Meantime, unknowing of their fellow's fate,
The servants wash the platter, scour the plate,
Then blow the fire, with puffing cheeks, and lay
The rubbers, and the bathing-sheets display,
And oil them first; and each is handy in his way.
But he, for whom this busy care they take,
Poor ghost! is wandering by the Stygian lake;
Affrighted with the ferryman's grim face,
New to the horrors of that uncouth place,
His passage begs, with unregarded prayer,
And wants two farthings to discharge his fare.
Return we to the dangers of the night.-
And, first, behold our houses' dreadful height;
From whence come broken potsherds tumbling
down,

And leaky ware from garret-windows thrown; Well may they break our heads, that mark the flinty stone.

'Tis want of sense to sup abroad too late,
Unless thou first hast settled thy estate;
As many fates attend thy steps to meet,
As there are waking windows in the street.
Bless the good Gods, and think thy chance is rare,
To have a piss-pot only for thy share.

The scouring drunkard, if he does not fight
Before his bed-time, takes no rest that night;
Passing the tedious hours in greater pain
Than stern Achilles, when his friend was slain
'Tis so ridiculous, but so true withal,

A bully cannot sleep without a brawl.

Yet, though his youthful blood be fired with wine,
He wants not wit the danger to decline;
Is cautious to avoid the coach and six,
And on the lacquies will no quarrel fix.

His train of flambeaux, and embroider'd coat,
May privilege my lord to walk secure on foot;

But me, who must by moon-light homeward bend,
Or lighted only with a candle's end,
Poor me he fights, if that be fighting, where
He only cudgels, and I only bear.

He stands, and bids me stand; I must abide,
For he's the stronger, and is drunk beside.

Where did you whet your knife to-night, he cries,
And shred the leeks that in your stomach rise?
Whose windy beans have stuft your guts, and where
Have your black thumbs been dipt in vinegar?
With what companion-cobbler have you fed,
On old ox-cheeks, or he-goat's tougher head?
What, are you dumb? Quick, with your answer, quick,
Before my foot salutes you with a kick.

Say, in what nasty cellar, under ground,

Or what church-porch, your rogueship may be found ?

Answer, or answer not, 'tis all the same,
He lays me on, and makes me bear the blame.
Before the bar for beating him you come ;
This is a poor man's liberty in Rome.
You beg his pardon; happy to retreat
With some remaining teeth, to chew your meat.
Nor is this all; for when, retired, you think
To sleep securely, when the candles wink,
When every door with iron chains is barr'd,
And roaring taverns are no longer heard;
The ruffian robbers, by no justice awed,
And unpaid cut-throat soldiers, are abroad;
Those venal souls, who, harden'd in each ill,
To save complaints and prosecution, kill.
Chased from their woods and bogs, the padders

come

To this vast city, as their native home,
To live at ease, and safely skulk in Rome.
The forge in fetters only is employ'd;
Our iron mines exhausted and destroy'd

In shackles; for these villains scarce allow Goads for the teams, and plough-shares for the plough.

Oh, happy ages of our ancestors,

Beneath the kings and tribunitial powers!

One jail did all their criminals restrain,

Which now the walls of Rome can scarce contain.

More I could say, more causes I could show For my departure, but the sun is low; The waggoner grows weary of my stay, And whips his horses forwards on their way. Farewell! and when, like me, o'erwhelm'd with

care,

You to your own Aquinam shall repair,
To take a mouthful of sweet country air,
Be mindful of your friend; and send me word,
What joys your fountains and cool shades afford.
Then, to assist your satires, I will come,
And add new venom when you write of Rome.

* The birth-place of Juvenal.

THE

SIXTH SATIRE

OF

JUVENA L.

was

THE ARGUMENT.

This Satire, of almost double length to any of the rest, is a bitter invective against the fair sex. It is, indeed, a common-place, from whence all the moderns have notoriously stolen their sharpest railleries. In his other satires, the poet has only glanced on some particular women, and generally scourged the men; but this he reserved wholly for the ladies. How they had offended him, I know not; but, upon the whole matter, he is not to be excused for imputing to all, the vices of some few amongst them. Neither it generously done of him, to attack the weakest, as well as the fairest part of the creation; neither do I know what moral he could reasonably draw from it. It could not be to avoid the whole sex, if all had been true which he alleges against them; for that had been to put an end to human kind. And to bid us beware of their artifices, is a kind of silent acknowledgment that they had more wit than men, which turns the satire upon us, and particularly upon the poet, who thereby makes a compliment, where he meant a libel. If he intended only to exercise his wit, he has forfeited his judgment, by making the one half of his readers his mortal enemies; and amongst the men, all the happy lovers, by their own experience, will disprove his accusations. The whole world must allow this to be the wittiest of his satires; and truly he had need of all his parts, to maintain, with so much violence, so unjust a charge. I am satisfied he will bring but few over to his opinion; and on that consideration chiefly I ventured to trans

late him. Though there wanted not another reason, which was, that no one else would undertake it; at least, Sir C. S. who could have done more right to the author, after a long delay, at length absolutely refused so ungrateful an employment; and every one will grant, that the work must have been imperfect and lame, if it had appeared without one of the principal members belonging to it. Let the poet, therefore, bear the blame of his own invention; and let me satisfy the world, that I am not of his opinion. Whatever his Roman ladies were, the English are free from all his imputations. They will read with wonder and abhorrence the vices of an age, which was the most infamous of any on record. They will bless themselves when they behold those examples, related of Domitian's time; they will give back to antiquity those monsters it produced, and believe, with reason, that the species of those women is extinguished, or, at least, that they were never here propagated. I may safely, therefore, proceed to the argument of a satire, which is no way relating to them; and first observe, that my author makes their lust the most heroic of their vices; the rest are in a manner but digression. He skims them over, but he dwells on this; when he seems to have taken his last leave of it, on the sudden he returns to it: It is one branch of it in Hippia, another in Messalina, but lust is the main body of the tree. He begins with this text in the first line, and takes it up, with intermissions, to the end of the chapter. Every vice is a loader, but that is a ten. The fillers, or intermediate parts, are their revenge; their contrivances of secret crimes; their arts to hide them; their wit to excuse them; and their impudence to own them, when they can no longer be kept secret. Then the persons to whom they are most addicted, and on whom they commonly bestow the last favours, as stage-players, fiddlers, singing-boys, and fencers. Those who pass for chaste amongst them, are not really so; but only, for their vast doweries, are rather suffered, than loved, by their own husbands. That they are imperious, domineering, scolding wives; set up for learning, and criticism in poetry; but are false judges: Love to speak Greek, (which was then the fashionable tongue, as French is now with us). That they plead causes at the bar, and play prizes at the bear-garden: That they are gossips and newsmongers; wrangle with their neighbours abroad, and beat their servants at home: That they lie-in for new faces once a-month; are sluttish with their husbands in private, and paint and dress in public for their lovers: That they deal with Jews, diviners, and fortune-tellers; learn the arts of miscarrying and barrenness; buy children, and produce them for their own; murder their husband's sons, if they stand in their way to his estate, and make their adulterers his heirs. From hence the poet proceeds to show the occasions of all these vices, their original, and how they were introduced in Rome by peace, wealth, and luxury. In