Known, you receive: the crier calls aloud
Our old nobility of Trojan-blood,
Who gape among the crowd for their precarious food.
The prætors, and the tribunes voice is heard;
The freedman juftles, and will be preferr❜d;
First come, first ferv'd, he cries; and I, in spight
Of your great Lordships, will maintain my right.
Though born a flave, though my torn ears are bor'd,
Tis not the birth, "tis money makes the Lord.
The rent of five fair houfes I receive;
What greater honours can the purple give?
The poor patrician is reduc'd to keep,
In melancholy walks, a grazier's fheep :
Not Pallus nor Licinius had my treasure;
Then let the facred tribunes wait my leifure.
Once a poor rogue, 'tis true, I trod the street,
And trudg'd to Rome upon my naked feet:
Gold is the greatest God; though yet we see
No temples rais'd to money's majesty,
No altars fuming to her power divine,
Such as to valour, peace, and virtue fhine,
And faith, and concord: where the ftork on high
Seems to falute her infant progeny:
Prefaging pious love with her aufpicious cry.
But fince our knights and fenators account,
To what their fordid begging vails amount,
Judge what a wretched fhare the poor attends,
Whose whole fubfiftence on thofe als depends!
Their houfhold fire, their raiment, and their food,
Prevented by thofe harpies; when a wood
Of litters thick befiege the donor's gate,
And begging lords and teeming ladies wait
The promis'd dole: nay, some have learn'd the trick
To beg for abfent perfons; feign them fick,
Clofe mew'd in their fedans, for fear of air:
And for their wives produce an empty chair.
This is my spouse: difpatch her with her share.
'Tis Galla.: let her ladyship but peep:
No, Sir, 'tis pity to disturb her sleep.
Such fine employments our whole days divides
The falutations of the morning-tide
Call up the fun; thofe ended, to the hall
We wait the patron, hear the lawyers baul;
Then to the ftatues; where, amidst the race
Of conquering Rome, fome Arab fhews his face,
Infcrib'd with titles, and profanes the place;
Fit to be pifs'd against, and fomewhat more.
The great man, home-conducted, fhuts his door;
Old clients, weary'd out with fruitless care,
Difmifs their hopes of eating, and despair.
Though much against the grain forc'd to retire,
Buy roots for fupper, and provide a fire.
Meantime his lordship lolls within at eafe,
Pampering his paunch with foreign rarities;
Both fea and land are ranfack'd for the feaft;
And his own gut the sole invited guest.
Such plate, fuch tables, difles dreft fo well,
That whole eftates are swallow'd at a meal.
Ev'n parafites are banish'd from his board
(At once a fordid and luxurious lord):
Prodigious throat, for which whole boars are dreft
(A creature form'd to furnish out a feast).
But prefent punishment purfues his maw,
When furfeited and fwell'd, the peacock raw
He bears into the bath; whence want of breath,
Repletions, apoplex, inteftate death.
His fate makes table-talk, divulg'd with scorn,
And he, a jeft, into his grave is born.
No age can go beyond us; future times
Can add no farther to the present crimes.
Our fons but the fame things can wish and do;
Vice is at stand, and at the highest flow.
Then, Satire, spread thy fails; take all the winds can
blow.
Some may, perhaps, demand what Mufe can yield
Sufficient strength for fuch a fpacious field?
From whence can be deriv'd fo large a vein,
Bold truth to speak, and spoken to maintain ?
When god-like Freedom is fo far bereft
The noble mind, that fcarce the name is left?
Ere fandalum magnatum was begot,
No matter if the great forgave or not:
But if that honeft licence now you rake,
If into rogues omnipotent you take,
Death is your doom, impal'd upon a stake;
Smear'd o'er with wax, and fet on blaze, to light
The streets, and make a dreadful fire by night
Shall they who drench'd three uncles in a draught
Of poisonous juice be then in triumph brought,
Make lanes among the people where they go,
And, mounted high on downy chariots, throw
Disdainful glances on the crowd below?
Be filent, and beware, if such you see;
'Tis defamation but to fay, That's he!
Against bold Turnus the great Trojan arm,
Amidst their strokes the poet gets no harm:
Achilles may in epic verse be slain,
And none of all his myrmidons complain :
Hylas may drop his pitcher, none will cry;
Not if he drown himself for company :
But when Lucilius brandishes his pen,
And flashes in the face of guilty men,
A cold sweat stands in drops on every part;
And rage fucceeds to tears, revenge to smart:
Mufe, be advis'd; 'tis paft confidering-time,
When enter'd once the dangerous lists of rhime:
Since none the living villains dare implead,
Arraign them in the persons of the dead.
THE ftory of this fatire fpeaks itself. Umbritius, the fuppofed friend of Juvenal, and himself a poet, is leaving Rome, and retiring to Cume. Our author accompanies him out of town. Before they take leave of each other, Umbritius tells his friend the reafons which oblige him to lead a private life, in an obfcure place. He complains that an honest man cannot get his bread at Rome: that none but flatterers make their fortunes there : that Grecians and other foreigners raife themfelves by thofe fordid arts which he describes, and against which he bitterly inveighs. He reckons up the feveral inconveniencies which arise from a city-life; and the many dangers which attend it.. Upbraids the noblemen with covetoufnefs, for not. rewarding good poets; and arraigns the govern ment for ftarving them. The great art of this fatire
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