To freedom pour'd, when crown'd with flowers, they lay,
And largely quaff'd, on Brutus' natal day.

Before thy patron, cups of price are placed,
Amber and gold, with rows of beryls graced :
Cups, thou cans't only at a distance view,
And never trusted to such guests as you!
Or if they be; a faithful slave attends,

To count the gems, and watch your fingers' ends.
You'll pardon him; but lo! a jasper there,
Which cannot be observ'd with too much care:

with dignity and spirit. Helvidius was recalled from banishment by Galba; (another motive for our author's partiality to that chief;) he was afterwards prosecuted on a charge of sedition, by Vespasian, but acquitted; and probably ended his days in peace.

Thrasea was the son-in-law of that Pætus whose wife Arria is so justly celebrated for her heroic constancy in that well-known epigram of Martial's, Casta suo gladium, &c.

There are no data to determine the precise time when this Satire was written. The passage before us certainly evinces a noble spirit of daring; but it is probably somewhat posterior to the reign of Domitian. The two men whose memory was particularly hateful to that tyrant, were, undoubtedly, Thrasea and Helvidius, who are here indirectly introduced for the sake of a covert censure on the wretch who insulted their fame! Domitian put one person to death for calling Thrasea a man of sanctity, τον Θρασεαν ἱερον ωνόμαζε ; and another for writing the life of Helvidius!

VER. 71.

but lo! a jasper there,] He alludes, as the commentators have observed, to Virgil, who places such a stone in the hilt of Æneas' sword. -atque illi stellatus jaspide fulvâ

"Ensis erat."

En. lib. 1v. v. 261.

A tawny jasper is singular enough; yet Pliny also mentions one of them.

For Virro, like his brother peers, of late,
Has stripped his fingers to adorn his plate.
Alas, for glory! jewels, which the lord

Of Dido wore upon his conquering sword,

Irradiate now the cups of some luxurious board. From such he drinks; thou drain'st the four-lugg'd pot, The pipkin of the Beneventine sot,

A fragment, a mere shard, of little worth

But to be truck'd for matches-and so forth.

This Beneventine was a

VER. 79. The pipkin of the Beneventine sot,] drunken cobler called Vatinius. It would have been well if giving his name to an article of coarse pottery had been his only claim to celebrity; but he had, unfortunately, others of a different nature. He possessed, says Tacitus, "a vein of ribaldry and vulgar humour, which qualified him to succeed as a buffoon; in which character he first recommended himself to notice: but he soon forsook his scurrility for the trade of an informer, and having, by the ruin of the worthiest characters, arrived at eminence in guilt, he rose to wealth and power, the most dangerous miscreant of those dangerous times."

Tacitus adds, that when Nero was on his way to Greece, to earn immortal honour by his musical exertion, he stopped at Beneventum, where Vatinius entertained him with a shew of gladiators.

The "four-lugg'd pot" is mentioned by Martial, who is always to be found at the heels of Juvenal.

Here the allusion is evidently to the character given of him in the note. The noses or handles of the pot, indeed, were long, but the nose of the inventor was longer still: hinting at his pernicious sagacity in finding out charges against the objects of the emperor's fear or hate.

If

my lord's veins with indigestion glow,
They bring him water, cold as Scythian snow.-
What! did I late complain a different wine

Fell to thy lot? a different water's thine!
Getulian slaves thy vile potations pour,

Or the coarse paws of some huge, raw-bon'd Moor;
Spectres, whose ghostly aspect would affray,
If met by moon-light near the Latin way;
On him, a youth, the flower of Asia, waits,
So dearly purchas'd, that the whole estates
Of Tullus, Ancus, would not raise the sum,
No, nor the gear of all the kings of Rome!
Bear this in mind; and, when a cup you need,
Call on your own Getulian Ganymede :
A page that cost so much, will ne'er, be sure,
Come at your beck; he heeds not, he, the poor;
But of his youth and beauty justly vain,

Trips by them, with indifference, or disdain.
When does he note thy wants? When, at thy call,

Bring hot or cold, or—any drink at all ?
No; he is fir'd with rage, to see the board
Sham'd with an old dependant of his lord,
Who offers to command him, lolls at ease,

While he stands by, and serves: such pets as these,

Such proud, audacious minions swarm in Rome, And trample on the poor where'er they come ! Mark, with what insolence another thrusts Before thy plate th' impenetrable crusts, Black, mouldy fragments, which no teeth can chaw, The mere despair of every aching jaw! While manchets of the finest flour of wheat, Snow-white, and soft, before thy lord are set; So tempting-but, the sight, the touch forbear, Safe be the pantler's honour! should'st thou dare, Yet, should'st thou rashly dare-they quickly wrest The untasted morsel from thee. 66 Saucy guest," They frown, and cry, "what! wilt thou ne'er divine "What's for thy patron's tooth, and what for thine; "Never take notice from what trough thou'rt fed, "Nor know the colour of thy proper bread!"

VER. 112. While manchets, &c.]

"What though he chires on purer manchet's crown
"While his kind client grinds on black and brown,
"A jolly rounding of a whole foot broad,

"From off the mong-corn heap shall Trebius load."

Hall. Lib. v. Sat. ii.

Manners were strangely altered at Rome since the days of Cæsar, who is said, by Suetonius, (J. Cæs. 48,) to have severely punished his "pantler," for serving

his guests with a species of bread inferior to that which was placed before himself.

"Was it for this," the baffled client cries, While tears of indignation fill his eyes,

"Was it for this I left my wife ere day,

"And o'er the cold Esquilian urg'd my way,

"While the wind howl'd, the hail-storm beat amain, "And my cloak stream'd beneath the driving rain!" But lo! a lobster introduc'd in state,

Whose ample body stretches o'er the plate— With what a length of tail, he seems to scorn The wretched guests, as, by them proudly borne, He presses on, with herbs and pickles crown'd, And comes before his lordship, with a bound!

VER. 122. Was it for this, &c.] The early hour at which the client was expected to attend the levee of his patron was a serious subject of complaint. It is frequently mentioned by Juvenal, and still more frequently by Martial who, like Trebius, had often suffered from the inclemency here so well described. He tells his patron, in one place, that unless he will sleep longer, he must not expect to see him; and in another, expostulates with him in the following sensible and affecting language: