is turned, and while you are otherwife employed: with great confufion, for having entertained you fo long with this discourse; 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,

THE

FIRST SATIRE

OF

JUVENA L.

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 justice 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 bard matter to excel them, and gain a greater efteem with the public. Next he informs us more openly, why he rather addicts himself to fatire, than any other kind of poetry. And here he discovers 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 raigning in his time. So that this firft fatire is the natural ground-work of all the reft. Herein be confines himself to no one fubject, but frikes indifferently at all men in his way: in every fol lowing fatire he has chofen fome particular moral which be would inculcate; and lafhes 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 ftroke of his pen, brands even the living, and perfonates them under dead men's

names.

I have

have avoided as much as I could poffibly the borrowed learning of marginal notes and illuftrations, 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 firft 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 and o'er? Shall this man's elegies and t'other's play Unpunifh'd murder a long fummer's day? Huge 2 Telephus, a formidable page, Cries vengeance; and 3 Oreftes' bulky rage Unfatisfy'd with margins clofely writ, Foams o'er the covers, and not finish'd yet. No man can take a more familiar note Of his own home, than I of Vulcan's grott, Or Mars his grove 4, or hollow winds that blow From Etna's top, or tortur'd ghosts below. I know by rote the fam'd exploits of Greece; The Centaurs fury, and the golden fleece; Thro' the thick fhades th' eternal fcribler bauls, And fhades the ftatues on their pedestals. The best and worst 5 on the fame theme employs His mufe, and plagues us with an equal noise.

1 Codrus, or it may be Cordus, a bad poet, who wrote the life and actions of Thefeus.

2 Telephus, the name of a tragedy.

3 Oreftes, another tragedy.

4 Mars his grove. Some commentators take this grove to be a

place where poets were ufed to repeat their works to the people; but more probably, both this and Vulcan's grott, or cave, and the rest of the places and names here mentioned, are only meant for the common-places of Homer, in his Iliad, and Odyfley.

5 The best and worft; that is, the best and the worst poets.

Provok'd

Provok'd by theíe incorrigible fools,
I left declaiming in pedantic fchools;
Where, with men-boys, I ftrove to get renown,
Advifing Sylla 6 to a private gown.

But, fince the world with writing is poffeft,
I'll verfify in fpite; and do my best,

To make as much wafte paper as the reft.
But why I lift aloft the fatire's rod,

And tread the path which fam'd Lucilius 7 trod,
Attend the caufes which my Muse have led:
When faplefs eunuchs mount the marriage-bed,
When mannish Mevia 8, that two-handed whore,
Aftride on horse-back hunts the Tuscan boar,
When all our lords are by his wealth outvy'd,
Whofe razor 9 on my callow beard was try'd;
When I behold the fpawn of conquer'd Nile,
Crifpinus, both in birth and manners vile,
Pacing in pomp, with cloak of Tyrian dye,
Chang'd oft a-day for needlefs luxury;
And finding oft occafion to be fan'd,
Ambitious to produce his lady-hand;

}

Charg'd with light fummer-rings 2 his fingers fweat,
Unable to fupport a gem of weight:
Such fulfom objects meeting every where,
'Tis hard to write, but harder to forbear.
To view fo lewd a town, and to refrain,
What hoops of iron could my fpleen contain !

6 Advifing Sylla, &c. This was one of the themes given in the fchools of rhetoricians, in the deliberative kind; whether Sylla fhould lay down the fupreme power of dictatorship, or ftill keep it. 7 Lucilius, the first fatirift of the Romans, who wrote long before Horace.

8 Mevia, a name put for any impudent or mannish woman. 9 Whofe razor, &c. Juvenal's barber now grown wealthy.

1 Crifpinus, an Egyptian flave; now by his riches transformed into a nobleman.

2 Charg'd with light fummer rings, &c. The Romans were grown fo effeminate in Juvenal's time, that they wore light rings in the fum

mer,

and heavier in the winter.

When

When pleading Matho 3, borne abroad for air,
With his fat paunch fills his new-fashion'd chair,
And after him the wretch in pomp convey'd,
Whofe evidence his lord and friend betray'd,
And but the wifh'd occafion does attend
From the poor nobles the last spoils to rend,
Whom ev'n fpies dread as their fuperiour fiend,
And bribe with prefents; or, when presents fail,
They fend their proftituted wives for bail:
When night-performance holds the place of merit,
́And brawn and back the next of kin disherit;
For fuch good parts are in preferment's way,
The rich old madam never fails to pay
Her legacies, by nature's standard giv❜n,
One gains an ounce, another gains eleven :
A dear-bought bargain, all things duly weigh'd,
For which their thrice concocted blood is paid.
With looks as wan, as he who in the brake
At unawares has trode upon a fnake;
Or play'd at Lyons 4 a declaiming prize,
For which the vanquish'd rhetorician dies.
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 fulfome to be read!
When he who pill'd his province fcapes the laws,
And keeps his money, though he loft his caufe:
His fine begg'd off, contemns his infamy,
Can rife at twelve and get him drunk ere three:

}

3 Matho, a famous lawyer, mentioned in other places by Juvenal and Martial.

4 At Lyons; a city in France, where annual facrifices and games were made in honour of Augustus Cæfar.

VOL. IV.

P

Enjoys