And glorying still to hew himself a path
Through havoc and destruction.

Elton.

PASSAGE OF THE RUBICON.

Now Cæsar, marching swift with winged haste,
The summits of the frozen Alps had past;
With vast events and enterprises fraught,
And future wars revolving in his thought.
Now near the banks of Rubicon he stood;
When lo! as he surveyed the narrow flood,
Amidst the dusky horrors of the night,

A wondrous vision stood confessed to sight.
Her awful head Rome's reverend image reared,
Trembling and sad the matron form appeared;
A towering crown her hoary temples bound,
And her torn tresses rudely hung around;
Her naked arms uplifted ere she spoke,
Then, groaning, thus the mournful silence broke:
"Presumptuous men! oh, whither do you run?
Oh, whither bear you these my ensigns on?
If friends to right, if citizens of Rome,
Here to your utmost barrier are you come."
She said; and sunk within the closing shade.
Astonishment and dread the chief invade;
Stiff rose his starting hair; he stood dismayed,
And on the bank his slackening steps were stayed.

The leader now had passed the torrent o'er,
And reached fair Italy's forbidden shore;
Then rearing on the hostile bank his head,
Here farewell peace and injured laws! he said:
Since faith is broke, and leagues are set aside,
Henceforth thou, goddess Fortune, art my bride!
Let fate and war the great event decide.

FLIGHT OF POMPEY.

At length arriv'd, with the revolving night,
The chosen hour appointed for his flight:
He bids his friends prevent the seamen's roar,
And still the deaf'ning clamors on the shore:
No trumpets may the watch by hours renew,
Nor sounding signals call aboard the crew.
The heav'nly maid her course had almost run,2
And Libra waited on the rising sun,

}

Rowe.

'Pompey's flight from Brundusium, when he was in danger of being shut up by Cæsar.

This points out the time to be in the morning before sunrise, about the beginning of September.

}

When, hush'd in silence deep, they leave the land:
No loud mouth'd voices call, with hoarse command,
To heave the flooky anchors from the sand.
Lowly the careful master's orders past,

To brace the yards, and rear the lofty mast:
Silent they spread the sails, the cables haul,
Nor to their mates for aid, tumultuous, call.
The chief himself to Fortune breath'd a pray'r,
At length to take him to her kinder care:
That swiftly he might pass the liquid deep,
And lose the land which she forbad to keep.
Hardly the boon his niggard fate allow'd,
Unwillingly the murm'ring seas were plough'd:
The foamy furrows roar'd beneath his prow,
And sounding to the shore alarm'd the foe.
Straight thro' the town their swift pursuit they sped,
(For wide her gates the faithless city spread),
Along the winding port they took their way,

And griev❜d to find the fleet had gain'd the sea.

DEATH OF POMPEY.

Now in the boat defenceless Pompey sat,
Surrounded and abandoned to his fate.
Nor long they hold him in their power aboard,
E'en every villain drew his ruthless sword:

The chief perceived their purpose soon, and spread
His Roman gown, with patience, o'er his head;
And when the cursed Achillas pierced his breast,
His rising indignation close repressed.

No sighs, no groans, his dignity profaned,
No tear his still unsullied glory stained.

Unmoved and firm he fixed him on his seat,

And died, as when he lived and conquered, great.

LUXURY THE BANE OF NATIONS.

Those fatal seeds luxurious vices sow,
Which ever lay a mighty people low.

To Rome the vanquish'd earth her tribute paid,
And deadly treasures to her view display'd:
Then truth and simple manners left the place,
While riot rear'd her lewd dishonest face:
Virtue to full prosperity gave way,
And fled from rapine and the lust of prey.
On every side proud palaces arise,

And lavish gold each common use supplies:
Their father's frugal tables stand abhorr'd,
While foreign dainties smoke upon the board:

Rowe.

Rowe.

In silken robes the minion men appear,

Which maids and youthful brides should blush to wear.
That age, by honest poverty adorn'd,

Which brought the manly Romans forth, is scorn'd:
Wherever aught pernicious does abound,

For luxury all lands are ransack'd round,

And dear-bought deaths the sinking state confound.
Hence wrath and rage their ready minds invade,
And want could ev'ry wickedness persuade :
Hence impious pow'r was first esteem'd a good,

Sought for by arms, and bought with streams of blood:
With glory, tyrants did their country awe,
And violence prescrib'd the rule to law.
Hence pliant servile voices were constrain'd,
And force in popular assemblies reign'd:
Consuls and tribunes, with opposing might,
Join'd to confound and overturn the right:
Hence shameful magistrates were made for gold,
And a base people by themselves were sold:
Hence slaughter in the venal field returns,
And Rome her yearly competition mourns:
Hence debt unthrifty, careless to repay,
And usury still watching for its day:
Hence perjuries in ev'ry wrangling court:
And war, the needy bankrupt's last resort.

CHARACTER OF CATO.

No stings of private hate his peace molest,
Nor partial favor grew upon his breast:
But safe from prejudice he kept his mind,
Free, and at leisure to lament mankind.
These were the stricter manners of the man,
And this the stubborn course in which they ran:
The golden mean, unchanging, to pursue:
Constant to keep the purpos'd end in view:
Religiously to follow nature's laws,

And die, with pleasure, in his country's cause:
To think he was not for himself design'd,
But born to be of use to all mankind.
To him 'twas feasting, hunger to repress:
And homespun garments were his costly dress.
No marble pillars rear'd his roof on high,
"Twas warm, and kept him from the winter sky:
He sought no end of marriage, but increase:
Nor wish'd a pleasure, but his country's peace:
That took up all the tend'rest parts of life,
His country was his children and his wife.
From justice' righteous rules he never swerv'd,
But rigidly his honesty preserv'd:

Rowe.

On universal good his thoughts were bent,
Nor knew what gain, or self-affection meant:
And while his benefits the public share,
Cato was always last in Cato's care.

Rowe.

PLINY THE ELDER.

A. D. 23-79.

CAIUS PLINIUS SECUNDUS, surnamed the Elder (Major), to distinguish him from his nephew, who was commonly called "Pliny the Younger," was born at Verona, or, as some maintain, at Comum, A. D. 23. Of the particular events of his life we know but little. He came to Rome at an early age, and, having ample means, he availed himself of the best teachers the city afforded. When about twenty-two years of age he resided for a time on the coast of Africa, but for what object, or in what capacity, we are not informed. He also served in the Roman army in Germany, and held a command in the cavalry under Lucius Pomponius. Afterwards he practised at Rome as a pleader of causes, though he does not appear to have gained much distinction thereby. During a greater part of the reign of Nero he spent his time in retirement at Comum, employed in the education of his nephew. Subsequently he held the office of procurator in Spain, where it is supposed he remained during the wars of Galba, Otho, and Vitellius. Returning to Rome, he enjoyed the favor of Vespasian, and at the time of his death, under Titus, was commander of the Roman fleet at Misenum. He lost his life by the celebrated eruption of Vesuvius, A. D. 79, by which Herculaneum and Pompeii were destroyed; the particulars of which are given by his nephew in a letter to the historian Tacitus. Observing, on the 24th of August of that year, from his ship at Misenum (a few miles from Vesuvius), a cloud of unusual size and shape rising to a great height from the mount, he directed a light vessel to be got ready, in which he embarked, sailed across the bay, and landed near the foot of the mountain. Determined to examine for himself the unusual phenomenon, he went on against all remonstrances, though showers of ashes had already begun to fall; and in consequence he was soon suffocated, and perished. His body was afterwards found without any marks of fire upon it, and even his clothes were not disordered.

The only work of Pliny, of any consequence, which has been pre

served to us, is his Historia Naturalis, Natural History, by which term the ancients understood more than is included in it by modern writers. It embraced astronomy, meteorology, geography, mineralogy, zoology, botany, &c.-in short, everything that does not relate to the results of human skill or the products of the human faculties. The work consists of thirty-seven books. The first is a sort of index or table giving a general view of the contents of the whole work; the second treats of subjects belonging to cosmography and astronomy; the third to the sixth inclusive contain a description of the earth, its countries and inhabitants, forming a sort of universal geography; the seventh to the eleventh inclusive relate principally to animals or zoology; the twelfth to the nineteenth treat of plants or botany; with the twentieth begins a description of medicines, which is continued through thirteen books, treating first of the vegetable kingdom (from the twentieth to the twenty-seventh), then of the animal (from the twenty-eighth to the thirty-second), while the remaining five books (from the thirty-third to the thirty-seventh) are devoted to the mineral kingdom, comprising notices of the medicinal properties of metals and stones, and to the fine arts, painting, sculpture, &c., with notices of the principal ancient artists and their productions. This great work of Pliny is certainly a wonderful monument of studious diligence and persevering industry, but it shows a most credulous love of the marvellous, and a want of judgment in comparing and selecting facts, and is deficient in scientific value and philosophical arrangement.'

OF THE HARMONY OF THE STARS.9

Pythagoras, employing the terms that are used in music, sometimes names the distance between the Earth and the Moon a tone; from her to Mercury he supposes to be half

The editions of Pliny's Natural History are very numerous. One of the best is that published by Panckoucke, Paris, 1829-1833, in twenty volumes, with a French translation, and enriched by many valuable notes by Cuvier and other eminent scientific and literary men of France. A valuable critical edition of the text, is by Sillig, Leipsic, 1831-36, five volumes 12mo. Holland's English translation, first published in London in 1601, has been often reprinted. A new translation by John Bostock and H. T. Riley has been printed in Bohn's Classical Library, in six volumes.

This was what the ancients understood by the harmony of the spheres. So Dryden, in his Song for St. Cecilia's Day :

From harmony, from heavenly harmony,
This universal frame began:

From harmony to harmony

Through all the compass of the notes it ran,'
The diapason closing full in man.