Ducebant. Nusquam Magni fortuna sine illo
Succubuit: victus toties a Cæsare, salvâ

Libertate perit: tunc mille in vulnera lætus
Labitur, ac veniâ gaudet caruisse secundâ.
Ib. lib. vii. v. 599.

But this art is more fully displayed by the poet, in the portraiture which he gives of the character and conduct of Cæsar; which he represents in a far different light from that attested by the general voice of history. In an early part of his work he thus speaks of him:

Cæsar in arma furens, nullas nisi sanguine fuso
Gaudet habere vias, quod non terat hoste vacantes

Recording story has distinguish'd well,
How brave, unfortunate Domitius fell.
In ev'ry loss of Pompey still he shar'd
And dy'd in liberty, the best reward;

Though vanquished oft by Cæsar, ne'er enslav'd,
Ev'n to the last, the tyrant's pow'r he brav'd:
Mark'd o'er with many a glorious streaming wound,
In pleasure sunk the warrior to the ground;
No longer forc'd on vilest terms to live,
For chance to doom, and Cæsar to forgive.

Ib. vii. v 862.

¶ But Cæsar for destruction eager burns,
Free
passages and bloodless ways he scorns;
In fierce conflicting fields his arms delight,
He joys to be oppos'd, to prove his might,
Resistless through the wid'ning breach to go,
To burst the gates, and lay the bulwark low;

Hesperia fines, vacuosque irrumpat in agros
Atque ipsum non perdat iter, confertaque bellis
Bella gerat, non tam portas intrare patentes
Quam fregisse juvat: nec tam patiente colono
Arva premi, quam si ferro populetur, et igni.
Concessâ pudet ire viâ, civemque videri.

Ib. lib. ii. v. 439.

Before the battle of Pharsalia he describes him as invoking the furies, and the gods that presided over crimes, to afford him their assistance.

P At tu quos scelerum superos? Quas rite vocasti
Eumenidas Cæsar? Stygii quæ numina regni?
Infernumque nefas? Et mersas nocte furores?
Impia tam sævæ gesturus bella litasti?

Ib. lib. vii. v. 168.

To burn the villages, to waste the plains,
And massacre the poor laborious swains.
Abhorring law, he chooses to offend,

And blushes to be thought his country's friend.

Ib. ii. v. 669.

But who, O Cæsar! who were then thy Gods?
Whom didst thou summon from their dark abodes?
The furies listen'd to thy grateful vows,

And dreadful to the day the pow'rs of hell arose. lb. viii. v. 257. This licence is peculiarily striking, as historians have particularized the sacrifices Cæsar offered to Mars and his tutelary goddess, Venus, the night before the battle, and have mentioned his vows to raise a temple to the goddess Victory if she favoured

him in the contest.

E

But the most striking example of this licence may be drawn from the representation of his conduct after the fatal battle. He is first described as exciting his victorious army to plunder and rapine:

'Plena, viri,' dixit, superest pro sanguine merces

'Quam monstrare meum est: nec enim donare vocabo 'Quod sibi quisque dabit.

Tot regum fortuna simul, Magnique coacta

Expectat dominos: propera præcedere miles

Quos sequeris: quascunque tuas Pharsalia fecit,
A victis rapiantur opes.'

Ib. lib. vii. v. 737.

As rejoicing in the slaughter, and satiating his rage in viewing the destruction of his countrymen.

• Behold, he cries, our victory complete,
The glorious recompence attends ye yet:
Much have you done to day, for Cæsar's sake;
'Tis mine to shew the prey, 'tis yours to take.
'Tis yours whate'er the vanquish'd foe has left;
'Tis what your valour gain'd, and not my gift.
For
you the once great Pompey's store attends,
With regal spoils of his barbarian friends;
Haste then, prevent the foe, and seize that good
For which you paid so well with Roman blood.

Ib. vii. v. 1052.

t Postquam clara dies Pharsalica damna retexit,
Nulla loci facies revocat feralibus arvis
Hærentes oculos. Cernit propulsa cruore
Flumina, et excelsos cumulis æquantia colles
Corpora, sidentes in tabem spectat acervos,
Et Magni numerat populos: epulisque paratur
Ille locus, vultus ex quo, faciesque jacentum
Agnoscat. Juvat Emathiam non cernere terram
Et lustrare oculis campos sub clade latentes.
Ib. lib. vii. v. 787.

And even denying the last offices of sepul

ture to their remains.

u Ac ne læta furens scelerum spectacula perdat,
Invidet igne rogi miseris, cœloque nocenti

* But soon the visionary horrors pass,

And his first rage with day resumes its place:
Again his eyes rejoice to view the slain,
And run unweary'd o'er the dreadful plain.
He bids his train prepare his impious board,
And feasts amidst the heaps of death abhorr'd.
There each pale face at leisure he may know,
And still behold the purple current flow.
He views the woful wide horizon round,

And joys that earth is no where to be found,

And owns, those Gods he serves, his utmost wish have

crown'd.

"Still greedy to possess the curs'd delight,

Ib. vii. v. 1110.

To glut his soul, and gratify his sight,
The last funereal honours he denies,
And poisons with the stench Emathia's skies.
Not thus the sworn invet'rate foe of Rome

Refus'd the vanquish'd consul's bones a tomb;

Ingerit Emathiam. Non illum Pænus humator
Consulis, et Libycá succense lampade Cannæ
Conpellunt, hominum ritus ut servet in hostes:
Sed meminit nondum satiatâ cædibus irâ,
Cives esse suos.
Ib. lib. vii. v. 797.

How such liberties may be allowed, and yet be reconcileable with verisimilitude, at principle which was laid down as essential to compositions of the historical kind, and which was taken as affording one of the strongest arguments in favour of adhering to historical truth, may be thus briefly established.

With respect to those incidents which are drawn from history, as they are not considerable, the historian's authority becomes no ultimate test of their truth. Events of lesser importance admit of a different statement according to the different opinions by which they are imbibed or transmitted: and under the supposition of the historian's being mistaken, which daily experience informs not to be improbable, the poet is at liberty to adopt

His piety the country round beheld,

And bright with fires shone Canna's fatal field.
But Cæsar's rage from fiercer motives rose;
These were his countrymen, his worst of foes.

Ib. vii. v. 1121.