No More Learning

But Augustus, who was conscious to himself
of so many crimes which he had committed, thought, in the first place,
to provide for his own reputation, by making an edict against Lampoons
and Satires, and the authors of those defamatory writings, which my
author Tacitus, from the law-term, calls _famosos libellos_.

In the first book of his Annals, he gives the following account of it,
in these words: _Primus Augustus cognitionem de famosis libellis,
specie legis ejus, tractavit; commotus Cassii Severi libidine, quâ
viros fæminasque illustres, procacibus scriptis diffamaverat_.
Thus in English: "Augustus was the first, who under the colour of
that law took cognisance of lampoons; being provoked to it, by the
petulancy of Cassius Severus, who had defamed many illustrious persons
of both sexes, in his writings. " The law to which Tacitus refers,
was _Lex læsæ Majestatis_; commonly called, for the sake of brevity,
_Majestas_; or, as we say, high treason. He means not, that this law
had not been enacted formerly: for it had been made by the Decemviri,
and was inscribed amongst the rest in the Twelve Tables; to prevent
the aspersion of the Roman majesty, either of the people themselves,
or their religion, or their magistrates: and the infringement of
it was capital; that is, the offender was whipt to death, with the
_fasces_, which were borne before their chief officers of Rome. But
Augustus was the first, who restored that intermitted law. By the
words, _under colour of that law_, he insinuates that Augustus caused
it to be executed, on pretence of those libels, which were written by
Cassius Severus, against the nobility; but, in truth, to save himself
from such defamatory verses. Suetonius likewise makes mention of it
thus: _Sparsos de se in curiâ famosos libellos, nec expavit, et
magnâ curâ redarguit. Ac ne requisitis quidem auctoribus, id modo
censuit, cognoscendum posthac de iis qui libellos aut carmina ad
infamiam cujuspiam sub alieno nomine edant_. "Augustus was not afraid
of libels," says that author; "yet he took all care imaginable to have
them answered; and then decreed, that for the time to come, the authors
of them should be punished. " But Aurelius makes it yet more clear,
according to my sense, that this emperor for his own sake durst not
permit them: _Fecit id Augustus in speciem, et quasi gratificaretur
populo Romano, et primoribus urbis; sed revera ut sibi consuleret:
nam habuit in animo, comprimere nimiam quorundam procacitatem in
loquendo, à quâ nec ipse exemptus fuit. Nam suo nomine compescere
erat invidiosum, sub alieno facile et utile. Ergo specie legis
tractavit, quasi populi Romani majestas infamaretur. _ This, I think,
is a sufficient comment on that passage of Tacitus. I will add only by
the way, that the whole family of the Cæsars, and all their relations,
were included in the law; because the majesty of the Romans, in the
time of the empire, was wholly in that house; _omnia Cæsar erat_: they
were all accounted sacred who belonged to him. As for Cassius Severus,
he was contemporary with Horace; and was the same poet against whom he
writes in his Epodes, under this title, _In Cassium Severum maledicum
poetam_; perhaps intending to kill two crows, according to our proverb,
with one stone, and revenge both himself and his emperor together.

From hence I may reasonably conclude, that Augustus, who was not
altogether so good as he was wise, had some by-respect in the enacting
of this law; for to do any thing for nothing, was not his maxim.
Horace, as he was a courtier, complied with the interest of his master;
and, avoiding the lashing of greater crimes, confined himself to the
ridiculing of petty vices and common follies; excepting only some
reserved cases, in his Odes and Epodes, of his own particular quarrels,
which either with permission of the magistrate, or without it, every
man will revenge, though I say not that he should; for _prior læsit_ is
a good excuse in the civil law, if christianity had not taught us to
forgive. However, he was not the proper man to arraign great vices, at
least if the stories which we hear of him are true,--that he practised
some, which I will not here mention, out of honour to him. It was not
for a Clodius to accuse adulterers, especially when Augustus was of
that number; so that though his age was not exempted from the worst
of villanies, there was no freedom left to reprehend them by reason
of the edict; and our poet was not fit to represent them in an odious
character, because himself was dipt in the same actions. Upon this
account, without farther insisting on the different tempers of Juvenal
and Horace, I conclude, that the subjects which Horace chose for
satire, are of a lower nature than those of which Juvenal has written.

Thus I have treated, in a new method, the comparison betwixt Horace,
Juvenal, and Persius; somewhat of their particular manner belonging
to all of them is yet remaining to be considered. Persius was grave,
and particularly opposed his gravity to lewdness, which was the
predominant vice in Nero's court, at the time when he published his
Satires, which was before that emperor fell into the excess of cruelty.
Horace was a mild admonisher, a court-satirist, fit for the gentle
times of Augustus, and more fit, for the reasons which I have already
given. Juvenal was as proper for his times, as they for theirs; his
was an age that deserved a more severe chastisement; vices were more
gross and open, more flagitious, more encouraged by the example of a
tyrant, and more protected by his authority. Therefore, wheresoever
Juvenal mentions Nero, he means Domitian, whom he dares not attack in
his own person, but scourges him by proxy. Heinsius urges in praise
of Horace, that, according to the ancient art and law of satire, it
should be nearer to comedy than tragedy; not declaiming against vice,
but only laughing at it. Neither Persius nor Juvenal were ignorant of
this, for they had both studied Horace. And the thing itself is plainly
true. But as they had read Horace, they had likewise read Lucilius, of
whom Persius says,--_secuit urbem; . . . et genuinum fregit in illis_;
meaning Mutius and Lupus; and Juvenal also mentions him in these words:

_Ense velut stricto, quoties Lucilius ardens
Infremuit, rubet auditor, cui frigida mens est
Criminibus, tacitâ sudant præcordia culpa_.

So that they thought the imitation of Lucilius was more proper to their
purpose than that of Horace. "They changed satire, (says Holyday) but
they changed it for the better; for the business being to reform great
vices, chastisement goes farther than admonition; whereas a perpetual
grin, like that of Horace, does rather anger than amend a man. "

Thus far that learned critic, Barten Holyday,[39] whose interpretation
and illustrations of Juvenal are as excellent, as the verse of his
translation and his English are lame and pitiful. For it is not enough
to give us the meaning of a poet, which I acknowledge him to have
performed most faithfully, but he must also imitate his genius, and
his numbers, as far as the English will come up to the elegance of the
original. In few words, it is only for a poet to translate a poem.
Holyday and Stapylton[40] had not enough considered this, when they
attempted Juvenal: but I forbear reflections; only I beg leave to take
notice of this sentence, where Holyday says, "a perpetual grin, like
that of Horace, rather angers than amends a man. " I cannot give him up
the manner of Horace in low satire so easily. Let the chastisement
of Juvenal be never so necessary for his new kind of satire; let him
declaim as wittily and sharply as he pleases; yet still the nicest
and most delicate touches of satire consist in fine raillery. This,
my lord, is your particular talent, to which even Juvenal could not
arrive. It is not reading, it is not imitation of an author, which
can produce this fineness; it must be inborn; it must proceed from a
genius, and particular way of thinking, which is not to be taught; and
therefore not to be imitated by him who has it not from nature. How
easy is it to call rogue and villain, and that wittily! But how hard
to make a man appear a fool, a blockhead, or a knave, without using
any of those opprobrious terms! To spare the grossness of the names,
and to do the thing yet more severely, is to draw a full face, and to
make the nose and cheeks stand out, and yet not to employ any depth
of shadowing. This is the mystery of that noble trade, which yet no
master can teach to his apprentice; he may give the rules, but the
scholar is never the nearer in his practice. Neither is it true, that
this fineness of raillery is offensive. A witty man is tickled while
he is hurt in this manner, and a fool feels it not. The occasion of an
offence may possibly be given, but he cannot take it. If it be granted,
that in effect this way does more mischief; that a man is secretly
wounded, and though he be not sensible himself, yet the malicious world
will find it out for him; yet there is still a vast difference betwixt
the slovenly butchering of a man, and the fineness of a stroke that
separates the head from the body, and leaves it standing in its place.
A man may be capable, as Jack Ketch's[41] wife said of his servant,
of a plain piece of work, a bare hanging; but to make a malefactor die
sweetly, was only belonging to her husband. I wish I could apply it to
myself, if the reader would be kind enough to think it belongs to me.
The character of Zimri in my "Absalom," is, in my opinion, worth the
whole poem: it is not bloody, but it is ridiculous enough; and he, for
whom it was intended, was too witty to resent it as an injury. [42] If I
had railed, I might have suffered for it justly; but I managed my own
work more happily, perhaps more dexterously. I avoided the mention of
great crimes, and applied myself to the representing of blind-sides,
and little extravagancies; to which, the wittier a man is, he is
generally the more obnoxious. It succeeded as I wished; the jest went
round, and he was laughed at in his turn who began the frolic.

And thus, my lord, you see I have preferred the manner of Horace, and
of your lordship, in this kind of satire, to that of Juvenal, and I
think, reasonably. Holyday ought not to have arraigned so great an
author, for that which was his excellency and his merit: or if he
did, on such a palpable mistake, he might expect that some one might
possibly arise, either in his own time, or after him, to rectify his
error, and restore to Horace that commendation, of which he has so
unjustly robbed him. And let the manes of Juvenal forgive me, if I
say, that this way of Horace was the best for amending manners, as it
is the most difficult. His was an _ense rescindendum_; but that of
Horace was a pleasant cure, with all the limbs preserved entire; and,
as our mountebanks tell us in their bills, without keeping the patient
within doors for a day. What they promise only, Horace has effectually
performed: yet I contradict not the proposition which I formerly
advanced. Juvenal's times required a more painful kind of operation;
but if he had lived in the age of Horace, I must needs affirm, that he
had it not about him. He took the method which was prescribed him by
his own genius, which was sharp and eager; he could not rally, but he
could declaim; and as his provocations were great, he has revenged them
tragically. This notwithstanding, I am to say another word, which, as
true as it is, will yet displease the partial admirers of our Horace. I
have hinted it before, but it is time for me now to speak more plainly.

This manner of Horace is indeed the best; but Horace has not executed
it altogether so happily, at least not often. The manner of Juvenal is
confessed to be inferior to the former, but Juvenal has excelled him
in his performance. Juvenal has railed more wittily than Horace has
rallied. Horace means to make his readers laugh, but he is not sure of
his experiment. Juvenal always intends to move your indignation, and
he always brings about his purpose. Horace, for aught I know, might
have tickled the people of his age; but amongst the moderns he is not
so successful. They, who say he entertains so pleasantly, may perhaps
value themselves on the quickness of their own understandings, that
they can see a jest farther off than other men; they may find occasion
of laughter in the wit-battle of the two buffoons, Sarmentus and
Cicerrus; and hold their sides for fear of bursting, when Rupilius and
Persius are scolding. For my own part, I can only like the characters
of all four, which are judiciously given; but for my heart I cannot so
much as smile at their insipid raillery. I see not why Persius should
call upon Brutus to revenge him on his adversary; and that because he
had killed Julius Cæsar, for endeavouring to be a king, therefore he
should be desired to murder Rupilius, only because his name was Mr
King. [43] A miserable clench, in my opinion, for Horace to record: I
have heard honest Mr Swan[44] make many a better, and yet have had
the grace to hold my countenance. But it may be puns were then in
fashion, as they were wit in the sermons of the last age, and in the
court of King Charles II. I am sorry to say it, for the sake of Horace;
but certain it is, he has no fine palate who can feed so heartily on
garbage.

But I have already wearied myself, and doubt not but I have tired your
lordship's patience, with this long, rambling, and, I fear, trivial
discourse. Upon the one half of the merits, that is, pleasure, I cannot
but conclude that Juvenal was the better satirist. They, who will
descend into his particular praises, may find them at large in the
Dissertation of the learned Rigaltius to Thuanus. As for Persius, I
have given the reasons why I think him inferior to both of them; yet I
have one thing to add on that subject.

Barten Holyday, who translated both Juvenal and Persius, has made this
distinction betwixt them, which is no less true than witty,--that in
Persius the difficulty is to find a meaning, in Juvenal to chuse a
meaning: so crabbed is Persius, and so copious is Juvenal; so much
the understanding is employed in one, and so much the judgment in the
other; so difficult it is to find any sense in the former, and the best
sense of the latter.

If, on the other side, any one suppose I have commended Horace below
his merit, when I have allowed him but the second place, I desire
him to consider, if Juvenal, a man of excellent natural endowments,
besides the advantages of diligence and study, and coming after him,
and building upon his foundations, might not probably, with all these
helps, surpass him; and whether it be any dishonour to Horace to be
thus surpassed, since no art or science is at once begun and perfected,
but that it must pass first through many hands, and even through
several ages. If Lucilius could add to Ennius, and Horace to Lucilius,
why, without any diminution to the fame of Horace, might not Juvenal
give the last perfection to that work? Or, rather, what disreputation
is it to Horace, that Juvenal excels in the tragical satire, as Horace
does in the comical? I have read over attentively both Heinsius and
Dacier, in their commendations of Horace; but I can find no more
in either of them, for the preference of him to Juvenal, than the
instructive part; the part of wisdom, and not that of pleasure; which,
therefore, is here allowed him, notwithstanding what Scaliger and
Rigaltius have pleaded to the contrary for Juvenal. And, to show that
I am impartial, I will here translate what Dacier has said on that
subject.

"I cannot give a more just idea of the two books of Satires made by
Horace, than by comparing them to the statues of the Sileni, to which
Alcibiades compares Socrates in the Symposium. They were figures,
which had nothing of agreeable, nothing of beauty, on their outside;
but when any one took the pains to open them, and search into them,
he there found the figures of all the deities. So, in the shape that
Horace presents himself to us in his Satires, we see nothing, at the
first view, which deserves our attention: it seems that he is rather an
amusement for children, than for the serious consideration of men. But,
when we take away his crust, and that which hides him from our sight,
when we discover him to the bottom, then we find all the divinities in
a full assembly; that is to say, all the virtues which ought to be the
continual exercise of those, who seriously endeavour to correct their
vices. "

It is easy to observe, that Dacier, in this noble similitude, has
confined the praise of his author wholly to the instructive part; the
commendation turns on this, and so does that which follows.

"In these two books of satire, it is the business of Horace to
instruct us how to combat our vices, to regulate our passions, to
follow nature, to give bounds to our desires, to distinguish betwixt
truth and falsehood, and betwixt our conceptions of things, and things
themselves; to come back from our prejudicate opinions, to understand
exactly the principles and motives of all our actions; and to avoid
the ridicule, into which all men necessarily fall, who are intoxicated
with those notions which they have received from their masters, and
which they obstinately retain, without examining whether or no they be
founded on right reason.

"In a word, he labours to render us happy in relation to ourselves;
agreeable and faithful to our friends; and discreet, serviceable, and
well-bred, in relation to those with whom we are obliged to live,
and to converse. To make his figures intelligible, to conduct his
readers through the labyrinth of some perplexed sentence, or obscure
parenthesis, is no great matter; and, as Epictetus says, there is
nothing of beauty in all this, or what is worthy of a prudent man. The
principal business, and which is of most importance to us, is to show
the use, the reason, and the proof of his precepts.

"They who endeavour not to correct themselves, according to so exact
a model, are just like the patients who have open before them a book
of admirable receipts for their diseases, and please themselves with
reading it, without comprehending the nature of the remedies, or how to
apply them to their cure. "

Let Horace go off with these encomiums, which he has so well deserved.

To conclude the contention betwixt our three poets, I will use the
words of Virgil, in his fifth Æneid, where Æneas proposes the rewards
of the foot-race to the three first who should reach the goal.

----_Tres præmia primi
Accipient, flavâque caput nectentur olivâ. _

Let these three ancients be preferred to all the moderns, as first
arriving at the goal; let them all be crowned, as victors, with the
wreath that properly belongs to satire; but, after that, with this
distinction amongst themselves,

_Primus equum phaleris insignem victor habeto. _

Let Juvenal ride first in triumph;

_Alter Amazoniam pharetram, plenamque sagittis
Threiciis, lato quam circumplectitur auro
Balteus, et tereti subnectit fibula gemmâ. _

Let Horace, who is the second, and but just the second, carry off the
quivers and the arrows, as the badges of his satire, and the golden
belt, and the diamond button;

_Tertius Argolico hoc clypeo contentus abito. _

And let Persius, the last of the first three worthies, be contented
with this Grecian shield, and with victory, not only over all the
Grecians, who were ignorant of the Roman satire, but over all the
moderns in succeeding ages, excepting Boileau and your lordship.

And thus I have given the history of Satire, and derived it as far as
from Ennius to your lordship; that is, from its first rudiments of
barbarity to its last polishing and perfection; which is, with Virgil,
in his address to Augustus,--

----_Nomen famâ tot ferre per annos,
Tithoni primâ quot abest ab origine Cæsar. _

I said only from Ennius; but I may safely carry it higher, as far as
Livius Andronicus, who, as I have said formerly, taught the first play
at Rome, in the year _ab urbe condita_ CCCCCXIV. I have since desired
my learned friend, Mr Maidwell,[45] to compute the difference of
times, betwixt Aristophanes and Livius Andronicus; and he assures me,
from the best chronologers, that "Plutus," the last of Aristophanes's
plays, was represented at Athens, in the year of the 97th Olympiad;
which agrees with the year _urbis conditæ_ CCCLXIV. So that the
difference of years betwixt Aristophanes and Andronicus is 150; from
whence I have probably deduced, that Livius Andronicus, who was a
Grecian, had read the plays of the old comedy, which were satirical,
and also of the new; for Menander was fifty years before him, which
must needs be a great light to him in his own plays, that were of the
satirical nature. That the Romans had farces before this it is true;
but then they had no communication with Greece; so that Andronicus was
the first who wrote after the manner of the old comedy in his plays:
he was imitated by Ennius, about thirty years afterwards. Though the
former writ fables, the latter, speaking properly, began the Roman
satire; according to that description, which Juvenal gives of it in his
first:

_Quicquid agunt homines, votum, timor, ira, voluptas,
Gaudia, discursus, nostri est farrago libelli. _

This is that in which I have made bold to differ from Casaubon,
Rigaltius, Dacier, and indeed from all the modern critics,--that not
Ennius, but Andronicus was the first, who, by the _Archæa Comoedia_ of
the Greeks, added many beauties to the first rude and barbarous Roman
satire: which sort of poem, though we had not derived from Rome, yet
nature teaches it mankind in all ages, and in every country.

It is but necessary, that after so much has been said of Satire, some
definition of it should be given. Heinsius, in his "Dissertations on
Horace," makes it for me, in these words: "Satire is a kind of poetry,
without a series of action, invented for the purging of our minds; in
which human vices, ignorance, and errors, and all things besides, which
are produced from them in every man, are severely reprehended; partly
dramatically, partly simply, and sometimes in both kinds of speaking;
but, for the most part, figuratively, and occultly; consisting in a
low familiar way, chiefly in a sharp and pungent manner of speech;
but partly, also, in a facetious and civil way of jesting; by which
either hatred, or laughter, or indignation, is moved. "--Where I cannot
but observe, that this obscure and perplexed definition, or rather
description, of satire, is wholly accommodated to the Horatian way;
and excluding the works of Juvenal and Persius, as foreign from that
kind of poem. The clause in the beginning of it ("without a series
of action") distinguishes satire properly from stage-plays, which
are all of one action, and one continued series of action. The end
or scope of satire is to purge the passions; so far it is common to
the satires of Juvenal and Persius. The rest which follows is also
generally belonging to all three; till he comes upon us, with the
excluding clause--"consisting in a low familiar way of speech,"--which
is the proper character of Horace; and from which, the other two, for
their honour be it spoken, are far distant. But how come lowness
of style, and the familiarity of words, to be so much the propriety
of satire, that without them a poet can be no more a satirist, than
without risibility he can be a man? Is the fault of Horace to be made
the virtue and standing rule of this poem? Is the _grande sophos_[46]
of Persius, and the sublimity of Juvenal, to be circumscribed with
the meanness of words and vulgarity of expression? If Horace refused
the pains of numbers, and the loftiness of figures, are they bound to
follow so ill a precedent? Let him walk a-foot, with his pad in his
hand, for his own pleasure; but let not them be accounted no poets, who
chuse to mount, and show their horsemanship. Holyday is not afraid to
say, that there was never such a fall, as from his Odes to his Satires,
and that he, injuriously to himself, untuned his harp. The majestic way
of Persius and Juvenal was new when they began it, but it is old to us;
and what poems have not, with time, received an alteration in their
fashion? "which alteration," says Holyday, "is to after times as good
a warrant as the first. " Has not Virgil changed the manners of Homer's
heroes in his Æneid? Certainly he has, and for the better: for Virgil's
age was more civilized, and better bred; and he writ according to the
politeness of Rome, under the reign of Augustus Cæsar, not to the
rudeness of Agamemnon's age, or the times of Homer. Why should we offer
to confine free spirits to one form, when we cannot so much as confine
our bodies to one fashion of apparel? Would not Donne's satires, which
abound with so much wit, appear more charming, if he had taken care of
his words, and of his numbers? But he followed Horace so very close,
that of necessity he must fall with him; and I may safely say it of
this present age, that if we are not so great wits as Donne, yet,
certainly, we are better poets.

But I have said enough, and it may be too much, on this subject. Will
your lordship be pleased to prolong my audience, only so far, till I
tell you my own trivial thoughts, how a modern satire should be made.
I will not deviate in the least from the precepts and examples of the
ancients, who were always our best masters. I will only illustrate
them, and discover some of the hidden beauties in their designs, that
we thereby may form our own in imitation of them. Will you please
but to observe, that Persius, the least in dignity of all the three,
has notwithstanding been the first, who has discovered to us this
important secret, in the designing of a perfect satire,--that it
ought only to treat of one subject;--to be confined to one particular
theme; or, at least, to one principally. If other vices occur in the
management of the chief, they should only be transiently lashed, and
not be insisted on, so as to make the design double. As in a play of
the English fashion, which we call a tragi-comedy, there is to be but
one main design; and though there be an underplot, or second walk of
comical characters and adventures, yet they are subservient to the
chief fable, carried along under it, and helping to it; so that the
drama may not seem a monster with two heads. Thus, the Copernican
system of the planets makes the moon to be moved by the motion of the
earth, and carried about her orb, as a dependent of her's. Mascardi,
in his discourse of the _Doppia favola_, or double tale in plays,
gives an instance of it in the famous pastoral of Guarini, called _Il
Pastor Fido_; where Corisca and the Satyr are the under parts; yet
we may observe, that Corisca is brought into the body of the plot, and
made subservient to it. It is certain, that the divine wit of Horace
was not ignorant of this rule,--that a play, though it consists of
many parts, must yet be one in the action, and must drive on the
accomplishment of one design; for he gives this very precept,--_Sit
quodvis simplex duntaxat et unum_; yet he seems not much to mind it
in his Satires, many of them consisting of more arguments than one; and
the second without dependence on the first. Casaubon has observed this
before me, in his preference of Persius to Horace; and will have his
own beloved author to be the first who found out and introduced this
method of confining himself to one subject. I know it may be urged in
defence of Horace, that this unity is not necessary; because the very
word _satura_ signifies a dish plentifully stored with all variety of
fruit and grains. Yet Juvenal, who calls his poems a _farrago_, which
is a word of the same signification with _satura_, has chosen to follow
the same method of Persius, and not of Horace; and Boileau, whose
example alone is a sufficient authority, has wholly confined himself,
in all his satires, to this unity of design. That variety, which is
not to be found in any one satire, is, at least, in many, written on
several occasions. And if variety be of absolute necessity in every
one of them, according to the etymology of the word, yet it may arise
naturally from one subject, as it is diversely treated, in the several
subordinate branches of it, all relating to the chief. It may be
illustrated accordingly with variety of examples in the subdivisions
of it, and with as many precepts as there are members of it; which,
altogether, may complete that _olla_, or hotchpotch, which is properly
a satire.

Under this unity of theme, or subject, is comprehended another rule
for perfecting the design of true satire. The poet is bound, and that
_ex officio_, to give his reader some one precept of moral virtue,
and to caution him against some one particular vice or folly. Other
virtues, subordinate to the first, may be recommended under that chief
head; and other vices or follies may be scourged, besides that which
he principally intends. But he is chiefly to inculcate one virtue, and
insist on that. Thus Juvenal, in every satire excepting the first, ties
himself to one principal instructive point, or to the shunning of moral
evil. Even in the sixth, which seems only an arraignment of the whole
sex of womankind, there is a latent admonition to avoid ill women,
by showing how very few, who are virtuous and good, are to be found
amongst them. But this, though the wittiest of all his satires, has yet
the least of truth or instruction in it. He has run himself into his
old declamatory way, and almost forgotten that he was now setting up
for a moral poet.

Persius is never wanting to us in some profitable doctrine, and in
exposing the opposite vices to it. His kind of philosophy is one, which
is the stoick; and every satire is a comment on one particular dogma
of that sect, unless we will except the first, which is against bad
writers; and yet even there he forgets not the precepts of the Porch.
In general, all virtues are every where to be praised and recommended
to practice; and all vices to be reprehended, and made either odious or
ridiculous; or else there is a fundamental error in the whole design.

I have already declared who are the only persons that are the adequate
object of private satire, and who they are that may properly be exposed
by name for public examples of vices and follies; and therefore I will
trouble your lordship no farther with them. Of the best and finest
manner of satire, I have said enough in the comparison betwixt Juvenal
and Horace: it is that sharp, well-mannered way of laughing a folly
out of countenance, of which your lordship is the best master in this
age. I will proceed to the versification, which is most proper for it,
and add somewhat to what I have said already on that subject. The sort
of verse which is called burlesque, consisting of eight syllables, or
four feet, is that which our excellent Hudibras has chosen. I ought to
have mentioned him before, when I spoke of Donne: but by a slip of an
old man's memory he was forgotten. The worth of his poem is too well
known to need my commendation, and he is above my censure. His satire
is of the Varronian kind, though unmixed with prose. The choice of his
numbers is suitable enough to his design, as he has managed it; but
in any other hand, the shortness of his verse, and the quick returns
of rhyme, had debased the dignity of style. And besides, the double
rhyme, (a necessary companion of burlesque writing,) is not so proper
for manly satire; for it turns earnest too much to jest, and gives us
a boyish kind of pleasure. It tickles aukwardly with a kind of pain,
to the best sort of readers: we are pleased ungratefully, and, if I
may say so, against our liking. We thank him not for giving us that
unseasonable delight, when we know he could have given us a better, and
more solid. He might have left that task to others, who, not being able
to put in thought, can only make us grin with the excrescence of a word
of two or three syllables in the close. It is, indeed, below so great
a master to make use of such a little instrument. [47] But his good
sense is perpetually shining through all he writes; it affords us not
the time of finding faults. We pass through the levity of his rhyme,
and are immediately carried into some admirable useful thought. After
all, he has chosen this kind of verse, and has written the best in it:
and had he taken another, he would always have excelled: as we say of
a court-favourite, that whatsoever his office be, he still makes it
uppermost, and most beneficial to himself.

The quickness of your imagination, my lord, has already prevented
me; and you know before-hand, that I would prefer the verse of ten
syllables, which we call the English heroic, to that of eight. This is
truly my opinion; for this sort of number is more roomy; the thought
can turn itself with greater ease in a larger compass. When the rhyme
comes too thick upon us, it straitens the expression; we are thinking
of the close, when we should be employed in adorning the thought.
It makes a poet giddy with turning in a space too narrow for his
imagination; he loses many beauties, without gaining one advantage. For
a burlesque rhyme I have already concluded to be none; or, if it were,
it is more easily purchased in ten syllables than in eight. In both
occasions it is as in a tennis-court, when the strokes of greater force
are given, when we strike out and play at length. Tassoni and Boileau
have left us the best examples of this way, in the "Secchia Rapita,"
and the "Lutrin;" and next them Merlin Cocaius in his "Baldus. " I
will speak only of the two former, because the last is written in
Latin verse. The "Secchia Rapita" is an Italian poem, a satire of the
Varronian kind. It is written in the stanza of eight, which is their
measure for heroic verse. The words are stately, the numbers smooth,
the turn both of thoughts and words is happy. The first six lines of
the stanza seem majestical and severe; but the two last turn them
all into a pleasant ridicule. Boileau, if I am not much deceived, has
modelled from hence his famous "Lutrin. " He had read the burlesque
poetry of Scarron,[48] with some kind of indignation, as witty as it
was, and found nothing in France that was worthy of his imitation; but
he copied the Italian so well, that his own may pass for an original.
He writes it in the French heroic verse, and calls it an heroic poem;
his subject is trivial, but his verse is noble. I doubt not but he had
Virgil in his eye, for we find many admirable imitations of him, and
some parodies; as particularly this passage in the fourth of the Æneids:

_Nec tibi diva parens, generis nec Dardanus auctor,
Perfide; sed duris genuit te cautibus horrens
Caucasus; Hyrcanæque admorûnt ubera tigres_:

which he thus translates, keeping to the words, but altering the sense:

Non, ton pere a Paris, ne fut point boulanger:
Et tu n'es point du sang de Gervais, l'horloger:
Ta mere ne fut point la maitresse d'un coché;
Caucase dans ses flancs te forma d'une roché:
Une tigresse affreuse, en quelque antre écarté,
Te fit, avec son lait, succer sa cruauté.

And, as Virgil in his fourth Georgick, of the Bees, perpetually raises
the lowness of his subject, by the loftiness of his words, and ennobles
it by comparisons drawn from empires, and from monarchs;--

_Admiranda tibi levium spectacula rerum,
Magnanimosque duces, totiusque ordine gentis
Mores et studia, et populos, et proelia dicam. _

And again:

_At genus immortale manet; multosque per annos
Stat fortuna domus, et avi numerantur avorum;_--

we see Boileau pursuing him in the same flights, and scarcely yielding
to his master. This, I think, my lord, to be the most beautiful, and
most noble kind of satire. Here is the majesty of the heroic, finely
mixed with the venom of the other; and raising the delight which
otherwise would be flat and vulgar, by the sublimity of the expression.
I could say somewhat more of the delicacy of this and some other of his
satires; but it might turn to his prejudice, if it were carried back to
France.

I have given your lordship but this bare hint, in what verse and in
what manner this sort of satire may be best managed. Had I time, I
could enlarge on the beautiful turns of words and thoughts, which
are as requisite in this, as in heroic poetry itself, of which the
satire is undoubtedly a species. With these beautiful turns, I confess
myself to have been unacquainted, till about twenty years ago, in a
conversation which I had with that noble wit of Scotland, Sir George
Mackenzie,[49] he asked me why I did not imitate in my verses the
turns of Mr Waller and Sir John Denham; of which he repeated many to
me. I had often read with pleasure, and with some profit, those two
fathers of our English poetry; but had not seriously enough considered
those beauties which give the last perfection to their works. Some
sprinklings of this kind I had also formerly in my plays; but they were
casual, and not designed.
But this hint, thus seasonably given me,
first made me sensible of my own wants, and brought me afterwards to
seek for the supply of them in other English authors. I looked over the
darling of my youth, the famous Cowley; there I found, instead of them,
the points of wit, and quirks of epigram, even in the "Davideis," an
heroic poem, which is of an opposite nature to those puerilities; but
no elegant turns either on the word or on the thought. Then I consulted
a greater genius, (without offence to the manes of that noble author,)
I mean Milton; but as he endeavours every where to express Homer, whose
age had not arrived to that fineness, I found in him a true sublimity,
lofty thoughts, which were cloathed with admirable Grecisms, and
ancient words, which he had been digging from the mines of Chaucer and
Spenser, and which, with all their rusticity, had somewhat of venerable
in them. But I found not there neither that for which I looked. At last
I had recourse to his master, Spenser, the author of that immortal
poem, called the "Fairy Queen;" and there I met with that which I
had been looking for so long in vain. Spenser had studied Virgil to
as much advantage as Milton had done Homer; and amongst the rest of
his excellencies had copied that. Looking farther into the Italian, I
found Tasso had done the same; nay more, that all the sonnets in that
language are on the turn of the first thought; which Mr Walsh, in his
late ingenious preface to his poems, has observed. In short, Virgil
and Ovid are the two principal fountains of them in Latin poetry.
And the French at this day are so fond of them, that they judge them
to be the first beauties: _delicate et bien tourné_, are the highest
commendations which they bestow, on somewhat which they think a
master-piece.

An example of the turn on words, amongst a thousand others, is that in
the last book of Ovid's "Metamorphoses:"

_Heu! quantum scelus est, in viscera, viscera condi!
Congestoque avidum pinguescere corpore corpus;
Alteriusque animantem animantis vivere leto. _

An example on the turn both of thoughts and words, is to be found in
Catullus, in the complaint of Ariadne, when she was left by Theseus;

_Tum jam nulla viro juranti fæmina credat;
Nulla viri speret sermones esse fideles;
Qui, dum aliquid cupiens animus prægestit apisci,
Nil metuunt jurare, nihil promittere parcunt:
Sed simul ac cupidæ mentis satiata libido est,
Dicta nihil metuere, nihil perjuria curant. _

An extraordinary turn upon the words, is that in Ovid's "Epistolæ
Heroidum," of Sappho to Phaon.

_Si, nisi quæ formâ poterit te digna videri,
Nulla futura tua est, nulla futura tua est. _

Lastly: A turn, which I cannot say is absolutely on words, for the
thought turns with them, is in the fourth Georgick of Virgil; where
Orpheus is to receive his wife from hell, on express condition not to
look on her till she was come on earth:

_Cùm subita incautum dementia cepit amantem;
Ignoscenda quidem, scirent si ignoscere Manes. _

I will not burthen your lordship with more of them; for I write
to a master who understands them better than myself. But I may
safely conclude them to be great beauties. --I might descend also to
the mechanic beauties of heroic verse; but we have yet no English
_prosodia_, not so much as a tolerable dictionary, or a grammar; so
that our language is in a manner barbarous; and what government will
encourage any one, or more, who are capable of refining it, I know not:
but nothing under a public expence can go through with it. And I rather
fear a declination of the language, than hope an advancement of it in
the present age.

I am still speaking to you, my lord, though, in all probability, you
are already out of hearing. Nothing, which my meanness can produce, is
worthy of this long attention. But I am come to the last petition of
Abraham; if there be ten righteous lines, in this vast preface, spare
it for their sake; and also spare the next city, because it is but a
little one.

I would excuse the performance of this translation, if it were all my
own; but the better, though not the greater part, being the work of
some gentlemen, who have succeeded very happily in their undertaking,
let their excellencies atone for my imperfections, and those of my
sons. I have perused some of the satires, which are done by other
hands; and they seem to me as perfect in their kind, as any thing I
have seen in English verse. The common way which we have taken, is not
a literal translation, but a kind of paraphrase; or somewhat, which
is yet more loose, betwixt a paraphrase and imitation. It was not
possible for us, or any men, to have made it pleasant any other way.
If rendering the exact sense of those authors, almost line for line,
had been our business, Barten Holyday had done it already to our hands:
and, by the help of his learned notes and illustrations, not only
Juvenal and Persius, but, what yet is more obscure, his own verses,
might be understood.

But he wrote for fame, and wrote to scholars: we write only for the
pleasure and entertainment of those gentlemen and ladies, who, though
they are not scholars, are not ignorant: persons of understanding
and good sense, who, not having been conversant in the original, or
at least not having made Latin verse so much their business as to be
critics in it, would be glad to find, if the wit of our two great
authors be answerable to their fame and reputation in the world. We
have, therefore, endeavoured to give the public all the satisfaction we
are able in this kind.

And if we are not altogether so faithful to our author, as our
predecessors Holyday and Stapylton, yet we may challenge to ourselves
this praise, that we shall be far more pleasing to our readers. We have
followed our authors at greater distance, though not step by step,
as they have done: for oftentimes they have gone so close, that they
have trod on the heels of Juvenal and Persius, and hurt them by their
too near approach. A noble author would not be pursued too close by a
translator. We lose his spirit, when we think to take his body. The
grosser part remains with us, but the soul is flown away in some noble
expression, or some delicate turn of words, or thought. Thus Holyday,
who made this way his choice, seized the meaning of Juvenal; but the
poetry has always escaped him.

They who will not grant me, that pleasure is one of the ends of
poetry, but that it is only a means of compassing the only end, which
is instruction, must yet allow, that, without the means of pleasure,
the instruction is but a bare and dry philosophy: a crude preparation
of morals, which we may have from Aristotle and Epictetus, with more
profit than from any poet. Neither Holyday nor Stapylton have imitated
Juvenal in the poetical part of him--his diction and his elocution.
Nor had they been poets, as neither of them were, yet, in the way they
took, it was impossible for them to have succeeded in the poetic part.

The English verse, which we call heroic, consists of no more than ten
syllables; the Latin hexameter sometimes rises to seventeen; as, for
example, this verse in Virgil:

_Pulverulenta putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum. _

Here is the difference of no less than seven syllables in a line,
betwixt the English and the Latin. Now the medium of these is about
fourteen syllables; because the dactyle is a more frequent foot in
hexameters than the spondee. But Holyday, without considering that he
wrote with the disadvantage of four syllables less in every verse,
endeavours to make one of his lines to comprehend the sense of one of
Juvenal's. According to the falsity of the proposition was the success.
He was forced to crowd his verse with ill-sounding monosyllables, of
which our barbarous language affords him a wild plenty; and by that
means he arrived at his pedantic end, which was to make a literal
translation. His verses have nothing of verse in them, but only the
worst part of it--the rhyme; and that, into the bargain, is far from
good. But, which is more intolerable, by cramming his ill-chosen, and
worse-sounding monosyllables so close together, the very sense which
he endeavours to explain, is become more obscure than that of his
author; so that Holyday himself cannot be understood, without as large
a commentary as that which he makes on his two authors. For my own
part, I can make a shift to find the meaning of Juvenal without his
notes: but his translation is more difficult than his author. And I
find beauties in the Latin to recompense my pains; but, in Holyday and
Stapylton, my ears, in the first place, are mortally offended; and then
their sense is so perplexed, that I return to the original, as the more
pleasing task, as well as the more easy. [50]

This must be said for our translation, that, if we give not the whole
sense of Juvenal, yet we give the most considerable part of it: we give
it, in general, so clearly, that few notes are sufficient to make us
intelligible. We make our author at least appear in a poetic dress. We
have actually made him more sounding, and more elegant, than he was
before in English; and have endeavoured to make him speak that kind
of English, which he would have spoken had he lived in England, and
had written to this age. If sometimes any of us (and it is but seldom)
make him express the customs and manners of our native country rather
than of Rome, it is, either when there was some kind of analogy betwixt
their customs and ours, or when, to make him more easy to vulgar
understandings, we give him those manners which are familiar to us.
But I defend not this innovation, it is enough if I can excuse it.
For, to speak sincerely, the manners of nations and ages are not to be
confounded; we should either make them English, or leave them Roman. If
this can neither be defended nor excused, let it be pardoned at least,
because it is acknowledged; and so much the more easily, as being a
fault which is never committed without some pleasure to the reader.

Thus, my lord, having troubled you with a tedious visit, the best
manners will be shewn in the least ceremony. I will slip away while
your back is turned, and while you are otherwise employed; with great
confusion for having entertained you so long with this discourse, and
for having no other recompence to make you, than the worthy labours of
my fellow-undertakers in this work, and the thankful acknowledgments,
prayers, and perpetual good wishes, of,

MY LORD,
Your Lordship's
Most obliged, most humble,
And most obedient servant,
JOHN DRYDEN.
_Aug. 18, 1692. _

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Our author's connection with this witty and accomplished nobleman
is fully traced in Dryden's Life. He was created Earl of Middlesex in
1675, and after the Revolution became Lord Chamberlain, and a knight of
the garter. Dryden alludes to these last honours in the commencement
of the dedication, which was prefixed to a version of the Satires of
Juvenal by our author and others, published in 1693.

[2] See Introduction to the "Essay on Dramatic Poetry. "

[3] These Lyrical Pieces, after all, are only a few smooth songs, where
wit is sufficiently overbalanced by indecency.

[4] Alluding to Rochester's well-known couplet:

For pointed satire I would Buckhurst chuse;
The best good man, with the worst-natured muse.

_Allusion to Horace's 10th Satire, Book I. _

The satires of Lord Dorset seem to have consisted in short lampoons, if
we may judge of those which have been probably lost, from such as are
known to us. His mock "Address to Mr Edward Howard, on his incomparable
and incomprehensible Poem, called the British Princes;" another to
the same on his plays; a lampoon on an Irish lady; and one on Lady
Dorchester,--are the only satires of his lordship's which have been
handed down to us. He probably wrote other light occasional pieces of
the same nature.

[5] Shooting at rovers, in archery, is opposed to shooting at butts: In
the former exercise the bowman shoots at random, merely to show how far
he can send an arrow.

[6] Probably meaning Sir Robert Howard, with whom our author was now
reconciled, and perhaps Sir William D'Avenant.

[7] The First Satire of Persius is doubtless levelled against bad
poets; but that author rather engages in the defence of satire, opposed
to the silly or bombastic verses of his contemporaries, than in
censuring freedoms used with private characters.

[8] The four sceptres were placed saltier-wise upon the reverse of
guineas, till the gold coinage of his present majesty.

[9]

_Sic Maro nec Calabri tentavit carmina Flacci,
Pindaricos posset cum superare modos;
Et Vario cessit Romani laude cothurni,
Cum posset tragico fortius ore loqui. _

MART. _lib. VIII. epig. XVIII. _

[10] "Would it be imagined," says Dr Johnson, "that, of this rival
to antiquity, all the satires were little personal invectives, and
that his longest composition was a song of eleven stanzas? The blame,
however, of this exaggerated praise falls on the encomiast, not upon
the author; whose performances are, what they pretend to be, the
effusions of a man of wit; gay, vigorous, and airy. "

[11] Dryden's recollection seems here deficient. There is, no doubt, a
close imitation of the Iliad throughout the Jerusalem; but the death of
the Swedish Prince was so far from being the motive of Rinaldo's return
to the wars, that Rinaldo seems never to have heard either of that
person or of his fate until he was delivered from the garden of Armida,
and on his voyage to join Godfrey's army.

[12] Epic poems by Le Moyne, Chapelain, and Scuderi; of which it
may be enough to say, that they are in the stale, weary, flat, and
unprofitable taste of all French heroics.

[13] This passage is certainly inaccurate in one particular, and
probably in the rest. Sir Philip Sydney was killed at the battle of
Zutphen, 16th October, 1586, and the "Faery Queen" was then only
commenced. For, in a dialogue written by Bryskett, as Mr Malone
conjectures, betwixt 1584 and 1586, Spenser is introduced describing
himself as having undertaken a work in heroical verse, under the title
of a "Faerie Queene;" and it is clear that he continued to labour in
that task till 1594, when we learn, from his 80th sonnet, that he had
just composed six books:

After so long a race as I have run
Through Faery Land, which those six books compile,
Give leave to rest me, being half foredonne,
And gather to myself new breath awhile;
Then, as a steed refreshed after toyle,
Out of my prison will I break anew,
And stoutly will that second work assoyle,
With strong endevour, and attention due.

It was not, therefore, the death of Sir Philip Sydney which deprived
him of spirit to continue his captivating poem, since the greater part
was written after that event; but the poet's domestic misfortunes,
occasioned by Tyrone's rebellion, which seem at once to have ruined
his fortune, and broken his heart. See TODD'S _Life of Spenser_, and
MALONE'S Note on this passage.

It seems unlikely, that Sydney was Spenser's Prince Arthur. Upton more
justly considers Leicester, a worthless character, but the favourite
of Gloriana, (Queen Elizabeth,) and who aspired to share her bed and
throne, as depicted under that character. See TODD'S _Spenser_, Vol. I.
Life, p. clxviii.

[14] This was a charge brought against Spenser so early as the days of
Ben Jonson; who says, in his Discoveries, "Spenser, in affecting the
ancients, writ no language; yet I would have him read for his matter,
but as Virgil read Ennius. " This has been generally supposed to apply
only to Spenser's "Pastorals;" but as in these he imitates rather a
coarse and provincial than an obsolete dialect, the limitation of
Jonson's censure is probably imaginary. It is probable, that, as the
style of poetry in the latter part of Queen Elizabeth's reign, and
in that of her successor, had become laboured and ornate, Spenser's
imitations of the old metrical romances had to his contemporaries an
antique air of rude and naked simplicity, although his "Faery Queen"
seems more intelligible to us than the compositions of Jonson himself.
Dryden, whose charge was afterwards echoed by Pope, probably adopted
it without very accurate investigation. Our idea of what is ancient
does not necessarily imply obscurity; on the contrary, I am afraid
that to modern ears the style of Addison sounds more antiquated than
that of Dr Johnson; so that simplicity may produce the same effect as
unintelligibility.

[15] Mr Rymer, who was pleased to call himself a critic, had promised
to favour the public with "some reflections on that Paradise Lost of
Milton, which some are pleased to call a poem, and to assert rhime
against the slender sophistry wherewith he attacks it. " But this
promise, which is given in the end of his "Remarks on the Tragedies of
the last Age," he never filled up the measure of his presumption, by
attempting to fulfil.

[16]

_Dixeris egregie, notum si callida verbum
Reddiderit junctura novum_----

This passage, as our author observes, (p. 221. vol. iv. ) is variously
construed by expositors; and the meaning which he there adopts, that
of "applying received words to a new signification," seems fully as
probable as that adopted in the text. Mr Malone has given the opinions
of Hurd, Beattie, and De Nores, upon this disputed passage.

[17] This resolution our author fortunately did not adhere to.

[18] The passages of Scripture, on which Dryden founds his idea of the
machinery of guardian angels, are the following, which I insert for the
benefit of such readers as may not have at hand the old-fashioned book
in which they occur.

"Then I lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and, behold, a certain man
clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz:
His body also was like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of
lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet
like in colour to polished brass, and the voice of his words like
the voice of a multitude. And I Daniel alone saw the vision; for the
men that were with me saw not the vision; but a great quaking fell
upon them, so that they fled to hide themselves. Therefore I was left
alone, and saw this great vision, and there remained no strength in
me: for my comeliness was turned in me into corruption, and I retained
no strength. Yet heard I the voice of his words: and when I heard the
voice of his words, then was I in a deep sleep on my face, and my face
towards the ground.

"And, behold, an hand touched me, which set me upon my knees and upon
the palms of my hands: And he said unto me, O Daniel, a man greatly
beloved, understand the words that I speak unto thee, and stand
upright: for unto thee am I now sent. And, when he had spoken this word
unto me, I stood trembling. Then said he unto me, Fear not, Daniel: for
from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and
to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come
for thy words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me
one and twenty days: but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came
to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia. Now I am
come to make thee understand what shall befall thy people in the latter
days: for yet the vision is for many days. And when he had spoken such
words unto me, I set my face toward the ground, and I became dumb. And,
behold, one like the similitude of the sons of men touched my lips:
then I opened my mouth, and spake, and said unto him that stood before
me, O my lord, by the vision my sorrows are turned upon me, and I have
retained no strength. For how can the servant of this my lord talk with
this my lord? for, as for me, straightway there remained no strength
in me, neither is there breath left in me. Then there came again and
touched me one like the appearance of a man, and he strengthened
me. And said, O man greatly beloved, fear not; peace be unto thee,
be strong, yea, be strong. And, when he had spoken unto me, I was
strengthened, and said, Let my lord speak; for thou hast strengthened
me. Then said he, knowest thou wherefore I come unto thee? and now will
I return to fight with the prince of Persia: and when I am gone forth,
lo, the prince of Grecia shall come. But I will shew thee that which is
noted in the scripture of truth: and there is none that holdeth with me
in these things, but Michael your prince. "--Dan. x. 5-21.

It may, however, be doubted, whether any poetical use could be made of
the guardian angels here mentioned; since our ideas of their powers are
too obscure and indefinite to afford any scope for description.

[19] In the beginning of the 12th chapter, as well as in the passage
quoted, Michael is distinguished as "the great prince which standeth up
for the children of Daniel's people. "

[20] I shall imitate my predecessor, Mr Malone, in presenting the
reader with Spanheim's summary of the notes of distinction between the
Greek satirical drama, and the satirical poetry of the Romans.

"La premiére différence, qui est içi à remarquer et dont on ne peut
disconvenir, c'est que les Satyres ou poëmes satyriques des Grecs,
etoient des piéces dramatiques, ou de théatre; ce qu'on ne peut point
dire des Satires Romaines, prises dans tous ces trois genres, dont
je viens de parler, et auxquelles on a appliqué ce mot. Il y auroit
peut-être plus de sujet d'en douter, à l'égard de ces premiéres Satires
des anciens Romains, dont il a été fait mention, et dont il ne nous
est rien resté, si les passages de deux auteurs Latins et de T. Live
entre autres, qui en parlent, ne marquoient en termes exprès, qu'elles
avoient précedé parmi eux les piéces dramatiques, et etoient en effet
d'une autre espéce. D'ou vient aussi, que les Latins, quand ils font
mention de la poësie Grecque, et d'ailleurs se contentent de donner
aux premiéres ce nom de _poëme_, comme Ciceron le donne aux Satires de
Varron, et d'autres un nom pareil à celles de Lucilius ou d'Horace.

"La seconde différence entre les poëmes satyriques des Grecs, et les
Satires des Latins, vient de ce qu'il y a même quelque diversité dans
le nom, laquelle ne paroit pas autrement dans les langues vulgaires.
C'est qu'en effet les Grecs donnoient aux leurs le nom de Satyrus ou
Satiri, de Satyriques, de piéces Satyriques, par rapport, s'entend,
aux Satyres, ces hostes de bois, et ces compagnons de Baccus, qui y
jouoient leur rôle: et d'ou vient aussi, qu'Horace, comme nous avons
déja vû, les appelle _agrestes Satyros_, et ceux, qui en étoient les
auteurs, du nom de _Satyrorum Scriptor. _ Au lieu que les Romains ont
dit _Satira_ ou _Satura_ de ces poëmes, auxquels ils en ont appliqué et
restraint le nom; que leurs auteurs et leurs grammairiens donnent une
autre origine, et une autre signification de ce mot, comme celle d'un
mélange de plusieurs fruits de la terre, ou bien de plusieurs mets dans
un plat; delà celle d'un mélange de plusieurs loix comprises dans une,
ou enfin la signification d'un poëme mêlé de plusieurs choses.

"La troisiéme différence entre ces mêmes Satires et les piéces
satyriques des Grecs est, qu'en effet l'introduction des Silénes et
des Satyres, qui composoient les choeurs de ces derniéres, etoient
tellement de leur essence, que sans eux elles ne pouvoient plus porter
le nom de _Satyres_. Tellement qu'Horace, parlant entre autres de
la nature de ces Satyres ou poëmes satyriques des Grecs, s'arrête
a montrer, en quelle maniére on y doit faire parler Siléne, ou les
Satyres; ce qu'on leur doit faire éviter ou observer. Ce qu'l n'auroit
pas fait avec tant de soin, s'il avoit cru, que la présence des Satyres
ne fut pas de la nature et de l'essence, comme je viens de dire, de ces
sortes de piéces, qui en portoient le nom.

"C'est à quoi on peut ajouter l'action de ces mêmes Satyres, et qui
etoient propres aux piéces, qui en portoient le nom. C'est qu'en effet
les danses etoient si fort de leur essence, que non seulement Aristote,
comme nous avons déja veu, joint ensemble la _poësie satyrique et
faite pour la danse_; mais qu'un autre auteur Grec [_Lucianus_ #peri
orchêseôs#] parle nommément des trois différentes sortes de danses
attachés au théatre, _la tragique, la comique, et la satyrique_.
D'où vient aussi, comme il le remarque ailleurs, que les Satires en
prirent le nom de _Sicynnistes_; c'est à dire d'une sorte de danse, qui
leur etoit particuliére, comme on peut voir entre autres de ce qu'en
dit Siléne dans le Cyclope, à la veuë des Satyres; et ainsi d'ou on
peut assés comprendre la force de l'épithéte de _saltantes Satyros_,
que Virgile leur donne en quelque endroit; ou de ce qu'Horace,
dans sa premiére Ode, parle des danses des Nymphes et des Satyres,
_Nympharumque leues cum Satyris chori_. Tout cela, comme chacun
voit, n'avoit aucun raport avec les Satires Romaines, et il n'est pas
nécessaire, d'en dire davantage, pour le faire entendre.

"La quatriéme différence resulte des sujets assés divers des uns et des
autres. Les Satyres des Grecs, comme il a déja été remarqué, et qu'on
peut juger par les titres, qui nous en restent, prenoient d'ordinaire,
non seulement des sujets connus, mais fabuleux; ce qui fait dire
là-dessus à Horace, _ex noto carmen fictum sequar_; des heros, par
exemple, ou des demi-dieux des siécles passés, à quoi le même poëte
venoit de faire allusion. Les Satires Romaines, comme leurs auteurs en
parlent eux-mêmes, et qu'ils le pratiquent, s'attachoient á reprendre
les vices ou les erreurs de leur siécle et de leur patrie; à y jouer
des particuliers de Rome, un Mutius entre autres, et un Lupus, avec
Lucilius; un Milonius et un Nomentanus, avec Horace; un Crispinus et un
Locustus, avec Juvenal; c'est à dire des gens, qui nous seroient peu
connus aujourdhui, sans la mention, qu'ils ont trouvé à propos d'en
faire dans leurs satires.

"La cinquiéme différence paroit encore dans la maniére, de laquelle
les uns et les autres traitent leurs sujets, et dans le but principal,
qu'ils s'y proposent. Celui de la poësie satyrique des Grecs, etoit de
tourner en ridicule des actions sérieuses, comme l'enseigne le même
Horace, _vertere seria ludo_; de travêstir pour ce sujet leurs dieux ou
leurs héros, d'en changer le caractére, selon le besoin; de faire par
exemple d'un Achille un homme mol, suivant qu'un autre poëte Latin y
fait allusion, _Nec nocet autori, qui mollem fecit Achillem_. C'étoit
en un mot leur but principal, de rire et de plaisanter; et d'ou vient
non seulement le mot de _Risus_, comme il a déja été remarqué, qu'on a
appliqué à ces sortes d'ouvrages, mais aussi ceux en Grec de _jeux_,
ou même de jouëts, et de _joci_ en Latin, comme fait encore Horace,
où il parle de l'auteur tragique, qui parmi les Grecs fut le premier,
qui composa de ces piéces satyriques, et suivant qu'il dit, _incolumi
gravitate jocum tentavit_. Nons pouvons même comprendre de ce qu'il
ajoute dans la suite et des epithétes, que d'autres leur donnent de ris
obscénes, que cette gravité, avec laquelle on avoit d'abord temperé
ces sortes d'ouvrages, en fut bannie dans la suite; que les régles de
la pudeur n'y furent guéres observées; et qu'on en fit des spectacles
assés conformes à l'humeur et à la conduite de tels acteurs que des
satires petulans ou _protervi_, comme Horace les appelle sur ce même
sujet. Et c'est à quoi contribuerent d'ailleurs leurs danses et leurs
postures, dont il à été parlé, de même que celles des pantomimes
parmi les Romains. Au lieu que les Satires Romaines, temoin celles
qui nous restent, et á qui d'ailleurs ce nom est demeuré comme propre
et attaché, avoient moins pour but de plaisanter que d'exciter ou de
l'indignation, ou de la haine, _facit indignatio versum_, ou du
mépris; qu'elles s'attachent plus à reprendre et à mordre, qu'à faire
rire ou à folâtrer. D'ou vient aussi le nom de _poëme medisant_, que
les grammairiens leur donnent, ou celui de _vers mordans_, comme en
parle Ovide dans un passage, où je trouve qu'il se défend de n'avoir
point écrit de Satyres.

_Non ego mordaci distrinxi carmine quemquam,
Nec meus ullius crimina versus habet. _

"Je ne touche pas enfin la différence, qu'on pourroit encore alléguer
de la composition diverse des unes et des autres; les Satires Romaines,
dont il est ici proprement question et qui ont été conservées
jusques à nous, ayant été écrites en vers héroiques, et les poëmes
satyriques des Grecs en vers jambiques. Ce qui devroit néanmoins être
d'autant plus remarqué, qu'Horace ne trouve point d'autre différence
entre l'inventeur des Satires Romaines et les auteurs de l'ancienne
comédie, comme Cratinus et Eupolis, si non que les Satires du premier
étoient écrites dans un autre genre de vers. "--See Baron SPANHEIM'S
Dissertation, _Sur les_ Cesars _de_ Julien, _et en général sur les
ouvrages satyriques des Anciens_, prefixed to his translation of
Julian's work, Amsterdam, 1728, 4to. and Malone's "Dryden," Vol. IV. p.
130.

[21] Horace, in the beginning of the Fourth Satire of his First Book,
introduces Lucilius as imitating the ancient Greek comedians:

_Hinc omnis pendet Lucilius, hosce secutus,
Mutatis tantum pedibus numerisque; facetus,
Emunctæ naris, durus componere versus.
Nam fuit hoc vitiosus: in hora sæpe ducentos,
Ut magnum, versus dictabat stans pede in uno.
Cum flueret lutulentus, erat quod tollere velles;
Garrulus, atque piger scribendi ferre laborem;
Scribendi recte; nam ut multum, non moror. _--

Towards the end of the Tenth Satire, the poet resumes the subject, and
vindicates his character of Lucilius against those who had accused him
of too much severity towards the ancient satirist; and again accuses
him of carelessness, though he acknowledges his superiority to the more
ancient models:

----_fuerit Lucilius, inquam,
Comis et urbanus; fuerit limatior idem,
Quam rudis, et Græcis intacti carminis auctor,
Quamque poetarum seniorum turba: Sed ille,
Si foret hoc nostrum fato dilatus in ævum,
Detereret sibi multa: recideret omne, quod ultra
Perfectum traheretur: et in versu faciendo
Sæpe caput scaberet, vivos et roderet ungues. _

[22] The original runs thus: "_Et tamen in illis veteribus nostris
quæ Menippum imitati, non interpretati, quadam hilaritate
conspersimus, multa admis admista ex intima philosophia, multa dicta
dialectice, quæ quo facilius minus docti intelligerent jucunditate
quadam ad legendum invitati; in laudationibus, in iis ipsis
antiquitatum proæmiis, philosophice scribere voluimus si modo
consecuti sumus_. "--Academic lib. iii. sect. 2. The sense of the last
clause seems to be, that Varro had attempted, even in panegyrics, and
studied imitations of the ancient satirists, to write philosophically,
although he modestly affects to doubt of his having been able to
accomplish his purpose.

[23] This pretended continuation of Petronius Arbiter was published at
Paris in 1693, and proved to be a forgery by one Nodot, a Frenchman.

[24] Perhaps the Satires of Raübner.

[25] From this classification we may infer, that Dryden's idea of
a Varronian satire was, that, instead of being merely didactic, it
comprehended a fable or series of imaginary and ludicrous incidents,
in which the author engaged the objects of his satire. Such being his
definition, it is surprising he should have forgotten Hudibras, the
best satire of this kind that perhaps ever was written; but this he
afterwards apologizes for, as a slip of an old man's memory.

[26] _Horatii Persiique Satyras Isaacus Casaubonus et Daniel Heinsius
certatim laudibus extulere, ac Persium ille suum tantopere
adornavit, ut nihil Horatio, nihil Juvenali præter indignationem
reliquisse videatur; hic verò Horatium curiosè considerando tam
admirabilem esse docuit, ut plerisque jam in Persio nimia Stoici
supercilii morositas jure displiceat. Juvenalis ingenium ambo
quidem certè laudaverunt, sic tamen ut in eo sæpe etiam Rhetoricæ
arrogantiæ quasi lasciviam, ac denique declamationem potiùs quàm
Satyram esse pronunciaverunt. _

[27] North has left the following account of this great lawyer's
prejudices. "He was an upright judge, if taken within himself; and when
he appeared, as he often did, and really was, partial, his inclination
or prejudice, insensibly to himself, drew his judgment aside. His bias
lay strangely for, and against, characters and denominations; and
sometimes, the very habits of persons. If one party was a courtier,
and well dressed, and the other a sort of puritan, with a black cap
and plain clothes, he insensibly thought the justice of the cause with
the latter. If the dissenting, or anti-court party was at the back of
a cause, he was very seldom impartial; and the loyalists had always a
great disadvantage before him. And he ever sat hard upon his lordship,
in his practice, in causes of that nature, as may be observed in the
cases of Cuts and Pickering, just before, and of Soams and Bernardiston
elsewhere, related. It is said he was once caught. A courtier, who had
a cause to be tried before him, got one to go to him, as from the king,
to speak for favour to his adversary, and so carried his point; for the
Chief Justice could not think any person to be in the right, that came
so unduly recommended. " _Life of Lord Keeper Guilford_, p. 61.

[28] Casaubon published an edition of "Persius," with notes, and a
commentary. Francesco Stelluti's version was published at Rome in 1630.

[29] This is a strange mistake in an author, who translated Persius
entirely, and great part of Juvenal. The satires of Persius were
written during the reign of Nero, and those of Juvenal in that of
Domitian. This error is the more extraordinary, as Dryden mentions, a
little lower, the very emperors under whom these poets flourished.

[30] David Wedderburn of Aberdeen, whose edition of "Persius," with a
commentary, was published in 8vo. at Amsterdam, 1664.