but have observed; and of all his writings, there is nothing to be noted as having the least tendency to vice, but only that little treatise which is entitled Ἐρωτικός, wherein he speaks too broadly of a sin to which the eastern and southern parts of the world are most obnoxious; but Seneca is said to have been more libertine than suited with the gravity of a philosopher, or with the austerity of a Stoic. An ingenious Frenchman esteems, as he tells us, his person rather than his works; and values him more as the preceptor of Nero, a man ambitious of the empire, and the gallant of Agrippina, than as a teacher of morality. For my part, I dare not push the commendation so far. His courage was perhaps praiseworthy, if he endeavoured to deliver Rome from such a monster of tyranny as Nero was then beginning to appear; his ambition too was the more excusable if he found in himself an ability of governing the world, and a desire of doing good to human kind; but as to his good fortunes with the empress, I know not what value ought to be set on a wise man for them: except it be that women generally liking without judgment, it was a conquest for a philosopher, once in an age, to get the better of a fool. However, methinks there is something of awkward in the adventure: I cannot imagine, without laughter, a pedant, and a Stoic, making love in a long gown; for it puts me in mind of the civilities which are used by the cardinals and judges in the dance of “The Rehearsal.” If Agrippina would needs be so lavish of her favours, since a sot grew nauseous to her, because he was her husband, and nothing under a wit could atone for Claudius, I am half sorry that Petronius was not the man. We could have borne it better from his character, than from one who professed the severity of virtue, to make a cuckold of his emperor and benefactor. But let the historian answer for his own relation; only, if true, it is so much the worse that Seneca, after having abused his bed, could not let him sleep quiet in his grave. The Apocolocynthisis, or mock deification of Claudius, was too sharp and insulting on his memory; and Seneca, though he could preach forgiveness to others, did not practise it himself in that satire. Where was the patience and insensibility of a Stoic, in revenging his banishment with a libel? Where was the morality of a philosopher, in defaming and exposing of an harmless fool? And where was common humanity, in railing against the dead? But the talent of his malice is visible in other places: he censures Mæcenas, and I believe justly, for the looseness of his manners, the voluptuousness of his life, and the effeminacy of his style; but it appears that he takes pleasure in so doing, and that he never forced his nature when he spoke ill of any man. For his own style, we see what it is; and if we may be as bold with him as he has been with our old patron, we may call it a shattered eloquence, not vigorous, not united, not embodied,