Meanwhile, whatever earth and sea afford,

Of rich or rare, will heap their patron's board:

He from the vacant couch, where stretch'd he lies,
Rolling o'er many an orb his eager eyes,

Will cull forth one of special worth and note;
And cram an ample fortune down his throat.

But who, (for not a flatterer will be there),
Who such luxurious sordidness can bear?
See, he requires whole boars! serves up a beast
To his own maw, created for a feast!
But mark him soon by signal wrath pursued;
When to the bath he bears the peacock crude,
That frets, and swells within ;-thence every ill,
Spasm, sudden death, and age without a Will!

VER. 223. He from the vacant couch, &c.] Seneca somewhere says, that good cheer without a friend to partake it, is the entertainment of a wild beast. And the poet Alexis,

Εξς' ες κόρακας μονοφαγε και τοιχωρυκε.

Go and be hang'd thou solitary glutton,

Thou house-breaker!

VER. 225. Nam de tot pulchris, et latis orbibus, et tam

Antiquis, &c.] Ad hunc locum nihil videre interpretes, says Grævius; who is not a whit clearer sighted in the matter than the rest, I conceive that the satire is here levelled not so much at the gluttony, as at the extravagance of this secret gormandizer; who possessed such a number of large, beautiful, and antique orbs,* as to be somewhat embarrassed in the selection of one for his immediate use.

* So Juvenal calls the upper part of the table, which was formed of the most rare and costly materials, and never of the same substance with the feet. See Sat. XI. ver. 191.

Swift flies the tale, by witty spleen increast,
And furnishes a laugh at every feast:

The laugh his friends not undelighted hear,
And, fall'n from all their hopes, insult his bier.
NOTHING is left-NOTHING for future times,
To add to the full catalogue of crimes;
The baffled sons must feel the same desires,
And act the same mad follies, as their sires.
VICE HAS ATTAIN'D ITS ZENITH.-Then, set sail,
Spread all thy canvass to the favouring gale-

The prodigality of the Romans knew no bounds in the acquisition of these favourite objects of luxury: the elder Pliny says, that two were exposed to sale amongst the effects of Asinius Gallus, which produced more than the price of

two manors!

VER. 237. The laugh his friends not undelighted bear,

And fall'n from all their hopes, insult his bier, &c.] We have a good instance of this in Pliny. Domitius Tullus amused himself, during a long life, with feeding the hopes of these will-hunters, se captandum præbuit, and yet left his fortune to the heir-at-law; upon which they began to abuse him. There is humour in the following passage. Ergo varii tota civitate sermones : alii (scil. captatores) fictum, ingratum, immemorem loquuntur, seque ipsos, dum insectantur illum, turpissimis confessionibus produnt, qui de illo uti de patre, avo, proavo quasi orbi querantur; alii contra hoc ipsum laudibus ferunt, quod sit frustratus improbas spes hominum, quos sic decipere pro moribus temporum prudentia est. Lib. VIII. Epist. xviii.

The glutton, in the text, is prevented from remembering his parasites by the suddenness of his death, which did not allow time for a Will. Hence the comical mixture of rage and ridicule, with which they pursue his obsequies :

"Ducitur iratis plaudendum funus amicis"

F. Hold:...Where's the genius for so vast a theme? And where the liberty? Or dost thou dream Of that rude plainness, (plainness, that I dare Nor name, nor hint at,) which allow'd whilere, Our sires to pour on vice without control, The impassion'd dictates of the kindling soul? Touch Tigellinus now, and thou shalt shine, (Such the vast difference 'twixt their days and thine,)

VER. 251. Touch Tigellinus now, &c.] Fielding makes Booth, in the other world, inquire of Shakspeare the precise meaning of the famous apostrophe of Othello, "Put out the light," &c.; and if some curious critic had done the same of Juvenal, respecting the sense of the following lines, he would have done a real service to the commentators, and saved an ocean of precious ink, which has been wasted on them to little purpose. The lines stand thus in the old editions, as cited by Lipsius.

"Pone Tigellinum, tæda lucebis in illa

Qua stantes ardent, qui fixo gutture fumant,

"Et latus mediam sulcus diducit arenam."

"Touch but Tigellinus, and you shall shine in that torch, where they stand " and burn, who smoke, fastened to a stake, and (where) a wide furrow divides "the sand."

The dreadful conflagration which laid waste a great part of Rome in the reign of Nero broke out in the house of Tigellinus. As his intimacy with the Emperor was no secret, it strengthened the general belief, that the city was burned by design. Nothing seems to have enraged Nero so much as this discovery; and to avert the odium from his favourite, he basely taxed the Christians with having set fire to his house. Under this pretence, thousands of these innocent victims were dragged to a cruel death. The Emperor, says Tacitus, (Ann. xv. 44,) added insult to their sufferings: some were covered with the skins of wild beasts, and worried to death by dogs; others were crucified, and others again WERE SMEARED WITH INFLAMMABLE MATTER, and LIGHTED UP WHEN THE DAY DECLINED, TO SERVE AS TORCHES DURING THE NIGHT! This

In that pitch'd shirt in which such crowds expire, Chain'd to the bloody stake, and wrapp'd in fire;

last horrid species of barbarity sufficiently explains the two first lines; the re maining one, it seems, is not so easily got over.

I once supposed that a part of the amphitheatre might be separated from the rest by a "wide furrow," or ditch, and allotted to this dreadful purpose: this idea, however, does not seem to have occurred to any of the critics, (no great recommendation of it, I confess,) since they prefer altering the text, and reading,

"Et latum media sulcum deduces arena,"

"And you shall make, or draw out, a wide furrow in the sand." That is, say they," by turning round the stake to avoid the flames:" which, as the sufferer was fixed to it, he could not well do. If the alteration be allowed, I should rather imagine the sense to be, "when the pitched cloth, in which you are wrapped, is burned out, your scorched, and half-consumed body, shall be dragged by a hook out of the arena." In the translation (for I am not quite satisfied with this last interpretation), I have taken “et” for a disjunctive, and supposed the passage to relate to a separate punishment. Madan's, or rather Curio's, idea, that the expression is proverbial in this place, and means "labouring in vain," is almost too absurd for notice. "You will be burned alive if you touch any of the Emperor's favourites, and besides, you will plough the sand, you will lose your labour!"

There is yet another meaning adopted by some of the learned, and which is produced by a gentleman in his remarks on Madan's translation of this very line. "I am surprised (he says) that Mr. M. when he knew so much, should not have been acquainted with the following passage of Jos. Scaliger, which sets the whole in the clearest light. Stantibus ad palum destinatis unco (ne motatione capitis picem cadentem declinarent) gutturi suffixo è lamina ardente pix aut unguen in caput liquefiebat, ita ut rivi pinguedinis humanæ per arenam sulcum facerent. By this interpretation, so intuitively true, that, by one acquainted with the facts, it might have been deduced from the vulgar text without the emendation of Scaliger," (rather of Lipsius, Scaligero as Ferrarius says, non improbante), "the spirit of the poet is vindicated, history illustrated, and the image raised to its climax."

VOL. I.

Or writhing on a hook, be dragg'd around,
And with thy mangled members, plough the ground.

7. What! shall the man who drugg'd three uncles,
three!

Tow'r by in triumph, and look down on me!

I have seen enough of criticism to be always on my guard against interpretations" intuitively true." Human fat, whether dissolved" in streams," or, as this gentleman translates it, "drop by drop," could scarcely make a wide furrow in the sand; and, indeed, both Ferrarius and Vossius, who had this interpretation of Scaliger's before them concur in rejecting it as improbable. With respect to the "illustration of history," the former adds, "Que Scaliger de lamina et pice adhibita Christianis aa palum, non memini me apud alios legisse! I see no reason to alter my translation.

To return to Tigellinus; he was recommended to Nero by his debaucheries. After the murder of Burrhus, he succeeded to the command of the prætorian guards, and abused the ascendency he had over the Emperor, to the most dreadful purposes. He afterwards betrayed him; by which, and other acts of perfidy, he secured himself, during the short reign of Galba. He was put to death by Otho, to the great joy of the people; and he died as he had lived, a profligate and a coward.

Who the person was that is here alluded to under his name, cannot now be known. Trajan, though a good prince on the whole, had many failings. He is covertly taxed, as I have observed, in this very Satire, for his lenity in the affair of Marius; and the blood-suckers of Domitian's time seem to have yet had too much influence. He was, besides, addicted to a vice which we shall have too frequent occasions to mention, and consequently surrounded by effeminate and worthless favourites, whom it might be dangerous to provoke. For these, and other reasons, Juvenal seems to have regarded him with no great kindness; and, indeed, if the state of things be truly represented, we cannot accuse him of injustice.

"Still

VER. 257. What! shall the man who drugg'd three uncles, &c.] harping on Tigellinus:" tres enim habuit patruos quos omnes, ut eorum hæreditati