tly acrimonious. Disdaining
the more lenient modes of correction, or despairing of their success, he
neither adopts the raillery of Horace, nor the derision of Persius, but
prosecutes vice and folly with all the severity of sentiment, passion,
and expression. He sometimes exhibits a mixture of humour with his
invectives; but it is a humour which partakes more of virulent rage than
of pleasantry; broad, hostile, but coarse, and rivalling in indelicacy
the profligate manners which it assails. The satires of Juvenal abound
in philosophical apophthegms; and, where they are not sullied by obscene
description, are supported with a uniform air of virtuous elevation.
Amidst all the intemperance of sarcasm, his numbers are harmonious. Had
his zeal permitted him to direct the current of his impetuous genius into
the channel of ridicule, and endeavour to put to shame the vices and
follies of those licentious times, as much as he perhaps exasperated
conviction rather than excited contrition, he would have carried satire
to the highest possible pitch, both of literary excellence and moral
utility. With every abatement of attainable perfection, we hesitate not
to place him at the head of this arduous department of poetry.

Of STATIUS no farther particulars are preserved than that he (501) was
born at Naples; that his father's name was Statius of Epirus, and his
mother's Agelina, and that he died about the end of the first century of
the Christian era. Some have conjectured that he maintained himself by
writing for the stage, but of this there is no sufficient evidence; and
if ever he composed dramatic productions, they have perished. The works
of Statius now extant, are two poems, viz. the Thebais and the Achilleis,
besides a collection, named Silvae.

The Thebais consists of twelve books, and the subject of it is the Theban
war, which happened 1236 years before the Christian era, in consequence
of a dispute between Eteocles and Polynices, the sons of Oedipus and
Jocasta. These brothers had entered into an agreement with each other to
reign alternately for a year at a time; and Eteocles being the elder, got
first possession of the throne. This prince refusing to abdicate at the
expiration of the year, Polynices fled to Argos, where marrying Argia,
the daughter of Adrastus, king of that country, he procured the
assistance of his father-in-law, to enforce the engagement stipulated
with his brother Eteocles. The Argives marche