King George, in a fright,
Lest Gibbon should write
The story of Britain's disgrace,
Thought no means so sure
His pen to secure,
As to give the Historian a place.
But the caution was vain—
'Tis the curse of his reign,
That his projects should never succeed.
Though he write not a line,
Yet a cause of decline
In the Author's example we read.
His book well describes
How corruption and bribes
Overthrew the great Empire of Rome;
And his writings declare
A degeneracy there
Which his conduct exhibits at home.

STATIUS.

In Statius' Poem on the Via Domitiana, are these lines.

Qui primo Tiberim reliquit ortu,
Primo vespere navigat Lucrinum—

making a distance of one hundred and twenty-seven miles commonly travelled by the Romans in one day.