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By raging earthquakes, into seas is borne.
But those are fiends, who crimes from thought
And, cool in mischief, meditate the sin. [begin:
They read th' example of a pious wife,
Redeeming, with her own, her husband's life;
Yet, if the laws did that exchange afford,
Would save their lap-dog sooner than their lord.
Where'er you walk, the Belides you meet;
And Clytemnestras grow in ev'ry street:
But here's the difference; Agamemnon's wife
Was a gross butcher with a bloody knife;
But murder, now, is to perfection grown,
And subtle poisons are employ'd alone:
Unless some antidote prevents their arts,
And lines with balsam all the nobler parts:
In such a case, reserv'd for such a need,
Rather than fail, the dagger does the deed.

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854 the Belides] Who were fifty sisters, married to fifty young men, their cousin-germans; and killed them all on their wedding-night, excepting Hypermnestra, who saved her husband Linus.

855 Clytemnestra] The wife of Agamemnon, who, in favour to her adulterer Ægysthus, was consenting to his murder.

663 Rather than fail] It will easily be understood, why it was impossible to make a single observation on this Sixth Satire, which, as he finely says in another place, is

Too foul to name, too fulsome to be read.

Yet Lud. Prateüs wrote long notes for the use of the Dauphin under the inspection of Bossuet. Dr. J. W.

THE TENTH SATIRE OF JUVENAL.

THE ARGUMENT.

THE poet's design, in this divine satire, is to represent the various wishes and desires of mankind; and to set out the folly of them. He runs through all the several heads of riches, honours, eloquence, fame for martial achievements, long life, and beauty; and gives instances, in each, how frequently they have proved the ruin of those that owned them. He concludes therefore, that since we generally choose so ill for ourselves, we should do better to leave it to the gods, to make the choice for us. All we can safely ask of heaven lies within a very small compass. 'Tis but health of body and mind. And if we have these, it is not much matter what we want besides; for we have already enough to make us happy.

Look round the habitable world, how few Know their own good; or knowing it, pursue. How void of reason are our hopes and fears! What in the conduct of our life appears

So well design'd, so luckily begun,

But, when we have our wish, we wish undone ?
Whole houses, of their whole desires possest,
Are often ruin'd, at their own request.
In wars, and peace, things hurtful we require,
When made obnoxious to our own desire.

With laurels some have fatally been crown'd; Some, who the depths of eloquence have found, In that unnavigable stream were drown'd.

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The brawny fool, who did his vigour boast, In that presuming confidence was lost: But more have been by avarice opprest, And heaps of money crowded in the chest: Unwieldy sums of wealth, which higher mount Than files of marshall'd figures can account. To which the stores of Croesus, in the scale, Would look like little dolphins, when they sail In the vast shadow of the British whale.

For this, in Nero's arbitrary time,

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When virtue was a guilt, and wealth a crime,
A troop of cut-throat guards were sent to seize
The rich men's goods, and gut their palaces :
The mob, commission'd by the government,
Are seldom to an empty garret sent.
The fearful passenger, who travels late,
Charg'd with the carriage of a paltry plate,
Shakes at the moonshine shadow of a rush ;
And sees a red-coat rise from every
bush:
The beggar sings, e'en when he sees the place
Beset with thieves, and never mends his pace.
Of all the vows, the first and chief request
Of each is, to be richer than the rest:
And yet no doubts the poor man's draught control,
He dreads no poison in his homely bowl,
Then fear the deadly drug, when gems divine

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14 Milo, of Crotona, who, for a trial of his strength, going to rend an oak, perished in the attempt; for his arms were caught in the trunk of it, and he was devoured by wild beasts.

Enchase the cup, and sparkle in the wine.
Will you not now the pair of sages praise,
Who the same end pursu'd, by several ways?
One pitied, one contemn'd the woful times:
One laugh'd at follies, one lamented crimes:
Laughter is easy; but the wonder lies,
What store of brine supplied the weeper's eyes.
Democritus could feed his spleen, and shake
His sides and shoulders till he felt 'em ake;
Though in his country-town no lictors were,
Nor rods, nor axe, nor tribune did appear;
Nor all the foppish gravity of show,
Which cunning magistrates on crowds bestow:
What had he done, had he beheld, on high
Our pretor seated, in mock majesty ;

His chariot rolling o'er the dusty place,

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While, with dumb pride, and a set formal face,
He moves, in the dull ceremonial track,
With Jove's embroider'd coat upon his back:
A suit of hangings had not more opprest
His shoulders, than that long, laborious vest: 60
A heavy gewgaw, (call'd a crown) that spread
About his temples, drown'd his narrow head:
And would have crush'd it with the massy freight,
But that a sweating slave sustain'd the weight:
A slave in the same chariot seen to ride,
To mortify the mighty madman's pride.
Add now th' imperial eagle, rais'd on high,
With golden beak (the mark of majesty),
Trumpets before, and on the left and right,

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A cavalcade of nobles, all in white:

In their own natures false and flatt'ring tribes, But made his friends, by places and by bribes.

7:5

In his own age, Democritus could find Sufficient cause to laugh at human kind : Learn from so great a wit; a land of bogs With ditches fenc'd, a heaven fat with fogs, May form a spirit fit to sway the state; And make the neighb'ring monarchs fear their fate. He laughs at all the vulgar cares and fears; At their vain triumphs, and their vainer tears: 8o An equal temper in his mind he found,

When Fortune flatter'd him, and when she frown'd. 'Tis plain, from hence, that what our vows request, Are hurtful things, or useless at the best,

Some ask for envied pow'r; which public hate
Pursues, and hurries headlong to their fate:
Down go
the titles; and the statue crown'd,
Is by base hands in the next river drown'd.
The guiltless horses, and the chariot wheel,
The same effects of vulgar fury feel:

The smith prepares his hammer for the stroke,
While the lung'd bellows hissing fire provoke;
Sejanus, almost first of Roman names,

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93 Sejanus was Tiberius's first favourite, and while he continued so had the highest marks of honour bestowed on him: statues and triumphal chariots where every where erected to him; but as soon as he fell into disgrace with the Emperor, these were all immediately dismounted, and the senate and common people insulted over him as meanly as they had fawned on him before.