If thy lewd luft provokes an empty storm,
And prompts to more than nature can perform 3
If, with thy i guards, thou scour'ft the streets by night,
And doft in murders, rapes, and spoils delight;
Please not thyself, the flatt'ring crowd to hear;
'Tis fulsome stuff to feed thy itching ear.
Reject the nauseous praises of the times :
Give thy base poets back thy cobbled rhimes :
Survey i thy soul, not what thou do'st appear,
But what thou art; and find the beggar there,

i If with tby guards, &c. Persius durft not have been so bold with Nero, as I dare now; and therefore there is only an intimation of that in him, which I publickly speak : I mean of Nero's walking in the streets by night, in disguise, and committing all sorts of outrages; for which he was sometimes well beaten.

2 Survey tby soul, &c. That is, look into thyself, and examine thy own conscience; there thou shalt find, that how wealthy soever thou appearest to the world, yet thou art but a beggar ; because thou art destitute of all virtues, which are the riches of the soul. This also was a paradox of the stoick school.

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The judicious Casaubon, in his poem to this satire, tells us,

that Aristophanes the grammarian being asked, what poem of Archilochus his lambics he preferred before the rest; answered, the longest. His anjwer may justly be applied to this fifth satire ; which, being of a greater length than any of the rest, is also, by far, the most inftructive : for this reason I have selected it from all the others, and inScribed it to my learned master, Dr. Busby ; to which I am not only obliged myself for the best part of my own 'education, and that of my two sons; but have also received from him the first and truest taste of Persius. May he be pleosid 10 find in this translation, the gratitude, or at least some small acknowledgment of his unworthy scholar, at the diftance of twenty-four years, from the time when

I departed from under his tuition. This satire confifts of two diftinct parts: the first contains

the praises of the ftoick philosopher Cornutus, masier and tutor to our Persius. It also declares the love and piety of Perfus, to his well-defirving master; and the mutual friendjhip which continued betwixt them, after Perfius was now grown a man. As also his exhortation to young noblemen, that they would enter themselves into his institution. From hence he makes an artful transition into the second part of his subject : wherein he first complains of the sloth of scholars, and afterwards perfuades them to the pursuit of their true liberty: here our author excellently treats that paradox of the Stoicks, which afirms that the wise or virtuous man is only free; and that all vicious men are naturally flaves. And, in the illustration of this dogma, he takes up the remaining part of this inimitable Satire.

THE

THE

FIFTH SA T I R E.

Inscribed to the Reverend Dr. BUSBY.

The Speakers PERSIU S and CORNUT U s.

PERSIU S.

F ancient use to poets it belongs,

Towish themselves an hundred mouths and tongues : Whether to the well-lung'd tragedian's rage They recommend the labours of the stage, Or fing the Parthian, when transfix'd he lies, Wrenching the Roman jav'lin from his thighs.

CORNUT U S. And why wouldst thou these mighty morsels chuse, Of words unchew'd, and fit to choak the muse ? Let fuftian poets with their stuff be gone, And suck the mists that hang o'er Helicon; When : Progne or 2 Thyeftes' feast they write ; And, for the mouthing actor, verse indite, Thou neither, like a bellows, swell'st thy face, As if thou wert to blow the burning mass

Of melting ore ; nor canst thou strain thy throat,
Or murmur in an undiftinguith'd note,
Like rolling thunder till it breaks the cloud,
And rattling nonsense is discharg'd aloud.
Soft elocution does thy ftile renown,
And the sweet accents of the peaceful gown:
Gentle or sharp, according to thy choice,
To laugh at follies or to lalh at vice.
Hence draw thy theme, and to the stage permit
Raw-head and bloody-bones, and hands and feet,
Ragousts for Tereus or Thyestes drest;
'Tis talk enough for thee t'expose a Roman feast.

PERSIUS.
"Tis not, indeed, my talent to engage
In lofty triles, or to swell my page
With wind and noise; but freely to impart,
As to a friend, the secrets of my heart ;
And, in familiar speech, to let thee know
How much I love thee, and how much I owe,
Knock on my heart: for thou hast skill to find

2 If it found solid, or be fill'd with wind : And, thro' the veil of words, thou view'ft the naked mind.

For this a hundred voices I defire,
To tell thee what a hundred tongues would tire ;
Yet never could be worthily expreft,
How deeply thou art feated in my breaft.
When first my 3 childish robe resign’d the charge,
And left me, unconfin'd, to live at large;
When now my golden bulla (hung on high
To houshold Gods) declar'd me past a boy;
And my 4 white shield proclaim'd my liberty :

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When with my wild companions, I could rowl
From street to street, and fin without controul ;
Just at that age, when manhood set me free,
I then depos'd myself, and left the reins to thee.
On thy wife bofom I repos'd my head,
And by my better 5 Socrates was bred.
Then thy streight rule set virtue in my fight,
The crooked line reforming by the right.
My reason took the bent of thy command,
Was form’d and polish'd by thy skilful hand:
Long summer-days thy precepts 1 rehearse ;
And winter-nights were short in our converse :
One was our labour, one was our repose.
One frugal supper did our studies close.

Sure on our birth some friendly planet ihone;
And, as our 6 fouls, our horoscope was one:

6
Whether the 7 mounting twins did heav'n adori,
Or, with the rising 8 balance we were born;
Both have the same impressions from above;
And both have 9 Saturn's rage, repellid by Jove.
What star I know not, but some ftar I find,
Has giv’n thee an ascendant o'er my mind.

CORNUT U S.
Nature is ever various in her frame:
Each has a different will; and few the same :
The greedy merchants, led by lucre, run
To the parch'd Indies, and the rising sun ;

a

5 Socrates, by the oracle, was declared to be the wifeft of mankind: He instructed many of the Athenian young noblemen in morality, and amongst the rest Alcibiades.

6 Astrologers divide the heaven into twelve parts, according to the number of the twelve signs of the zodiack: The sign or constellation which rises in the east, at the birth of any man, is called the aicendant: Persius therefore judges, that Cornutus and he had the same, or a like nativity.