of my task, has been the perusal of the notes of former commentators: some of these have been named already; of the rest, Grangæus has been the most serviceable; something too has been gleaned from Britannicus, Lubinus, the Valesii, Ruperti,' and Holyday. In the main, however, the notes are my own; no citation has been borrowed without verification,3 and indeed space has often been saved by a reference to previous writers who had anticipated my

researches.

Here these remarks might have ended, were it not that the desire to rescue, so far as I am able, certain authors from undeserved contempt, which has led me to make copious extracts from their writings, emboldens me further to suggest the feasibility of introducing them into our classical course at Cambridge. A great step was taken towards the improvement of the Classical Tripos, when to papers in composition and philology a separate historical paper was added. By the admission that the subject

1 Chiefly in regard to Silius, Athenæus, Lucian, the Greek Anthology, Wernsdorf's Poet. Lat. Min., and Heyne's editions of other authors. What else he has is mostly from Grangæus.

2 Achaintre and Dusaulx (text with Fr. transl. and notes. 4th ed. 1804) I have but seldom consulted, and always fruitlessly.

3 Some passages indeed I have transcribed at second hand for want of access to the originals, and of these a very few, four or five at most, may have escaped subsequent revision.

4 That the Oxford system, even more than the Cambridge, requires enlargement, has been acknowledged in the recent changes, and appears from the Report. "From the year 1807 to 1825 the Students were encouraged to study many works which have now almost entirely disappeared from the University Course, such as Homer, Demosthenes, Cicero, Lucretius, Terence, Plutarch, Longinus, Quintilian. [All of these, except Plutarch, are included in the subjects recognised at Cambridge.] A list of twenty classical authors was not unfrequent even so late as 1827. At present fourteen, thirteen, or even twelve, are sufficient for the highest honours." Page 62.

matter of the classics is entitled to distinct recognition a principle has been conceded which is capable of wide application. For if, as is generally allowed, in two of th highest branches of knowledge, moral philosophy an history, the ancients are still unsurpassed, there seems n good reason why ancient philosophy should be refused th reparation lately made to ancient history. Indeed so many voices have lately been raised in behalf of such extension, that the question may now be regarded as one of time only But the reform may be carried out in such a way as not to touch what seems to be one great defect in the present system, the strange anomaly by which the philosophical works of Cicero-works undertaken for the most part merely as a relief from chagrin and disappointment, and confessedly little better than translations,-are set before students as the only source from which to derive a knowledge of the later Academy (for instance) and the Porch ; although these schools are represented by writers so clear, so manly, and in every way so improving as Plutarch, Seneca, Epictetus, Antoninus. The surpassing excellence of the speeches, letters, and rhetorical treatises of Cicero, together with his never-failing elegance of style, have doubtless occasioned this undue exaltation, but they can hardly excuse it. The great objection to a reversal of this

1 See in the Report the evidence of Mr. Beatson (p. 277), Mr. Cope (p. 279), Mr. Thompson (p. 288), Mr. Warter (p. 291), Mr. Williams (pp. 293, 294), Mr. Worsley (p. 298). And the general feeling of classical men is, I believe, strongly in favour of the change.

2 I mention these writers, because I am most familiar with them: but there is no reason why Sextus Empiricus, as the champion of the Sceptics, and the New Platonists, so important to the ecclesiastical student, should be excluded from the circle of recognised subjects. Others too might be named.

injustice,—namely, that the student is already expected to have an acquaintance with more authors than he can master -might be obviated, if in addition to Plato and Aristotle certain specified books (e.g. the De Officiis of Cicero, the Dissertations of Epictetus, the De Ira and Epistles of Seneca) were yearly appointed as subjects for examination.1 This constant change of authors, while it would render unprofitable the compilation of Analyses, Tables, Compendiums, and other unscholarlike aids, would make students discontented with the narrow range of reading to which most now confine themselves, and would tend to form in the University a public capable of taking a more enlarged view of the whole field of ancient learning. If, while the Oxford system was thus partially adopted, Latin and Greek verse were less imperatively required, and certain inferior authors altogether excluded from the

3

1 The same plan might advantageously be adopted in respect to Roman law; I have derived the greatest advantage from consulting the Digest (which the indices of Brissonius and Dirksen make very accessible), and can therefore strongly recommend a suggestion of Mr. Blakesley's, that Roman law should enter into the examinations. So with history; while a general knowledge might be required, as at present, certain specified parts e.g. of Polybius, Suetonius, Dio, Ammianus, &c., might be yearly selected. 2 See the evidence of Mr. Beatson (p. 277), Mr. Currey (p. 282), Mr. France (p. 284), Mr. Thompson (p. 287), Mr. Warter (p. 290), Mr. Wratislaw (p. 300). The same is the opinion of Professors Peacock and Whewell (On Cambridge Education, p. 90 sq.).

3 "The Greek tragedians, though reading them constantly, and portions of them with the liveliest admiration, he thought on the whole greatly overrated; and still more the second-rate Latin poets, but whom he seldom used; and some, such as Tibullus and Propertius, never. 'I do really think,' he said, speaking of these last as late as 1842, 'that any examiners incur a serious responsibility who require or encourage the reading of these books for scholarships; of all useless reading, surely the reading of indifferent poets is most useless.'”—Arnold's Life, p. 115, ed. 7. Such plays as the Electra of Euripides seem unworthy of encouragement.

course, the pressure on candidates for honours would b diminished, nor would they lose much that is of any importance, at the same time that they would become familiar with many valuable works of which they now hear nothing.1

These suggestions may perhaps be thought presumptuous, but I am willing to encounter the imputation rather than be wanting in gratitude to authors who have been to me for some years valued companions, and who would, I believe, prove intelligible and attractive to many who are unable to master Plato or Aristotle, and find little to interest them in Cicero. I cannot take leave of my readers without assuring them that I am as painfully aware of the imperfections of the work as they can be, and shall therefore be grateful to any one who may be disposed to diminish them, by pointing out positive errours.

J. E. B. M.

1 Mr. Long (Dict. Biogr. Plutarch, Seneca) and Madvig (pauci omnino istas [Seneca] epistolas legunt, Opusc. ii. p. 205 n.) may be referred to in confirmation of what has been said above. To Mr. Long indeed I owe, if not my first, at least my more intimate acquaintance with both these authors, and I have often availed myself of his version of some of Plutarch's Lives.

LIFE OF JUVENAL.

1

D. JUNIUS JUVENALIS was born of humble parents (i. 101, iv. 98, cf. xi. 145, 175) at the Volscian town of Aquinum (iii. 319): when a youth, he attended schools of rhetoric (i. 15 sq., cf. Mart. vii. 91. 1), and in after life possessed a competence (xi. 65), which may have enabled him to visit Egypt (xv. 45). His first Satires were written after Domitian's death, A.D. 96 (i. 47, ii. 29, iv. 37 sq., 152), while his latest cannot be assigned to an earlier date than A.D. 119 (xiii. 17,2 and, if Junio be read, xv. 27). He seems to have been acquainted with Statius (vii. 82 sq.) and, perhaps, with Quintilian (vi. 280, vii. 186). Thus far Juvenal is his own biographer.

If he is the intimate friend addressed by Martial (vii. 24), he was resident in Rome in the early part of Trajan's reign (Dum tu forsitan inquietus erras Clamosa, Juvenalis, in Suburra, Aut collem dominæ teris Dianæ; Dum per limina te potentiorum Sudatrix toga ventilat, vagumque Major Cœlius et minor fatigant, xii. 18. 1 sq.). As Martial

1 So called in the MSS. of his Satires: probably he (or his father or grandfather), as freedman of a Junius, assumed his patron's prænomen and

nomen.

2 Mr. Ramsay, however (Dict. Biogr.), supposes Fonteius to have been the consul of the year 12 A.D.