e opened, but strangely whimsical to the last, and wishing to
die slowly, he had them closed at intervals. In his dying state he was
daily carried about the streets of Cumae, and received his friends, made
love verses and humorous epigrams, and endeavoured to withdraw his
thoughts from the sad reality by indulging in all kinds of amusing
caprices. At length he expired--another distinguished victim of Nero's
cruelty.

Juvenal, who wrote under Domitian, a little later than Persius, equalled
him in severity--due either to his natural disposition or to the
spectacle presented by the ever increasing demoralization of Rome. Like
Persius, he makes use of much metaphor and involution in his
works--showing the literary taste and intellectual acumen of a settled
state of society, but an early age is impressed upon his pages in the
indelicacy with which he is frequently chargeable. His depiction of
guilt was appreciated at that day, but under the Christian dispensation
vice is thought too sinful, and in a highly civilised state too
injurious to be laughable. The views then held were different, and
Tacitus considered it a mark of great superiority in the Germans that
they did not laugh at crimes. Juvenal tells us that the Romans jeered at
poverty. There was much in the character of this satirist to raise him
in the estimation of right-minded men. His tastes were simple, he loved
the country and its homely fare, and although devoid of ambition, was
highly cultivated. No doubt he was rather austere than genial: his aim
was to instruct and warn rather than amuse; and where he approaches
humour it is merely from complexity of style, in coining words and
barbarisms, or in comparisons mostly dependent upon exaggeration. The
following is one of his best specimens, though over-weighted with
severity. It gives an idea of the state of Rome at the time. A drunken
magnate and his retinue stop a citizen in the street, and insolently
demand--

"With whose vinegar and beans are you blown out? What cobbler has been
eating leeks and sheepshead with you? Answer, or be kicked." "This,"
says Juvenal "is a poor man's liberty. When pummelled, he begs that he
may be allowed to escape with a few of his teeth remaining."

Juvenal longs for the sword of Lucilius, and the lamp of Horace, that
he may attack the vices of Rome, but he himself is more severe than
either. Forgers, gamblers and profligates are assailed, and names are
frequently given, though we