One of that hue, that, should he cro
cross the way,
His omen would discolour all the day.

I pass the foundling by, a race unknown,
At doors expos'd, whom matrons make their own:
And into noble families advance

A nameless issue, the blind work of chance.
Indulgent Fortune does her care employ,
And, smiling, broods upon the naked boy:
Her garment spreads, and laps him in the fold,
And covers, with her wings, from nightly cold:
Gives him her blessing; puts bin in a way;
Sets up the farce, and laughs at her own play.
Him she promotes; she favours him alone,
And makes provision for him, as her own.

The craving wife the force of magic tries,
And philtres for th' unable husband buys:
The potion works not on the part design'd;
But turns his brains, and stupifies his mind.
The sotted moon-calf gapes, and staring on,
Sees his own business by another done:
A long oblivion, a benumbing frost,
Constrains his head; and yesterday is lost:
Some nimbler juice would make him foam and rave,
Like that Cæsonia to her Caius gave:
Who, plucking from the forehead of the fole
His mother's love, infus'd it in the bowl:
The boiling blood ran hissing in his veins,
Till the mad vapour mounted to his brains.
The thunderer was not half so much on fire,
When Juno's girdle kindled his desire.
What woman will not use the poisoning trade,
When Cæsar's wife the precedent has made?
Let Agrippina's mushroom be forgot,
Giv'n to a slavering, old, unuseful sot;
That only clos'd the driveling dotard's eyes,
And sent his godhead downward to the skies.
But this fierce potion calls for fire and sword;
Nor spares the common, when it strikes the lord.
So many mischiefs were in one combin'd;
So much one single poisoner cost mankind.

If stepdames seek their sons-in-law to kill, 'Tis venial trespass; let them have their will: But let the child, entrusted to the care Of his own mother, of her bread beware: Beware the food she reaches with her hand; The morsel is intended for thy land. The tutor be thy taster, ere thou eat; There's poison in thy drink, and in thy meat. You think this feign'd; the Satire in a rage Struts in the buskins of the tragic stage, Forgets his business is to laugh and bite: And will of deaths and dire revenges write. Would it were all a fable, that you read; But Drymon's wife pleads guilty to the deed. "1," she confesses, "in the fact was caught, Two sons dispatching at one deadly draught." "What two! two sons, thou viper, in one day!" Yes, seven," she cries, "if seven were in my Medea's legend is no more a lye; One age adds credit to antiquity. Great ills, we grant, in former tines did reign, And murders then were done; but not for gain. Less admiration to great crimes is due,

[way!"

They read th' example of a pious wife,
Redeeming, with her own, her husband's life;-
Yet, if the laws did that exchange afford,
Would save their lapdog sooner than their lord,
Where'er you walk, the Belides you meet;
And Clytemnestras grow in every street:
But here's the difference: Agamemnon's wife
Was a gross butcher with a bloody knife;
But murder, now, is to perfection grown,
And subtle poisons are employ'd alone:
Unless some antidote prevents their arts,
And lines with balsam all the nobler parts:
In such a case, reserv'd for such a need,
Rather than fail, the dagger does the deed.

THE TENTh satire oF

JUVENAL.

THE ARGUMENT.

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

Look round the habitable world, how few
Know their own good; or, knowing it, pursue.
How void of reason are our hopes and fears!
What in the conduct of our life appears
So well design'd, so luckily begun,
But, when we have our wish, we wish undone?
Whole houses, of their whole desires possest,
Are often ruin'd, at their own request.
In wars, and peace, things hurtful we require,
When made obnoxious to our own desire.

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

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

For, weak of reason, impotent of will, The sex is hurry'd headlong into ill:

And, like a cliff from its foundation torn, By raging earthquakes, into seas is borne.

But those are fiends, who crimes from thought And, cool in mischief, meditate the sin.

[begin:

For this, in Nero's arbitrary time, When virtue was a guilt, and wealth a crime, A troop of cut-throat guards were sent to seize The rich mens' goods, and gut their palaces: The mob, commission'd by the government, Are seldom to an empty garret sent.

The fearful passenger, who travels late,
Charg'd with the carriage of a paltry plate,
Shakes at the moonshine shadow of a rush;
And sees a red-coat rise from every bush:
The beggar sings, ev'n when he sees the place
Beset with thieves, and never mends his pace.
Of all the vows, the first and chief request
Of each, is to be richer than the rest :
And yet no doubts the poor man's draught control,
He dreads no poison in his homely bowl,
Then fear the deadly drug, when gems divine
Enchase the cup, and sparkle in the wine.

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

His chariot rolling o'er the dusty place,
While, with dumb pride, and a set formal face,
He moves in the dull ceremonial track,
With Jove's embroider'd coat upon his back:
A suit of hangings had not more opprest
His shoulders, than that long, laborious vest:
A heavy gewgaw (call'd a crown) that spread
About his temples, drown'd his narrow head:
And would have crush'd it with the massy freight,
But that a sweating slave sustain'd the weight:
A slave in the same chariot seen to ride,
To mortify the mighty madman's pride.
And now th' imperial eagle, rais'd on high,
With golden beak (the mark of majesty)
Trumpets before, and on the left and right,
A cavalcade of nobles, all in white:
In their own natures false and flattering tribes,
But made his friends, by places and by bribes.
In his own age, Democritus could find
Sufficient cause to laugh at human kind :
Learn from so great a wit; a land of bogs
With ditches fenc'd, a heaven made fat with frogs,
May form a spirit fit to sway the state;

And make the neighbouring monarchs fear their fate.

He laughs at all the vulgar cares and fears; At their vain triumphs, and their vainer tears: An equal temper in his mind he found, When fortune flatter'd him, and when she frown'd. 'Tis plain, from hence, that what our vows request, Are hurtful things, or useless at the best.

Some ask for envy'd power; which public hate Pursues, and hurries headlong to their fate: Down go the titles; and the statue crown'd, Is by base hands in the next river drown'd. The guiltless horses, and the chariot wheel, The same effects of vulgar fury feel: The smith prepares his hammer for the stroke, While the lung'd bellows hissing fire provoke ; Sejanus, almost first of Roman names, The great Sejanus crackles in the flames: Form'd in the forge, the pliant brass is laid On anvils; and of head and limbs are made, Pans, cans, and piss-pots, a whole kitchen trade,

Adorn your doors with laurels; and a bull, Milkwhite, and large, lead to the Capitol; Sejanus, with a rope, is dragg'd along; The sport and laughter of the giddy throng! "Good Lord," they cry, "what Ethiop lips he has, How foul a snout, and what a hanging face! By Heaven, I never could endure his sight; But say, how came his monstrous crimes to light? What is the charge, and who the evidence, (The saviour of the nation and the prince?)" "Nothing of this; but our old Cæsar sent A noisy letter to his parliament:"

Nay, sirs, if Cæsar writ, I ask no more, He's guilty, and the question's out of door." How goes the mob? (for that's a mighty thing,) When the king's trump, the mob are for the king: They follow fortune, and the common cry Is still against the rogue condemn'd to die.

[face,

But the same very mob, that rascal crowd,
Had cry'd Sejanus, with a shout as loud;
Had his designs (by fortune's favour blest)
Succeeded, and the prince's age opprest.
But long, long since, the times have chang'd their
The people grown degenerate and base:
Not suffer'd now the freedom of their choice,
To make their magistrates, and sell their voice.
Our wise forefathers, great by sea and land,
Had once the power and absolute command;
All offices of trust, themselves dispos'd;
Rais'd whom they pleas'd, and whom they pleas'd
depos'd;

But we, who give our native rights away,
And our enslav'd posterity betray,
Are now reduc'd to beg an alms, and go
On holidays to see a puppet-show.

[doubt;

"There was a damn'd design," cries one, For warrants are already issued out; I met Brutidius in a mortal fright; He's dipt for certain, and plays least in sight: I fear the rage of our offended prince, Who thinks the senate slack in his defence! Come let us haste, our loyal zeal to show, And spurn the wretched corps of Cæsar's foe: But let our slaves be present there, lest they Accuse their masters, and for gain betray." Such were the whispers of those jealous times, About Sejanus' punishment and crimes.

no

[fate

Now tell me truly, would'st thou change thy To be, like him, first minister of state? To have thy levees crowded with resort, Of a depending, gaping, servile court: Dispose all honours of the sword and gown, Grace with a nod, and ruin with a frown: To hold thy prince in pupilage, and sway That monarch, whom the master'd world obey? While he, intent on secret lust alone, Lives to himself, abandoning the throne; Coop'd in a narrow isle, observing dreams With flattering wizards, and erecting schemes! I well believe, thou wouldst be great as he; For every man's a fool to that degree; All wish the dire prerogative to kill;

Ev'n they would have the power, who want the

will:

But wouldst thou have thy wishes understood,
To take the bad together with the good,
Would'st thou not rather choose a small renown,
To be the mayor of some poor paltry town,
Bigly to look, and barbarously to speak;

To pound false weights, and scanty measures break?

Then, grant we that Sejanus went astray
In every wish, and knew not how to pray:
For he who grasp'd the world's exhausted store
Yet never had enough, but wish'd for more,
Rais'd a top-heavy tower, of monstrous height,
Which, mouldering, crush'd him underneath the
What did the mighty Pompey's fall beget? [weight.
It ruin'd him, who, greater than the great,
The stubborn pride of Roman nobles broke;
And bent their haughty necks beneath his yoke:
What else but his immoderate lust of power,
Prayers made and granted in a luckless hour?
For few usurpers to the shades descend
By a dry death, or with a quiet end.

Whom Afric was not able to contain,
Whose length runs level with th' Atlantic main,
And wearies fruitful Nilus, to convey
His sun beat waters by so long a way;
Which Ethiopia's double clime divides,
And elephants in other mountains hides.
Spain first he won, the Pyrenæans past,
And steepy Alps, the mounds that nature cast:
And with corroding juices as he went,
A passage through the living rocks be rent.
Then, like a torrent, rolling from on high,
He pours his head-long rage on Italy:
In three victorious battles over-run ;

Yet still uneasy, cries, "There's nothing done,

To his proud pedant, or declin'd a noun,
(So small an elf, that when the days are foul,
He and his satchel must be borne to school,)
Yet prays, and hopes, and aims at nothing less,
To prove a Tully, or Demosthenes:

But both these orators, so much renown'd,
In their own depths of eloquence were drown'd:
The hand and head were never lost, of those
Who dealt in doggrel, or who punn'd in prose.
"Fortune foretun'd the dying notes of Rome:
Till I, thy consul sole, consol'd thy doom."
His fate had crept below the lifted swords,
Had all his malice been to murder words.
I rather would be Mævius, thrash for rhymes
Like his, the scorn and scandal of the times,
Than that Philippic fatally divine,
Which is inscrib'd the second, should be mine.
Nor he, the wonder of the Grecian throng,
Who drove them with the torrent of his tongue,
Who shook the theatres, and sway'd the state
Of Athens, found a more propitious fate.
Whom, born beneath a boding horoscope,
His sire, the blear-ey'd Vulcan of a shop,
From Mars's forge, sent to Minerva's schools,
To learn th' unlucky art of wheedling fools.
With itch of honour, and opinion, vain,
All things beyond their native worth we strain:
The spoils of war, brought to Feretrian Jove,
An empty coat of armour hung above
The conqueror's chariot, and in triumph borne,
A streamer from a boarded galley torn,
A chap-fall'n beaver loosely hanging by
The cloven helm, an arch of victory,
On whose high convex sits a captive foe,
And sighing casts a mournful look below;
Of every nation, each illustrious name,
Such toys as these have cheated into fame :
Exchanging solid quiet, to obtain
The windy satisfaction of the brain.

So much the thirst of honour fires the blood:
So many would be great, so few be good.
For who would virtue for herself regard,
Or wed, without the portion of reward?
Yet this mad chase of fame, by few pursu'd,
Has drawn destruction on the multitude:
This avarice of praise in times to come,
Those long inscriptions, crowded on the tomb,
Should some wild fig-tree take her native bent,
And heave below the gaudy monument,
Would crack the marble titles, and disperse
The characters of all the lying verse.
For sepulchres themselves must crumbling fall
In time's abyss, the common grave of all.
Great Hannibal within the balance lay;
And tell how many pounds his ashes weigh;

And Punic flags on Roman towers display'd."
Ask what a face belong'd to his high fame;
His picture scarcely would deserve a frame:
A sign post dauber would disdain to paiat
The one-ey'd hero on his elephant.
Now what's his end, O charming glory! say
What rare fifth act to crown his buffing play?
In one deciding battle overcome,

He flies, is banish'd from his native home:
Begs refuge in a foreign court, and there
Attends, his mean petition to prefer ;
Repuls'd by surly grooms, who wait before
The sleeping tyrant's interdicted door.

[sign'd,
What wondrous sorts of death bas Heaven de-
Distinguish'd from the herd of human kind,
For so untam'd, so turbulent a mind!
Nor swords at hand, nor hissing darts afar,
Are dooni'd to avenge the tedious bloody war;
But poison, drawn through a ring's hollow plate,
Must finish him a sucking infant's fate.
Go, climb the rugged Alps, ambitious fool,
To please the boys, and be a theme at school.
One world suffic'd not Alexander's mind;
Coop'd up, he seem'd 'n earth and seas confin'd:
And, struggling, stretch'd his restless limbs about
The narrow globe, to find a passage out.
Yet, enter'd in the brick-built town, he try'd
The tomb, and found the strait dimensions wide:
"Death only this mysterious truth unfolds,
The mighty soul, how small a body holds."

Old Greece a tale of Athos would make out,
Cut from the continent, and sail'd about;
Seas hid with navies, chariots passing o'er
The channel, on a bridge from shore to shore:
Rivers, whose depth no sharp beholder sees,
Drunk, at an army's dinner, to the lees;
With a long legend of romantic things,
Which in his cups the browsy poet sings.
But how did he return, this haughty brave,
Who whipt the winds, and made the sea his slave?
(Though Neptune took unkindly to be bound;
And Eurus never such hard usage found
In his Æolian prison under ground);
What god so mean, ev'n he who points the way,
So merciless a tyrant to obey!

But how return'd he, let us ask again?
In a poor skiff he pass'd the bloody main,
Chok'd with the slaughter'd bodies of his train
For fame he pray'd, but let th' event declare
He had no mighty penn'worth of his prayer.
"Jove grant me length of life, and years good

Mistaken blessing which old age they call,
'Tis a long, nasty, darksome hospital,
A ropy chain of rheums; a visage rough,
Deform'd, unfeatur'd, and a skin of buff.

A stitch-fall'n cheek, that hangs below the jaw ;
Such wrinkles, as a skilful hand would draw
For an old grandam ape, when, with a grace,
She sits at squat, and scrubs her leathern face.
In youth, distinctions infinite abound;
No shape, or feature, just alike are found;
The fair, the black, the feeble, and the strong:
But the same foulness does to age belong,
The self-same palsy, both in limbs and tongue.
The skull and forehead one bald barren plain;
And gums unarm'd to mumble meat in vain.
Besides th' eternal drivel, that supplies

The dropping beard, from nostrils, mouth and eyes.
His wife and children loath him, and what's worse,
Himself does his offensive carrion curse!
Flatterers forsake him too; for who would kill
Himself, to be remember'd in a will?
His taste not only pall'd to wine and meat,
But to the relish of a nobler treat.

Those senses lost, behold a new defeat,
The soul dislodging from another seat.
What music, or enchanting voice, can chear
A stupid, old, impenetrable ear?
No matter in what place, or what degree
Of the full theatre he sits to see;
Cornets and trumpets cannot reach his ear:
Under an actor's nose, he's never near.

His boy must bawl to make him understand
The hour o' th' day, or such a lord's at hand:
The little blood that creeps within his veins,
Is but just warm'd in a hot fever's pains.
In fine, he wears no limb about him sound:
With sores and sicknesses beleaguer'd round:
Ask me their names, I sooner could relate
How many drudges on salt Hippia wait;
What crowds of patients the town-doctor kills,
Or how, last fall, he rais'd the weekly bills.
What provinces by Basilus were spoil'd,
What herds of heirs by guardians are beguil'd:
What lands and lordships for their owner know
My quondam barber, but his worship now.

This dotard of his broken back complains,
One his legs fail, and one his shoulders' pains:
Another is of both his eyes bereft ;
And envies who has one for aiming left.
A fifth, with trembling lips expecting stands,
As in his childhood, cramin'd by others' hands;
One, who at sight of supper open'd wide
His jaws before, and whetted grinders try'd;
Now only yawns, and waits to be supply'd:
Like a young swallow, when with weary wings
Expected food her fasting mother brings.

His loss of members is a heavy curse,
But all his faculties decay'd are worse!
His servants' names he has forgotten quite;
Knows not his friend who supp'd with him last night.
Not ev'n the children he begot and bred;
Or his will knows them not for, in their stead,
In form of law, a common hackney-jade,
Sole heir, for secret services, is made:
So lewd and such a batter'd brothel-whore,
That she defies all comers, at her door.
Well, yet suppose his senses are his own,
He lives to be chief mourner for his son:
Before his face his wife and brother burns;
He numbers all his kindred in their uras.

VOL. XIX.

These are the fines he pays for living long;
And dragging tedious age in his own wrong:
Griefs always green, a household still in tears,
Sad pomps: a threshold throng'd with daily biers;
And liveries of black for length of years.

Next to the raven's age, the Pylian king
Was longest liv'd of any two-legg'd thing;
Blest, to defraud the grave so long, to mount
His number'd years, and on his right hand count;
Three hundred seasons, guzzling must of wine:
But, hold a while, and hear himself repine
At fate's unequal laws; and at the clue [drew.
Which, merciless in length, the midmost sister
When his brave son upon the funeral pyrę
He saw extended, and his beard on fire;

He turn'd, and weeping, ask'd his friends, what

crime

Had curs'd his age to this unhappy time?

Thus mourn'd old Peleus for Achilles slain, And thus Ulysses' father did complain, How fortunate an end had Priam made, Amongst his ancestors a mighty shade, While Troy yet stood: when Hector, with the race Of royal bastards, might his funeral grace: Amidst the tears of Trojan dames inurn'd, And by his loyal daughters truly mourn'd! Had Heaven so blest him, he had dy'd before The fatal fleet of Sparta Paris bore. But mark what age produc'd; he liv'd to see His town in flames, his falling monarchy: In fine, the feeble sire, reduc'd by fate, To change his sceptre for a sword, too late, His last effort before Jove's altar tries; A soldier half, and half a sacrifice : Falls like an ox, that waits the coming blow; Old and unprofitable to the plough.

At least he dy'd a man; his queen surviv'd, To howl, and in a barking body liv'd.

I hasten to our own; nor will relate Great Mithridates, and rich Cræsus' fate; Whom Solon wisely counsel'd to attend The name of happy, till he knew his end.

That Marius was an exile, that he fled, Was ta'en, in ruin'd Carthage begg'd his bread, All these were owing to a life too long: For whom had Rome beheld so happy, young! High in his chariot, and with laurel crown'd, When he had led the Cimbrian captives round The Roman streets; descending from his state, In that blest hour he should have begg'd his fate; Then, then, he might have dy'd of all admir'd, And his triumphant soul with shouts expir'd. Campania, fortune's malice to prevent, To Pompey an indulgent favour sent: But public prayers impos'd on Heaven, to give Their much-lov'd leader an unkind reprieve. The city's fate and his conspir'd to save The head, reserv'd for an Egyptian slave.

Cethegus, though a traitor to the state,
And tortur'd, 'scap'd this ignominious fate :
And Sergius, who a bad cause bravely try'd,
All of a piece, and undiminish'd, dy'd.

To Venus the fond mother makes a prayer,
That all her sons and daughters may be fair :
True, for the boys a mumbling vow she sends;
But for the girls, the vaulted temple rends:
They must be finish'd pieces: 'tis allow'd
Diana's beauty made Latona proud :
And pleas'd, to see the wondering people pray
To the new-rising sister of the day.

LI