and to converse. To make his ^gurcs intnlUgihkt
tfaelilt|ili<la€
la no great naMer: and, as Epictetus says, therr
is nothing of beauty in all this, or what it
worthy of a prudent man. The principal busi-
ness, and which is> of most impoctanoa to us, it
to show the nte, th^ treason, and the proof of hit
preoepts.
" They who endeavoor not to correct theottelvesv
accord'mg to so exact a model, are just Ilka tha
patients, who have open before them a book of
admirable receipts for their diseases, and please
themselves with reading it, without comprehend-
ing the nature of the remedies, or bow to ipply
them to their cure***
Let Horace go off with these encomlams^ wliidb
he has so well deserved.
To conclude the contention betwixt onr three
poets, I wUl use the words of Virgil, in his fifth
iCneid, where Aieas proposes the lewaida of tht
footH^ce, to ^ three first who should leaoh the
goaU T^ prsMnia primi aocipient, fiavaquo
caput nectentur oliv4 : Let these three andeata
be pre ferr e d to all the modems ; as flnt arriving
at th^ goal : let them all be crowned as victors,
with the wreath that properly belongs to satire.
But, after that, « with this distinctioQ amongst
themselves. Primus equum phaleris insignem
victor habeto. Let Juvenal ride fifvt in tri-
umph. Alter Amaaoniam pharetram, plenam-
que sagittis Threiciis, lato quam ciicumplec
titur auro balteus, h tereti subnectit figula gemma«
Let Horace, who is the seoond, and but just the
second, carry off the quivers and the arrows, at
the badges of his satire: and the golden-belt, and
the diamond-button: Tertius, ArgoUcohocClypeo
contentus abito. And let Penius, the last of the
first three worthies, be contented with th« Grecian
shield, and with victory, not only over all tht
Grecians, who were ignorant of the Roman satire,
but over all the modems in suoceedhig agt^j jex-.
ceptmg Boileau and your lordship.
And thus I have given the history of latirt, and
Digitized by VjOOQIC
493
d&nved k from Enniut, toyoor lonWiip ; that »,
from its fim rudimenU of Urbwity, to its last
polishing and perfectkm : which is. wUh Virgil, in
tii address to Augustus,
-^ iion>en famd tot ferre per annos,
Tithoni primk quotiibest ab origine C»«ir.
I faid only from Fnniiis; but I may safely carry
H higher, as far as Ijvins Andronirusi who, as 1
Have said form^ly, taught the Gist play at Rome,
in the year ab urbc condita cccccxnr. I have since
Jc»red my learned friend, Mr. Maidwcll, to com-
pute th« difference of times, betwixt Aristophanes
and LiTiof Andronicus ; and he assures me from
the best chroDologers, that Plutus. the last of
Aristophanes's plays, was represented at Athens,
fa the year of the 97th olyn.piad ; which agreei
with the year urbk €ondU<r.cccixiv. So that the
dJffepeoce of years betwixt Aristophanes and An-
drtmicui Is 150; from whence I have probably
deduced, that Lirins Andronicns, who was a Gre-
cian, had read the plays of the old comedy, which
were satirical, ahd also of the new ; for Menander
was fifty years before him, which must needs be a
great Jijht to hirfi, in his own plajs, that were of
the satirical hature. That the Romans bad farces
before this, it is true ; but then they had no com-
municitiou with Greece? so that Andronicus was
the first who wrote after the manner of the old
comedy, in his plays ; he was imitated >y Ennius,
alKMit thhty years afterwards. Though the for-
mer writ fables ; the latter, speaking properly,
began the Roman satire. According to that descrip-
tion, which Juvenal gives of it in his first; quic-
quid agunt homines, votum, timor, ira, voluptas,
gaudia, discorsus, nottri est farrago libelli. This
is that in which I hare made bold to differ from
^ Casaabon, Rigaltms, Dacier, and inde^'d from all
the modern critics, that not Ennius, but An-
dronicus was the first, who by thc^ j4rch<ra Commlia
•f 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
ijatore teaches It mankind, in all ages, and jn every
conntrj'.
It is but necessary, that, after so much has bren
said of satire, some definition cf 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 pm*ging of our minds; in which human vices,
ignorance, and etrours, and all things besides,
which are produced fipom them, in every man, are
severely reprehended ;' partly dramatically, partly
limply, and sometimes in both kinds of speaking;
DTIYDEN'S TRANSLATIONS.
but for the noit part %«r*t}iiAy, ftnd tircaltf y )
eonsiettng in a bw familisn* w«y,^:hi«fly in a sharp
and pungent manner of speech i bat partly, alms
in a fmoetioas and civfl way of iestm^; by whicfc
either hatred, or laughter, or iodignation h
nw^^ed."— Where I eamiot botobeerve, that this
obwnifc and perplexed deiknition, or rather descrip-
tion of satire, is wholly acoomoKMiated to the
HoratiM way ; and, exclwlhig the works df Juvenal
and Persios, as foreign from that kind of poem:
the claose in the beginning of it ( « without a
•eries of actios") disthiguishes satire properly
from stage-plays, which are aU of one action, and
one continued series of action. The end or scope
of satire is to purge the passions; so far it is com-
mon to the satires of Juvenal andf Persius : the rest
which follows, is also generally bekwigmg to all
three; till he comes upon us, with the cxdoding
olanse " consisting vk a low fWmiliar way of speech,"
which is the proper character of Horace; and
finom which, the other two, for their honour be
it spoken, are far disUnt: but how come low-
nets of style, and the fiimiKarity of words, to be
so much the propriety of satire, that withont them,
a poet can be no more a satirist, than without
risibility he can be a man? b the fault of Horace
to be made the virtue and standing rule of this
poem \ Is the grtmde mpkos of P^aius, and the
sublimity of Juvenal to be cireumscribed, with the
meannebs of words, and vulgarity of explesskm ?
If Horace refused the pains of numbers, and the
loftiness of figures, are they bound to fbltow so iU
a precedent ? Let him walk a-fbot with bis pad
in his hand, for his own pleasure; but let net
them be accounted no poets, who chuae to mount
and show their horsemanship. Holiday is not
afraid to say, that there never was such a faH, as
from his odes to his satires, aad 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, rt-ceived an alteratbn in their fiishioo?
Wliich alteration, says Holiday, is to after-times,
as good a warrant as the first Has not Virgil
rban^^d the manners of Homer's heroes in his
-«ueid } Certaiaiy he has, and for the better.
For Virgil's age was more civilised, and better
bred : and he writ accordhag to the politeness of
Rome, under the reign of Augustus Caesar ; not
to the nidenesi of Agamemnon's age, or the times
of Homer. Why should we offer to confine free
spirits to one form, when wu cannot so much as con-
fine our bodies to one fashion of appirel ? Wonid
not Donne's satires, which abound with 9o muck
Digitized by VjOOQIC
PEIMCAflON to JUVEKaL
wit, appetr more chamung, if ha bad tak«n care
•f bis words, and tf bis numbers ? But be followed
Horace so very close, tbat of-necessity be must fall
with bim: and 1 may safely say it of tbis present
age, Ibat 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
â– koch, on this subject Will your lordship be
pleased to prolong my audience,* only so far, till
I tell your my own trivial thoughts bow a modem
satire should be made. 1 will not deviate in the
least from the precepts and e^comples of the
ancients, who were always our best masters. I
will only illustrate them, tod discover some of
t^ bidden beauties in thi^ir designs, that we thereby
may form our own in imitation of tbem< Will
you please bat to observe, tb^t Persius, tbe least
in dignity of ail the three, has n otwithsto n ding
been the first, who has discovered to us tliis mt-
portant secret, in the designing of a perfiect satire,
that it ought only to treat of one sHiijecl j to ba
confined to one particular theme j or, at Lea^ to
one principally. If other vices occur in tbe manogOi-
ment of the chief, they should only be transieutly
lashed, and not be insisted oq, so as to make
the design double. As in a play of the English
fashioa, which we coll a tragi*comfidy, there is to
be but one main design : and though there be an
underplot, or second walk of oomicai characters
«od adventures, vet they ore iubeerv irjit to the
chief fable, carried olodg uoder it, and helping to
it ; so that the drama may pot seea a mtuistar
with two heads. Thi^ the Copemican system of
tbe planets makes tbe Moon to be moved by tbe
motion of the Earth, and carried about her. orb,
Stt a dependent of hers. Mascardi, in his dis-
course of the Doppia favola, or double tale in
plays, gives an instance of it, in the fomous pas-
toral of Gnarini, called 11 Postor 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 cer-
tain that the divine wit of Horace was not ignorant
of this rule, that a play, though it consisto of
many parts, must yet be one in tbe action, and
must drive on the accomplishment of one design ;
fer be gives this very precept, Sit quod vis sim-
plex duntaxat & unum ; yet he seems not much
to mind it in his satires, many of them consistmg
of more arguments than one ; and tbe second
without dependonce on the first. Casaubon has
observed this before me, in his preference of Per-
sius to Hor9ce: and will* have bis own beloved
author to be the first, who found out, and in-
troduced this method of confining himself to one
49S
subject I know it may be nrged In defence of
Horace, that this unity is not necessary ; because
the very word taiura signifies a dish plentifiUly
stored with all variety of fruit and grains. Yet
Juvenal, who calls his poems a farrago, which is
a wonl nf the same signitk^liun with talura, baa
chosen to follow the same method of Persius, and
no! of Horace. And Boilean, whose example
alone is a sufficient autboritvv bos wholly con-
fined himself, in all his mtires, to tbis unity
of design. That vartetv which is not to be found
in any one satire, is at least, in many, written on
several occasions. And if varioty be of absolute
necessity in every one of them, accordiiig to the
etymology of the word j yet it may arise naturally
from one subject, as it is diversly treated in the
several subordinate branches of it ; all relating to
the chief. It may be illustrated accordingly with
variety of examples , in tbe subdifittons of
it^ and with as many precepts as there ate
members of it ; which altogether may -complete
that oUa^ or hotch-potch, which is properly a
satire.
Under this unity of theme, or subject, iy com-*
prehended another rule for perfecting tCl design
of true satire. The poet is bound, and that ea
qHcio, to give his reader some one precept off
nKurol virtue « and to caution bim i^iast some
one particular \4ce or folly. Other virtues, sob*
ordinate to tho first, may be recommended, undet
that chief head ; and other vices or follies may be
scourged, besides that which he principally iir<r
tends. But he is chiefly to inculcate one virtee»
and insist on thaL Thus Juvenal, in every sath«,
excepting the first, tics himself to one principal
instructive point, or to the shunning of moral eviU
Even in the sixth, which seems only an arraign-
ment 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 tbe
wittiest of alt his satires, has yet the least of truth
or instruction in it. He has run himself into bis
old declamatory way, and aknost forgotten that
he was now seating 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 stoic ;
and every satire is a comment on one partic4ilar
dogma of that sect ; unless we will except, tbe first,
which is against bad writers ; and yet even there
be forgets not the precepts of the porch. In
g^cral, all virtues are every where to be praised
and recommended to practice ; and all vices to be
reprehended, and mode either odious or ridictdont i
Digitized by VjOOQIC
494
•r dfle there k m faDdtmeBti] erroor in the whde
I have «lrady declared who are the ooly per •
•one that are th<» adequate ol^fpct of primte f atire»
and who they are that may properly he expoeed
hy name for paUic examplet of vicei and follies :
and therefore I will tronble your kirdsbip no fkt-
therwith thenu Of the best and 6ne8t manner of
latire, I have mid enough in the compariicm betwixt
Javenal and Horace : i% m thai sharp, well-man-
sered way of langbhig a folly out of countenance^
of which yoor lordship Ss the best master in this
aga. I will proceed to the rersificatien, which is
most proper for it, and add somewhat to what
I have said already on that suk^iect The sort of
TOTM which is called boriesque, cooiistiug of eight
syllafalea, or four feet, is that which our etoel-
lent HadibrasB has chosen. I ought to have men-
tioned him before, when 1 spake of Donne ; but
hy a slip of an old man's memory, he was for-
gotten, lilt worth of his poem is too well known
to need any commendation, and he is above my
censure : his satire is of the Varronian kind,
though unmixed with prose. The choice of hb
numbers is suitable enough to his design, as he
has managed it : but in any other hand, the short-
aesi of his verse, and the quick returns of rhyme,
bad delAsed the dignity of style. And besides,
the double rhyme (a necessary companion of bur-
lesque writing) is nat so proper for manly sath«,
for it turns earnest too much to jest, and gives
us a boyirii kind of pleasure. It tickles ankwardly
wHh a kind of pain, to the b«t sort of readers;
we are pleased ungratefully, and, if I may say so,
against our liking. We thank him not for giving
US that unseMon«ible delight, when we know he
^ouM 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 ck)se. It Is, hideed, below
â– 0 great a master to make us^ of such a little
instrument. But his good sense is perpetually
shining through all he writes; it affords ns i|ot
the time of findmg faults. We pass through the
levity of his rhyme, and are immediately carried
into some admirabia useful thought After all,
he has chosen this kfaid of verse ; and has written
the best in it: and bad he Uken another, he
would aUrayt have ascelled. As we say of a
court foroqrite^ that whatsoever his ollice be, he
still totikfi$ it uppermost, and most beneficial to
BUYDEN'S tRANSLATlONS.
The quicknef* of your imagioatioo, my lord,
has already p: evened loe; and yvu know befoie*
hand, that I would prefor the vene of ten sytia*
bles, #bich 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 tnra
itself with greater ease in a laiger compass. When
the rhyme comes too thick upon ns, it straitesi0
the expression ; we are thinking of the clooe,
when we should be employed In adorning the
thought. It makes a poet giddy with turning in
a space too narrow for his imi^ination ; he loaea
many beauties, without gaining one advantage.
For a burlesque rhyme, I bare already conduded
to be none ; or if it were. It is more easily pnr-
chased in ten syllables than in eight : in both oc-
caskms it is as m a tennis-court, when the strokea
of greater force are given, when we strike out
and play at length. Tasso and Boikan ha[T«
left us the best examplet of this way, hi the 8eo-
cUa Raplta, and the Latrin. And next tbena
Merlm Cooa^ hi his Baldns. I will qpeak only
of the two former, because the latter is written ia
latin versOi The Seochia Rapita is an luliaa
poem, a sathne of the Varronian knaL It ia
written in the stansa of eighty which is their
measure for heroic verse. The words are stately,
the numbers smooth, the turn both of thooghta .
and words is happy. The first six lines of the
stansa seem majestical and severe, but the two
last tarn then all faito a pleasant ridicule. Boi-
leau, if I am not mmch deceived, has nuidellad
ftom hence his fomous Lntrin. He had read tho
burlesque poetry of Soarroo, with some kind of
hidignatioB, as witty as it was, and ftinnd notfarog
in France that was worthy of his imitatioik 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 nobfok I doubt
not but he had Virgil in his cjre, for we fold
many admirsble Imitatioos of him, and some
parodies ; as particularly this pennge hi the fourth
oftheJBneids:
Nee tibi Diva parens ; gen^s nee Dardanus auctor,
P<^flde ; sed duris genuit te caiitibos horrens
Caucasus; Hyrcanssque adm^int ubera tigres.
Which he thus translates, keeping to the wordi^
but altering the sense :
Non, too Pere a Paris, ne fut point Boulanger;
£t tu n'es point du sang de Gervais Horologer :
Ta Merc ne Ait point U Maitressc d*un Coebe ;
Caucase dans ses flancs, te forma d*nne Roche :
Une Tigrcsse aiTreuse, on quelque Antre ^cart^
Tc fit, avcc son laict, succer sa Cruaut6.
And, as Ylifil hi his fourth (^eoi^ic of the J
Digitized by VjOOQIC
DEDICATION
^tfpetuatly raiiet tlie townew of hit subject, by
tlM iofHaem of hit words ; and ennobles it by
comparisons draim from empires, and fivm mo-
narchs.
Admiranda tibi leTimn spectacnla renun^
Magnanimosqne Duces, totinsqoe ordhie gentis
Mores k stndia, fc popnloi, fc prxUa dicam. *
And again:
Sic GcQuus inmiortale manent; multoiqae
per annos
Stat fortuna domus, & ayi nnmerantnr avornin.
We sec 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
tuni to his prejudice, if it were carried back to
france.
I have gireo your lordship but this bare hint,
in what manner this sort of satire may best be
manaTed. Had I time, I could enlarge on the
beautiful turns of words and thoughU ; 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: be asked me
why X did not imiute in my verses the turns of
Mr. Waller and sir John Denbam ; of which lie
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
enoagh 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 after-
wards to seek for the supply of them in other En-
glish authors. I looked over the darling of my
youth, the famous Cowley ; there I found, instead
*f them, the points of wit, and quirks of epigram,
even in the Davideis, an heroic poem, which is of
an opposite nature to those pnerilities; but no
eK'gaut turns either on the word <»r on the thought
Then 1 consisted a gn'at«?r genius (without ofTcnce
to the manes of that nubic author) I mtran Miitou;
kut as he endvavoun every whciu to express
TO JUVENAL
49S
Homer, whose age had not arrivod to that (be>
ness, I found in him a true sublimity, lofty
thoughts, which were clothed with admirable Gre-
cisms, and ancient words, which be had beea
digging from the mines of Chaucer and Spenaer,
and which, with all their rusticity, had aomewbat
of venerable in them. But 1 found not therw
neither that for which I looked. At last I had re-
course to his master, Spenser, the Author of that
immortal poem called The 'Fairy Queeo; an^
there I met with that which I had been lookmg
for so long in vain. Spenser had studied Virgil
to as much advantage as Milton had done Homer|
and among the rest of his excellencies had copiad
that. Looking farther mto the lUUan, I found
Tasso had done the same ; nay tnorc, that all tha
sonnets in that language are on the turn of tha
first thought ; which Mr. WaUh, in his late in-
genious prefitce to his poems, has observed. In
short, Virgil and Ovid are the two principal fonn-
tains of them in Latin poem. And the French
at this day are so fond of them, that they judge
them to be the first beauties. Delicate at bien
toume, are the highest commendations which
tbey bestow on somewhat which they think «
master-piece.
An example on the turn of words, amongst a
thousand others, is that in the last book of Ovid's
Metamorphoses :
Heu quantum scelus est, in viscera, viscera
condi!
Congestoqueavidum 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 ;
Turn jam nulla viro juranti foemina credat;
Nulla viri spcret sermonts esse fideles:
Qui dum aliquid cupions animus praegestlt
apisci,
Nil metuunl jurarc ; nihil promittere parcunt
Sed simul ac cupidse mentis satiata libido est,
Dicta nihil metucre; nihil perjuria curant.
An extraordinary turn upon the words, is that
in Grid's Epistols f leroidum of Sappho to Phaon :
SI nisi qus formi polerit te digna videri^
Nulla futura tua est ; nulla future tua est
Lastly, a turn which I cannot say is absolulely
on words, for the thought turns with them, is in
the fourth Gcorgic of Virgil ; where Orpheus is
to receive his wife from Hell,- on express con-
dition not to look on her till she was come on
Karth ;
Digitized by VjOOQIC
49(1
Cdm tubita meaatam clemetttMi oepit AoMtnteai;
I|^nofceti«ht quidem, tcireat si igooBC«rc nuiue%
I will not burdeD your Lordship with more of
^MD ; for I write to a master, who understands
them better than myaelt But I may safely oon
cKide tham to be great beauties : I might descend
also to the mechnnic beauties of heroic rerse ; hot
we have yet no English pcosodia, not so much as
a tolerable dictionary, or a grammar ; so that our
language is iq a manner barbarous ; and what
government will enco<irage any one, or more,
who are capable of rofiuing it, I know not : but
BOtbing under a public ejtpense can go through with
it AnH I rather fear a declination of the language,
thsn hope an advanoement of it in the preient
age.
I am still speaking to yon, my lord: thougis,
in all proba|iility, yoo are already out of hearin.^^.
Nothing, which my meaanesa caa produco, is
worthy of this kmg attention. But I am coma to
the last petition of Abraham: if there be t^n
lighteou9 lines, in this vast preface, spare it for
their sake ; and also spare the next city, because
k is but a little one.
I would excuse the performance of this transla-
tion, if it were all my own ; but the better, though
not the greater part, being the work of some gentle-
men, who have succeeded very happily in their
underti^king ; let theif eKcellencies atona for my
imperfections, and those of my sons. I hare pcru-
aed some of the satires, which are done by other
^ands ; 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
nteral translation, but a kind of paraphrase ; or
•omewfiat which is yet more loose, betwixt a para-
phrase 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,