts its deformities into the shade, exaggerates the really great, magnifies the little, and throws over all the glittering veil of his own florid imagination. Every topic, which can be brought to bear directly or indirectly upon the matter in hand, is pressed into the service, and made to minister to the poet's prevailing purpose, the aggrandisement of his subject. The past is recalled, and the future anticipated, to add new splendor to the present. VOL. XXVII. Cl. Jl. T

NO. LIV.

Heaven pours forth its deities, and the secrets of fate are laid open. Claudian knew his talent, and made good use of it. From a great subject he would have shrunk; but in assembling round a common one all that is brilliant or fantastic in art or nature, and all that is imposing in sentiment, few have ever surpassed him. His subjects indeed were such as to supply him with ample scope for the exercise of his peculiar powers. He enters con amore into the description of processions, military reviews, and court pageants; and appears to be as much dazzled as any of the spectators by the display of imperial magnificence:

Sidonias chlamydes, et cingula baccis
Aspera, gemmatasque togas, viridesque smaragdo
Loricas, galeasque renidentes hyacinthis,
Et vario lapidum distinctas igne coronas.

Even to the common objects of nature he imparts a florid and unnatural beauty, totally foreign to them; resembling in this respect some poets of higher pretensions in the present day.

Claudian's accumulating propensities are especially visible in his portraits of character. It is no exaggeration to say, that all the virtues, and almost all the accomplishments, of which the poet had any idea, are attributed to his favorites, without discrimination, and apparently without fear of offending them by the grossness of the adulation. Their worst or most equivocal actions are explained by attributing them to praiseworthy motives. With an ingenious economy of praise, unknown in modern times, the credit due to a victory is divided between the commander and the sovereign, the former being represented as conquering by his skill and prowess, the latter by his auspices. All the common-places of morality are ransacked, and all the artifices of ingenious praise exhausted, in honor of the ruling powers. They are exalted sometimes by contrast with their unsuccessful adversaries, and sometimes by comparison with the sages and heroes of Greece and ancient Rome. Pythagoras and the Stagirite are made to veil their diminished heads to the learned consul Mallius; the exploits of Stilicho are extolled as incomparably transcending those of the Decii and Scipios of ola time; anu the imbecile Honorius is represented as uniting in his own person all the public virtues and private accomplishments of his most illustrious predecessors, and as surpassing each in that excellence for which he was peculiarly distinguished. Even the gods and fabulous heroes of antiquity are introduced for a similar purpose, in a way which is often absolutely ludicrous. We might quote, among other passages,

11

:

equally amusing, the compliments to the equestrian skill, and personal graces, of the Emperor:

(Fescennin. Carm. 1. 1. 31-38.)

IV. Cons. Honor. "Tua posceret ultro," (1. 554-564.) And the following, in the first quoted poem, might almost have been copied from the "Ipse capi voluit" of Juvenal.

(Fescennin. Carm. 1. 1. 10-15.)

It would be difficult, indeed, for one who had not read Claudian, to conceive the extreme of absurdity into which his study of adulation sometimes carries him. His invectives are on a par with his panegyrics; equally copious, and equally unmeasured, though, from the nature of the case, not so ludicrous in their extravagance. He absolutely luxuriates in abuse, and like barbarian sculptors, exerts all his opulence of language in varying or aggravating the portrait of deformity.

It is impossible to regard such a prostitution of intellect without pain and disgust; nor is it easy to conceive how representations so palpably false, so immeasurably distant from the truth, could have been received with toleration, still less with applause, by the hearers, or even by the objects of the panegyric. The more delicate taste of a Tiberius would have rejected such homage with abhorrence. Perhaps, however, both our wonder and our indignation may be diminished on reflection. Undeserved praise is not always flattery. To many, perhaps to most minds there is an atmosphere of mysterious awe surrounding a monarch, through which himself and all that belongs to him, are viewed in higher dimensions and fairer colors than the reality. This is, it is true, a weakness, and the mark of a vulgar mind; but it is a feeling distinct from servility, and ought not to be confounded with it, though, as delusion and dishonesty play into each other's hands, the two are frequently found together. Many actions, too, which are now ascertained to have originated in selfish motives, were at the time otherwise interpreted; and it is not improbable that many favorable traits of character, which history, in its sweeping condemnation, has omitted to notice, were then recognised and appreciated. Without some such considerations as these, it is difficult to account for the sentiments entertained by contemporaries, and the opinions expressed by writers of whose integrity there can be no doubt, relative to characters of which the world now judges very differently. Nor ought it to be forgotten, that the topics of eulogy to which the court poet is compelled to resort, counteracts in some degree the effects of his servility. Poetry is essentially lofty, and if it cannot find an elevated subject, will make one. It may disgrace