The lively tincture of whose gushing blood, Should clearly prove the richness of his food: A neck so strong, so large, as would demand The speeding blow of some uncommon hand 3.

This for my friend, or more, I would perform, Who, danger free, still trembles at the storm; Presenting forms so hideous to his sight, As safety scarce allays the wild affright.

First from a cloud that heaven all o'ercast,
With glance so swift the subtle lightning pass'd,
As split the sailyards; trembling and half dead,
Each thought the blow was level'd at his head:
The flaming shrouds so dreadful did appear,
All judged a wreck could no proportion bear.
So fancy paints, so does the poet write,
When he would work a tempest to the height,
This danger pass'd, a second does succeed;
Again with pity and attention heed:

No less this second, though of different kind;
Such as, in Isis'' temple you may find
On votive tablets, to the life portray'd;
Where painters are employ'd, and earn their bread.

5 The grandis minister of Juvenal, some interpret in a sense referring to the quality of the person; as if the chief pontiff, and not one of the pope's or ordinary officers, was to give the blow. But as it is unseemly to make the chief pontiff descend to so mean an office; so it is more probable, the poet meant not the dignity, but the size and strength of the person.

6 The Egyptian goddess, looked upon by merchants and seamen as their patroness; to whom they made their vows in their extremity. The custom was, for those that escaped to hang upon the walls of her temple the picture of a wreck or storm, which was called a' votive table;' and her votaries, it seems, were so numerous, that she was forced to employ a whole company of painters in her service.

What painters in their liveliest draughts express
May be a copy of my friend's distress.
For now a sea into the hold was got;
Wave upon wave another sea had wrought,
And nigh o'erset the stern on either side:
The hoary pilot his best skill applied;
But useless all when he despairing found,
Catullus then did with the winds compound.
Just as the beaver', that wise thinking brute,
Who, when hard hunted on a close pursuit,
Bites off his stones, the cause of all the strife,
And pays them down a ransom for his life.
'Over with all (he cries), with all that's mine;
Without reserve I freely all resign.'

Rich garments, purple dyed in grain, go o'er;
No soft Mecenas ever choicer wore:

8

And others of that fleece that, never dyed
Or stain'd by art, is rich in nature's pride:
Such as its tincture from the soil does bear,
By noble springs improved, and Bætic' air.

A proper simile, and good moral allusion: but the ground is wholly fabulous; and has experimentally been proved so, by Sestius, a physician, as it stands related by Pliny. Dr. Brown, in his book of Vulgar Errors,' says, That the testicles, properly so called, are seated inwardly upon the loins; and therefore it were not only a fruitless attempt, but an impossible act, to castrate itself: and might be a hazardous practice of art, if at all attempted by others.

8 Augustus's great favourite; and patron to Virgil and Horace. Juvenal here taxes him of being over soft and delicate; which Horace has done too, though covertly, and under another name.

9 In Bætic Spain (now Andalusia, and the best part of Granada) the sheep's fleeces are naturally of a colour betwixt red and black, resembling the purple dye; which the ancients imputed to the goodness of the air and the soil: and they put a great value on it, as we do now on the Spanish wool for its fineness.