On Herod's day; * when sparkling bowls go

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round,
And tunny's tails in savoury sauce are drowned, 265
Thou mutter'st prayers obscene; nor dost refuse
The fasts and Sabbaths of the curtailed Jews.
Then a cracked egg-shell thy sick fancy frights,†
Besides the childish fear of walking sprites.
Of o'ergrown gelding priests thou art afraid;
The timbrel, and the squintifego ‡ maid
Of Isis, awe thee; lest the gods for sin,
Should with a swelling dropsy stuff thy skin:
Unless three garlic heads the curse avert,
Eaten each morn devoutly next thy heart.
"Preach this among the brawny guards,"
say'st thou,

"And see if they thy doctrine will allow :"
The dull, fat captain, with a hound's deep throat,
Would bellow out a laugh in a bass note,
And prize a hundred Zenos just as much
As a clipt sixpence, or a schilling Dutch.

* The commentators are divided what Herod this was, whom our author mentions; whether Herod the Great, whose birthday might possibly be celebrated, after his death, by the Herodians, a sect amongst the Jews, who thought him their Messiah; or Herod Agrippa, living in the author's time and after it. The latter seems the more probable opinion.-D.

†The ancients had a superstition, contrary to ours, concerning egg-shells: they thought that if an egg-shell were cracked, or a hole bored in the bottom of it, they were subject to the power of sorcery. We as vainly break the bottom of an egg-shell, and cross it when we have eaten the egg, lest some hag should make use of it in bewitching us, or sailing over the sea in it, if it were whole. The rest of the priests of Isis, and her one-eyed or squinting priestess, is more largely treated in the Sixth Satire of Juvenal, where the superstitions of women are related.-D.

[A cant form of "squinting."-ED.]

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THE SIXTH SATIRE

OF

PERSIUS.

ΤΟ

CESIUS BASSUS,

A LYRIC POET.

THE ARGUMENT.

This Sixth Satire treats an admirable common-place of moral philosophy, of the true uses of riches. They are certainly intended by the Power who bestows them, as instruments and helps of living commodiously ourselves; and of administering to the wants of others, who are oppressed by fortune. There are two extremes in the opinions of men concerning them. One error, though on the right hand, yet a great one, is that they are no helps to a virtuous life; the other places all our happiness in the acquisition and possession of them; and this is undoubtedly the worse extreme. The mean betwixt these, is the opinion of the Stoics, which is, that riches may be useful to the leading a virtuous life; in case we rightly understand how to give according to right reason, and how to receive what is given us by others. The virtue of giving well is called liberality; and it is of this virtue that Persius writes in this satire, wherein he not only shows the lawful use of riches, but also sharply inveighs against the vices which are opposed to it; and especially of those, which consist in the

defects of giving, or spending, or in the abuse of riches. He writes to Casius Bassus, his friend, and a poet also: inquires first of his health and studies; and afterwards informs him of his own, and where he is now resident. He gives an account of himself, that he is endeavouring, by little and little, to wear off his vices; and, particularly, that he is combating ambition, and the desire of wealth. He dwells upon the latter vice; and, being sensible that few men either desire, or use, riches as they ought, he endeavours to convince them of their folly, which is the main design of the whole Satire.

HAS winter caused thee, friend, to change thy seat,*

And seek in Sabine air a warm retreat?
Say, dost thou yet the Roman harp command?
Do the strings answer to thy noble hand?
Great master of the muse, inspired to sing
The beauties of the first created spring;
The pedigree of nature to rehearse,
And sound the Maker's work, in equal verse;
Now sporting on thy lyre the loves of youth,t
Now virtuous age, and venerable truth;
Expressing justly Sappho's wanton art
Of odes, and Pindar's more majestic part.
For me, my warmer constitution wants
More cold, than our Ligurian winter grants;

* 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.-D.

†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.-D.

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And therefore to my native shores retired,
I view the coast old Ennius once admired;
Where clifts on either side their points display,
And, after opening in an ampler way,
Afford the pleasing prospect of the bay.
""Tis worth your while, O Romans, to regard
The port of Luna," says our learned bard;
Who in a drunken dream beheld his soul
The fifth within the transmigrating roll; *
Which first a peacock, then Euphorbus was,
Then Homer next, and next Pythagoras;
And, last of all the line, did into Ennius pass.
Secure and free from business of the state,

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And more secure of what the vulgar prate,
Here I enjoy my private thoughts, nor care
What rots for sheep the southern winds prepare ; 30
Survey the neighbouring fields, and not repine,
When I behold a larger crop than mine:

To see a beggar's brat in riches flow,
Adds not a wrinkle to my even brow;
Nor, envious at the sight, will I forbear

My plenteous bowl, nor bate my bounteous

cheer;

Nor yet unseal the dregs of wine that stink
Of cask, nor in a nasty flagon drink.

* 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.—D.

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Let others stuff their guts with homely fare,
For men of different inclinations are,
Though born perhaps beneath one common

star.

In minds and manners twins opposed we see
In the same sign, almost the same degree:
One, frugal, on his birthday fears to dine,
Does at a penny's cost in herbs repine,
And hardly dares to dip his fingers in the
brine;

Prepared as priest of his own rites to stand,
He sprinkles pepper with a sparing hand.
His jolly brother, opposite in sense,
Laughs at his thrift; and lavish of expense,
Quaffs, crams, and guttles, in his own defence.
For me, I'll use my own, and take my share,
Yet will not turbots for my slaves prepare;
Nor be so nice in taste myself to know
If what I swallow be a thrush, or no.
Live on thy annual income, spend thy store,
And freely grind from thy full threshing floor;
Next harvest promises as much, or more.

Thus I would live; but friendship's holy band,
And offices of kindness, hold my hand:
My friend is shipwrecked on the Bruttian
strand,*

His riches in the Ionian main are lost,
And he himself stands shivering on the coast;

* 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

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