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but all unbiaffed readers will conclude, that deration is not to be condemned to fuch impartial men I must appeal: for they who have already former their judgment, may juftly stand suspected of prejudice; and though all who are my readers, will fet up to be my judges, I enter my caveat against them, that they ought not fo much as to be of my jury or, if they be admitted, it is but reafon that they should first hear what I have to urge in the defence of my opinion.

That Horace is fomewhat the better inftructor of the two, is proved from hence, that his inftructions are more general: Juvenal's more limited. So that, granting, that the counfels which they give, are equally good for moral ufe; Horace, who gives the moft various advice, and most applicable to all occafions which can occur to us in the course of our lives; as including in his difcourfes not only all the rules of morality, but alfo of civil conversation; is, undoubtedly, to be preferred to him, who is more circumfcribed in his inftructions, makes them to fewer people, and on fewer occafions, than the other. I may be pardoned for ufing an old faying, fince it is true, and to the purpofe, Bonum quo communis, ea melius. Juvenal, excepting only his firft fatire, is in all the reft confined, to the expofing of fome particular vice; that he lafhes, and there he fticks. His fentences are truly fhining and inftructive: but they are fprinkled here and there. Horace is teaching us in every line, and is perpetually moral; he had found out the kill of Virgil, to hide his fentences to give you the virtue of them, without fhewing them in their full extent: which is the oftentation of a poet, and not his art and this Petronius charges on the authors of his time, as a vice of writing, which was then growing on the age. Ne fententiæ extra corpus orationis emineant: he would have them weaved into the body of the work, and not appear emboffed upon it, and ftriking directly on the reader's view. Folly was the proper quarry

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of Horace, and not vice: and, as there are but few notoriously wicked men, in comparison with a shoal of fools and fops; fo it is a harder thing to make a man wife, than to make him honeft: for the will is only to be reclaimed in the one; but the underftanding is to be informed in the other. There are blind fides and follies, even in the profeffors of moral philofophy; and there is not any one fect of them that Horace has not expofed. Which, as it

was not the defign of Juvenal, who was wholly employed in lafhing vices, fome of them the most enormous that can be imagined; fo perhaps, it was not fo much his talent. Omne vafer vitium ridenti Flaccus amico, tangit, & admiffus circum præcordia ludit. This was the commendation which Perfius gave him; where by vitium, he means those little vices which we call follies, the defects of human understanding, or at moft the peccadillos of life, rather than the tragical vices, to which men are hurried by their unruly paffions and exorbitant defires. But in the word omne, which is univerfal, he concludes with me, that the divine wit of Horace left nothing untouched; that he entered into the inmost recesses of nature; found out the imperfections even of the moft wife and grave, as well as of the common people; difcovering, even in the great Trebatius, to whom he addreffes the firit fatire, his hunting after business, and following the court, as well as in the perfecutor Crifpinus, his impertinence and importunity. It is true, he expofes Crifpinus openly, as a common nuifance: but he rallies the other as a friend, more finely. The exhortations of Perfius are confined to noblemen: and the ftoick philofophy is that alone which he recommends to them: Juvenal exhorts to particular virtues, as they are oppofed to thofe vices against which he declaims: but Horace laughs to fhame all follies, and infinuates virtue, rather by familiar examples, than by the feverity of precepts.

This

This laft confideration feems to incline the balance on the fide of Horace, and to give him the preference to Juvenal, not only in profit, but in pleasure. But, after all, I must confefs that the delight which Horace gives me, is but languishing. Be pleafed ftill to understand, that I fpeak of my own tafte only: he may ravish other men; but I am too ftupid and infenfible to be tickled. Where he barely grins himfelf, and, as Scaliger fays, only fhews his white teeth, he cannot provoke me to any laughter. His urbanity, that is, his good manners, are to be commended, but his wit is faint; and his falt, if I may dare to fay fo, almoft infipid. Juvenal is of a more vigorous and mafculine wit; he gives me as much pleafure as I can bear: he fully fatis fies my expectation; he treats his fubject home: his fpleen is raised, and he raifes mine: I have the pleafure of concernment in all he fays; he drives his reader along with him; and when he is at the end of his way, I willingly ftop with him. If he went another ftage, it would be too far, it would make a journey of a progrefs, and turn delight into fatigue. When he gives over, it is a fign the fubject is exhaufted, and the wit of man can carry it no farther. If a fault can juftly be found in him, it is that he is fometimes too luxuriant, too redundant; fays more than he needs, like my friend the Plain-Dealer, but never more than pleafes. Add to this, that his thoughts are as just as thofe of Horace, and much more elevated. His expreffions are fonorous and more noble; his verfe more numerous, and his words are fuitable to his thoughts, fublime and lofty. All these contribute to the pleasure of the reader: and the greater the foul of him who reads, his tranfports are the greater. Horace is always on the amble, Juvenal on the gallop; but his way is perpetually on carpetground. He goes with more impetuofity than Horace, but as fecurely; and the fwiftnefs adds a more lively agitation to the fpirits. The low ftile of Horace is according to his fubject, that is generally VOL. IV. gravely:

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gravely: I queftion not but he could have raised it for the firft epiftle of the fecond book, which he writes to Auguftus, (a moft inftructive fatire concerning poetry,) is of fo much dignity in the words, and of fo much elegancy in the numbers, that the author plainly fhews, the fermo pedeftris, in his other fatires, was rather his choice than his neceffity. He was a rival to Lucilius his predeceffor, and was refolved to furpafs him in his own manner. Lucilius, as we fee by his remaining fragments, minded neither his ftyle nor his numbers, nor his purity of words, nor his run of verse: Horace therefore copes with him in that humble way of fatire, writes under his own force, and carries a dead weight, that he may match his competitor in the race. This I imagine was the chief reafon, why he minded only the clearness of his fatire, and the cleannefs of expreffion, without afcending to thofe heights, to which his own vigour might have carried him. But limiting his defires only to the conqueft of Lucilius, he had the ends of his rival, who lived before him; but made way for a new conqueft over himfelf, by Juvenal his fucceffor. He could not give an equal pleasure to his reader, because he used not equal inftruments. The fault was in the tools, and not in the workman. verfifications and numbers are the greatest pleasures of poetry: Virgil knew it, and practifed both fo happily, that for ought I know, his greatest excellency is in his diction. In all other parts of poetry, is faultless; but in this he placed his chief perfection. And give me leave, my lord, fince I have here an apt occafion, to fay, that Virgil could have written. fharper fatires, than either Horace or Juvenal, if he would have employed his talent that way. I will produce a verfe and half of his, in one of his eclogues, to juftify my opinion; and with comma's after every word, to fhew, that he has given almoft as many lafhes, as he has written fyllables; it is against a bad poet, whofe ill verfes he defcribes : Non tu, in triviis indocte, folebas, ftridenti, miferum, ftipula,

But

ftipula, difperdere, carmen? But to return to my pur pofe, when there is any thing deficient in numbers, and found, the reader is uneafy and unfatisfied; he wants fomething of his complement, defires fomewhat which he finds not: and this being the manifest defect of Horace, it is no wonder, that finding it fupplied in Juvenal, we are more delighted with him. And befides this, the fauce of Juvenal is more poignant, to create in us an appetite of reading him. The meat of Horace is more nourishing; but the cookery of Juvenal more exquifite; fo that granting Horace to be the more general philofopher, we cannot deny that Juvenal was the greater poet, I mean in fatire. His thoughts are fharper, his indignation against vice is more vehement; his fpirit has more of the commonwealth genius; he treats tyranny, and all the vices attending it, as they deferve, with the utmoft rigour: and confequently a noble foul is better pleased with a zealous vindicator of Roman liberty than with a temporizing poet, a well-mannered court-flave, and a man who is often afraid of laughing in the right place; who is ever decent, because he is naturally fervile. After all, Horace had the difadvantage of the times in which he lived; they were better for the man, but worfe for the fatirift. It is generally faid, that those enormous vices which were practised under the reign of Domitian, were not known in the time of Auguftus Cæfar that therefore Juvenal had a larger field than Horace. Little follies were out of doors, when oppreffion was to be fcourged inftead of avarice; it was no longer time to turn into ridicule the falfe opinions of philofophers, when the Roman liberty was to be afferted. There was more need of a Brutus in Domitian's days, to redeem or mend, than of a Horace, if he had then been living, to laugh at a fly-catcher. This reflection at the fame time excufes Horace, but exalts Juvenal. I have ended, before I was aware, the comparison of Horace and Juvenal, upon the topics of pleasure and delight;

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