No path to fame our poets left untried;
Nor small their merit, when with conscious pride
They scorn’d to take from Greece the storied theme,
But dar’d to sing their own domestic fame. 

          
                                                          FRANCIS’S HORACE.

Section V.

[a] There were at Rome several eminent men of the name of Bassus.  With regard to the person here called Saleius Bassus, the commentators have not been able to glean much information.  Some have contended that it was to him Persius addressed his sixth satire: 

Admovit jam bruma foco te, Basse, Sabino.

But if we may believe the old scholiast, his name was CAESIUS BASSUS, a much admired lyric poet, who was living on his own farm, at the time when Mount Vesuvius discharged its torrents of fire, and made the country round a scene of desolation.  The poet and his house were overwhelmed by the eruption of the lava, which happened A.U. 832, in the reign of Titus.  Quintilian says of him (b. x. chap. 1.), that if after Horace any poet deserves to be mentioned, Caesius Bassus was the man. Si quem adjicere velis, is erit Caesius Bassus. Saleius Bassus is mentioned by Juvenal as an eminent poet in distress: 

——­At Serrano tenuique Saleio
Gloria quantalibet quid erit, si gloria tantum est? 
SAT. vii. ver. 80.

But to poor Bassus what avails a name,
To starve on compliments and empty fame! 
DRYDEN’S JUVENAL.

Quintilian says, he possessed a poetic genius, but so warm and vehement, that, even in an advanced age, his spirit was not under the control of sober judgement. Vehemens et poeticum ingenium SALEII BASSI fuit; nec ipsum senectute maturum. This passage affords an insuperable argument against Lipsius, and the rest of the critics who named Quintilian as a candidate for the honour of this elegant composition.  Can it be imagined that a writer of fair integrity, would in his great work speak of Bassus as he deserved, and in the Dialogue overrate him beyond all proportion?  Duplicity was not a part of Quintilian’s character.

[b] Tacitus, it may be presumed with good reason, was a diligent reader of Cicero, Livy, Sallust, and Seneca.  He has, in various parts of his works, coincidences of sentiment and diction, that plainly shew the source from which they sprung.  In the present case, when he calls eloquence a buckler to protect yourself, and a weapon to annoy your adversary, can anyone doubt but he had his eye on the following sentence in Cicero de Oratore? Quid autem tam necessarium, quam tenere semper arma, quibus vel tectus ipse esse possis, vel provocare integros, et te ulcisci lacessitus?