thod is to be purfued, of which Cafaubon himself has never thought, and which will put all things into fo clear a light, that no farther room will be left for the leaft difpute. During the fpace of almoft four hundred years, fince the building of their city, the Romans had never known any entertainments of the ftate: chance and jollity first found out thofe verfes which they called Saturnian, and Fefcennine: or rather human nature, which is inclined to poetry, firft produced them, rude and barbarous, and unpolifhed, as all. other operations of the foul are in their beginnings, before they are cultivated with art and ftudy. However, in occafions of merriment they were firft prac tifed; and this rough caft unhewn poetry, was inftead of ftage-plays, for the fpace of one hundred and twenty years together. They were made extempore, and were, as the French call them, impromptus ; for which the Tarfans of old were much renowned; and we see the daily examples of them in the Italian farces of Harlequin and Scaramouchies. Such was the poetry of that favage people, before it was turned into numbers, and the harmony of verfe. Little of the Saturnian verfes is now remaining; we only know from authors, that they were nearer profe than poetry, without feet, or measure. They were égğusual, but not Euro: perhaps they might be used in the folemn part of their ceremonies; and the Fefcennine, which were invented after them, in their afternoons debauchery, because they were scoffing and obfcene. The Fefcennine and Saturnian were the fame; for as they were called Saturnian from their ancientness, when Saturn reigned in Italy; they were also called Fefcennine, from Fefcennina, a town in the fame country, where they were first practifed. The actors, with a grofs and ruftic kind of raillery, reproached each other with their failing; and at the fame time were nothing fparing of it to their audience, Somewhat of this cuftom was afterwards retained in their Saturnalia, or feafts of Saturn, ce lebrated Yebrated in December; at least all kind of freedom in fpeech was then allowed to flaves, even against their masters; and we are not without fome imitation of it in our Christmas gambols. Soldiers also used thofe Fefcennine verfes, after measure and numbers had been added to them, at the triumph of their generals of which we have an example, in the triumph of Julius Cæfar over Gaul, in thefe expreffions: Cafar Gallias fubegit, Nicomedes Cafarem: ecce Cæfar nunc triumphat, qui fubegit Gallias; Nicomedes non tri. amphat, qui fubegit Cafarem. The vapours of wine made the first fatirical poets amongst the Romans; which, fays Dacier, we cannot better reprefent, than by imagining a company of clowns on a holiday, dancing lubberly, and upbraiding one another in extempore doggrel, with their defects and vices, and the ftories that were told of them in bake-houses and barbers-fhops. When they began to be fomewhat better bred, and were entering, as I may fay, into the first rudiments of civil converfation, they left these hedgenotes, for another fort of poem, fomewhat polished, which was alfo full of pleafant raillery, but without any mixture of obfcenity. This fort of poetry appeared under the name of fatire, because of its variety: and this fatire was adorned with compofitions of mufic, and with dances; but lafcivious poftures were banished from it. In the Tufcan language, fays Livy, the word bister fignifies a player: and therefore those actors, which were firft brought from Etruria to Rome, on occafion of a pestilence; when the Romans were admonished to avert the anger of the Gods by plays, in the year ab Urbe Condita CCCXC : thofe actors, I fay, were therefore called hiftriones : and that name has fince remained, not only to actors Roman born, but to all others of every nation. They played not the former extempore ftuff of Fefcennine verfes, or clownish jefts; but what they acted was a kind of civil cleanly farce, with mufic and dances, and motions that were proper to the fubject. In this condition Livius Andronicus found the ftage, when he attempted firft, inftead of farces, to fupply it with a nobler entertainment of tragedies. and comedies. This man was a Grecian born, and, being made a flave by Livius Salinator, and brought to Rome, had the education of his patron's children committed to him. Which truft he difcharged fo much to the fatisfaction of his master, that he gave him his liberty. Andronicus thus become a freeman of Rome, added to his own name that of Livius his master; and, as I obferved, was the firft author of a regular play in that commonwealth. Being already inftructed, in his native country, in the manners and decencies of the Athenian theatre, and converfant in the Archaa comedia, or old comedy of Ariftophanes, and the rest of the Grecian poets; he took from that model his own defigning of plays for the Roman ftage. The firft of which was reprefented in the year CCCCCXIV fince the building of Rome, as Tully, from the commentaries of Atticus, has affured us it was after the end of the firft Punic war, the year before Ennius was born. Dacier has not carried the matter altogether thus far; he only fays, that one Livius Andronicus was the firft ftage-poet at Rome: but I will adventure on this hint, to advance another propofition, which I hope the learned will approve. And though we have not any thing of Andronicus remaining to juftify my conjecture, yet it is exceeding probable, that having read the works of thofe Grecian wits, his country-men, he imitated not only the ground-work, but also the manner of their writing. And how grave foever his tragedies might be, yet in his comedies he expreffed the way of Ariftophanes, Eupolis, and the reft, which was to call fome perfons by their own names, and to expofe their defects to the laughter of the people. The examples of which we have in the forementioned Ariftophanes, who turned the wife Socrates into ridicule; and is alfo very free with the manage ment ment of Cleon, Alcibiades, and other ministers of the Athenian government. Now if this be granted,' we may eafily suppose, that the firft hint of fatirical plays on the Roman ftage, was given by the Greeks. Not from the Satirica, for that has been reasonably exploded in the former part of this difcourfe: but from their old comedy, which was imitated firft by Livius Andronicus. And then Quintillian and Horace must be cautiously interpreted, where they affirm, that fatire is wholly Roman; and a fort of verfe, which was not touched on by the Grecians. The reconcilement of my opinion to the standard of their judgment, is not, however, very difficult, fince they spake of fatire, not as in its firft elements, but as it was formed into a feparate work; begun by Ennius; purfued by Lucilius, and compleated afterwards by Horace. The proof depends only on this poftulatum, that the comedies of Andronicus, which were imitations of the Greek, were also imitations of their railleries, and-reflections on particular perfons. For if this be granted me, which is a most probable fuppofition, it is easy to infer, that the first light that was given to the Roman theatrical fatire, was from the plays of Livius Andronicus. Which will be more manifeftly discovered, when I come to speak of Ennius. In the mean time I will return to Dacier. The people, fays he, ran in crowds to these new entertainments of Andronicus, as to pieces which were more noble in their kind, and more perfect than their former fatires, which for fome time they neglected and abandoned. But not long after, they took them up again, and then they joined them to their comedies: playing them at the end of every drama; as the French continue at this day to act their farces; in the nature of a separate entertainment from their tragedies. But more particularly they were joined to the Attellane fables, fays Cafaubon; which were plays invented by the Ofci. Those fables, fays Valerius Maximus, out of Livy, were tempered tempered with the Italian feverity, and free from any note of infamy or obfcenenefs; and as an old commentator on Juvenal affirms, the exodiarii, which were fingers and dancers, entered to entertain the people with light fongs, and mimical geftures, that they might not go away oppreffed with melancholy, from thofe ferious pieces of the theatre. So that the ancient fatire of the Romans was in extemporary reproaches the next was farce, which was brought from Tufcany: to that fucceeded the plays of Andronicus, from the old comedy of the Grecians: and out of all these, sprung two several branches of new Roman fatire like different cyons from the same Which I fhall prove with as much brevity as root. the fubject will allow. A year after Andronicus had opened the Roman ftage with his new drama's, Ennius was born; who, when he was grown to man's eftate, having seriously confidered the genius of the people, and how eagerly they followed the firft fatires, thought it would be worth his pains to refine upon the project, and to write fatires, not to be acted on the theatre, but read. He preferved the ground-work of their pleafantry, their venom, and their raillery on particular perfons, and general vices: and by this means, avoiding the danger of any ill fuccefs, in a public reprefentation, he hoped to be as well received in the cabinet, as Andronicus had been upon the stage. The event was answerable to his expectation. He made difcourfes in feveral forts of verfe, varied often in the fame paper; retaining fill in the title their original name of fatire. Both in relation to the fubjects, and the variety of matters contained in them, the fatires of Horace are entirely like them; only Ennius, as I faid, confines not himfelf to one fort of verfe, as Horace does; but taking example from the Greeks, and even from Homer himself in his Margites, which is a kind of fatire, as Scaliger obferves, gives himself the licence, when one fort of numbers comes not eafily, to run into another, as |