Not five, the strongest that the Circus breeds,
From the rank foil can root those wicked weeds:
Tho fuppled firft with foap, to ease thy pain,
The stubborn fern fprings up, and sprouts again.
Thus others we with defamations wound,
While they ftab us; and fo the jeft goes round.
Vain are thy hopes, to 'fcape cenforious. eyes;
Truth will appear through all the thin difguife:
Thou haft an ulcer which no leach can heal,
Tho thy broad shoulder-belt the wound conceal.
Say thou art found and hale in ev'ry part,
We know, we know thee rotten at thy heart.
We know thee fullen, impotent, and proud :
Nor can't thou cheat thy nerve, who cheat'ft the
croud.

But when they praise me, in the neighbourhood.
When the pleas'd people take me for a God,
Shall I refuse their incenfe? Not receive
The loud applaufes which the vulgar give?
If thou doft wealth, with longing eyes, behold;
And, greedily, art gaping after gold;

If fome alluring girl, in gliding by,

Shall tip the wink, with a lascivious eye,
And thou with a confenting glance, reply;
If thou, thy own folicitor become,
And bid'it arife the lumpish pendulum:

}

If thy lewd luft provokes an empty ftorm,
And prompts to more than nature can perform;
If, with thy guards, thou fcour'ft the streets by
night,

And doft in murthers, rapes, and spoils delight;
Please not thyself, the flatt'ring crowd to hear;
'Tis fulfome stuff to feed thy itching ear.
Reject the nauseous praises of the times:
Give thy base poets back thy cobbled rhimes :
Survey thy foul, not what thou do'st appear,
But what thou art; and find the beggar there.

THE

FIFTH SATIRE

OF

PERSIUS.

THE ARGUMENT.

The judicious Cafaubon, in his proem to this fatire, tells us, that Ariftophanes the grammarian being asked, what poem of Archilochus his Iambics he preferred before the reft; answered, the longest. His answer may justly be applied to this fifth fatire; which, being of a greater length than any of the reft, is alfo, by far, the most inftructive: for this reafon I have selected it from all the others, and inscribed it to my learned mafter, Dr. Busby; to which I am not only obliged myself for the best part of my own education, and that of my two fons; but have also received from him the first and trueft tafte of Perfius. May be be pleafed to find in this translation, the gratitude, or at least fome small acknowledgment of his unworthy fcholar, at the

diftance of twenty four years, from the time when 1 departed from under his tuition.

This fatire confifts of two diftinct parts: the first contains the praises of the ftoick philofopher Cornutus, master and tutor to our Perfius. It also declares the love and piety of Perfius, to his welldeferving mafter; and the mutual friendship which continued betwixt them, after Perfius was now grown a man. As alfo his exhortation to young noblemen, that they would enter themselves into his inftitution. From hence he makes an artful tranfition into the fecond part of bis fubject: wherein he first complains of the floth of scholars, and afterwards perfuades them to the pursuit of their true liberty: here our author excellently treats that paradox of the Stoicks, which affirms, that the wife or virtuous man is only free; and that all vicious men are naturally flaves. And, in the illuftration of this dogma, he takes up the remaining part of this inimitable fatire.

THE

THE

FIFTH SATIR E.

Infcribed to the Reverend Dr. BUS BY.

The Speakers PERSIUS and CORNUTUS.

PERSIUS.

F ancient use to poets it belongs,

OF

To with themselves an hundred mouths
and tongues:

Whether to the well lung'd tragedian's rage
They recommend the labors of the stage,
Or fing the Parthian, when transfix'd he lies,
Wrenching the Roman jav'lin from his thighs.

CORNUTU S.

And why wouldst thou these mighty morfels chufe, Of words unchew'd, and fit to choak the muse? Let fuftian poets with their stuff be gone, And fuck the mists that hang o'er Helicon; When Progne or Thyeftes' feast they write; And, for the mouthing actor, verse indite. Thou neither, like a bellows, fwell'ft thy face, As if thou wert to blow the burning mass