Nor tell me, in a dying father's tone,Be careful still of the main chance, my son; Put out thy principal in trusty hands, Live on the use, and never dip thy lands: But yet what's left for me?-What's left, my friend! Ask that again, and all the rest I spend. Is not my fortune at my own command? Pour oil, and pour it with a plenteous hand Upon my sallads, boy: shall I be fed With sodden nettles, and a singed sow's head? 'Tis holiday, provide me better cheer; 'Tis holiday, and shall be round the year. Shall I my household gods and genius cheat, To make him rich, who grudges me my meat, That he may loll at ease, and, pamper'd high, When I am laid, may feed on giblet-pie, And, when his throbbing lust extends the vein, Have wherewithal his whores to entertain ? Shall I in homespun cloth be clad, that he His paunch in triumph may before him see? Go, miser, go; for lucre sell thy soul;

Truck wares for wares, and trudge from pole to pole,
That men may say, when thou art dead and gone,
See what a vast estate he left his son!

How large a family of brawny knaves,
Well fed, and fat as Cappadocian slaves!*
Increase thy wealth, and double all thy store;
'Tis done; now double that, and swell the score;
To every thousand add ten thousand more.
Then say, Chrysippus,t thou who would'st confine
Thy heap, where I shall put an end to mine.

Note XII.

+ Note XIV.

VOL. XIII.

NOTES

ON

TRANSLATIONS FROM PERSIUS.

SATIRE VI.

Note I.

Has winter caused thee, friend, to change thy seat,
And seek in Sabine air a warm retreat.-P. 268.

All the studious, and particularly the poets, about the end of August, began to set themselves on work, refraining from writing during the heats of the summer. They wrote by night, and sat up the greatest part of it; for which reason the product of their studies was called their elucubrations, or nightly labours. They who had country-seats retired to them while they studied, as Persius did to his, which was near the port of the Moon in Etruria; and Bassus to his, which was in the country of the Sabines, nearer Rome.

Note II.

Now sporting on thy lyre the loves of youth.-P. 268.

This proves Cæsius Bassus to have been a lyric poet. It is said of him, that by an eruption of the flaming mountain Vesuvius, near which the greatest part of his fortune lay, he was burnt himself, together with all his writings.

Note III.

Who in a drunken dream beheld his soul.

The fifth within the transmigrating roll.-P. 269.

I call it a drunken dream of Ennius; not that my author, in this place, gives me any encouragement for the epithet, but because Horace, and all who mention Ennius, say he was an excessive drinker of wine. In a dream, or vision, call you it which you please, he thought it was revealed to him, that the soul of Pythagoras was transmigrated into him; as Pythagoras before him believed, that himself had been Euphorbus in the wars of Troy. Commentators differ in placing the order of this soul, and who had it first. I have here given it to the peacock; because it looks more according to the order of nature, that it should lodge in a creature of an inferior species, and so by gradation rise to the informing of a man. And Persius favours me by saying, that Ennius was the fifth from the Pythagorean peacock.

Note IV.

My friend is shipwreck'd on the Brutian strand.--P. 270.

Perhaps this is only a fine transition of the poet, to introduce the business of the satire; and not that any such accident had happened to one of the friends of Persius. But, however, this is the most poetical description of any in our author; and since he and Lucan were so great friends, I know not but Lucan might help him in two or three of these verses, which seem to be written in his style; certain it is, that besides this description of a shipwreck, and two lines more, which are at the end of the second satire, our poet has written nothing elegantly. I will, therefore, transcribe both the passages, to justify my opinion. The following are the last verses, saving one, of the second satire:

Compositum jus, fasque animi; sanctosque recessus
Mentis, et incoctum generoso pectus honesto.

The others are those in this present satire, which are subjoined:

trabe rupta, Bruttia Saxa

Prendit amicus inops: remque omnem, surdaque vota

Condidit Ionia: jacet ipse in littore; et una

Ingentes de puppe Dei: jamque obvia mergie

Costa ratis laceræ.

Note V.

From thy new hope, and from thy growing store,
Now lend assistance, and relieve the poor.-P. 270.

The Latin is, Nunc et de cespite vivo, frange aliquid. Casaubon only opposes the cespes vivus, which, word for word, is the living turf, to the harvest, or annual income; I suppose the poet rather means, sell a piece of land already sown, and give the money of it to my friend, who has lost all by shipwreck; that is, do not stay till thou hast reaped, but help him immediately, as his wants require.

Note VI.

Nor beg with a blue table on his back.-P. 270.

Holyday translates it a green table: the sense is the same; for the table was painted of the sea-colour, which the shipwrecked person carried on his back, expressing his losses, thereby to excite the charity of the spectators.

Note VII.

Or without spices lets thy body burn.-P. 270.

The bodies of the rich, before they were burnt, were embalmed with spices; or rather spices were put into the urn with the relics of the ashes. Our author here names cinnamum and cassia, which cassia was sophisticated with cherry-gum, and probably enough by the Jews, who adulterate all things which they sell. But whether the ancients were acquainted with the spices of the Molucca Islands, Ceylon, and other parts of the Indies, or whether their pepper and cinnamon, &c. were the same with ours, is another question. As for nutmegs and mace, it is plain that the Latin names for them are modern.

Note VIII.

Cæsar salutes the queen and senate thus :—

My arms are on the Rhine victorious.--P. 271.

The Cæsar here mentioned is Caius Caligula, who affected to triumph over the Germans, whom he never conquered, as he did over the Britons; and accordingly sent letters, wrapt about with laurels, to the senate and the Empress Cæsonia, whom I here call queen; though I know that name was not used amongst the Ro

mans; but the word empress would not stand in that verse, for which reason I adjourned it to another. The dust, which was to be swept away from the altars, was either the ashes which were left there after the last sacrifice for victory, or might perhaps mean the dust or ashes which were left on the altars since some former defeat of the Romans by the Germans; after which overthrow, the altars had been neglected.

Note IX.

The goodly empress.-P. 271,

Cæsonia, wife to Caius Caligula, who afterwards, in the reign of Claudius, was proposed, but ineffectually, to be married to him, after he had executed Messalina for adultery.

Note X.

The captive Germans, of gigantic size,

Are rank'd in order, and are clad in frize.--P. 271.

He means only such as were to pass for Germans in the triumph, large-bodied men, as they are still, whom the empress clothed new with coarse garments, for the greater ostentation of the victory.

Note XI.

Know, I have vow'd two hundred gladiators.-P. 271.

A hundred pair of gladiators were beyond the purse of a private man to give; therefore this is only a threatening to his heir, that he could do what he pleased with his estate.

Note XII.

Shouldst thou demand of me

My torch, when I in course run after thee.-P. 272.

Why shouldst thou, who art an old fellow, hope to outlive me, and be my heir, who am much younger? He who was first in the course or race, delivered the torch, which he carried, to him who was second.