Make lanes among the people where they go,
And, mounted high on downy chariots, throw
Difdainful glances on the crowd below?
Be filent, and beware, if fuch you fee;
'Tis defamation but to say, That's he!
Against bold Turnus the great Trojan arm,
Amidst their strokes the poet gets no harm:
Achilles may in epic verse be slain,
And none of all his myrmidons complain :
Hylas may drop his pitcher, none will cry;
Not if he drown himself for company :
But when Lucilius brandishes his pen,
And flashes in the face of guilty men,
A cold fweat ftands in drops on every part;
And rage fucceeds to tears, revenge to fmart:
Mufe, be advis'd; 'tis paft confidering-time,
When enter'd once the dangerous lifts of rhime:
Since none the living villains dare implead,
Arraign them in the perfons of the dead.

THE

}

THE ftory of this fatire speaks itself. Umbritius, the fuppofed friend of Juvenal, and himself a poet, is leaving Rome, and retiring to Cumæ.. Our au-thor accompanies him out of town. Before they take leave of each other, Umbritius tells his friend. the reafons which oblige him to lead a private life, in an obfcure place. honest man cannot get his none but flatterers make

He complains that an bread at Rome: that their fortunes there :

that Grecians and other foreigners raise themfelves by thofe fordid arts which he defcribes, and against which he bitterly inveighs. He reckons up the feveral inconveniencies which arife from a city-life; and the many dangers which attend it.. Upbraids the noblemen with covetoufness, for not rewarding good poets; and arraigns the government for farving them. The great art of this Q.4 fatire

fatire is particularly fhown, in common-places; and drawing in as many vices, as could naturally fall into 1 the compass of it.

G

RIEV'D though I am an ancient friend to lost,
I like the folitary feat he chofe:

In quiet Cuma fixing his repose:

Where far from noisy Rome fecure he lives,

And one more citizen to Sibyl gives.

The road to Baja, and that foft recefs
Which all the gods with all their bounty blefs.
Though I in Prochyta with greater ease
Could live, than in a street of palaces.
What fcenes fo defert, or fo full of fright,
As towering houses tumbling in the night,
And Rome on fire beheld by its own blazing light?
But worse than all the clattering tiles, and worse
Than thoufand padders, is the poet's curfe.
Rogues that in dog-days cannot rhime forbear
But without mercy read, and make you hear.

Now while my friend, juft ready to depart,
Was packing all his goods in one poor cart;
He ftop'd a little at the Conduit-gate,
Where Numa model'd once the Roman-ftate,
In mighty councils with his nymph retir'd
Though now the facred fhades and founts are hir'd
By banish'd Jews, who their whole wealth can lay
In a small balket, on a wisp of hay;

Yet fuch our avarice is, that every tree
Pays for his head; nor fleep itself is free:

Not

Nor place, nor perfons, now are facred held,
From their own grove the Mufes are expell'd.
Into this lonely vale our fteps we bend,

I and my fullen difcontented friend:

The marble caves, and aquæducts, we view;

But how adulterate now, and different from the true!
How much more beauteous had the fountain been
Embellish'd with her first.created green,

Where crystal streams through living turf had run,
Contented with an urn of native stone!

Then thus Umbritius (with an angry frown,
And looking back on this degenerate town,)
Since noble arts in Rome have no support,
And ragged virtue not a friend at court,
No profit rifes from th' ungrateful stage,.
My poverty encreafing with my age,
'Tis time to give my juft difdain a vent,
And, curfing, leave fo bafe a government.
Where Dedalus his borrow'd wings laid by,..
To that obfcure retreat I chufe to fly.
While. yet few furrows on my face.are feen,
While I walk upright, an old age is green,
And Lachefis has fomewhat left to spin.
Now, now, 'tis time to quit this curfed place,
And hide from villains my too honest face:
Here let Arturius live, and fuch as he:
Such manners will with fuch a town agree..
Knaves, who in full aflemblies have the knack
Of turning truth to lies, and white to black;

Can

Can hire large houses, and opprefs the poor
By farm'd excife; can cleanse the common-shore;
And rent the fishery; can bear the dead;
And teach their eyes diffembled tears to shed,
All this for gain; for gain they fell their very head.
Thefe fellows (fee what fortune's power can do)
Were once the minstrels of a country show :
Follow'd the prizes through each paltry town,
By trumpet-cheeks and bloated faces known.
But now, grown rich, on drunken holidays,
At their own costs exhibit public plays :
Where, influenc'd by the rabble's bloody will,
With thumbs bent back, they popularly kill.
From thence return'd, their fordid avarice rakes
In excrements again, and hires the jakes.
Why hire they not the town, not every thing,
Since fuch as they have fortune in a string?
Who, for her pleasure, can her fools advance;
And tofs them topmost on the wheel of chance.
What 's Rome to me, what business have I there,
I who can neither lie, nor falfely fwear.?
Nor praise my patron's undeferving rhymes,
Nor yet comply with him, nor with his times;
Unskill'd in schemes by planets to foreshow,
Like canting rafcals, how the wars will go :
I neither will, nor can prognofticate

To the young gaping heir, his father's fate:.
Nor in the intrails of a toad have pry'd,
Nor carry'd bawdy presents to a bride:

For