tells us) to enervate manly eloquence, by tropes and figures,ill placed,and worse applied. Amongst the poets, Persius covertly strikes at Nero of whose verses he recites with scorn and indig.

; some

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 Batire 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 The bent of our desires! [how vain Thy spleen contain: For none will read thy satires. PER.

FRIEND.

scend

say,

This to me? FRIEND. None; or what's next to none, but 'Tis hard, I grant. [two or three. PDR. 'Tis nothing; I can bear That paltry scribblers have the public ear: That this vast universal fool, the Town, Should cry up Labeo's stuff, and cry me down. 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 sav,-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 scour'd to whiteness,

wear:

A birth-day jewel bobbing at their ear.

1

Next, gargle well their throats, and thus pre par'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
A general fame, and his own lines neglect?
In cedar tablets worthy to appear,
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 regant of the duration of the wood ill verses might justly be afraid of frankincense; for the pa pers 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.

Nor paint the flow'ry fields, that paint them selves before.

Where Romulus was bred, and Quintius born, Whose shining ploughshare was in furrows

worn,

Met by his trembling wife, returning home,
And rustically joy'd, as chief of Rome :
She wip'd the sweat from the dictator's brow,
And o'er his back his robe did rudely throw;
The lictors bore in state their lord's triumphant
plough.

Some love to hear the fustian poet roar;
And some on antiquated authors pore:
Rummage for sense; and think those only good
Who labour most, and least are understood.
When thou shalt see the blear-ey'd fathers
teach

Their sons, this harsh and mouldy sort of speech;
Or others new affected ways to try,
Of wantor 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

With languishing regards, and bending head? PER. Their crooked horns the Mimallo nian 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 controll'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.

LET this auspicious morning be exprest
With a white stone,* distinguish'd from the
rest:

White as thy fame, and as thy honour clear;
And let new joys attend on thy new added year.
Indulge thy genius, and o'erflow thy soul,
Till thy wit sparkle, like the cheerful bowl.
Pray; for thy prayers the test of heaven will
bear;

Nor need'st thou take the gods aside, to hear:
While others, e'en the mighty men of Rome,
Big swell'd with mischief, to the temples come;
And in low murmurs, and with costly smoke,
Heaven's help, to prosper their black vows, in-
voke,

So boldly to the gods mankind reveal
What from each other they, for shame, conceal.
Give me good fame, ye Powers, and make
me just:

'Thus much the rogue to public ears will trust; In private then: When wilt thou, mighty Jove,

My wealthy uncle from this world remove?
Or-O thou Thunderer's son, great Hercules,
That once thy bounteous deity would please
To guide my rake, upon the chinking sound
Of some vast treasure, hidden under ground!

O were my pupil fairly knock'd o' the head;
I should possess the estate, if he were dead!
He's so far gone with rickets, and with the evil,
That one small dose will send him to the devil.
This is my neighbour Nerius his third spouse,
Of whom in happy time he rids his house.
But my eternal wife!-Grant heaven I may
Survive to see the fellow of this day!
Thus, that thou mayest the better bring about
Thy wishes, thou art wickedly devout:

•White stone] The Romans were used to mark their fortunate days, or any thing that luckily befell them, with a white stone which they had from the aland Creta: and their unfortunate with a coal.

In Tyber ducking thrice, by break of day,
To wash the obscenities of night away.f
But pr'y thee tell me, ('t is a small request)
With what ill thoughts of Jove art thou possest?
Wouldst thou prefer him to some man? Sup-

pose

I dipp'd among the worst, and Staius chose? Which of the two would thy wise head declare The trustier tutor to an orphan heir? Or, put it thus:-Unfold to Staius, straight, What to Jove's ear thou didst impart of late: He'll stare, and, O good Jupiter! will cry; Canst thou indulge him in this villany! [then, And think'st thou, Jove himself, with patience Can hear a prayer condemn'd by wicked men? That, void of care, he lolls supine in state, And leaves his bus'ness to be done by fate? Because his thunder splits some burly tree, And is not darted at thy house and thee? Or that his vengeance falls not at the time, And makes thee a sad object of our eyes, Just at the perpetration of thy crime: Fit for Ergenna's pray'r and sacrifice ? What well-fed offering to appease the god, What powerful present to procure a nod, Hast thou in store? What bribe hast thou prepar'd,

To pull him, thus unpunish'd, by the beard. Our superstitions with our life begin, The obscene old grandam, or thy next of kin, The new-born infant from the cradle takes, And first of spittle a lustration makes : Then in the spawl her middle finger dips, Pretending force of magic to prevent, Anoints the temples, forehead, and the lips, Then dandles him with many a mutter'd prayes By virtue of her nasty excrement. That heaven would make him some rich miser's Lucky to ladies, and, in time, a king; [heir. Which to ensure, she adds a length of navel

string.

Suppose they were indulgent to thy wish:
Yet the fat entrails, in the spacious dish,
Would stop the grant: the very over-care,
And nauseous pomp, would hinder half the
prayer.

Thou hop'st with sacrifice of oxen slain

To compass wealth, and bribe the god of gain To give thee flocks and herds, with large in

crease;

Fool: to expect them from a bullock's grease! And think'st that when the fatten'd flames asrire,

Thou seest the accomplishment of thy desire: Now, now, my bearded harvest gilds the plain, The scanty folds can scarce my sheep contain, And showers of gold come pouring in amain! Thus dreams the wretch, and vainly thus dreams

on,

Till his lank purse declares his money gone.

Should I present thee with rare figur'd plate, Or gold rich in workmanship as weight; O how thy rising heart would throb and beat, And thy left side, with trembling pleasure, sweat!

Thou measur'st by thyself the Powers Divine; Thy gods are burnish'd gold, and silver is their Thy puny godlings of inferior race,

[shrine.

Whose humble statues are content with brass, Should some of these, in visions purg'd from phlegm,

Foretell events, or in a morning dream

E'en those thou wouldst in veneration hold; And, if not faces, give 'em beards of gold. The priests in temples, now no longer care For Saturn's brass, or Numa's earthenware ;t Or vestal urns, in each religious rite This wicked gold has put 'em all to flight. O souls, in whom no heavenly fire is found, Fat minds, and ever groveling on the ground! We bring our manners to the blest abodes, And think what pleases us must please the gods. Of oil and cassia one the ingredients takes, And, of the mixture, a rich ointment makes : Another finds the way to dye in grain: [stain; And make Calabrian wool receive the Tyrian Or from the shells their orient treasure takes, Or, for their golden ore, in rivers rakes; Then melts the mass: all these are vanities! Yet still some profit from their pains may rise: But tell me, priest, if I may be so bold, What are the gods the better for this gold? The wretch that offers from his wealthy store These presents, bribes the Powers to give him

more:

• For Saturn's brass, &c.] Brazen vessels, in which the public treasure of the Romans was kept.

Numa's earthenware] Under Num, the second king of Rome, and for a long time after him, the boly vessels for sacrifice were of earthenware.

As maids to Venus offer baby-toys,
To bless the marriage-bed with girls and boys.
But let us for the gods a gift prepare,
Which the great man's great chargers canno
bear:

A soul, where laws both human and divine,
In practice more than speculation shine:
A genuine virtue, of a vigorous kind,
Pure in the last recesses of the mind:
When with such offerings to the gods I come,
A cake, thus given, is worth a hecatomb.

THE THIRD SATIRE OF PERSIUS.§

THE ARGUMENT.

Our author has made two satires concerning study; the first and the third: the first related to men; this to young students, whom he desired to be educated in the Stoic philosophy: he himself sustains the person of the master, or preceptor, in this admirable satire, where he upbraids the youth of sloth, and negligence in learning. Yet he begins with one scholar reproac`ing his fellow students with late rising to their books. After which he takes upon him the other part, of the teacher. And addressing himself particularly to young noblemen, tells them, that by reason of their high birth, and the great possessions of their fathers, they are careless of adorning their minds with precepts of moral philosophy and withal, inculcates to them the miseries which will attend them in the whole course of their life, if they do not apply themselves betimes to the knowledge of virtue, and the end of their creation, which he pa thetically insinuates to them. The title of this satire,in some ancient manuscripts, was, The Re proach of Idleness; though in others of the scholiasts it is inscribed, Against the Luxury and Vices of the Rich. In both of which the intention of the poet is pursued ; but principally in the for

mer.

Is this thy daily course? The glaring sun
Breaks in at every chink: the cattle run
To shades, and noontide rays of summer shun,
Yet plung'd in sloth we lie; and snore supine,
As fill'd with fumes of undigested wine.

This grave advice some sober student bears;
And loudly rings it in his fellow's ears.
The yawning youth, scarce half awake, essays
His lazy limbs and dozy head to raise :
Then rubs his gummy eyes, and scrubs his pate
And cries, I thought it had not been so late :

↑ As maids to Venus, &c.] Those baby-toys were little babies, or poppets, as we call them; in Latin pupae; which the girls, when they came to the age of puberty, or child-bearing, offered to Venus; as the boys at fourteen or fifteen years of age offered their bullæ, or bosses.

§ I remember I translated this satire, when I was a King's scholar at Westminster-school, for a Thursday-night's Exercise; and believe that it, and many other of my Exercises of this nature, in Eng. lish verse, are still in the hands of my learned master, the Reverend Doctor Busby.