moft material good confequence refults from the attention of men of rank and opulence to literary fubjects. Their example is of importance. It gives fupport to the general interefts of learning. For it not only excites the emulation of perfons whofe fituations are favourable to the cultivation of letters, but it alfo impreffes the minds of others with a degree of reverence for fuch purfuits: and thus, by rendering literature a fafhionable accomplishment, fecures to it an eftimation which it has not always obtained, and gains for it a patronage which it has not always enjoyed. Among the various branches of ufeful and ornamental learning, none feems more fully to require this fanétion and fupport than that denominated claffical. It has frequently been attempted, in our times, to depreciate the value of the dead languages, as they are called, and to exalt modern at the expence of ancient genius. The injuftice, however, of thefe flippant declaimers against verbalifts and grammarians is evident; and impartial judgment will ever be compelled to declare that more fterling fenfe, more accurate reasoning, and more perfect compofition are to be found in the works of the great writers of antiquity, than can be readily discovered in thofe of a more recent date. With thefe ideas fully prefent to our minds, the intelligence that the ftudies of a man of birth and fortune had been directed to the tranflation of a juftly celebrated ancient hiftorian, could not be deftitute of intereft and fatisfaction. Dr. Steuart, to whofe pen we are indebted for the volumes under our prefent confideration, we understand to be a lineal defcendant of one of the five brothers, from the eldest of whom fprung the royal family of that name. Attached in the more early periods of life to military purfuits, he has withdrawn from the profeffion of arms about fixteen years; and now fpends his time, which is chiefly devoted to literature, on an estate that has defcended from father to fon for a period of almoft four hundred years. Two quarto volumes, employed on an author, whofe original compofitions would fcarcely fill the fourth part of one, might, at first fight, appear to be extravagant. But inde pendent of a tranflation of the Catiline confpiracy, the Jugurthine war, and the two letters addreffed to Cæfar, accompanied with a profufion of notes, illuftrative of the chief actors on that bufy fcene, or calculated to throw additional light on the narrative of the hiflorian, we are presented with a Life of Salluft, and an Effay on his Genius and Writings; which, together with the authorities brought forward to fupport them, completely occupy the first volume. The The difficulties attendant upon literary biography are well known, and are fairly flated by this author at the opening of his work, but a life of Salluft appeared to us attended by peculiar difadvant ge. The foil, confeffedly barren, had already been explored by enquirers of reputation, and it was reasonable to expect that the few flowers or fruits it produced had been gathered by their hands. The life of Salluft, written by Le Clerc, had obtained confiderable celebrity: nor had much of importance been added to it by De Broffes, the Abbè Thyvon, or Profeffor Meifner. We imagined, therefore, that the prefent writer would be found treading in the fteps of the first named critic, and expected that we should meet with little of novel information. But thefe prepoffeflions (it is with pleasure we confefs it) were difcovered, on inveftigation to be erroneous. Dr. Steuart has thought and examined for himfelf. The confequence is, that Le Clerc and his followers are convicted of much unfairnefs, and the character of the hiftorian is placed in a more favourable point of view, than that in which it has hitherto been contemplated. by the majority of learned men. For ourselves, we are not afhamed to confefs, that the labours of Dr. S. have removed fome opinions which we had entertained unfavourable to Salluft. It is probable that they may produce fimilar effects on the minds of many of our readers. We fhall, therefore, with all poffible brevity, place before them the refult of his enquiries; and although we may occafionally object to the reafoning of this ingenious fcholar, our objections will not be found materially to affect his conclufions; and will be received, we truft, with the liberality with which they were written. Caius Crifpus Salluftius was born at Amiternum in the 86th year before the Chriftian æra. The rank of his anceftors is uncertain: but fome circumftances in his writings render it not improbable that his family was Plebeian. Having paffed his more early years at his native town, he was removed to Rome, where he had the advantage of profiting by the leffons of Atteius Prætextatus, furnamed Philologus, a grammarian of reputation and a rhetorician of celebrity. The profeffion of arms, and the exercifes of the gymnafium purfuits, fo congenial to the difpofitions of the Roman youth, and fo flattering to their ambition, appear to have had lefs charms for Salluft than the ftudies that adorn the mind. He devoted his time to the cultivation of eloquence and the attainments of philofophy; and under the friet leffons of Atteius, acquired that fententious feverity of style for which he is fo much diftinguifhed. But althor h eloquence Rr2 feeins feems to have been his favourite purfuit, it does not appear that Salluft ever attained to diftinction as a forensic pleader. "Cicero, who commemorates in one part or another of his writings, all the eminent fpeakers of that day, makes no mention of the name of Salluft. Nor should we wonder, with fome, at fuch an omiffion, or (nor) impute it to the enmity which, it is well known, fubfifted between them. The great critic, in that beautiful tract, where he delineates the illuftrious orators of Rome, lays down the prudent refolution of wholly abtaining ei ther from the commendation or cenfure of living characters. Whether therefore, it was, that the hiftorian, like many men of uncommon endowments, felt a want of that confidence and felfpoffeffion, that fluency of ftyle, and intrepidity of manner, which are requifite for bufinefs or popular addreffes it is impoffible to afcertain. But we may pretty confidently believe, that if ever he had hopes of rifing as a public fpeaker he very foon abandoned the defign*." The times on which it was the misfortune of Sallust to be thrown were fingularly unfortunate. The exceffes of Sylla, who, at a date not long fubfequent to that of the hiftorian's birth, had attained to fovereign dominion, together with the atrocities of Catiline and his affociates, whofe confpiracy was formed when Salluft had about reached his twenty-fécond year; thefe had accustomed his countrymen to every fpecies of crime, and had effaced from the public mind the flern virtue of the Roman character. From the effects of that moral turpitude which difgraced the age in which he lived, Salluft has not been confidered as free. He has been accused on the authority of a paffage quoted by Gellius from Varro, of an intrigue with Faufta, the wife of Milo, and daughter of the dictator Sylla: an intrigue which, in its confequences, is faid to have fubjected him to public difgrace, and perfonal caftigation. He is reported to have been unmercifully beaten, and to have been compelled to purchase his liberty by the payment of a confiderable fum. From this disgraceful imputation, Dr. Steuart labours with no fmall degree of zeal to liberate his author; and the amount of his arguments we fall attempt to place before the reader. With regard to the declaration of A. Gellius, that he borrowed the anecdote in queftion from Varro, he remarks, that the former fpeaks from memory only, and does not here, according to his ufual practice when certain of a fact, give the paffage ၁ Ο Vol. i. p. 10. from from the original work; and in the prefent cafe from Varro's treatife De Pace, to which he refers. It feems, there fore, he thinks, by no means impoffible that Gellius miftook the uncle for the nephew, or at leaft for fome other Salluft than the historian, fince five or fix perfons bearing that name are mentioned by Cicero alone. To thefe confiderations others are added, drawn from the works of Horace. The name of Salluft twice occurs in his poems: once in the Odes, a fecond time in the Satires. The latter paffage is as fol. lows: "Audire eft operæ pretium, procedere rectè Qui machis non vultis, ut omni parte laborent; Tutior at quanto merx eft in claffe fecundâ Non minus infanit quam qui machatur," &c. Now the old fcholiafts on this paffage, who pofitively affert that, by ille flagellis ad mortem cafus,' the hiftorian is intended, affert alfo that the Salluft addreffed in the Ode is the fame with the Salluft alluded to in the Satires. But the per-fon to whom the Ode is addressed cannot poffibly be the author with whom we are concerned for Phraates, king of Parthia, is there fpoken of as having been restored to the throne of his ancestors; an event which did not take place till the reign of Auguftus, and certainly long after the hiftorian's death. The difgraceful ftory muft, therefore, says Dr. S. belong to fome later Salluft, and cannot, without manifeft violation of chronology, be afcribed to the illuftrious writer of that name. We cannot, on this occafion, forbear to remark that the reafoning here adopted is manifeftly inconclufive. It depends upon an affumption which is far from being certain ; that in pronouncing the Salluft of the Ode and the Salluft of the Satire to be one and the fame perfon, the older fcholiafts could not have been miftaken. For fuch an affumption we Salluftius Crifpus in Fauftæ filiæ Syllæ adulterio deprehen. fus ab Annio Milone flagellis cæfus effe dicitur, quod Afconius Pædianus in vitâ ejus fignificat. fee no grounds. They have clearly erred in one point, why not in another? Why is it not as probable that they were deceived in pronouncing the Salluft of the ode, and the Salluft of the fatire to be the fame individual, as that they were fo deceived in affixing the difgraceful flory on the character of the hiftorian? Viewing their teftimony in the most favourable light it can only be confidered as neuter: but if we recollect how much more eafily an identity of names may have led them, without examining into its agreement with chronology, to fuppofe at the fame time an identity of perfons, than an hiflorical fact could have mifguided and deceived them, their evidence may be thought to preponderate against Salluft. It will be added alfo, by fuch as maintain his guilt, that the authority of Gellius is not to be abandoned for flight fufpicions that he is an author whose neral accuracy has feldom been impeached: that his habits were thofe of a careful enquirer: and that if we are to give up authorities on the mere poffibility that they may have been deceived, a hoft of fcruples may be raifed against almost every part of hiflory and almoft every recorded fact. ge. By the obfervations which we have now thrown out, we mean only to exprefs our conviction that no argument can be drawn from the commentators on Horace in favour of the hiftorian's innocence. Dr. Steuart attempts to vindicate his author on other grounds. He obferves, "As vice and virtue are qualities diametrically oppofite in their nature, we may affert that the existence of one, in any remarkable degree, neceffarily implies the abfence of the other. Great intellectual culture, and great intellectual debasement, have a clofe analogy to thofe qualities, and are often their respective concomitants: accordingly it may be believed that the former can no more coalefce with grofs exceffes of vice than the latter can have place amidit high fentiments of virtue. If this be true, it will follow, of courfe, that the evidence, which would attribute to Salluff almost every crime that can difgrace and degrade human nature, muft even at fira fight appear fufpicious; and it will be ftill more invalidated when we reflect, that he who found leifure only for fo good mental efforts could not, probably, be funk, as is fuppofed, in the lowest depths of profligacy.” Vol. i. P. 18. For the honour of human nature, we could wifh this doctrine to be true. For the credit as well as comfort of fociety, we could with that fools only were knaves. But in eftimating the propenfities of the human mind, we mult have recourle to other confiderations than fpeculative and meta phyfical |