care,

In what thy utmost good? Delicious fare;
And, then, to sun thyself in open air.

Hold, hold; are all thy empty wishes such?
A good old woman would have said as much.
But thou art nobly born: 't is true; go boast
Thy pedigree, the thing thou valuest most :
Besides thou art a beau: what's that, my child?
A fop, well dress'd, extravagant, and wild:
She that cries herbs has less impertinence;
And in her calling, more of common sense.
None, none descends into himself, to find
The secret imperfections of his mind :
But every one is eagle-eyed, to see
Another's faults, and his deformity.
Say, dost thou know Vectidius? Who, the
wretch

Whose lands beyond the Sabines largely stretch;
Cover the country, that a sailing kite
Can scarce o'erfly 'em in a day and night;
Him dost thou mean, who, spite of all his store,
Is ever craving, and will still be poor ?
Who cheats for half-pence, and who doffs his
coat,

To save a farthing in a ferry-boat
Ever a glutton, at another's cost,

But in whose kitchen dwells perpetual frost?
Who eats and drinks with his domestic slaves:
A verier hind than any of his knaves?
Born with the curse and anger of the gods,
And that indulgent genius he defrauds?

Canst punish crimes, &c.] That is, by death. When the judges would condemn a malefactor, they cast their votes into an urn, as according to the modern custom, a balloting-box. If the suffrages were marked with they signified the sentence of death to the offender, as being the first letter of Javaros, which in English is death.

At harvest-home, and on the shearing-day,
When he should thanks to Pan and Pales pay
And better Ceres; trembling to approach
The little barrel, which he fears to broach:
He 'says the wimble, often draws it back,
And deals to thirsty servants but a smack.
To a short meal he makes a tedious grace,
Before the barley pudding comes in place:
Then bids fall on; himself, for saving charges,
A peel'd slic'd onion eats, and tipples verjuice.
Thus fares the drudge: but thou, whose life's
a dream

Of lazy pleasures, tak'st a worse extreme.
'T is all thy business, business how to shun,
To bask thy naked body in the sun;
Suppling thy stiffen'd joints with fragrant oil:
Then, in thy Spacious garden, walk a while,
To suck the moisture up, and soak it in
And this, thou think'st, but vainly think'st, un-
[those

seen.

But, know, thou art observ'd: and there are Who, if they durst, would all thy secret sins expose

The depilation of thy modest part:
Thy catamite, the darling of thy heart,
His engine-hand, and every lewder art.
When prone to bear, and patient to receive,
Thou tak'st the pleasure which thou canst not
give.

With odorous oil thy head and hair are sleek;
And then thou kemb'st the tuzzes on thy cheek:
Of these, thy barbers take a costly care,
While thy salt tail is overgrown with hair.
Not all thy pincers, nor unmanly arts,

Can smooth the roughness of thy shameful parts.
Not five, the strongest that the Circus breeds,
From the rank soil can root those wicked weeds:
Though suppled first with soap, to case thy pain,
The stubborn fern springs up, and sprouts again.

Thus others we with defamations wound, While they stab us; and so the jest goes round, Vain are thy hopes, to 'scape censorious eyes; Truth will appear through all the thin disguise: Thou hast an ulcer which no leech can heal, Though thy broad shoulder-belt the wound conceal.

Say thou art sound and hale in every part,
We know, we know thee rotten at thy heart.
We know thee sullen, impotent, and proud:
Nor canst thou cheat thy nerve,who cheat'st the
crowd.

But when they praise me, in the neighbourhood,

When the pleas'd people take me for a god,
Shall I refuse their incense? Not receive
The loud applauses which the vulgar give?

If thou dost wealth, with longing eyes, behold; And greedily art gaping after gold;

If thy lewd lust provokes an empty storm,
And prompts to more than nature can perform;
If, with thy guards, thou scour'st the streets by
night,*

And dost in murders, rapes, and spoils delight;
Please not thyself, the flattering crowd to hear;
'Tis fulsome stuff to feed thy itching ear.
Reject the nauseous praises of the times:
Give thy base poets back their cobbled rhymes:
Survey thy soul, not what thou dost appear,
But what thou art; and find the beggar there.

THE FIFTH SATIRE OF PERSIUS. INSCRIBED TO THE REV. DR. BUSBY. THE ARGUMENT.

The judicious Casaubon, in his proem to this satire, tells us, that Aristophanes, the grammarian, being asked, what poem of Archilochus his lambics he preferred before the rest; answered the longest. His answer may justly be applied to this fifth satire which, being of a greater length than any of the rest, is also, by far, the most instructive: for this reason I have selected it from all the others, and inscribed it to my learned master, Dr. Busby; to whom I am not only obliged myself for the best part of my own education, and that of my two sons, but have also received from him the first and truest taste of Persius. May he be pleased to find in this translation, the gratitude, or at least some small acknowledgment of his unworthy scholar, at the distance of forty-two years, from the time when I departed from under his tuition.

This satire consists of two distinct parts: the

Whether to the well-lung'd tragedian's rage
They recommend the labours of the stage,
Or sing the Parthian, when transfix'd he lies,
Wrenching the Roman javelin from his thighs.
COR. And why wouldst thou these mighty
morsels choose,

Of words unchew'd, and fit to choke the muse?
Let fustian poets with their stuff be gone,
And suck the mists that hang o'er Helicon ;
When Progne's for Thyestes' feast they write;
And, for the mouthing actor, verse indite.
Thou neither, like a bellows, swell'st thy face,
As if thou wert to blow the burning mass
Of melting ore; nor canst thou strain thy throat,
Or murmur in an undistinguish'd note,
Like rolling thunder, till it breaks the cloud,
And rattling nonsense is discharg'd aloud,
Soft elocution does thy style renown,
And the sweet accents of the peaceful gown:
Gentle or sharp, according to thy choice,
To laugh at follies, or to lash at vice.
Hence draw thy theme, and to the stage permit
Raw-head and Bloody-bones, and hands and
feet,

Ragousts for Tereus or Thyestes drest
'Tis task enough for thee to expose a Roman
feast.

PER. 'Tis not, indeed, my talent to engage

In lofty trifles, or to swell my page
With wind and noise; but freely to impart,
As to a friend, the secrets of my heart;
And, in familiar speech, to let thee know
How much I love thee, and how much I owe.
Knock on my heart: for thou hast skill to find
If it sound solid, or be fill'd with wind;

Cornutus, master and tutor of our Persius. It also declares the love and piety of Persius, to his well-deserving master; and the mutual friendship which continued betwixt them, after Persius was now grown a man. As also his exhortation to young noblemen, that they would enter themselves into his institution. From hence he makes an artful transition into the second part of his subject: wherein he first complains of the sloth of scholars, and afterwards persuades them to the pursuit of their true liberty: here our author excellently treats that paradox of the Stoics, which affirms, that the wise or virtuous man is only free, and that all vicious men are naturally slaves. And, in the illustration of this dogma, he takes up the remaining part of this inimitable satire.

THE SPEAKERS PERSIUS AND CORNUTus.

PER. OF ancient use to poets it belongs, To wish themselves a hundred mouths and tongues

If, with thy guards, &c.] Persius durst not nave been so bold with Nero, as I dare now; and therefore there is only an intimation of that in him, which I publicly speak; I mean of Nero's walking the streets by night in disguise; and committing all sorts of outrages; for which he was sometimes well beaten.

naked mind.

For this a hundred voices I desire,

To tell thee what a hundred tongues would tire ;
Yet never could be worthily exprest,
How deeply thou art seated in my breast.
When first my childish robe resign'd the

charge,

And left me, unconfin'd, to live at large;
When now my golden Bulla (hung on high
To household gods) declar'd me past a boy;
And my white shield proclaim'd my liberty
When with my wild companions, I could roll
From street to street, and sin without control:

Progne was wife to Tereus, king of Thracia. Tereus fell in love with Philomela,sister to Progne, ravished her, and cut out her tongue: in revenge of which, Progne killed Itys, her own son by Tereus, and served him up at a feast, to be eaten by his father.

Thyestes and Atreus were brothers, both kings; Atreus, to revenge himself of his unnatural brother killed the sons of Thyestes, and invited him to eat them.

Just at that age, when manhood set me free,
I then depos'd myself, and left the reins to
thee.

On thy wise bosom I repos'd my head,
And by my better Socrates was bred.
Then thy strait rule set virtue in my sight,
The crooked line reforming by the right.
My reason took the bent of thy command,
Was form'd and polish'd by thy skilful hand:
Long summer-days thy precepts I rehearse;
And winter-nights were short in our converse:
One was our labour, one was our repose,
One frugal supper did our studies close.

Sure on our birth some friendly planet shone; And, as our souls, our horoscope was one: Whether the mounting Twins did heaven adorn, Or, with the rising Balance we were born; Both have the same impressions from above; And both have Saturn's rage, repell'd by Jove. What star I know not, but some star I find, Has given thee an ascendant o'er my mind.

COR. Nature is ever various in her frame
Each has a different will, and few the same:
The greedy merchants, led by lucre, run
To the parch'd Indies, and the rising sun;
From thence hot pepper and rich drugs they
bear,

Bartering for spices their Italian ware;
The lazy glutton safe at home will keep,
Indulge his sloth, and batten with his sleep :
One bribes for high preferments in the state;
A second shakes the box, and sits up late:
Another shakes the bed, dissolving there,
Till knots upon his gouty joints appear,
And chalk is in his crippled fingers found;
Rots like a dodder'd oak, and piecemeal falls to
ground;

Then his lewd follies he would late repent;
And his past years, that in a mist were spent.
PER. But thou art pale, in nightly studies,
grown,

To make the Stoic institutes thy own;
Thou long, with studious care, hast till'd our
youth,

And sown our well-purg'd ears with wholesome truth.

From thee both old and young, with profit, learn The bounds of good and evil to discern.

COR. Unhappy he who does this work adjourn,

And to to-morrow would the search delay:
His lazy morrow will be like to-day.

PER. But is one day of ease too much to borrow?

COR. Yes, sure: for yesterday was once to

morrow.

That yesterday is gone, and nothing gain'd: And all thy fruitless days will thus be drain'd;

For thou hast more to-morrows yet to ask,
And wilt be ever to begin thy task;
Who, like the hindmost chariot-wheels, art curst,
Still to be near, but ne'er to reach the first.
O freedom! first delight of human kind!
Not tha which bondmen from their masters find,
The privilege of doles :* not yet to inscribe
Their names in this or t' other Roman tribe :†
That false enfranchisement with ease is found:
Slaves are made citizens by turning round.‡
How, replies one, can any be more free?
Here's Dama, once a groom of low degree,
Not worth a farthing, and a sot beside
So true a rogue, for lying's sake he lied:
But, with a turn, a freeman he became ;
Now Marcus Dama is his worship's name.§
Good gods! who would refuse to lend a sum,
If wealthy Marcus surety will become!
Marcus is made a judge, and for a proof
Of certain truth, He said it, is enough.
A will is to be prov'd; put in your claim,
"T is clear, if Marcus has subscrib'd his name.[[
This is true liberty, as I believe;

What can we farther from our caps receive,T
Than as we please without control to live?
Not more to noble Brutus could belong.
Hold, says the Stoic, your assumption's wrong:
I grant true freedom you have well defin'd:
But, living as you list, and to your mind,
Are loosely tack'd, and must be left behind.
What! since the pretor did my fetters loose,
And left me freely at my own dispose,
May I not live without control and awe,
Excepting still the letter of the law.

Hear me with patience, while thy mind I
free

From those fond notions of false liberty:
'Tis not the pretor's province to bestow
True freedom; nor to teach mankind to know
What to ourselves, or to our friends we owe.
He could not set thee free from cares and strife,
Nor give the reins to a lewd vicious life:

• When a slave was made free, he had the privilege of a Roman born, which was to have a share in the donatives or doles of bread, &c. which were distri buted by the magistrates among the people.

The Roman people was distributed into several tribes: he who was made free was enrolled into some one of them, and thereupon enjoyed the common privileges of a Roman citizen,

The master, who intended to enfranchise a slave, carried him before the city pretor, and turned him round, using these words, "I will that this man be free."

Slaves had only one name before their freedom; after it they were admitted to a Prænomen, like our christened names; so Dama is now called Marcus Dama.

At the proof of a testament, the magistrates were to subscribe their names, as allowing the legality of the will.

given them, in sign of their liberty. Slaves, when they were set free, had a cap

As well he for an ass a harp might string,
Which is against the reason of the thing;
For reason still is whispering in your ear,
Where you are sure to fail, the attempt forbear.
No need of public sanctions this to bind,
Which Nature has implanted in the mind:
Not to pursue the work, to which we're not de-
sign'd.

Unskill'd in hellebore, if thou shouldst try
To mix it, and mistake the quantity,
The rules of physic would against thee cry.
The high-shoed ploughman should he quit the
land,

To take the pilot's rudder in his hand,
Artless of stars, and of the moving sand,
The gods would leave him to the waves and
wind,

And think all shame was lost in human kind. Tell me, my friend, from whence hadst thou the skill,

So nicely to distinguish good from ill?
Or by the sound to judge of gold and brass,
What piece is tinker's metal, what will pass?
And what thou art to follow, what to fly
This to condemn, and that to ratify?
When to be bountiful, and when to spare
But never craving, or oppress'd with care?
The baits of gifts, and money to despise,
And look on wealth with undesiring eyes?
When thou canst truly call these virtues thine,
Be wise and free, by heaven's consent, and
mine.

But thou, who lately of the common strain,
Wert one of us, if still thou dost retain
The same ill habits, the same follies too,
Gloss'd over only with a saint-like show,
Then I resume the freedom which I gave,
Still thou art bound to vice, and still a slave.
Thou canst not wag thy finger, or begin
"The least light motion, but it tends to sin."
How's this? Not wag my finger, he replies?
No, friend; nor fuming gums, nor sacrifice,
Can ever make a madman free or wise.
"Virtue and Vice are never in one soul:
A man is wholly wise, or wholly is a fool."
A heavy bumpkin, taught with daily care, [air.
Can never dance three steps with a becoming
PER. In spite of this, my freedom still re-
[chains?

mains.

COR. Free! what, and fetter'd with so many Canst thou no other master understand Than him that freed thee by the pretor's wand ?* [now, Should he, who was thy lord, command thee With a harsh voice, and supercilious brow,

• The pretor held a wand in his hand, with which

To servile duties, thou wouldst fear no more
The gallows and the whip are out of door.
But if thy passion lord it in thy breast,
Art thou not still a slave, and still opprest?
Whether alone, or in thy harlot's lap,
When thou wouldst take a lazy morning's nap;
Up, up, says Avarice; thou snor'st again,
Stretchest thy limbs, and yawn'st, but all in
vain;

The tyrant Lucre no denial takes;

At his commard the unwilling sluggard wakes: What must I do? he cries: What? says his lord:

Why rise, make ready, and go straight aboard:
With fish, from Euxine seas, thy vessel freight;
Flax, castor, Coan wines, the precious weight
Of pepper, and Sabæan incense, take
With thy own hands, from the tir'd camel'sback:
And with post-haste thy running markets make.
Be sure to turn the penny: lie and swear;
'T is wholesome sin: but Jove, thou say'st, will
hear:

Swear, fool, or starve; for the dilemma's even:
A trademan thou! and hope to go to heaven?

Resolv'd for sea, the slaves thy baggage pack, Each saddled with his burden on his back; Nothing retards thy voyage, now unless, Thy other lord forbids, Voluptuousness: And he may ask this civil question: Friend, What dost thou make a shipboard? to what end?

Art thou of Bethlem's noble college free?
Stark, staring mad, that thou wouldst tempt the
sea?

Cubb'd in a cabin, on a mattrass laid
On a brown george, with lousy swabbers fed,
Dead wine, that stinks of the borrachio, sup
From a foul jack, or greasy maple-cup?
Say, wouldst thou bear all this, to raise thy

store

From six i' the hundred, to six hundred more?
Indulge, and to thy Genius freely give ;
For, not to live at ease, is not to live;
Death stalks behind thee: and each flying hour
Does some loose remnant of thy life devour,
Live, while thou liv'st; for death will make us
all

A name, a nothing but an old wife's tale.

Speak; wilt thou Avarice, or Pleasure,

choose

To be thy lord? Take one, and one refuse. But both, by turns, the rule of thee will have; And thou, betwixt 'em both, wilt be a slave.

Nor think when once thou hast resisted one, That all thy marks of servitude are gone : The struggling greyhound gnaws his leash in vain;

clared him free.

Says Phædria to his man, Believe me,

friend,*

To this uneasy love I'll put an end:
Shall I run out of all? My friends disgrace,
And be the first lewd unthrift of my race?
Shall I the neighbours' nightly rest invade
At her deaf doors, with some vile serenade?
Well hast thou freed thyself, his man replies,
Go, thank the gods, and offer sacrifice.
Ah, says the youth, if we unkindly part,
Will not the poor fond creature break her heart?
Weak soul! and blindly to destruction led!
She break her heart! she'll sooner break your
head.
[swear,
She knows her man, and when you rant and
Can draw you to her with a single hair:
But shall I not return? Now, when she sues?
Shall I my own, and her desires refuse?
Sir, take your course: but my advice is plain:
Once freed, 't is madness to resume your chain.
Ay; there's the man, who loos'd from lust
and pelf,

Less to the pretor owes, than to himself.
But write him down a slave, who, humbly proud
With presents begs preferments from the crowd;
That early suppliant, who salutes the tribes,
And sets the mob to scramble for his bribes;
That some old dotard, sitting in the
sun,
On holydays may tell, that such a feat was done :
In future times this will be counted rare.

Thy superstition too may claim a share; When flowers are strew'd, and lamps in order plac'd,

And windows with illuminations grac'd,

On Herod's day; when sparkling bowls go round,

And tunny's tails in savoury sauce are drown'd, Thou mutter'st prayers obscene; nor durst refuse

The fasts and sabbaths of the curtail'd Jews.

Preach this among the brawny guards, say'st thou,

And see if they thy doctrine will allow;
The dull fat captain, with a hound's deep throat,
Would bellow out a laugh, in a base note,
And prize a hundred Zenos just as much
As a clipt sixpence, or a schilling Dutch.

THE SIXTH SATIRE OF PERSIUS.
TO CESIUS BASSUS, A LYRIC POET;
THE ARGUMENT.

This sixth satire treats an admirable common-place of Moral Philosophy; Of the true Use of Riches. They are certainly intended, by the Power who bestows them, as instruments and helps of living commodiously ourselves, and of administering to the wants of others who are oppressed by fortune. There are two extremes in the opinions of men concerning them. One error, though on the right hand, yet a great one, is, That they are no helps to a virtuous life; The other places all our happiness in the acquisition and possession of them; and this is, undoubtedly, the worse extreme. The mean betwixt these is the opinion of the Stoics; which is, That riches may be useful to the leading a virtuous life; in case we rightly understand how to give according to right reason, and how to receive what is given us by others. The virtue of giving well is called Liberality; and it is of this virtue that Persius writes in this satire, wherein he not only shows the lawful use of riches, but also sharply inveighs against the vices which are opposed to it; and especially of those, which consist in the defects of giving or spending, or in the abuse of riches. He writes to Cæsius Bassus, his friend, and a poet also. Inquires first of his health and studies; and afterwards informs him of his own, and where he is now resident. He gives an account of himself, that he is endeavour. ing by little and little to wear off his vices; and particularly, that he is combating ambition and the desire of wealth. He dwells upon the latter vice; and being sensible that few men either desire or use riches as they ought, he endeavours to convince them of their folly; which is the main design of the whole satire.

seat,

And seek, in Sabine air, a warm retreat?

⚫ This alludes to the play of Terence, called the Eunuch, which was excellently imitated of late in English by Str Charles Sedley. In the first scene of that comedy, Phædria was introduced with this man Pamphilus, discoursing, whether he should leave his mistress Thaias, or return to her, now that she had invited him.

The ancients had a superstition, concerning eggshells; they thought that if an egg-shell were cracked, or a hole bored in the bottom of it, they were subject to the power of sorcery.

Say, dost thou yet the Roman harp command?
Do the strings answer to thy noble hand?
Great master of the muse, inspir'd to sing
The beauties of the first created spring;
The pedigree of nature to rehearse,
And sound the Maker's work, in equal verse.
Now sporting on thy lyre the loves of youth,
Now virtuous age, and venerable truth;
Expressing justly Sappho's wanton art
Of odes, and Pindar's more majestic part.

For me, my warmer constitution wants
More cold, than our Ligurian winter grants;
And therefore to my native shores retir'd,
I view the coast old Ennius once admir'd.