A Table to JUVENAL. THE Firft Satyr. By Mr. Dryden. The Second Satyr. By Mr. Tate, The Third Satyr. By Mr. Dryden. Page 1 13 The Fourth Satyr. By the Reverend Mr. Richard Duke. The Seventh Satyr. By Mr. Charles Dryden. The Eighth Satyr. By Mr. G. Stepney. The Ninth Satyr. By Mr. Step. Hervey The Tenth Satyr. 22 40 52 62 93 106 132 141 161 177 187 By Mr. J. Dryden. Jun. 200 217 By Mr. Tate. "The TABLE to PERSIUS. To Mr. Dryden on his Tranflation of Perfius. [1] JUVENAL, THE FIRST SATYR. many By Mr. DRYDEN. The ARGUMENT. The Poet gives us first a kind of humorous Reafon for bis Writing: That being provok'd by hearing fo ill Poets rehearse their Works, he does himSelf Justice on them, by giving them as bad as they bring. But fince no Man will rank himself with all Writers, 'tis eafy to conclude, that if fuch Wretches cou'd draw an Audience, he thought it no hard matter to excel them, and gain a greater Efteem with the Publick. Next he informs us more openly, why he rather addicts himself to Satyr, than any other kind of Poetry. And here he difcovers that it is not fo much bis Indignation to ill Poets, as to ill Men, which has prompted him to write. He therefore gives us a Summary and general view of the Vices and Follies reigning in bis time. So that this firft Satyr is the natural Ground-work B Ground-work of all the reft. Herein be confines himself to no one Subject, but strikes indifferently at all Men in his way: In every following Satyr le has chofen fome particular Moral which he won'd inculcate; and lashes fome particular Vice or Fully, (An Art with which our Lampooners are not much acquainted.) But our Poet being defirous to reform his own Age, but not daring to attempt it by an Overt-act of naming living Perfons, inveighs only against those who were infamous in the times immediately preceding his, whereby he not only gives a fair warning to Great Men, that their Memory lies at the mercy of future Poets and Hiftorians, but also with a finer ftroke of bis Pen, brands even the living, and perfonates them under dead Mens Names. I have avoided as much as I could poffibly the borrow'd Learning of Marginal Notes and Illuftrations, and for that Reafon have Tranflated this Satyr fomewhat largely. And freely own (if it be a fault) that I have likewife omitted most of the Proper Names, because I thought they wou'd not much edify the Reader. To conclude, if in two or three places I have deferted all the Commentators, 'tis because they firft deferted my Author, or at least have left him in fo much Obscurity, that too much room is left for gueffing. TILL fhall I hear, and never quit the Score, STILL Stunn'd with hoarfe Codrus' Thefeid, o'er and o'er? Shall this Man's Elegies and t'other's Play Unpunish'd murther a long Summer's Day? I Codrus, or it may be Cordus, a bad Poet, who wrote the Life and Actions of The Sens. Huge |