She wiped the sweat from the dictator's brow; And o'er his back his robe did rudely throw: The lictors bore in state their lord's triumphant plough.

Some love to hear the fustian poet roar: And some on antiquated authors pore : Rummage for sense; and think those only good Who labour most, and least are understood. When thou shalt see the blear-eyed fathers teach Their sons this harsh and mouldy sort of speech; Or others new affected ways to try,

Of wanton smoothness, female poetry:

One would inquire from whence this motley style
Did first our Roman purity defile:

For our old dotards cannot keep their seat:
But leap and catch at all that's obsolete.
Others, by foolish ostentation led,

When call'd before the bar, to save their head,
Bring trifling tropes instead of solid sense :
And mind their figures more than their defence.
Are pleased to hear their thick-skull'd judges cry
Well moved, 'Oh finely said, and decently!'
'Theft (says the accuser) to thy charge I lay,
O Pedius! What does gentle Pedius say?
Studious to please the genius of the times,
With periods, points, and tropes he slurs his

crimes:

8

'He robb'd not, but he borrow'd from the poor; And took but with intention to restore.'

rustical education; and enlarges upon Quintius Cincinnatus, a Roman senator, who was called from the plough to be dictator of Rome.

8 Persius here names antitheses, or seeming contradictions; which in this place are meant for rhetorical flourishes; as I think, with Casaubon,

He lards with flourishes his long harangue;
'Tis fine,say'st thou; what, to be praised, and hang?
Effeminate Roman, shall such stuff prevail
To tickle thee, and make thee wag thy tail?
Say, should a shipwreck'd sailor sing his woe,
Wouldst thou be moved to pity, or bestow
An alms? what's more preposterous than to see
A merry beggar? mirth in misery?

PER. He seems a trap for charity to lay:
And cons by night his lesson for the day.

FR. But to raw numbers, and unfinish'd verse, Sweet sound is added now, to make it terse: ''Tis tagg'd with rhyme, like Berecynthian Atys, The mid part chimes with art, which never flat is: The dolphin brave, that cut the liquid wave, Or he who, in his line, can chine the long-ribb'd PER. All this is doggerel stuff. [Apennine.' What if I bring

FR. A nobler verse ? ، Arms and the man I sing 1.

PER. Why name you Virgil with such fops as He's truly great; and must for ever please: [these? Nor fierce, but awful, in his manly page; Bold in his strength, but sober in his rage.

FR. What poems think . you soft? and to be read With languishing regards, and bending head? PER. Their crooked horns the Mimallonian crew

With blasts inspired; and Bassaris who slew

9 Foolish verses of Nero, which the poet repeats; and which cannot be translated properly into English.

10 Arms and the man,' &c. The first line of Virgil's Æneis. 11 Their crooked horns,' &c. Other verses of Nero, that were mere bombast. I only note, that the repetition of these and the former verses of Nero might justly give the poet a caution to conceal his name.

The scornful calf, with sword advanced on high,
Made from his neck his haughty head to fly:
And Mænas, when, with ivy bridles bound,
She led the spotted lynx, then Evion rung around;
Evion, from woods and floods repairing echo's
sound.'

Could such rude lines a Roman mouth become,
Were any manly greatness left in Rome?
Mænas and Atys 12 in the mouth were bred;
And never hatch'd within the labouring head:
No blood from bitten nails those poems drew;
But churn'd, like spittle from the lips they flew.
FR. 'Tis fustian all; 'tis execrably bad:
But if they will be fools, must you be mad?
Your satires, let me tell you, are too fierce;
The great will never bear so blunt a verse:
Their doors are barr'd against a bitter flout:
Snarl, if you please, but you shall snarl without.
Expect such pay as railing rhymes deserve,
You're in a very hopeful way to starve.

PER. Rather than so, uncensured let them be; All, all is admirably well, for me.

My harmless rhyme shall scape the dire disgrace
Of common sewers, and every pissing place;
Two painted serpents 13 shall, on high, appear;
'Tis holy ground; you must not urine here.'

13

12 Mænas and Atys, poems on the Mænades, who were priestesses of Bacchus; and of Atys, who made himself an eunuch to attend on the sacrifices of Cybele, called Berecynthia by the poets; she was mother of the gods.

13 Two painted serpents,' &c. Two snakes, twined with each other, were painted on the walls, by the ancients, to show the place was holy.