REVIEW

OF

Memoirs of the Court of Auguftus;

By THOMAS BLACKWELL, J.U.D. Principal of Marishal-College in the University of Aberdeen.

HE firft effect which this book has upon the

Treader is that au

reader is that of disgusting him with the author's vanity. He endeavours to perfuade the world, that here are fome new treasures of literature fpread before his eyes, that something is discovered, which to this happy day had been concealed in darknefs; that by his diligence time had been robbed of some valuable monument which he was on the point of devouring; and that names and facts doomed to oblivion are now reftored to fame.

How muft the unlearned reader be furprised, when he fhall be told that Mr. Blackwell has neither digged in the ruins of any demolished city, nor found out the way to the library of Fez; nor had a fingle book in his hands, that has not been in the poffeffion of every man that was inclined to read it, for years and ages; and that his book relates to a people who above all others have furnished employment to the ftudious, and amusements to the idle; who have scarcely left behind them a coin or a stone,

which has not been examined and explained a thoufand times, and whofe drefs, and food, and houshold ftuff, it has been the pride of learning to underftand.

A man need not fear to incur the imputation of vicious diffidence or affected humility, who fhould have forborn to promile many novelties, when he perceived fuch multitudes of writers poffeffed of the fame materials, and intent upon the fame purpofe. Mr. Blackwell knows well the opinion of Horace, concerning thofe that open their undertakings with magnificent promifes; and he knows likewife the dictates of common fenfe and common honesty, names of greater authority than that of Horace, who dire& that no man fhould promife what he cannot perform.

I do not mean to declare that this volume has nothing new, or that the labours of thofe who have gone before our author, have made his performance an ufelefs addition to the burden of literature. New works may be conftructed with old materials, the difpofition of the parts may fhew contrivance, the ornaments interfperfed may difcover elegance.

It is not always without good effect that men of proper qualifications write in fucceffion on the fame fubject, even when the latter add nothing to the information given by the former; for the fame ideas may be delivered more intelligibly or more delightfully by one than by another, or with attractions that may lure minds of a different form. No writer pleafes all, and every writer may pleafe fome.

But after all, to inherit is not to acquire; to decorate is not to make; and the man who had no

thing to do but to read the ancient authors, who mention the Roman affairs, and reduce them to common-places, ought not to boast himself as a great benefactor to the ftudious world.

After a preface of boaft, and a letter of flattery, in which he feems to imitate the addrefs of Horace in his vile potabis modicis Sabinum-he opens his book with telling us, that the "Roman republic, "after the horrible profcription, was no more at "bleeding Rome. The regal power of her confuls, "the authority of her fenate, and the majefty of her people, were now trampled under foot; these [for thofe] divine laws and hallowed cuftoms, "that had been the effence of her conftitution"were fet at nought, and her best friends were lying expofed in their blood."

Thefe were furely very difmal times to thofe who fuffered; but I know not why any one but a fchoolboy in his declamation fhould whine over the commonwealth of Rome, which grew great only by the mifery of the reft of mankind. The Romans, like others, as foon as they grew rich grew corrupt, and, in their corruption, fold the lives and freedoms of themselves, and of one another.

"About this time Brutus had his patience put "to the bigheft trial: he had been married to Clodia; "but whether the family did not pleafe him, or "whether he was diffatisfied with the lady's be"haviour during his abfence, he foon entertained "thoughts of a feparation. This raised a good deal "of talk, and the women of the Clodian family inveighed bitterly against Brutus-but he married Portia, who was worthy of fuch a father as M.

"Cato,

"Cato, and fuch a husband as M. Brutus. She had

a

foul capable of an exalted passion, and found a proper object to raife and give it a fanction; fhe "did not only love but adored her husband; his "worth, his truth, his every fhining and heroic quality, made her gaze on him like a god, while "the endearing returns of esteem and tenderness fhe met with, brought her joy, her pride, her every "wish to center in her beloved Brutus.”

When the reader has been awakened by this rapturous preparation, he hears the whole ftory of Portia in the fame luxuriant ftyle, till fhe breathed out her laft, a little before the bloody profcription, and "Brutus complained heavily of his friends at "Rome, as not having paid due attention to his Lady in the declining ftate of her health."

He is a great lover of modern terms. His fenators and their wives are Gentlemen and Ladies. In this review of Brutus's army, who was under the command of gallant men, not braver officers, than true patriots, he tells us, "that Sextus the Queftor was "Paymefter, Secretary at War, and Commiffary Ge"neral, and that the facred difcipline of the Romans

required the clofeft connection, like that of father "and fon, to fubfift between the General of an army "and his Queftor. Cicero was General of the Cavalry, "and the next general officer was Flavius, Master of "the Artillery, the elder Lentulus was Admiral, and "the younger rode in the Band of Volunteers; under

thefe the tribunes, with many others too tedious to "name." Lentulus, however, was but a fubordinate officer; for we are informed afterwards, that the Romans had made Sextus Pompeius Lord High Admiral in all the feas of their dominions.

Among