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plenty and by that means he arrived at his pedantic end, which was to make a literal tranflation-: his verfes have nothing of verfe in them, but only the worst part of it, the rhyme; and that, into the bargain, is far from good. But, which is more intolerable, by cramming his ill-chofen, and worse-founding monofyllables fo close together; the very sense which he endeavours to explain, is become more obfcure than that of his author. So that Holiday himfelf cannot be understood, without as large a commentary, as that which he makes on his two authors. For my own part, I can make a fhift to find the meaning of Juvenal without his notes: but his tranflation is more difficult than his author. And I find beauties in the Latin to recompenfe my pains; but in Holiday and Stapylton, my ears, in the first place, are mortally offended; and then their fenfe is fo perplexed, that I return to the original, as the more pleasing task, as well as the more eafy.

This must be faid for our tranflation, that if we give not the whole fenfe of Juvenal, yet we give the most confiderable part of it: we give it, in general, fo clearly, that few notes are fufficient to make us intelligible. We make our author at leaft appear in a poetic drefs. We have actually made him more founding, and more elegant, than he was before in English: and have endeavoured to make him speak that kind of English, which he would have spoken had he lived in England, and had written to this age. If fometimes any of us (and it is but feldom) make him exprefs the cuftoms

and

and manners of our native country, rather than of Rome, it is, either when there was fome kind of analogy, betwixt their customs and ours; or when, to make him more easy to vulgar understandings, we give him thofe manners which are familiar to us. But I defend not this innovation, it is enough if I can excuse it. For, to speak fincerely, the manners of nations and ages are not to be confounded: we fhould either make them English, or leave them Roman. If this can neither be defended, nor excused, let it be pardoned, at least, because it is acknowledged: and so much the more easily, as being a fault which is never committed without fome pleasure to the reader.

Thus, my lord, having troubled you with a tedious vifit, the best manners will be fhewn in the least ceremony. I will flip away while your back is turned, and while you are otherwise employed: with great confufion, for having entertained you fo long with this discourse; and for having no other recompence to make you, than the worthy labours of my fellow-undertakers in this work, and the thankful acknowledgments, prayers, and perpetual good wishes, of,

My Lord,

Your Lordship's

Moft Obliged, Moft Humble,

and Moft Obedient Servant,

Aug. 18, 1692.

JOHN DRYDEN.

THE

THE

FIRST SATIRE

O F

JUVEN A L.

ARGUMENT.

THE poet gives us first a kind of humorous reafon for his writing: that, being provoked by hearing so many 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 ill writers, it is eafy to conclude, that if fuch wretches could draw an audience, he thought it no hard matter to excel them, and gain a greater efteem with the poblic. Next he informs us more openly, why he rather addicts himself to fatire, than any other kind of poetry. And here he difcovers that it is not fo much his indignation to ill poets, as to ill men, which has prompted him to write. He therefore gives us a fummary and general view of the vices and follies reigning in his time. So that this first fatire is the natural ground-work of all the reft. Herein he confines himself to no one fubject, but ftrikes indifferently at all men in his way: in every following fatire he has chofen fome particular moral which he

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would inculcate; and lafhes fome particular vice or folly (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 his pen, brands even the living, and perfonates them under dead mens names.

be

I have avoided as much as I could poffibly the borrowed
learning of marginal notes and illustrations, and for
that reafon have tranflated this fatire fomewhat
largely. And freely own (if it be a fault) that I
have likewife omitted most of the proper names,
caufe I thought they would not much edify the reader.
To conclude, if in two or three places I have defert-
ed all the commentators, it is because they first
deferted my author, or at leaft have left him in fo
much obfcurity, that too much room is left for

guefling.

TILL fhall I hear, and never quit the score,

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Stunn'd with hoarfe Codrus' Thefeid, o'er a..d o'er?

Shall this man's elegies and t 'other's play

Unpunish'd murder a long fummer's day?
Huge Telephus, a formidable page,
Cries vengeance; and Oreftes' bulky rage

Unfatisfy'd

Unfatisfy'd with margins closely writ,
Foams o'er the covers, and not finish'd yet.
No man can take a more familiar note

Of his own home, than I of Vulcan's grot,
Or Mars his grove, or hollow winds that blow
From 'Etna's top, or tortur'd ghosts below.
I know by rote the fam'd exploits of Greece;
The Centaurs' fury, and the golden fleece;
Through the thick shades th' eternal fcribbler bauls,
And fhades the ftatues on their pedestals.

The best and worst on the fame theme employs
His Mufe, and plagues us with an equal noise.
Provok'd by these incorrigible fools,

I left declaiming in pedantic schools;

Where, with men-boys, I ftrove to get renown,
Advifing Sylla to a private gown.

But, fince the world with writing is poffeft,

I'll verfify in fpite; and do my best,

To make as much waste paper as the reft.

But why I lift aloft the Satire's rod,

And tread the path which fam'd Lucilius trod,
Attend the caufes which my Mufe have led:
When faplefs eunuchs mount the marriage-bed,
When mannish Mevia, that two handed whore,
Aftride on horfe-back hunts the Tufcan boar,
When all our lords are by his wealth outvy'd,
Whofe razor on my callow beard was try'd;
When I behold the fpawn of conquer'd Nile,
Crifpinus, both in birth and manners vile,

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