[24] This is an error which has been so often repeated, that it is believed. What liberty was destroyed by the usurpation of Augustus? For more than half a century, Rome had been a prey to ambitious chiefs, while five or six civil wars, each more bloody than the other, had successively delivered up the franchises of the empire to the conqueror of the day. The Gracchi first opened the career to ambition, and wanted nothing but the means of corruption, which the East afterward supplied, to effect what Marius, Sylla, and the two triumvirates brought about with sufficient ease. [25] This is a very strange observation. It looks as if Dusaulx had leaped from the times of old Metellus to those of Augustus, without casting a glance at the interval. The chef d'œuvres of Roman literature were in every hand, when he supposed them to be neglected: and, indeed, if Horace had left us nothing, the qualities of which Dusaulx speaks might still be found in many works produced before he was known. [26] I have often wished that we had some of the pleadings of Juvenal. It can not be affirmed, I think, that there is any natural connection between prose and verse in the same mind, though it may be observed, that most of our celebrated poets have written admirably "solutâ oratione:" yet if Juvenal's oratory bore any resemblance to his poetry, he yielded to few of the best ornaments of the bar. The "torrens dicendi copia" was his, in an eminent degree; nay, so full, so rich, so strong, and so magnificent is his eloquence, that I have heard one well qualified to judge, frequently declare that Cicero himself, in his estimation, could hardly be said to surpass him. [27] With all my respect for the learning of the good old man, it is impossible, now and then, to suppress a smile at his simplicity. In apologizing for his translation, he says: "As for publishing poetry, it needs no defense; there being, if my Lord of Verulam's judgment shall be admitted, 'a _divine rapture_ in it!'" [28] He evidently alludes to the versions of the second and eighth Satires by Tate and Stepney, but principally to the latter, in which Juvenal illustrates his argument by the practice of Smithfield and Newmarket! Indeed, Dryden himself, though confessedly aware of its impropriety, is not altogether free from "innovation;" he talks of the Park, and the Mall, and the Opera, and of many other objects, familiar to the translator, but which the original writer could only know by the spirit of prophecy. I am sensible how difficult it is to keep the manners of different ages perfectly distinct in a work like this: I have never knowingly confounded them, and, I trust, not often inadvertently; yet more occasions perhaps of exercising the reader's candor will appear, after all, than are desirable.