Herm.

Cris.

Here is beauty for the eye;
For the ear sweet melody;

Herm. Ambrosiac odours, for the smell;

Cris.

Ambo.

Delicious nectar for the taste;
For the touch, a lady's waist;
Which doth all the rest excel.

Ovid. Ay, this has waked us. Mercury, our herald; go from ourself, the great god Jupiter, to the great emperor Augustus Cæsar, and command him, from us, of whose bounty he hath received the sirname of Augustus, that, for a thankoffering to our beneficence, he presently sacrifice, as a dish to this banquet, his beautiful and wanton daughter Julia: she's a curst quean, tell him, and plays the scold behind his back; therefore let her be sacrificed. Command him this, Mercury, in our high name of Jupiter Altitonans.

Jul. Stay, feather-footed Mercury, and tell Augustus, from us, the great Juno Saturnia; if he think it hard to do as Jupiter hath commanded him, and sacrifice his daughter, that he had better do so ten times, than suffer her to love the well-nosed poet, Ovid; whom he shall do well to whip, or cause to be whipped, about the capitol, for soothing her in her follies.

Enter AUGUSTUS CESAR, MECENAS, HORACE, LUPUS, Histrio, MINOS, and Lictors.

Cas. What sight is this? Mecænas! Horace! say?

Have we our senses? do we hear and see?"

What sight is this? &c.] The friends of Ovid may have much to object to the justice of Jonson, in his design of the preceding scene. Ovid had faults enough to answer for, withVOL. II. K k

Or are these but imaginary objects

Drawn by our fantasy! Why speak you not?
Let us do sacrifice. Are they the gods?

[Ovid and the rest kneel.

out being charged with others of mere invention. It is generally supposed, that he was banished by Augustus, for an amour with his daughter Julia: and this circumstance our poet men. tions with propriety: and he fancied, I presume, that an entertainment of the kind represented, was not inconsistent with the luxuriance of Ovid's imagination. But the truth is, that Jonson is partial; and Ovid does not appear to have had any share in the contrivance. Let us transfer, then, the infamy of this feast to its real author, who is no other than the emperor himself. The account is preserved in Suetonius, who tells us, that on this occasion, Augustus assumed the dress and character of Apollo: Cana quoque ejus secretior in fabulis fuit, quæ vulgo Audinales vocabatur: in quâ deorum dearumque habitu discubuisse convivas, et ipsum pro Apolline ornatum, non Antonii modo epistola singulorum nomina amarissime enumerantis exprobrant, sed et sine auctore notissimi versus:

Cum primum istorum conduxit mensa Choragum,
Sexque deos vidit Mallia, sexque deas :
Impia dum Phabi Cæsar mendacia ludit,
Dum nova dicorum cœnat adulteria;
Omnia se à terris tunc numina declinârunt,
Fugit et auratus Jupiter ipse thronos.

Auxit cœnæ rumorem summa tunc in civitate penuria ac fames: acclamatumque est postridie, frumentum omne dcos comcdisse, et Cæsarem plane esse Apollinem, sed tortorem: quo cognomine is deus quadam in parte urbis colebatur. Seuton. August. c. lxx. WHAL.

Whalley is perfectly right in transferring the odium of this feast to the emperor: but he mistakes Jonson, and confounds events very distant in time. Our author was too well acquainted with the history of Ovid not to know that his amour with Corinna (whoever she was) took place in his youth:

Carmina cum primum populo juvenilia legi,

Barba resectà mihi bisce semelve fuit:

Moverat ingenium, totam cantata per urbem

Nomine non vero dicta Corinna mihi. Trist. 1. 4. El. x. whereas, he was not banished till he was upwards of fifty. Jonson, however, speaks not of his banishment, but simply of his exile from court, as Whalley might have seen in the next page. The

Reverence, amaze, and fury fight in me.
What, do they kneel! Nay, then I see tis 'true
I thought impossible: O, impious sight!
Let me divert mine eyes; the very thought
Everts my soul with passion: Look not, man,
There is a panther, whose unnatural eyes
Will strike thee dead: turn, then, and die on her
With her own death. [Offers to kill his daughter.
Mec. Hor. What means imperial Cæsar?

Cæs. What! would you have me let the strumpet live,

That, for this pageant, earns so many deaths?
Tuc. Boy, slink, boy.

Pyr. Pray Jupiter we be not followed by the [Exeunt Tucca and Pyrgus.

scent, master.

Cas. Say, sir, what are you?

Alb. I play Vulcan, sir.

Cæs. But what are you, sir?

Alb. Your citizen and jeweller, sir.

Cæs. And what are you, dame?

Julia here mentioned (the daughter of Augustus) was banished for her licentiousness thirteen years before this event took place. There is indeed another Julia, cousin to the former, (Augustus's niece) who was banished at the same time with Ovid; but Augustus was, at that period, somewhat too old for love, being turned of seventy. Besides, if Ovid had debauched the emperor's daughter, he would scarcely have recurred to the subject so frequently. He was evidently conscious of some impurities in the imperial family. He pretends, indeed, that what he saw was not meant to be seen by him; but as he was not over nice in his morality, he might have furthered the niece's amours, and been more officious than he is willing to allow. After all, he attributes his banishment, in a great degree, to his indecent verses; and perhaps justly. He seems to think this hard upon him. Other poets, it is true, had written grosser. lines with impunity; but the express purpose of Ovid, whether avowed or not, was to reduce licentiousness to an art, and facilitate the corruption of innocence: he was, therefore, infinitely more dangerous than the coarse and disgusting writers who preceded him.

Chloe. I play Venus, forsooth.

Cæs. I ask not what you play, but what you

are.

Chloe. Your citizen and jeweller's wife, sir. Cæs. And you, good sir?

Cris. Your gentleman parcel-poet, sir. [Exit.
Cas. O, that profaned name!-

And are these seemly company for thee, [To Julia.
Degenerate monster? All the rest I know,
And hate all knowledge for their hateful sakes.
Are you, that first the deities inspired

With skill of their high natures and their powers,
The first abusers of their useful light;

Profaning thus their dignities in their forms,
And making them, like you, but counterfeits?
O, who shall follow Virtue and embrace her,
When her false bosom is found nought but air?
And yet of those embraces centaurs spring,'
That war with human peace, and poison men.-
Who shall, with greater comforts, comprehend
Her unseen being and her excellence;

When you, that teach, and should eternize her,
Live as she were no law unto your lives,
Nor lived herself, but with your idle breaths?
If you think gods but feign'd, and virtue painted,
Know we sustain an actual residence,
And with the title of an emperor,
Retain his spirit and imperial power;
By which, in imposition too remiss,
Licentious Naso, for thy violent wrong,
In soothing the declined affections
Of our base daughter, we exile thy feet
From all approach to our imperial court,

And yet of these embraces centaurs spring,] Alluding to the fable of Ixion's embracing Juno in the shape of a cloud; from which conjunction arose the centaurs. WHAL.

On pain of death; and thy misgotten love
Commit to patronage of iron doors;

Since her soft-hearted sire cannot contain her. Mec. O, good my lord, forgive! be like the gods.

Hor. Let royal bounty, Cæsar, mediate.

Cæs. There is no bounty to be shew'd to such As have no real goodness: bounty is

A spice of virtue; and what virtuous act
Can take effect on them, that have no power
Of equal habitude to apprehend it,
But live in worship of that idol, vice,
As if there were no virtue, but in shade
Of strong imagination, merely enforced?
This shews their knowledge is mere ignorance,
Their far-fetch'd dignity of soul a fancy,
And all their square pretext of gravity
A mere vain-glory: hence, away with them!
I will prefer for knowledge, none but such
As rule their lives by it, and can becalm
All sea of Humour with the marble trident
Of their strong spirits: others fight below
With gnats and shadows; others nothing know.
[Exeunt.

SCENE V.

A Street before the Palace.

Enter TuccA, CRISPINUS, and Pyrgus.

Tuc. What's become of my little punk, Venus, and the poult-foot stinkard,' her husband, ha?

The poult-foot stinkard,] i. e. lame, or club-foot. See Mercury vindicated from the Alchemists.