d folly; submits to the imitation of his adversary the
generous examples of the clemency of gods, of heroes, and of lions; and
expresses his hope that the magnanimity of Hadrian will not trample on
a defenceless and contemptible foe, already humbled by disgrace and
poverty, and deeply wounded by the exile, the tortures, and the death of
his dearest friends. [117] Whatever might be the success of his prayer,
or the accidents of his future life, the period of a few years levelled
in the grave the minister and the poet: but the name of Hadrian is
almost sunk in oblivion, while Claudian is read with pleasure in every
country which has retained, or acquired, the knowledge of the Latin
language. If we fairly balance his merits and his defects, we shall
acknowledge that Claudian does not either satisfy, or silence, our
reason. It would not be easy to produce a passage that deserves the
epithet of sublime or pathetic; to select a verse that melts the heart
or enlarges the imagination. We should vainly seek, in the poems of
Claudian, the happy invention, and artificial conduct, of an interesting
fable; or the just and lively representation of the characters and
situations of real life. For the service of his patron, he published
occasional panegyrics and invectives: and the design of these slavish
compositions encouraged his propensity to exceed the limits of truth and
nature. These imperfections, however, are compensated in some degree
by the poetical virtues of Claudian. He was endowed with the rare and
precious talent of raising the meanest, of adorning the most barren, and
of diversifying the most similar, topics: his coloring, more especially
in descriptive poetry, is soft and splendid; and he seldom fails
to display, and even to abuse, the advantages of a cultivated
understanding, a copious fancy, an easy, and sometimes forcible,
expression; and a perpetual flow of harmonious versification. To these
commendations, independent of any accidents of time and place, we must
add the peculiar merit which Claudian derived from the unfavorable
circumstances of his birth. In the decline of arts, and of empire,
a native of Egypt, [118] who had received the education of a Greek,
assumed, in a mature age, the familiar use, and absolute command, of
the Latin language; [119] soared above the heads of his feeble
contemporaries; and placed himself, after an interval of three hundred
years, among the poets of ancient Rome. [120]

[Footnote