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A soul, that can securely death defy;
And count it nature's privilege, to die;
Serene and manly, harden'd to sustain
The load of life, and exercis'd in pain:
Guiltless of hate, and proof against desire;
That all things weighs, and nothing can admire:
That dares prefer the toils of Hercules
To dalliance, banquet, and ignoble ease.

The path to peace is virtue: what I show,
Thyself may freely on thyself bestow:
Fortune was never worshipp'd by the wise;
But, set aloft by fools, usurps the skies.

THE SIXTEENTH SATIRE OF
JUVENAL.

THE ARGUMENT.

The poet in this satire proves, that the condition of a soldier is much better than that of a countryman: first, because a countryman, however af fronted, provoked. and struck himself, dares not strike a soldier; who is only to be judged by a court martial: and by the law of Camillus, which -obliges him not to quarrel without the trenches, he is also assured to have a speedy hearing, and quick despatch: whereas the townsman or peasant is delayed in his suit by frivolous pre

tences, and not sure of justice when he is heard in the court. The soldier is also privileged to make a will, and to give away his estate, which he got in war, to whom he pleases, without consideration of parentage or relations, which is denied to all other Romans. This satire was written by Juvenal when he was a commander in Egypt: itis certainly his, though I think it not finished. And if it be well observed, you will find he intended an invective against a standing army. WHAT vast prerogatives,* my Gallus, are Accruing to the mighty man of war: For, if into a lucky camp I light, Though raw in arms, and yet afraid to fight, Befriend me, my good stars, and all goes right: One happy hour is to a soldier better, Than mother Juno's recommending letter, t Or Venus, when to Mars she would prefer My suit, and own the kindness done to her. See what our common privileges are: As, first, no зaucy citizen shall dare To strike a soldier, nor, when struck, resent The wrong, for fear of farther punishment : Not though his teeth are beaten out, his eyes Hang by a string, in bumps his forehead rise, Shall he presume to mention his disgrace, Or beg amends for his demolish'd face. A booted judge shall sit to try his cause, Not by the statute, but by martial laws;

• What vast prerogatives] This satire is much inferior to the rest. The old scholiast denies that it is by Juvenal. I suppose Dryden was forced to add it to fill up his volume.-Barten Holyday's notes, added to his translation of Juvenal, are worth reading. Dr. J. W.

*Juno was mother to Mars the god of war : Venus was his mistress.

VOL. I.-24

Which old Camillust order'd, to confine
The brawls of soldiers to the trench and line;
A wise provision; and from thence 't is clear,
That officers a soldier's cause should hear:
And taking cognizance of wrongs receiv'd,
An honest man may hope to be reliev'd.
So far 't is well: but with a gen'ral cry,
The regiment will rise in mutiny,
The freedom of their fellow-rogue demand,
And, if refus'd, will threaten to disband.
Withdraw thy action, and depart in peace;
The remedy is worse than the disease:
This cause is worthy him,§ who in the hall
Would for his fee, and for his client, bawl:
But wouldst thou, friend, who hast two legs
alone
[thy own,)
(Which, heav'n be prais', thou yet mayst call
Wouldst thou to run the gauntlet these expose
To a whole company of hob-nail'd shoes?
Sure the good-breeding of wise citizens
Should teach 'em more good-nature to their
shins.

[friend,

Besides, whom canst thou think so much thy
Who dares appear thy business to defend ?
Dry up thy tears, and pocket up th' abuse,
Nor put thy friend to make a bad excuse:
The judge cries out, Your evidence produce.
Will he, who saw the soldier's mutton-fist,
And saw thee maul'd, appear within the list,
To witness truth? When I see one so brave
The dead, think I, are risen from the grave;
And with their long spade beards, and matted
hair,

Our honest ancestors are come to take the air.
Against a clown, with more security,
A witness may be brought to swear a lie,
To vouch a truth against a man of war.
Than, though his evidence be full and fair,

More benefits remain, and claim'd as rights,
Which are a standing army's perquisites.
If any rogue vexatious suits advance
Against me for my known inheritance,
Enter by violence my fruitful grounds,
Or take the sacred landmark from my bounds,T

Camillus(who being first banished by his ungrate ful countrymen the Romans, afterwards returned, and freed them from the Gauls) made a law, which prohibited the soldiers from quarrelling without the camp, lest upon that pretence they might happen to be absent when they ought to be on duty.

$ This cause is worthy him, &c.] The poet names a Modenese lawyer, whom he calls Vacellius; who was 30 impudent that he would plead any cause, right or wrong, without shame or fear.

Hob-nail'd shoes] The Roman soldiers wore plates of iron under their shoes, or stuck them with nails, as countrymen do now.

Landmarks were used by the Romans, almost in the same manner as now; and as we go once a year in procession, about the bounds of parishes, and renew them, so they offered cakes upon the stone or land.

Those bounds which, with procession and with pray'r,

And offer'd cakes, have been my annual care:
Or if my debtors do not keep their day,
Deny their hands, and then refuse to pay;
I must with patience all the terms attend,
Among the common causes that depend,
Till mine is call'd; and that long look'd-for day
Is still encumber'd with some new delay:
Perhaps the cloth of state is only spread,*
Some of the quorum may be sick a-bed; [this
That judge is hot, and doff's his gown, while
O'er night was bousy, and goes out to piss:
So many rubs appear, the time is gone
For hearing, and the tedious suit goes on:
But buff and beltman never know these cares,
No time, no trick of law, their action bars:
Their cause they to an easier issue put:
They will be heard, or they lug out, and cut.
Another branch of their revenue still
Remains beyond their boundless right to kill,

The Courts of Judicature were hung and spread, as with us; but spread only before the hundred judges were to sit and judge public causes, which were called by lot.

Their father yet alive, impower'd to make a
will.t
[clares,

For, what their prowess gain'd, the law de
Is to themselves alone, and to their heirs:
No share of that goes back to the begetter,
But if the son fights well, and plunders better,
Like stout Coranus, his old shaking sire
Does a remembrance in his will desire:
Inquisitive of fights, and longs in vain
To find him in the number of the slain:
But still he lives, and, rising by the war,
Enjoys his gains, and has enough to spare;
For 't is a noble general's prudent part
To cherish valour, and reward desert: [whore;
Let him be daub'd with lace, live high, and
Sometimes be lousy, but be never poor.

The Roman soldiers had the privilege of making a will, in their father's life-time, of what they had purchased in the wars, as being no part of their patrimony. By this will they had power of excluding their own parents, and giving the estate so gotten to whom they pleased. Therefore, says the poet, Coranus (a soldier contemporary with Juvenal, who had raised his fortune by the wars) was courted by his own father, to make him his heir.

TRANSLATIONS FROM PERSIUS.

THE FIRST SATIRE OF PERSIUS.

ARGUMENT OF THE PROLOGUE.

The design of the author was to conceal his name and quality. He lived in the dangerous times of the tyrant Nero; and aims particularly at him in most of his satires. For which reason, though he was a Roman knight,and of a plentiful fortune,he would appear in this prologue but a beggarly poet, who writes for bread. After this, he breaks into the business of the first satire; which is chiefly to decry the poetry then in fashion, and the impudence of those who were endeavouring to pass their stuff upon the world.

PROLOGUE TO THE FIRST SATIRE.

I NEVER did on cleft Parnassus dream,
Nor taste the sacred Heliconian stream;
Nor can remember when my brain inspir'd,
Was by the Muses into madness fir'd.
My share in pale Pyrene I resign;
And claim no part in all the mighty Nine.
Statues, with winding ivy crown'd, belong
To nobler poets, for a nobler song:
Heedless of verse, and hopeless of the crown,

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tells us) to enervate manly eloquence, by tropes and figures,ill placed,and worse applied. Amongst the poets, Persius covertly strikes at Nero; some of whose verses he recites with scorn and indig. nation. He also takes notice of the noblemen and their abominable poetry, who, in the luxury of their fortune, set up for wits and judges. The satire is in dialogue, betwixt the author and his friend or monitor; who dissuades him from this dangerous attempt of exposing great men. But Persius, who is of a free spirit, and has not forgot. ten that Rome was once a commonwealth, breaks through all those difficulties, and boldly arraigns the false judgment of the age in which he lives. -The reader may observe that our poet was a Stoic philosopher; and that all his moral sentences, both here and in all the rest of his satires, are drawn from the dogmas of that sect.

PERSIUS. How anxious are our cares, and yet [how vain Thy spleen contain:

The bent of our desires!

FRIEND.
For none will read thy satires.
PER.

scend

say,

This to me? FRIEND. None; or what's next to none, but 'Tis hard, I grant. [two or three. PER. "T is nothing; I can bear That paltry scribblers have the public ear: That this vast universal fool, the Town, Should Labeo's stuff, and cry me down. cry up They damn themselves; nor will my Muse de [mend: To clap with such, who fools and knaves comTheir smiles and censures are to me the same: I care not what they praise, or what they blame. In full assemblies let the crowd prevail: I weigh no merit by the common scale. The conscience is the test of ev'ry mind; "Seek not thyself, without thyself, to find." But where's that Roman ?-Somewhat I would [way. But Fear;-let Fear, for once, to Truth give Truth lends the Stoic courage: when I look On human acts, and read in Nature's book, From the first pastimes of our infant age, To elder cares, and man's severer page; When stern as tutors, and as uncles hard, We lash the pupil, and defraud the ward: Then, then I say,-or would say, if I durstBut thus provok'd, I must speak out, or burst. FRIEND. Once more forbear. PER. I cannot rule my spleen; My scorn rebels, and tickles me within. First, to begin at home: our authors write In lonely rooms, secur'd from public sight; Whether in prose, or verse, 't is all the same: The prose is fustian, and the numbers lame. All noise, and empty pomp, a storm of words, Lab'ring with sound, that little sense affords. They comb, and then they order ev'ry hair : A gown, or white, or seour'd to whiteness,

wear:

A birth-day jewel bobbing at their ear.

Next, gargle well their throats, and thus prepar'd,

They mount, a God's name, to be seen and heard,

From their high scaffold, with a trumpet cheek,
And ogling all their audience ere they speak.
The nauseous nobles, e'en the chief of Rome
With gaping mouths to these rehearsals come,
And pant with pleasure, when some lusty line
The marrow pierces, and invades the chine.
At
open fulsome bawdry they rejoice,
And slimy jests applaud with broken voice.
Base prostitute, thus dost thou gain thy bread?
Thus dost thou feed their ears, and thus art fed?
At his own filthy stuff he grins and brays:
And gives the sign where he expects their
praise.
[fin'd,
Why have I learn'd, say'st thou, if thus con-
I choke the noble vigour of my mind?
Know, my wild fig-tree, which in rocks is bred,
Will split the quarry, and shoot out the head.
Fine fruits of learning! old ambitious fool,
Dar'st thou apply that adage of the school;
As if 't is nothing worth that lies conceal'd,
And "science is not science till reveal'd ?"

Oh, but 't is brave to be admir'd, to see
The crowd with pointing fingers, cry, That's he:
That's he, whose wondrous poem is become
A lecture for the noble youth of Rome!
Who, by their fathers, is at feasts renown'd;
And often quoted when the bowls go round.
Full gorg'd and flush'd, they wantonly rehearse;
And add to wine the luxury of verse.
One, clad in purple, not to lose his time,
Eats, and recites some lamentable rhyme:
Some senseless Phillis, in a broken note

Snuffling at nose, and croaking in his throat.
Then graciously the mellow audience nod:
Is not th' immortal author made a god?
Are not his manes blest, such praise to have?
Lies not the turf more lightly on his grave?
And roses (while his loud applause they sing)
Stand ready from his sepulchre to spring?

All these, you cry, but light objections are;
Mere malice, and you drive the jest too far.
For does there breathe a man, who can reject
In cedar tablets worthy to appear,'
A general fame, and his own lines neglect?
That need not fish, or frankincense to fear?

*

Thou, whom I make the adverse part to bear, Be answer'd thus: If I by chance succeed In what I write, (and that's a chance indeed) Know, I am not so stupid, or so hard, Not to feel praise, or fame's deserv'd reward:

The Romans wrote on cedar and cypress tables, in regard of the duration of the wood. ill verses might justly be afraid of frankincense; for the papers in which they were written were fit for no thing but to wrap it up.

But this I cannot grant, that thy applause
Is my work's ultimate, or only, cause.
Prudence can ne'er propose so mean a prize;
For mark what vanity within it lies.
Like Labeo's Iliads, in whose verse is found
Nothing but trifling care, and empty sound:
Such little elegies as nobles write,
Who would be poets, in Apollo's spite.
Them and their woful works the Muse defies:
Products of citron beds, and golden canopies.*
To give thee all thy due, thou hast the heart
To make a supper, with a fine dessert;
And to thy thread-bare friend, a cast old suit
impart.

Thus brib'd, thou thus bespeak'st him, Tell
me, friend,

(For I love truth, nor can plain speech offend,)
What
says the world of me and of my Muse?
The poor dare nothing tell but flatt'ring news:
But shall I speak? Thy verse is wretched
rhyme;

And all thy labours are but loss of time.
Thy strutting belly swells, thy paunch is high,
Thou writ'st not, but thou pissest poetry.

All authors to their own defects are blind;
Hadst thou but, Janus-like, a face behind,
To see the people, what splay-mouths they
make;

To mark their fingers, pointed at thy back:
Their tongues loll'd out, a foot beyond the pitch,
When most a-thirst, of an Apulian bitch
But noble scribblers are with flatt'ry fed;
For none dare find their faults, who eat their
bread.

To
pass the poets of patrician blood,
What is 't the common reader takes for good?
The verse in fashion is, when numbers flow,
Soft without sense, and without spirit slow
So smooth and equal, that no sight can find
The rivet, where the polish'd piece was join'd.
So even all, with such a steady view,
As if he shut one eye to level true.
Whether the vulgar vice his satire stings,
The people's riots, or the rage of kings,
The gentle poet is alike in all;

His reader hopes no rise, and fears no fall. FRIEND. Hourly we see some raw pinfeather'd thing

Attempt to mount, and fights and heroes sing;
Who for false quantities was whipt at school
But t'other day, and breaking grammar rule,
Whose trival art was never tried above
"The bare description of a native grove:
Who knows not how to praise the country store,
The feasts, the baskets, nor the fatted boar;

*Products of citron beds, &c.] Writings of noblemen whose bedsteads were of the wood of citron.

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Their sons, this harsh and mouldy sort of speech;
Or others new affected ways to try,
Of wanton smoothness, female poetry;
One would inquire from whence this motley style
Did first our Roman purity defile:

For our old dotards cannot keep their seat;
But leap and catch at all that's obsolete.

Others, by foolish ostentation led,
When call'd before the bar, to save their head,
Bring trifling tropes instead of solid sense:
And mind their figures more than their defence.
Are pleas'd to hear their thick-skull'd judges cry,
Well mov'd, oh finely said, and decently!
Theft (says the accuser) to thy charge I lay,
O Pedius say! what does gentle Pedius say?
Studious to please the genius of the times
With periods, points, and tropes, he slurs his
crimes :

"He robb'd not, but he borrow'd from the poor;
And took but with intention to restore."
He lards with flourishes his long harangue
'T is fine, say'st thou: What, to be prais'd and
hang?

Effeminate Roman, shall such stuff prevail
To tickle thee, and make thee wag thy tail?
Say, should a shipwreck'd sailor sing his wo,
Wouldst thou be mov'd to pity, or bestow [see
An alms? What's more preposterous than to
A merry beggar? Mirth in misery?

PER. He seems a trap, for charity, to lay: And cons, by night, his lesson for the day. FRIEND. But to raw numbers, and un

finish'd verse,

Sweet sound is added now, to make it terse : "'Tis tagg'd with ryhme, like Berecynthian Atys, [flat is.

The mid-part chimes with art, which never The dolphin brave, that cuts the liquid wave, Or he who in his line, can chine the long-ribb'd Apennine."

PER. All this is doggerel stuff.

FRIEND.

What if I bring
A nobler verse? "Arms and the man I sing."
PER. Why name you Virgil with such fops
as these?

He's truly great, and must for ever please;
Not fierce, but awful is his manly page;
Bold is his strength, but sober is his rage.
FRIEND. What poems think you soft? and
to be read

With languishing regards, and bending head? PER. "Their crooked horns the Mimallonian crew

With blasts inspir'd; and Bassaris who slew
The scornful calf, with sword advanc'd on high,
Made from his neck his haughty head to fly.
And Manas, when, with ivy bridles bound,
She led the spotted lynx, then Evion rung
around;

Evion from woods and floods repairing echoes
sound."
[come,
Could such rude lines a Roman mouth be-
Were any manly greatness left in Rome?
Manas and Atys in the mouth were bred;
And never hatch'd within the lab'ring head:
No blood from bitten nails those poems drew:
But churn'd, like spittle, from the lips they flew.
FRIEND. 'Tis fustian all; 't is execrably

bad:

But if they will be fools, must you be mad? Your satires, let me tell you, are too fierce; The great will never bear so blunt a verse. Their doors are barr'd against a bitter flout.: Snarl, if you please, but you shall snarl without. Expect such pay as railing rhymes deserve, You're in a very hopeful way to starve.

PER. Rather than so, uncensur'd let 'em be; All, all is admirably well, for me. My harmless rhyme shall scape the dire disgrace Of common-shores, and every pissing place. Two painted serpents shall on high, appear; 'Tis holy ground; you must not urine here. This shall be writ to fright the fry away, Who draw their little baubles, when they play. Yet old Lucilius never fear'd the times, But lash'd the city, and dissected crimes. Mutius and Lupus both by name he brought; He mouth'd 'em, and betwixt his grinders

caught.

Unlike in method, with conceal'd design,
Did crafty Horace his low numbers join:
And with a sly insinuating grace,
Laugh'd at his friend, and look'd him in the face:
Would raise a blush, where secret vice he found;
And tickle, while he gently 'prob'd the wound.
With seeming innocence the crowd beguil'd;
But made the desperate passes, when he smil'd.
Could he do this, and is my Muse control'd
By servile awe? Born free, and not be bold?

At least, I'll dig a hole within the ground;
And to the trusty earth commit the sound:
The reeds shall tell you what the poet fears,
"King Midas has a snout, and asses' ears.'
This mean conceit, this darling mystery,
Which thou think'st nothing, friend, thou shalt
not buy,

Nor will I change, for all the flashy wit,
That flatt'ring Labeo in his Iliads writ.

Thou, if there be a thou in this base town,
Who dares, with angry Eupolis, to frown;
He, who, with bold Cratinus, is inspir'd
With zeal, and equal indignation fir'd;
Who, at enormous villany, turns pale,
And steers against it with a full-blown sail,
Like Aristophanes, let him but smile
On this my honest work, though writ in homely
style;

And if two lines or three in all the vein
Appear less drossy, read those lines again.
May they perform their author's just intent,
Glow in thy ears, and in thy breast ferment.
But from the reading of my book and me,
Be far, ye foes of virtuous poverty:
Who fortune's fault upon the poor can throw ;
Point at the tatter'd coat, and ragged shoe :
Lay nature's failings to their charge, and jeer
The dim weak eye-sight, when the mind is clear.
When thou thyself, thus insolent in state,
Art but, perhaps, some country magistrate;
Whose power extends no farther than to speak
Big on the bench, and scanty weights to break.
Him, also, for my censor I disdain,
Who thinks all science, as all virtue, vain ;
Who counts geometry and numbers toys;
And with his foot the sacred dust destroys;
Whose pleasure is to see a strumpet tear
A Cynic's beard, and lug him by the hair.
Such, all the morning, to the pleadings run;
But when the business of the day is done,
On dice, and drink, and drabs, they spend their
afternoon.

THE SECOND SATIRE OF PERSIUS.

DEDICATED TO HIS FRIEND PLOTIUS MACRINUS, ON HIS BIRTH-DAY.

THE ARGUMENT

This satire contains a most grave and philosophi cal argument, concerning prayers and wishes. Undoubtedly it gave occasion to Juvenal's tenth satire; and both of them had their original from one of Plato's dialogues, called the second Alcibiades. Our author has induced it with great mastery of art; by taking his rise from the birthday of his friend; on which occasion, prayers

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