Nor praise my patron's undeserving rhymes,
Nor yet comply with him, nor with his times;
Unskill'd in schemes by planets to foreshow,
Like canting rascals, how the wars will go:
I neither will, nor can prognosticate,
To the young gaping heir, his father's fate:
Nor in the entrails of a toad have pried,
Nor carried bawdy presents to a bride:
For want of these town-virtues, thus, alone,
I go conducted on my way by none:
Like a dead member from the body rent;
Maim'd, and unuseful to the government.

80

85

95

Who now is loved, but he who loves the times, Conscious of close intrigues, and dipp'd in crimes; Labouring with secrets which his bosom burn, 91 Yet never must to public light return? They get reward alone who can betray: For keeping honest counsels none will pay. He who can Verres, when he will, accuse, The purse of Verres may at pleasure use: But let not all the gold which Tagus hides, And pays the sea in tributary tides, Be bribe sufficient to corrupt thy breast; Or violate with dreams thy peaceful rest. Great men with jealous eyes the friend behold, Whose secrecy they purchase with their gold.

100

I haste to tell thee, nor shall shame oppose, What confidants our wealthy Romans chose : And whom I most abhor: to speak my mind, 105 I hate, in Rome, a Grecian town to find: To see the scum of Greece transplanted here, Received like gods, is what I cannot bear. Nor Greeks alone, but Syrians here abound; Obscene Orontes diving under ground, Conveys his wealth to Tyber's hungry shores, And fattens Italy with foreign whores: Hither their crooked harps and customs come: All find receipt in hospitable Rome.

110

The barbarous harlots crowd the public place: 115
Go, fools, and purchase an unclean embrace;
The painted mitre court, and the more painted
face.

120

125

Old Romulus and father Mars look down,
Your herdsmen primitive, your homely clown,
Is turn'd a beau in a loose tawdry gown.
His once unkemb'd, and horrid locks, behold
Stilling sweet oil: his neck inchain'd with gold;
Aping the foreigners, in every dress;
Which, bought at greater cost, becomes him less.
Meantime they wisely leave their native land;
From Sicyon, Samos, and from Alaband,
And Amydon, to Rome they swarm in shoals;
So sweet and easy is the gain from fools.
Poor refugees at first, they purchase here:
And, soon as denizen'd, they domineer.
Grow to the great, a flattering servile rout:
Work themselves inward, and their patrons out.

Ver. 95.

130

Verres,] Prætor in Sicily, contemporary with Cicero; by whom accused of oppressing the province, he was condemned: his name is used here for any rich vicious man.

Ver. 97. Tagus] A famous river in Spain, which discharges itself into the ocean near Lisbon in Portugal. It was held of old to be full of golden sands.

Ver. 110. Orontes] The greatest river of Syria: the poet here puts the river for the inhabitants of Syria.

Quick-witted, brazen-faced, with fluent tongues,
Patient of labours, and dissembling wrongs.
Riddle me this, and guess him if you can,
Who bears a nation in a single man?
A cook, a conjurer, a rhetorician,

A painter, pedant, a geometrician,
A dancer on the ropes, and a physician.

135

140

All things the hungry Greek exactly knows:
And bid him go to heaven, to heaven he goes.
In short, no Scythian, Moor, or Thracian born,
But in that town which arms and arts adorn.
Shall he be placed above me at the board,
In purple clothed, and lolling like a lord?
Shall he before me sign, whom t' other day
A small-craft vessel hither did convey;
Where stow'd with prunes, and rotten figs, he lay?
How little is the privilege become

Of being born a citizen of Rome !

The Greeks get all by fulsome flatteries;

A most peculiar stroke they have at lies.

They make a wit of their insipid friend;
His blobber-lips, and beetle-brows commend;

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150

15)

160

163

His long crane neck, and narrow shoulders praise;
You'd think they were describing Hercules.
A creaking voice for a clear treble goes;
Though harsher than a cock that treads and crows.
We can as grossly praise; but, to our grief,
No flattery but from Grecians gains belief.
Besides these qualities, we must agree
They mimic better on the stage than we :
The wife, the whore, the shepherdess they play,
In such a free, and such a graceful way,
That we believe a very woman shown,
And fancy something underneath the gown.
But not Antiochus, nor Stratocles,
Our ears and ravish'd eyes can only please:
The nation is composed of such as these.
All Greece is one comedian: laugh, and they 170
Return it louder than an ass can bray:
Grieve, and they grieve; if you weep silently,
There seems a silent echo in their eye;
They cannot mourn like you, but they can cry.
Call for a fire, their winter clothes they take: 175
Begin but you to shiver, and they shake:
In frost and snow, if you complain of heat,
They rub th' unsweating brow, and swear they
sweat.

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185

We live not on the square with such as these,
Such are our betters who can better please:
Who day and night are like a looking-glass;
Still ready to reflect their patron's face;
The panegyric hand, and lifted eye,
Prepared for some new piece of flattery.
Ev'n nastiness, occasions will afford;
They praise a belching, or well-pissing lord.
Besides, there's nothing sacred, nothing free
From bold attempts of their rank lechery.
Through the whole family their labours run;
The daughter is debauch'd, the wife is won:
Nor 'scapes the bridegroom, or the blooming son.
If none they find for their lewd purpose fit,
They with the walls and very floors commit.
They search the secrets of the house, and so
Are worshipp'd there, and fear'd for what they
know.

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195

Ver. 143. But in that town, &c.] He means Athens; of which Pallas, the goddess of arms and arts, was patroness. Ver. 167. Antiochus, nor Stratocles,] Two famous Grecian mimics, or actors, in the poet's time.

And, now we talk of Grecians, cast a view On what, in schools, their men of morals do; A rigid Stoic his own pupil slew:

200

Want is the scorn of every wealthy fool; And wit in rags is turn'd to ridicule.

Pack hence, and from the cover'd benches rise, (The master of the ceremonies cries) This is no place for you, whose small estate Is not the value of the settled rate:

205

Some Diphilus, or some Protogenes,
Look sharply out, our senators to seize :
Engross 'em wholly, by their native art,
And fear'd no rivals in their bubbles' heart;
One drop of poison in my patron's ear,
One slight suggestion of a senseless fear,
Infused with cunning, serves to ruin me;
Disgraced, and banish'd from the family.
In vain forgotten services I boast;
My long dependance in an hour is lost :
Look round the world, what country will appear,
Where friends are left with greater ease than
here?

At Rome (nor think me partial to the poor)
All offices of ours are out of door:
In vain we rise, and to their levees run;
My lord himself is up, before, and gone:
The prætor bids his lictors mend their pace,
Lest his colleague outstrip him in the race:
The childless matrons are, long since, awake;
And, for affronts, the tardy visits take.

'Tis frequent, here, to see a free-born son
On the left hand of a rich hireling run:
Because the wealthy rogue can throw away,
For half a brace of bouts, a tribune's pay:
But you, poor sinner, though you love the vice,
And like the whore, demur upon the price:
And, frighted with the wicked sum, forbear
To lend a hand, and help her from the chair.
Produce a witness of unblemish'd life,

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215

220

225

230

235

241

Holy as Numa, or as Numa's wife,
Or him who bid th' unhallow'd flames retire,
And snatch'd the trembling goddess from the fire.
The question is not put, how far extends
His piety, but what he yearly spends;
Quick, to the business; how he lives and eats;
How largely gives; how splendidly he treats:
How many thousand acres feed his sheep;
What are his rents? what servants does he keep?
Th' account is soon cast up; the judges rate
Our credit in the court by our estate.
Swear by our gods, or those the Greeks adore,
Thou art as sure forsworn, as thou art poor:
The poor must gain their bread by perjury;
And e'en the gods, that other means deny,
In conscience must absolve 'em, when they lie.
Add, that the rich have still a gibe in store;
And will be monstrous witty on the poor:
For the torn surtout and the tatter'd vest,
The wretch and all his wardrobe are a jest:
The greasy gown, sullied with often turning,
Gives a good hint, to say, The man's in mourning:
Or if the shoe be ript, or patches put,
He's wounded! see the plaister on his foot.

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250

255

260

year,

And servants' bellies cost so devilish dear;
And tavern-bills run high for hungry cheer.
To drink or eat in earthenware we scorn,
Which cheaply country cupboards does adorn:
And coarse blue hoods on holidays are worn.
Some distant parts of Italy are known,
Where none, but only dead men, wear a gown:
On theatres of turf, in homely state,

Old plays they act, old feasts they celebrate :
The same rude song returns upon the crowd,
And, by tradition, is for wit allow'd.

280

Their habits (undistinguish'd by degree)
Are plain, alike; the same simplicity,
Both on the stage, and in the pit, you see.
In his white cloak the magistrate appears;
The country bumpkin the same livery wears
But here, attired beyond our purse we go,
For useless ornament and flaunting show:
We take on trust, in purple robes to shine;
And poor, are yet ambitious to be fine.
This is a common vice, though all things here ne
Are sold, and sold unconscionably dear.
What will you give that Cossus may but view
Your face, and in the crowd distinguish you;
May take your incense like a gracious god,
And answer only with a civil nod?

To please our patrons, in this vicious age,
We make our entrance by the favourite
page:
Shave his first down, and when he polls his hair,
The consecrated locks to temples bear:
Pay tributary cracknels, which he sells,
And, with our offerings, help to raise his vails.
Who fears, in country towns, a house's fall,
Or to be caught betwixt a riven wall?

310

Ver. 266. For, by the Roscian law, &c.] Roseius, a tribuns, who ordered the distinction of places in public shows, betwixt the noblemen of Rome and the plebeians.

Ver. 284. Where none, but only dead men, &c.] The meaning is, that men in some parts of Italy never wore a gown (the usual habit of the Romans) till they were buried in one.

Ver, 302. Cossus

man.

Cossus is here taken for any great

320

325

But we inhabit a weak city here;
Which buttresses and props but scarcely bear: 315
And 'tis the village mason's daily calling,
To keep the world's metropolis from falling,
To cleanse the gutters, and the chinks to close,
And, for one night, secure his lord's repose.
At Cuma we can sleep, quite round the year,
Nor falls, nor fires, nor nightly dangers fear;
While rolling flames from Roman turrets fly,
And the pale citizens for buckets cry.
Thy neighbour has removed his wretched store
(Few hands will rid the lumber of the poor)
Thy own third story smokes, while thou, supine,
Art drench'd in fumes of undigested wine.
For if the lowest floors already burn,
Cock-lofts and garrets soon will take the turn.
Where thy tame pigeons next the tiles were bred,
Which, in their nests unsafe, are timely fled.
Codrus had but one bed, so short to boot,
That his short wife's short legs hung dangling out;
His cupboard's head six earthen pitchers graced,
Beneath 'em was his trusty tankard placed.
And, to support this noble plate, there lay
A bending Chiron cast from honest clay;
His few Greek books a rotten chest contain'd;
Whose covers much of mouldiness complain'd:
Where mice and rats devour'd poetic bread;
And with heroic verse luxuriously were fed.
"Tis true, poor Codrus nothing had to boast,
And yet poor Codrus all that nothing lost.
Begg'd naked through the streets of wealthy
Rome;

331

335

340

And found not one to feed, or take him home. 345 But if the palace of Arturius burn,

The nobles change their clothes, the matrons

mourn;

350

355

360

The city prætor will no pleadings hear;
The very name of fire we hate and fear;
And look aghast, as if the Gauls were here.
While yet it burns, th' officious nation flies,
Some to condole, and some to bring supplies:
One sends him marble to rebuild, and one
White naked statues of the Parian stone,
The work of Polyclete, that seem to live;
While others images for altars give;
One books and screens, and Pallas to the breast;
Another bags of gold, and he gives best.
Childless Arturius, vastly rich before,
Thus by his losses multiplies his store:
Suspected for accomplice to the fire,
That burnt his palace but to build it higher.
But, could you be content to bid adieu
To the dear play-house, and the players too:
Sweet country-seats are purchased everywhere, 365
With lands and gardens, at less price than here
You hire a darksome doghole by the year.
A small convenience, decently prepared,
A shallow well, that rises in your yard,
That spreads his easy crystal streams around,
And waters all the pretty spot of ground.
There, love the fork, thy garden cultivate,
And give thy frugal friends a Pythagorean treat.

370

Ver. 330. Where thy tame pigeons, &c.] The Romans used to breed their tame pigeons in their garrets.

Ver. $32. Codrus] A learned man, very poor: by his books supposed to be a poet; for, in all probability, the heroic verses here mentioned, which rats and mice devoured, were Homer's works.

Ver. 373. — a Pythagorean treat,] He means herbs, roots, fruits, and salads.

"Tis somewhat to be lord of some small ground, In which a lizard may, at least, turn round.

375

384

"Tis frequent, here, for want of sleep to die; Which fumes of undigested feasts deny; And, with imperfect heat, in languid stomachs fry. What house secure from noise the poor can keep, When ev'n the rich can scarce afford to sleep; 380 So dear it costs to purchase rest in Rome; And hence the sources of diseases come. The drover who his fellow-drover meets In narrow passages of winding streets : The waggoners, that curse their standing teams, Would wake ev'n drowsy Drusus from his dreams. And yet the wealthy will not brook delay, But sweep above our heads, and make their way; In lofty litters borne, and read and write, Or sleep at ease; the shutters make it night. 390 Yet still he reaches, first, the public place: The prease before him stops the client's pace. The crowd that follows crush his panting sides, And trip his heels; he walks not, but he rides. One elbows him, one justles in the shoal: A rafter breaks his head, or chairman's pole : Stocking'd with loads of fat town-dirt he goes; And some rogue-soldier, with his hob-nail'd shoes, Indents his legs behind in bloody rows.

395

415

420

Nor limbs, nor bones, nor carcass would remain :
But a mash'd heap, a hotchpotch of the slain.
One vast destruction; not the soul alone,
But bodies, like the soul, invisible are flown.
Meantime, unknowing of their fellows' fate,
The servants wash the platter, scour the plate,
Then blow the fire, with puffing cheeks, and lay
The rubbers, and the bathing-sheets display;
And oil them first; and each is handy in his way
But he, for whom this busy care they take,
Poor ghost, is wandering by the Stygian lake:
Affrighted with the ferryman's grim face;
New to the horrors of that uncouth place;
His passage begs with unregarded prayer,
And wants two farthings to discharge his fare.
Return we to the dangers of the night;
And, first, behold our houses' dreadful height: 430

Ver. 404.".

42

gigantic Corbulo] Corbulo was a famons general in Nero's time, who conquered Armenia; and was afterwards put to death by that tyrant, when he was in Greece, in reward of his great services. His stature was not only tall, above the ordinary size, but he was also proportionably strong.

From whence come broken potsherds tumbling down;

And leaky ware, from garret windows thrown: Well may they break our heads, that mark the flinty stone.

435

"Tis want of sense to sup abroad too late;
Unless thou first hast settled thy estate.
As many fates attend, thy steps to meet,
As there are waking windows in the street.
Bless the good gods, and think thy chance is rare
To have a piss-pot only for thy share.

The scouring drunkard, if he does not fight 440
Before his bed-time, takes no rest that night.
Passing the tedious hours in greater pain
Than stern Achilles, when his friend was slain :
"Tis so ridiculous, but so true withal,
A bully cannot sleep without a brawl:
Yet though his youthful blood be fired with
wine,

He wants not wit the danger to decline:
Is cautious to avoid the coach and six,
And on the lackeys will no quarrel fix.

445

His train of flambeaux, and embroider'd coat, 450
May privilege my lord to walk secure on foot.
But me, who must by moon-light homeward bend,
Or lighted only with a candle's end,
Poor me he fights, if that be fighting, where
He only cudgels, and I only bear.
He stands, and bids me stand: I must abide;
For he 's the stronger, and is drunk beside.

455

Answer, or answer not, 'tis all the same:

470

475

He lays me on, and makes me bear the blame.
Before the bar, for beating him, you come;
This is a poor man's liberty in Rome.
You beg his pardon; happy to retreat
With some remaining teeth, to chew your meat.
Nor is this all; for, when retired, you think
To sleep securely; when the candles wink,
When every door with iron chains is barr'd,
And roaring taverns are no longer heard;
The ruffian robbers by no justice awed,
And unpaid cut-throat soldiers, are abroad,
Those venal souls, who, harden'd in each ill,
To save complaints and prosecution, kill.
Chased from their woods and bogs, the padders

come

480

Ver. 503. And add new venom, &c.] In 1738, London, an imitation of this Satire, was published by Dr. Johnson; which, from the spirit and strength with which it was written, by the poignancy of its invectives and correctness of its style, and very dexterous accommodation of ancient sentiments and images to modern, was read with universal avidity and applause, especially by all those persons who were in opposition to Government, who, at that time, were some of the ablest men in the kingdom. It instantly excited the curiosity, and perhaps the jealousy, of Pope; for impartial criticism must confess, that it is equal to his Imitations of Horace. As his Two Dialogues and London were published in the same week, they were frequently compared; and, as I was informed by a contemporary, many readers gave the preference to Johnson. It was with difficulty he could find a purchaser for the copy, till Dodsley, who had more taste and sense than usually falls to the lot of his brethren, generously purchased it. It may be amusing to compare a few passages with the original:

"Give to St. David's one true Briton more."
"Unum civem donare Sibyllæ."

"Here malice, rapine, accident conspire,
And now a rabble rages, now a fire:
Their ambush here relentless ruffians lay,
And here the feli attorney prowls for prey."
"Deterius credas horrere incendia, lapsus
Tectorum assiduos, et mille pericula sævæ
Urbis."

The lawyer is most happily added.

"And here a female atheist talks you dead."

This is inferior to the original; for, after enumerating the variety of evils that infest the city, he adds, with much pleasantry, as the most grievous and tormenting of all,

44 Augusto recitantes mense poetas."

The atheist is too serious an example, and out of place. "All Marlborough hoarded, and all Villiers spent," is improved from

Tanti tibi non sit opaci
Omnis arena Tagi."

But nothing can be more happily touched than the character of the voluble obsequious Frenchman, ready to undertake all offices, trades, and employments:

66

omnia novit

Græculus esuriens, in cælum jusseris ibit." "All sciences a fasting Monsieur knows, And bid him go to hell, to hell he goes."

He has improved the following lines,

Aut Fabrateriæ domus, aut Frusinone paratur."

by a stroke of satire on houses of men of rank forsaken by their owners:

THE

SIXTH SATIRE OF JUVENAL.

THE ARGUMENT.

This Satire, of almost double length to any of the rest, is a bitter invective against the fair sex. "Tis, indeed, a common-place, from whence all the moderns have notoriously stolen their sharpest railleries. In his other Satires, the poet has only glanced on some particular women, and generally scourged the men. But this he reserved wholly for the ladies. How they had offended him, I know not: but upon the whole matter he is not to be excused for imputing to all, the vices of some few amongst them. Neither was it generously done of him, to attack the weakest as well as the fairest part of the creation: neither do I know what moral he could reasonably draw from it. It could not be to avoid the whole sex, if all had been true which he alleges against them: for that had been to put an end to human kind. And to bid us beware of their artifices, is a kind of silent acknowledgment, that they have more wit than men: which turns the satire upon us, and particularly upon the poet; who thereby makes a compliment, where he meant a libel. If he intended only to exercise his wit, he has forfeited his judgment, by making the one half of his readers his mortal enemies; and amongst the men, all the happy lovers, by their own experience, will disprove his accusations. The whole world must allow this to be the wittiest of his satires; and truly he had need of all his parts, to maintain, with so much violence, so unjust a charge. I am satisfied he will bring but few over to his opinion: and on that consideration chiefly I ventured to translate him. Though there wanted not another reason, which was, that no one else would undertake it: at least, Sir C. S. who could have done more right to the author, after a long delay, at length absolutely refused so ungrateful an employment; and every one will grant, that the work must have been imperfect and lame, if it had appeared without one of the principal members belonging to it. Let the poet therefore bear the blame of his own invention; and let me satisfy the world, that I am not of his opinion. Whatever his Roman ladies were, the English are free from all his imputations. They will read with wonder and abhorrence the vices of an age, which was the most infamous of any on record. They will bless themselves when they behold those examples, related of Domitian's time: they will give back to antiquity those monsters it produced; and believe with reason, that the species of those women is extinguished, or at least that they were never here propagated. I may safely therefore proceed to the argument of a Satire, which is no way relating to them; and first observe, that my author makes their lust the most heroic of their vices; the rest are in a manner but digression. He skims them over; but he dwells on this: when he seems to have taken his last leave of it, on the sudden he returns to it: 'tis one branch of it in Hippia, another in Messalina, but lust is the main body of the tree. He begins with this text in the first line, and takes it up with intermissions to the end of the chapter. Every vice is a loader, but that's a ten. The fillers, or intermediate parts, are their revenge; their contrivances of secret crimes; their arts to hide them; their wit to excuse them; and their impudence to own them, when they can no longer be kept secret. Then the persons to whom they are most addicted, and on whom they commonly bestow the last favours: as stageplayers, fiddlers, singing-boys, and fencers. Those who

"Then might'st thou find some elegant retreat,
Some hireling senator's deserted seat."

But the keenest stroke of Johnson's satire was his application of the following lines:

"ut timeas ne

Vomer deficiat, ne marræ et sarcula desint,"" from the quantity of iron used in fetters for felons, which, with a most severe sarcasm on the frequent visits to IIanover, he renders thus:

"Lest ropes be wanting in the tempting Spring,
To rig another convoy for the King."

Dr. Johnson was frequently urged to give a complete translation of Juvenal; a work for which he seemed peculiarly qualified, from the nature and turn of his genius, and his love of splendid and pompous diction. Dr. J. WARTON.

pass for chaste amongst them, are not really so; but only for their vast dowries, are rather suffered, than loved by their own husbands. That they are imperious, domineering, scolding wives; set up for learning and criticism in poetry, but are false judges. Love to speak Greek, (which was then the fashionable tongue, as French is now with us). That they plead causes at the bar, and play prizes at the bear-garden. That they are gossips and newsmongers: wrangle with their neighbours abroad, and beat their servants at home. That they lie-in for new faces once a month; are sluttish with their husbands in private; and paint and dress in public for their lovers. That they deal with Jews, diviners, and fortune-tellers: learn the arts of miscarrying, and barrenness. Buy children, and produce them for their own. Murder their husband's sons if they stand in their way to his estate, and make their adulterers his heirs. From hence the poet proceeds to show the occasions of all these vices, their original, and how they were introduced in Rome, by peace, wealth, and luxury. In conclusion, if we will take the word of our malicious author, bad women are the general standing rule; and the good, but some few exceptions to it.

IN Saturn's reign, at Nature's early birth,
There was that thing call'd chastity on earth;
When in a narrow cave, their common shade,
The sheep, the shepherds, and their gods were
laid:

When reeds and leaves, and hides of beasts were

15

20

And fat with acorns belch'd their windy food.
For when the world was buxom, fresh and young,
Her sons were undebauch'd, and therefore strong:
And whether born in kindly beds of earth,
Or struggling from the teeming oaks to birth,
Or from what other atoms they begun,
No sires they had, or, if a sire, the sun.
Some thin remains of chastity appear'd
Ev'n under Jove, but Jove without a beard;
Before the servile Greeks had learnt to swear
By heads of kings, while yet the bounteous year
Her common fruits in open plains exposed,
Ere thieves were fear'd, or gardens were inclosed.
At length uneasy Justice upwards flew,
And both the sisters to the stars withdrew;
From that old era whoring did begin,
So venerably ancient is the sin.
Adulterers next invade the nuptial state,
And marriage-beds creak'd with a foreign weight;
All other ills did iron times adorn;

But whores and silver in one age were born.

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30

35