At harveft-home, and on the sheering-day,
When he should thanks to Pan and Pales pay,
And better Ceres; trembling to approach
The little barrel, which he fears to broach:
He 'fays the wimble, often draws it back,
And deals to thirsty fervants but a fmack.
To a fhort meal he makes a tedious grace,
Before the barley-pudding comes in place:
Then, bids fall on; himself, for faving charges,
A peel'd flic'd onion eats, and tipples verjuice.
Thus fares the drudge: but thou, whofe life's a dream
Of lazy pleafures, tak'ft a worse extreme.
'Tis all thy bufinefs, bufinefs how to fhun;
To bask thy naked body in the fun;
Suppling thy ftiffen'd joints with fragrant oil:
Then, in the fpacious garden, walk a while,
To fuck the moisture up, and foak it in:
And this, thou think'ft, but vainkly think'ft, unfeen.
But, know, thou art obferv'd: and there are thofe
Who, if they durft, would all thy fecret fins expofe.
The depilation of thy modeft part:
Thy catamite, the darling of thy heart,
His engine-hand, and every lewder art.
When, prone to bear, and patient to receive,
Thou tak ft the pleafure which thou canst not give.
With odorous oil thy head and hair are fleek;
And then thou kemb'ft the tuzzes on thy cheek:
Of these thy barbers take a coftly care,
While thy falt tail is overgrown with hair.
Not all thy pincers, nor unmanly arts,
Can smooth the roughness of thy fhameful parts.
Not five, the strongest that the Circus breeds,
From the rank foil can root those wicked weeds:
Though fuppled first 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 disguise:
Thou haft an ulcer which no leech can heal,
Though thy broad fhoulder-belt the wound conceal.
Say thou art found and hale in every part,
We know, we know thee rotten at thy heart,
We know thee fullen, impotent, and proud:
Nor canst thou cheat thy nerve, who cheat'ft the croud.
But when they praife me, in the neighbourhood,
When the pleas'd people take me for a God,
Shall I refufe their incenfe? Not receive
The loud applaufes which the vulgar give?
If thou dost wealth, with longing eyes, behold;
And, greedily, art gaping after gold;
If fome alluring girl, in gliding by,
Shal tip the wink, with a lascivious eye,
And thou with a confenting glance, reply;
If thou thy own folicitor become,
And bid'ft arife the lumpifh pendulum :
If thy lewd luft provokes an empty storm,
And prompts to more than nature can perform ;
If, with thy guards, thou fcour'ft the streets by night,
And doft in murders, rapes, and spoils delight;
Please not thyself, the flattering 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 dost appear,
But what thou art; and find the beggar there.
THE judicious Cafaubon, in his proem to this fatire, tells us, that Ariftophanes the grammarian being asked, what poem of Archilochus's Iambics he preferred before the reft; anfwered, the longeft. 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 felected it from all the others, and infcribed it to my learned master, Doctor Bubby; to whom I am not only obliged myself for the best part of my own education, and that of my two fons ; but have alfo received from him the first and trueft taste of Perfius. May he be pleased to find in this tranflation, the gratitude, or at least fome small acknowledgment of his unworthy fcholar, at the
distance of twenty-four years, from the time when' I departed from under his tuition.
This fatire confifts of two distinct parts: the first cortains the praises of the ftoick philofopher Cornutus, mafter and tutor to our Perfius. It also declares the love and piety of Perfius, to his well-deferving master; 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 whence he makes an artful tranfition into the fecond part of his fubject: wherein he first complains of the floth of fcholars, and afterwards perfuades them to the purfuit of their true liberty: Here our author excellently treats that paradox of the Stoicks, which affirms, that only the wife or virtuous man is 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.
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