foot in hexameters than the fpondee. But Holyday, without confidering that he wrote with the difadvantage of four fyllables lefs in every verfe, endeavours to make one of his lines to comprehend the fense of one of Juvenal's. According to the falfity of the propofition was the fuccefs. He was forced to crowd his verfe with ill-founding monofyllables, of which our barbarous language af fords him a wild plenty; and by that means he arrived at his pedantic end, which was to make a li teral translation. His verfes have nothing of verse 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 illchofen, and worfe-founding monofyllables so close together, the very fenfe which he endeavours to explain, is become more obfcure than that of his author; fo that Holyday himfelf cannot be underftood, 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 Holyday 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 pleafing task, as well as the more cafy.

This must be faid for our tranflation, that, if we give not the whole fenfe of Juvenal, yet we give the moft confiderable part of it: we give it, in ge

neral, fo clearly, that few notes are fufficient to make us intelligible. We make our author at least 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 fpeak that kind of English, which he would have fpoken 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 customs and manners of our native country rather than of Rome, it is, either when there was fome kind of analogy betwixt their cuftoms and ours, or when, to make him more eafy to vulgar understandings, we give him thofe manners which are familiar to But I defend not this innovation, it is enough if I can excuse it. For, to fpeak fincerely, the manners of nations and ages are not to be confounded; we should 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 fo much the more eafily, as being a fault which is never committed without fome pleafure to the reader.

us.

Thus, my lord, having troubled you with a tedious vifit, the best manners will be fhewn in the leaft ceremony. I will flip away while your back is turned, and while you are otherwife employed; with great confufion for having entertained you fo long with this difcourfe, 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 fervant,

JOHN DRYDEN.

August 18, 1692.

1

THE

FIRST SATIRE

OF

JUVENAL.

THE ARGUMENT.

The poet gives us firft a kind of humourous reafon for his writing: That being provoked by hearing fo many ill poets rehearse their works, he does himfelf justice on them, by giving them as bad as they bring. But fince no man will rank himself with ill writers, 'tis 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 public. Next he informs us more openly, why he rather addicts himself to Satire, than any other kind of poetry. And here he dif covers 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 firft 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 would

inculcate; and lashes 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, and 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 me‐ mory 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

men's names.

I have avoided, as much as I could poffibly the bor

rowed 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, because I thought they would not much edify the reader. To conclude, if in two or three places I have deferted all the commentators, it is because they first deferted my author, or at least have left him in fo much obfcurity, that too much room is left for gueffing.

STILL fhall I hear, and never quit the fcore, Stunn'd with hoarfe Codrus' Thefeid, o'er and o'er?

Ver. 1. Still fhall I hear,] It is not without caution, and a fear of reprehenfion, that I venture to mention what may appear too perfonal, that when I firft had the honour of prefiding at Winchefter fchool, I found the youths of the upper clafs were in the habit of frequently repeating, without book, the Satires of Juvenal. I foon perceived, that from the multiplicity of al