THE FIRST SATIRE O F JUVENAL. THE ARGUMENT. The poet gives us firft a kind of humorous reafon for his writing: that being provoked by hearing fo many ill poets rehearse their works, he does himself juftice on them, by giving them as bad as they bring. But fince no man will rank himself with all 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 public. Next he informs us more openly, why he rather addicts himself to fatyr, than any other kind of poetry. And here be difcovers that it is not so 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 fatyr is the natural ground-work of all the reft. Herein he confines kimfelf 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, 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 biftorians, but also with a finer Stroke of his pen, brands even the living, and perfonates them under dead men's names. I have avoided as much as I could possibly the borrowed learning of marginal notes and illuftrations, and for that reafon have tranflated this fatire Somewhat 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. TILL fhall I hear, and never quit the score, St Stunn'd with hoarfe Codrus' Thefeid, o'er Shall this man's elegies and t'other's play 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, And tread the path which fam'd Lucilius trod, And finding oft occafion to be fan'd, } Charg'd with light fummer-rings his fingers fweat, Unable to fupport a gem of weight: And after him the wretch in pomp convey'd, What indignation boils within my veins, When perjur'd guardians, proud with impious gains, Choak up the streets, too narrow for their trains! Whose wards by want betray'd, to crimes are led Too foul to name, too fulfom to be read! |