The
Augustan
age was over.
Tacitus
The favour
conferred, if redemanded, ceases to be a favour. _Magnum proventum
poetarum annus hic attulit. Toto mense Aprili nullus fere dies, quo
non recitaret aliquis. Tametsi ad audiendum pigre coitur. Plerique in
stationibus sedent, tempusque audiendis fabulis conterunt, ac subinde
sibi nuntiari jubent, an jam recitator intraverit, an dixerit
præfationem, an ex magná parte evolverit librum? Tum demum, ac tune
quoque lentè, cunctanterque veniunt, nec tamen remanent, sed ante
finem recedunt; alii dissimulanter, ac furtim, alii, simpliciter, ac
liberè. Sed tanto magis laudandi probandique sunt, quos a scribendi
recitandique studio hæc auditorum vel desidia, vel superbia non
retardat. Equidem prope nemini defui: his ex causis longius, quam
destinaveram, tempus in urbe consumpsi. Possum jam repetere secessum,
et scribere aliquid, quod non recitem, ne videar, quorum
recitationibus affui, non auditor fuisse, sed creditor. Nam, ut in
cæteris rebus, ita in audiendi officio, perit gratia si reposcatur. _
Pliny, lib. i. ep. 13. Such was the state of literature under the
worst of the emperors.
The Augustan age was over. In the reigns of
Tiberius and Caligula learning drooped, but in some degree revived
under the dull and stupid Claudius. Pliny, in the letter above cited,
says of that emperor, that, one day hearing a noise in his palace, he
enquired what was the cause, and, being informed that Nonianus was
reciting in public, went immediately to the place, and became one of
the audience. After that time letters met with no encouragement from
the great. Lord Shaftesbury says, he cannot but wonder how the Romans,
after the extinction of the _Cæsarean_ and _Claudian_ family, and a
short interval of princes raised and destroyed with much disorder and
public ruin, were able to regain their perishing dominion, and
retrieve their sinking state, by an after-race of wise and able
princes, successively adopted, and taken from a private state to rule
the empire of the world. They were men, who not only possessed the
military virtues, and supported that sort of discipline in the
highest degree; but as they sought the interest of the world, they
did what was in their power to restore liberty, and raise again the
perishing arts, and the decayed virtue of mankind. But the season was
past: _barbarity_ and _gothicism_ were already entered into the arts,
ere the savages made an impression on the empire. See _Advice to an
Author_, part. ii. s. 1. The _gothicism_, hinted at by Shaftesbury,
appears manifestly in the wretched situation to which the best authors
were reduced. The poets who could not hope to procure an audience,
haunted the baths and public walks, in order to fasten on their
friends, and, at any rate, obtain a hearing for their works. Juvenal
says, the plantations and marble columns of Julius Fronto resounded
with the vociferation of reciting poets:
Frontonis platani convulsaque marmora clamant
Semper, et assiduo ruptæ lectore columnæ.
Expectes eadem a summo minimoque poetâ.
SAT.
conferred, if redemanded, ceases to be a favour. _Magnum proventum
poetarum annus hic attulit. Toto mense Aprili nullus fere dies, quo
non recitaret aliquis. Tametsi ad audiendum pigre coitur. Plerique in
stationibus sedent, tempusque audiendis fabulis conterunt, ac subinde
sibi nuntiari jubent, an jam recitator intraverit, an dixerit
præfationem, an ex magná parte evolverit librum? Tum demum, ac tune
quoque lentè, cunctanterque veniunt, nec tamen remanent, sed ante
finem recedunt; alii dissimulanter, ac furtim, alii, simpliciter, ac
liberè. Sed tanto magis laudandi probandique sunt, quos a scribendi
recitandique studio hæc auditorum vel desidia, vel superbia non
retardat. Equidem prope nemini defui: his ex causis longius, quam
destinaveram, tempus in urbe consumpsi. Possum jam repetere secessum,
et scribere aliquid, quod non recitem, ne videar, quorum
recitationibus affui, non auditor fuisse, sed creditor. Nam, ut in
cæteris rebus, ita in audiendi officio, perit gratia si reposcatur. _
Pliny, lib. i. ep. 13. Such was the state of literature under the
worst of the emperors.
The Augustan age was over. In the reigns of
Tiberius and Caligula learning drooped, but in some degree revived
under the dull and stupid Claudius. Pliny, in the letter above cited,
says of that emperor, that, one day hearing a noise in his palace, he
enquired what was the cause, and, being informed that Nonianus was
reciting in public, went immediately to the place, and became one of
the audience. After that time letters met with no encouragement from
the great. Lord Shaftesbury says, he cannot but wonder how the Romans,
after the extinction of the _Cæsarean_ and _Claudian_ family, and a
short interval of princes raised and destroyed with much disorder and
public ruin, were able to regain their perishing dominion, and
retrieve their sinking state, by an after-race of wise and able
princes, successively adopted, and taken from a private state to rule
the empire of the world. They were men, who not only possessed the
military virtues, and supported that sort of discipline in the
highest degree; but as they sought the interest of the world, they
did what was in their power to restore liberty, and raise again the
perishing arts, and the decayed virtue of mankind. But the season was
past: _barbarity_ and _gothicism_ were already entered into the arts,
ere the savages made an impression on the empire. See _Advice to an
Author_, part. ii. s. 1. The _gothicism_, hinted at by Shaftesbury,
appears manifestly in the wretched situation to which the best authors
were reduced. The poets who could not hope to procure an audience,
haunted the baths and public walks, in order to fasten on their
friends, and, at any rate, obtain a hearing for their works. Juvenal
says, the plantations and marble columns of Julius Fronto resounded
with the vociferation of reciting poets:
Frontonis platani convulsaque marmora clamant
Semper, et assiduo ruptæ lectore columnæ.
Expectes eadem a summo minimoque poetâ.
SAT.
