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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 reproaching his fellowstudents 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 pathetically insinuates to them. The title of this Satire, in some ancient manuscripts, was The Reproach 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 former.

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
English verse, are still in the hands of my learned master, the
Reverend Doctor Busby.

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

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With much ado, his book before him laid, And parchment with the smoother side display'd; He takes the papers; lays 'em down again; And, with unwilling fingers, tries the pen : Some peevish quarrel straight he strives to pick; His quill writes double, or his ink 's too thick; Infuse more water; now 'tis grown so thin, It sinks, nor can the character be seen.

O wretch, and still more wretched every day! Are mortals born to sleep their lives away? Go back to what thy infancy began, Thou who wert never meant to be a man: Eat pap and spoon-meat; for thy gewgaws cry; Be sullen, and refuse the lullaby.

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No more accuse thy pen; but charge the crime 30
On native sloth, and negligence of time.
Think'st thou thy master or thy friends to cheat?
Fool, 'tis thyself, and that's a worse deceit.
Beware the public laughter of the town;
Thou spring'st a leak already in thy crown.

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Ver. 17. And parchment, &c.] The students used to write their notes on parchments; the inside, on which they wrote, was white; the other side was hairy, and commonly yellow. Quintilian reproves this custom, and advises rather table-books, lined with wax, and a stile, like that we ase in our vellum table-books, as more easy.

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A fuming-pan thy Lares to appease :
What need of learning when a man's at ease? 45
If this be not enough to swell thy soul,

Then please thy pride, and search the herald's roll,

Where thou shalt find thy famous pedigree Drawn from the root of some old Tuscan tree; And thou, a thousand off, a fool of long degree; Who, clad in purple, canst thy censor greet, And loudly call him cousin in the street.

Such pageantry be to the people shown; There boast thy horse's trappings, and thy own: I know thee to thy bottom; from within Thy shallow centre, to thy outmost skin: Dost thou not blush to live so like a beast, So trim, so dissolute, so loosely drest?

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But 'tis in vain: the wretch is drench'd too deep; His soul is stupid, and his heart asleep; Fatten'd in vice; so callous and so gross, He sins, and sees not; senseless of his loss. Down goes the wretch at once, unskill'd to swim, Hopeless to bubble up, and reach the water's brim.

Great father of the gods, when, for our crimes, 5 Thou send'st some heavy judgment on the times; Some tyrant-king, the terror of his age, The type and true vicegerent of thy rage; Thus punish him: set virtue in his sight, With all her charms adorn'd, with all her graces

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Ver. 44. A fuming-pan, &c.] Before eating, it was customary to cut off some part of the meat, which was first put into a pan, or little dish; then into the fire; as an offering to the household gods; this they called a libation.

Ver. 49. Drawn from the root, &c.] The Thuscans were accounted of most ancient nobility. Horace observes this, in most of his compliments to Mæcenas; who was derived from the old kings of Tuscany, now the dominion of the great duke.

Ver. 51. Who, clad in purple, &c.] The Roman knights, attired in the robe called Trabea, were summoned by the censor to appear before him; and to salute him, in passing by, as their names were called over. They led their horses in their hand. See more of this, in Pompey's life, written by Plutarch.

Ver. 73. Sicilian tortures, &c.] Some of the Sicilian kings were so great tyrants, that the name is become proverbial. The brazen bull is a known story of Phalaris, one of those tyrants, who, when Perillus, a famous artist, had presented him with a bull of that metal hollowed within, which, when the condemned person was inclosed in it, would render the sound of a bull's roaring, caused the workman to make the first experiment.-" Docuitque suum mugire juvencum."

Ver. 76. The wretch, who, sitting, &c.] He alludes to the story of Damocles, a flatterer of one of those Sicilian tyrants, namely Dionysius. Damocles had infinitely extolled the happiness of kings. Dionysius, to convince him of the contrary, invited him to a feast, and clothed him in purple; but caused a sword with the point downward, to be

Hang o'er his head, and hanging by a twine,
Did with less dread, and more securely dine.
Ev'n in his sleep he starts, and fears the knife, 80
And, trembling, in his arms takes his accomplice

wife:

Down, down he goes; and from his darling friend Conceals the woes his guilty dreams portend.

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When I was young, I, like a lazy fool, Would blear my eyes with oil to stay from school: Averse from pains, and loth to learn the part Of Cato, dying with a dauntless heart: Though much my master that stern virtue praised, Which o'er the vanquisher the vanquish'd raised ; And my pleased father came with pride to see His boy defend the Roman liberty.

But then my study was to cog the dice, And dexterously to throw the lucky sice: To shun ames-ace, that swept my stakes away; And watch the box, for fear they should convey False bones, and put upon me in the play. Careful, besides, the whirling top to whip, And drive her giddy, till she fell asleep.

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Thy years are ripe, nor art thou yet to learn What 's good or ill, and both their ends discern: Thou in the Stoic Porch, severely bred, Hast heard the dogmas of great Zeno read: There on the walls, by Polygnotus' hand, The conquer'd Medians in trunk-breeches stand: Where the shorn youth to midnight lectures rise, Roused from their slumbers to be early wise: 106 Where the coarse cake, and homely husks of beans, From pampering riot the young stomach weans: And where the Samian Y directs thy steps to run To Virtue's narrow steep, and broad-way Vice to shun.

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hung over his head, by a silken twine; which, when he perceived, he could eat nothing of the delicates that were set before him.

Ver. 101. Thou in the Stoic Porch, &c.] The Stoics taught their philosophy under a Porticus, to secure their scholars from the weather. Zeno was the chief of that sect. Ver. 103. Polygnotus'] A famous painter, who drew the pictures of the Medes and Persians, conquered by Miltiades, Themistocles, and other Athenian captains, on the walls of the portico, in their natural habits.

Ver. 109. And where the Samian Y, &c.] Pythagoras of Samos made the allusion of the Y, or Greek Upsilon, to vice and virtue. One side of the letter, being broad, characters vice, to which the ascent is wide and easy. The other side represents virtue, to which the passage is strait and difficult; and perhaps our Saviour might also allude to this, in those noted words of the evangelist, "The way to heaven," &c.

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friend;

What's requisite to spare, and what to spend :
Learn this; and after, envy not the store

Of the greased advocate, that grinds the poor;
Fat fees from the defended Umbrian draws;
And only gains the wealthy client's cause:
To whom the Marsians more provision send,
Than he and all his family can spend.
Gammons, that give a relish to the taste,
And potted fowl, and fish, come in so fast.
That, ere the first is out, the second stinks:
And mouldy mother gathers on the drinks.

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But, here, some captain of the land or fleet. Stout of his hands, but of a soldier's wit, Cries, I have sense to serve my turn, in store; 150 And he's a rascal who pretends to more. Dammee, whate'er those book-learn'd blockheads

say,

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Solon's the veriest fool in all the play. Top-heavy drones, and always looking down, (As over-ballasted within the crown!) Muttering betwixt their lips some mystic thing, Which, well examined, is flat conjuring, Mere madmen's dreams: for what the schools have taught,

Is only this, that nothing can be brought From nothing; and, what is, can ne'er be turn'd to nought.

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Is it for this they study? to grow pale,
And miss the pleasures of a glorious meal?
For this, in rags accoutred, are they seen,
And made the may-game of the public spleen?
Proceed, my friend, and rail; but hear me tell
A story, which is just thy parallel.

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A spark, like thee, of the man-killing trade, Fell sick, and thus to his physician said: Methinks I am not right in every part; I feel a kind of trembling at my heart: My pulse unequal, and my breath is strong: Besides a filthy furr upon my tongue. The doctor heard him, exercised his skill: And, after, bid him for four days be still. Three days he took good counsel, and began To mend, and look like a recovering man: The fourth, he could not hold from drink; but sends

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His boy to one of his old trusty friends;
Adjuring him, by all the Powers Divine,
To pity his distress, who could not dine
Without a flagon of his healing wine.
He drinks a swilling draught; and, lined within,
Will supple in the bath his outward skin.
Whom should he find but his physician there,
Who, wisely, bade him once again beware:
Sir, you look wan, you hardly draw your breath:
Drinking is dangerous, and the bath is death.
'Tis nothing, says the fool: But, says the friend,
This nothing, sir, will bring you to your end.

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Ver. 140. Fat fees, &c.] Casaubon here notes, that, among all the Romans who were brought up to learning, few besides the orators, or lawyers, grew rich.

Ver. 142. The Marsians and Umbrians were the most plentiful of all the provinces in Italy.

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Thou tell'st me, I look ill, and thou look'st worse.
I've done, says the physician; take your course.
The laughing sot, like all unthinking men,
Bathes and gets drunk; then bathes and drinks
again:

His throat half throttled with corrupted phlegm,
And breathing through his jaws a belching steam:
Amidst his cups with fainting shivering seized, 201
His limbs disjointed, and all o'er diseased,
His hand refuses to sustain the bowl;
And his teeth chatter, and his eye-balls roll:
Till, with his meat, he vomits out his soul:
Then trumpets, torches, and a tedious crew
Of hireling mourners, for his funeral due.
Our dear departed brother lies in state,
His heels stretch'd out, and pointing to the
gate;

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And slaves, now manumized, on their dead master wait.

They hoist him on the bier, and deal the dole; And there's an end of a luxurious fool.

But what's thy fulsome parable to me?

My body is from all diseases free:

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My temperate pulse does regularly beat;
Feel, and be satisfied, my hands and feet:
These are not cold, nor those oppress'd with heat.
Or lay thy hand upon my naked heart,
And thou shalt find me hale in every part.

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I grant this true: but, still, the deadly wound Is in thy soul; 'tis there thou art not sound. Say, when thou seest a heap of tempting gold, Or a more tempting harlot dost behold; Then, when she casts on thee a side-long glance, Then try thy heart, and tell me if it dance.

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Some coarse cold salad is before thee set; Bread, with the bran perhaps, and broken meat; Fall on, and try thy appetite to eat. These are not dishes for thy dainty tooth: What, hast thou got an ulcer in thy mouth? Why stand'st thou picking? Is thy palate sore? That beet and radishes will make thee roar? Such is the unequal temper of thy mind; Thy passions in extremes, and unconfined: Thy hair so bristles with unmanly fears, As fields of corn, that rise in bearded ears: And, when thy cheeks with flushing fury glow, The rage of boiling caldrons is more slow, When fed with fuel and with flames below. With foam upon thy lips, and sparkling eyes, Thou say'st, and dost, in such outrageous wise, That mad Orestes, if he saw the show, Would swear thou wert the madder of the two.*

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Ver. 209. His heels stretch'd out, &c.] The Romans were buried without the city; for which reason the poet says, that the dead man's heels were stretched out towards the gate.

Ver. 242. That mad Orestes,] Orestes was son to Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. Agamemnon, at his return from the Trojan wars, was slain by Egysthus, the adulterer of Clytemnestra. Orestes, to revenge his father's death, slew both gysthus and his mother; for which he was punished with madness by the Eumenides or furies, who continually haunted him.

* Eschylus calls smoke the brother of fire, and dust he calls the brother of mud. The first passage is in Septem contra Thebas, v. 500. The latter in Agamemnon, v. 503. Yet

THE

FOURTH SATIRE OF PERSIUS.

THE ARGUMENT.

Our author, living in the time of Nero, was contemporary and friend to the noble poet Lucan; both of them were sufficiently sensible, with all good men, how unskilfully he managed the commonwealth: and perhaps might guess at his future tyranny, by some passages, during the latter part of his first five years; though he broke not out into his great excesses, while he was restrained by the counsels and authority of Seneca. Lucan has not spared him in the poem of his Pharsalia: for his very compliment looked asquint, as well as Nero. Persins has been bolder, but with cantion likewise. For here, in the person of young Alcibiades, he arraigns his ambition of meddling with state-affairs, without judgment or experience. It is probable that he makes Seneca, in this Satire, sustain the part of Socrates, under a borrowed name. And, withal, discovers some secret vices of Nero, concerning his lust, his drunkenness, and his effeminacy, which had not yet arrived to public notice. He also reprehends the flattery of his courtiers, who endeavoured to make all his vices pass for virtues. Covetousness was undoubtedly none of his faults; but it is here described as a veil cast over the true meaning of the port, which was to satirise his prodigality and voluptuousness; to which he makes a transition. I find no instance in history of that emperor's being a Pathique, though Persins seems to brand him with it. From the two dialogues of Plato, both called ALCIBIADES, the poet took the arguments of the Second and Third Satires, but he inverted the order of them: for the Third Satire is taken from the first of those dialogues.

The commentators before Casaubon were ignorant of our author's secret meaning; and thought he had only written against young noblemen in general, who were too forward in aspiring to public magistracy: but this excellent scholiast has unravelled the whole mystery; and made it apparent that the sting of this Satire was particularly aimed at Nero.

WHOE'ER thou art, whose forward years are bent
On state-affairs, to guide the government;
Hear, first, what Socrates of old has said

To the loved youth, whom he, at Athens, bred.
Tell me, thou pupil to great Pericles,
Our second hope, my Alcibiades,

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What are the grounds, from whence thou dost

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there are commentators who admire these affected expressions, and compare it with the "Sylva filia nobilis" of Horace. Persius abounds in the most harsh and conceited expressions, and in far-sought and almost unintelligible metaphors. Eschines called some expressions in Demosthenes himself exsuara not guara. But, says Quintilian, "Pervasit jam multos ista persuasio, ut id jam demum eleganter, atque exquisitè dictum putent, quod interpretandum sit." It would be too invidious to name one or two late writers, who might have profited by attending to this passage of Quintilian. Dr. J. WARTON.

Ver. 3. Socrates, whom the oracle of Delphos praised as the wisest man of his age, lived in the time of the Pelopon nesian war. He, finding the uncertainty of natural phi losophy, applied himself wholly to the moral. He was master to Xenophon and Plato, and to many of the Athenian young noblemen; amongst the rest, to Alcibiades, the most lovely youth then living; afterwards a famous captain, whose life is written by Plutarch.

Ver. 5. Pericles was tutor, or rather overseer of the will of Clinias, father to Alcibiades. While Pericles lived, who was a wise man, and an excellent orator, as well as a great general, the Athenians had the better of the war.

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Sure thou art born to some peculiar fate;
When the mad people rise against the state,
To look them into duty: and command
An awful silence with thy lifted hand.
Then to bespeak 'em thus: Athenians, know
Against right reason all your counsels go;
This is not fair; nor profitable that;
Nor t'other question proper for debate.
But, thou, no doubt, canst set the business right,
And give each argument its proper weight:
Know st, with an equal hand, to hold the scale :
Scest where the reasons pinch, and where they fail,
And where exceptions o'er the general rule
prevail :

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And, taught by inspiration, in a trice,
Canst punish crimes, and brand offending vice.
Leave, leave to fathom such high points as these,
Nor be ambitious, ere thy time, to please:
Unseasonably wise, till age and cares

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Have form'd thy soul, to manage great affairs.
Thy face, thy shape, thy outside, are but vain;
Thou hast not strength such labours to sustain :
Drink hellebore, my boy, drink deep, and purge
thy brain.

What aim'st thou at, and whither tends thy

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: 'tis 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.

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Say, dost thou know Vectidius? Who, the wretch 50
Whose lands beyond the Sabines largely stretch;
Cover the country, that a sailing kite
Can scarce o'er-fly 'em, in a day and night;
Him dost thou mean, who, spite of all his store,
Is ever craving, and will still be poor?

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Who cheats for halfpence, 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; 60
A verier hind than any of his knaves?
Born with the curse and anger of the gods,
And that indulgent Genius he defrauds?

Ver. 27. 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 Bavaros, which in English is death.

Ver. 34. Drink hellebore, &c.] The poet would say, that such an ignorant young man, as he here describes, is fitter to be governed himself, than to govern others. He therefore advises him to drink hellebore, which purges the brain.

Ver. 50. Say, dost thou know Vectidius &c.] The name of Vectidius is here used appellatively to signify any rich covetous man; though perhaps there might be a man of that name then living. I have translated this passage paraphrastically, and loosely and leave it for those to look on, who are not unlike the picture.

:

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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 essays 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 sliced onion eats, and tipples verjuice.
Thus fares the drudge: but thou, whose life's a
dream

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Of lazy pleasures, tak'st a worse extreme.
'Tis 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, unseen.
But, know, thou art observed; and there are those
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 ease 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.

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Ver. 65. When he should thanks, &c.] Pan, the god of shepherds, and Pales, the goddess presiding over rural affairs, whom Virgil invocates in the beginning of his second Georgic. I give the epithet of better to Ceres, because she first taught the use of corn for bread, as the poets tell us men, in the first rude ages, feeding only on acorns or mast, instead of bread.

Ver. 84. The depilation of thy modest part: &c.] Our author here taxes Nero covertly with that effeminate custom, now used in Italy, and especially by harlots of smoothing their bellies, and taking off the hairs which grow about their secrets. In Nero's times they were pulled off with pincers, but now they use a paste, which, if applied to those parts, when it is removed, carries away with it

those excrescences.

Ver. 95. Not five, the strongest, &c.] The learned Holyday (who has made us amends for his bad poetry in this and the rest of these Satires, with his excellent illustrations) here tells us from good authority, that the number five does not allude to the five fingers of one man, who used them all in taking off the hairs before-mentioned; but to five strong men, such as were skilful in the five robust exercises then in practice at Rome, and were performed in the Circus, or public place ordained for them. These five he reckons up in this manner: 1. The Cæstus, or whirlbats, described by Virgil, in his fifth Eneid; and this was the most dangerous of all the rest. The second was the foot-race; the third the Discus, like the throwing a weighty ball, a sport now used in Cornwall, and other parts of England; we may see it daily practised in Red-Lion-fields. The fourth was the Saltus, or leaping; and the fifth wrestling naked, and besmeared with oil. They who were practised in these five manly exercises were called livre.

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The judicious Casaubon, in his proem to this Satire, tells us, that Aristophanes, the grammarian, being asked, what poem of Archilochus his Iambics 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 trans lation, the gratitude, or at least some small acknowledg ment 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 first contains the praises of the Stoic philosopher Cornutus, master and tutor to 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

Ver. 108. thy nerve, &c.] That is, thou canst not deceive thy obscene part, which is weak or impotent, though thou makest ostentation of thy performances with women.

Ver. 122. If, with thy guards, &c.] Persius durst not have 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.

Ver. 128. Survey thy soul, &c.] That is, look into thyself, and examine thy own conscience; there thou shalt find, that, how wealthy soever thou appearest to the world, yet thou art but a beggar, because thou art destitute of all virtues; which are the riches of the soul. This also was a paradox of the Stoic school.

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 Stoies, 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.

PERSIUS.

Of ancient use to poets it belongs,

To wish themselves an hundred mouths and tongues :

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.

CORNUTUS

And why would'st thou these mighty morsels choose,

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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 or 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, 15
Or murmur in an undistinguish'd note,
Like rolling thunder, till it breaks the cloud,
And rattling nonsense is discharged 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,
Ragouts for Tereus or Thyestes dress'd;
'Tis task enough for thee to expose a Roman feast.

PERSIUS.

"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;

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And, through the veil of words, thou view'st the naked mind.

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For this a hundred voices I desire, To tell thee what a hundred tongues would tire; Yet never could be worthily express'd, How deeply thou art seated in my breast.

When first my childish robe resign'd the charge, And left me, unconfined, to live at large;

Ver. 11. 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.

Ibid. 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.

Ver. 40. By the childish robe is meant the Prætexta, or first gowns which the Roman children of quality wore: these were welted with purple, and on those welts were

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