any of these parodies in their fatires; fometimes, indeed, repeating verfes of other men, as Perfius cites fome of Nero's; but not turning them into another meaning, the Silli cannot be suppofed to be the original of Roman fatire. To thefe Silli, confifting of parodies, we may properly add the fatires which were written against particular perfons; fuch as were the iambiques of Archilochus against Lycambes, which Horace undoubtedly imitated in some of his odes and epodes, whofe titles bear a fufficient witness of it: I might also name the invective of Ovid against Ibis; and many others: but these are the under-wood of fatire, rather than the timber-tree: they are not a general extenfion, as reaching only to fome individual perfon. And Horace seems to have purged himself from those splenetic reflections in those odes and epodes, before he undertook the noble work of fatires, which were properly fo called.

Thus, my lord, I have at length difengaged myself from thofe antiquities of Greece; and have proved, I hope, from the beft critiques, that the Roman fatire was not borrowed from thence, but of their own manufacture: I am now almost gotten into my depth; at leaft by the help of Dacier I am swimming towards it. Not that I will promife always to follow him, any more than he follows Cafaubon; but to keep him in my eye, as my beft and trueft guide; and where I think he may poffibly mislead me, there to have recourse to my own lights, as I expect that others fhould do by me.

Quintilian fays, in plain words, Satira quidem tota nostra est : and Horace has faid the fame thing before him, fpeaking of his predeceffor in that fort of poetry, Et Græcis intacti carminis author. Nothing can be clearer than the opinion of the poet, and the orator, both the best critiques of the two beft ages of the Roman empire, than that fatire was wholly of Latin growth, and not tranfplanted from Athens to Rome. Yet, as I have faid, Scaliger the father, according to his cuftom, that is, infolently enough, contradicts them both; and gives no better reafon, than the derivation of Satyrus from oad, falacitas; and fo from the letchery of thofe fauns, thinks he has fufficiently proved, that fatire is derived from them. As if wantonnefs and lubricity were effential to that fort of poem, which ought to be avoided in it. His other allegation, which I have already mentioned, is as pitiful: that the fatyrs carried platters and canisters full of fruit, in their hands. If they had entered empty-handed, had they been ever the lefs fatyrs? Or were the fruits and flowers, which they offered, any thing of kin to fatire? Or any argument that this poem was originally Gre

cian? Cafaubon judged better, and his opinion is grounded on fure authority, that fatire was derived from fatura, a Roman word, which fignifies full, and abundant, and full also of variety, in which nothing is wanting in its due perfection. It is thus, fays Dacier, that we lay a full color, when the wool has taken the whole tincture, and drunk in as much of the dye as it can receive. According to this derivation from fatur comes fatura, or fatyra, according to the new fpelling; as optumus and maxumus are now fpelled optimus and maximus. Satura, as I have formerly noted, is an adjective, and relates to the word lanx, which is understood. And this lanx, in English a charger, or large platter, was yearly filled with all forts of fruits, which were offered to the Gods at their feftivals, as the premices, or firft-gatherings. Thefe offerings of feveral forts thus mingled, it is true, were not known to the Grecians, who called them πανκαρπόν θυσίαν, a facrifice of all forts of fruits ; and τσανπερμίαν, when they offered all kinds of grain. Virgil has mentioned thefe facrifices in his Georgiques.

Lancibus & pandis fumantia reddimus exta. And in another place, lancefque & liba feremus: that is, we offer the fmoaking entrails in great platters, and we will offer the chargers and the cakes.

This word fatura has been afterwards applied to many other forts of mixtures; as Feftus calls it a kind of olla, or hotchpotch, made of feveral forts of meats. Laws were also called leges fatura, when they were of feveral heads and titles; like our tacked bills of parliament. And per faturam legem ferre, in the Roman fenate, was to carry a law without telling the fenators, or counting voices, when they were in hafte. Salluft ufes the word per faturam fententias exquirere; when the majority was vifibly on one fide. From hence it might probably be conjectured, that the discourses or fatires of Ennius Lucilius, and Horace, as we now call them, took their name; because they are full of various matters, and are also written on various subjects, as Porphyrius fays. But Dacier affirms, that it is not immediately from thence that these fatires are fo called for that name had been used formerly for other things, which bore a nearer resemblance to thofe difcourfes of Horace. In explaining of which, (continues Dacier) a method is to be pursued, of which Cafaubon himself has never thought, and which will put all things into fo clear a light, that no farther room will be left for the leaft difpute.

During the space of almoft four hundred years, fince the building of their city, the Romans had never known any enter

tainments of the state: chance and jollity firft found out those verfes which they called Saturnian, and Fefcennine: or rather human nature, which is inclined to poetry, first produced them, nude and barbarous, and unpolifhed, as all other operations of the foul are in their beginnings, before they are cultivated with art and ftudy. However, in occafions of merriment they were firft practifed; and this rough caft unhewn poetry, was instead of ftage-plays, for the space of one hundred and twenty years together. They were made extempore, and were, as the French call them, impromptus; for which the Tarfians of old were much renowned; and we fee the daily examples of them in the Italian farces of Harlequin and Scaramucha. Such was the poetry of that falvage people, before it was turned into numbers, and the harmony of verfe. Little of the Saturnian verfes is now remaining; we only know from authors, that they were nearer profe than poetry, without feet, or measure. They were go, but not uuerpo: perhaps they might be used in the folemn part of their ceremonies; and the Fefcennine, which were invented after them, in their afternoons debauchery, becaufe they were fcoffing and obfcene.

The Fefcennine and Saturnian were the fame; for as they were called Saturnian from their ancientnefs, when Saturn reigned in Italy; they were also called Fefcennine, from Fefcennina, a town in the fame country, where they were firft practifed. The actors, with a grofs and ruftic kind of raillery, reproached each other with their failing; and at the fame time were nothing fparing of it to their audience. Somewhat of this cuftom was afterwards retained in their Saturnalia, or feasts of Saturn, celebrated in December; at least all kind of freedom in fpeech was then allowed to flaves, even against their masters; and we are not without fome imitation of it in our Christmas gambols. Soldiers also used those Fefcennine verses, after meafure and numbers had been added to them, at the triumph of their generals of which we have an example, in the triumph of Julius Cæfar over Gaul, in thefe expreffions: Cæfar Gallias fubegit, Nicomedes Cæfarem: ecce Cæfar nunc triumphat, qui sub.. egit Gallias; Nicomedes non triumphat, qui fubegit Cæfarem. The vapours of wine made the first fatirical poets amongst the Romans; which, fays Dacier, we cannot better reprefent, than by imagining a company of clowns on a holiday, dancing lubberly, and upbraiding one another in extempore doggrel, with their defects and vices, and the ftories that were told of them in bake-houfes and barbers-fhops.

When they began to be fomewhat better bred, and were entering, as I may fay, into the first rudiments of civil converfation, they left these hedge-notes, for another fort of poem, fomewhat polifhed, which was alfo full of pleafant raillery, but without any mixture of obfcenity. This fort of poetry appeared under the name of fatire, because of its variety: and this fatire was adorned with compofitions of mufic, and with dances; but lafcivious poftures were banished from it. In the Tuscan language, fays Livy, the word hifter fignifies a player; and therefore thofe actors, which were firft brought from Etruria to Rome, on occafion of a peftilence; when the Romans were admonished to avert the anger of the Gods by plays, in the year ab Urbe Condita CCCXC: thofe actors, I fay, were therefore called hiftriones: and that name has fince remained, not only to actors Roman born, but to all others of every nation. They played not the former extempore ftuff of Fefcennine verfes, or clownifh jefts; but what they acted was a kind of civil cleanly farce, with music and dances, and motions that were proper to the fubject.

In this condition Livius Andronicus found the ftage, when he attempted first, inftead of farces, to fupply it with a nobler entertainment of tragedies and comedies. This man was a Grecian born, and being made a flave by Livius Salinator, and brought to Rome, had the education of his patron's children committed to him. Which truft he discharged fo much to the fatisfaction of his mafter, that he gave him his liberty.

Andronicus thus become a freeman of Rome, added to his own name that of Livius his master; and, as I obferved, was the first author of a regular play in that commonwealth. Being already inftructed, in his native country, in the manners and decencies of the Athenian theatre, and converfant in the Archæa comoedia, or old comedy of Ariftophanes, and the rest of the Grecian poets; he took from that model his own defigning of plays for the Roman ftage. The firft of which was represented in the year CCCCCXIV. fince the building of Rome, as Tully, from the commentaries of Atticus, has aflured us: it was after the end of the first Punic war, the year before Ennius was born. Dacier has not carried the matter altogether thus far; he only fays, that one Livius Andronicus was the firft ftage-poet at Rome: but I will adventure on this hint, to advance another propofition, which I hope the learned will approve. And though we have not any thing of Andronicus remaining to justify my conjecture, yet it is exceeding probable, that having read the

works of those Grecian wits, his country-men, he imitated not only the ground-work, but also the manner of their writing. And how grave foever his tragedies might be, yet in his comedies he expreffed the way of Ariftophanes, Eupolis, and the reft, which was to call fome perfons by their own names, and to expose their defects to the laughter of the people. The examples of which we have in the fore-mentioned Ariftophanes, who turned the wife Socrates into ridicule; and is also very free with the management of Cleon, Alcibiades, and other minifters of the Athenian government. Now if this be granted, we may eafily fuppofe, that the firft hint of fatirical plays on the Roman ftage, was given by the Greeks. Not from the Satyrica, for that has been reasonably exploded in the former part of this difcourse: but from their old comedy, which was imitated first by Livius Andronicus. And then Quintilian and Horace muft be cautiously interpreted, where they affirm, that fatire is wholly Roman; and a sort of verse, which was not touched on by the Grecians. The reconcilement of my opinion to the standard of their judgment, is not, however, very difficult, fince they fpake of fatire, not as in its firft elements, but as it was formed into a separate work; begun by Ennius; purfued by Lucilius, and compleated afterwards by Horace. The proof depends only on this poftulatum, that the comedies of Andronicus, which were imitations of the Greek, were also imitations of their railleries, and reflections on particular perfons. For if this be granted me, which is a most probable fuppofition, it is easy to infer, that the first light which was given to the Roman theatrical fatire, was from the plays of Livius Andronicus. Which will be more manifeftly discovered, when I come to speak of Ennius. In the mean time I will return to Dacier.

The people, fays he, ran in crowds to these new entertainments of Andronicus, as to pieces which were more noble in their kind, and more perfect than their former fatires, which for fome time they neglected and abandoned. But not long after, they took them up again, and then they joined them to their comedies: playing them at the end of every drama; as the French continue at this day to act their farces; in the nature of a separate entertainment from their tragedies. But more particularly they were joined to the Attellane fables, fays Cafaubon ; which were plays invented by the Ofci. Thofe fables, fays Valerius Maximus, out of Livy, were tempered with the Italian severity, and free from any note of infamy or obfceneness; and as an old commentator on Juvenal affirms, the exodiarii, which