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And idly proved that Sylla, far from power,
Had pass'd, unknown to fear, the tranquil hour:
Now I resume my pen; for since we meet

Such swarms of desperate bards in every street,
'Twere vicious clemency to spare the oil,
And hapless paper, they are sure to spoil.

But why I choose, adventurous, to retrace
The Auruncan's route, and in the arduous race
Follow his glowing wheels' attentive hear,
If leisure serve, and truth be worth your care.
When the soft eunuch makes the fair a bride,
When Mævia, all the woman laid aside,

VER. 29. But why I choose adventurous, to retrace

'The Auruncan's route, &c.] By the Auruncan, Juvenal means Lucilius, who was born at Aurunca, a town in Campania. Horace calls him the first satirist, which he was not, for Ennius preceded him by many years. Quintilian, with his accustomed accuracy, terms him the first regular one; and this he confessedly was. His works appear to have been highly esteemed, even in the Augustan age, when Horace, with more good sense than success, endeavoured to qualify the general prejudice in his favour. Quintilian observes of him, that he had a great deal of wit and learning, and that his boldness was equal to his severity. It was this latter quality which endeared him to Juvenal, who, as well as his immediate predecessor, Persius, always mentions him with respect.

VER. 34. When Mævia, &c.] Under Domitian such instances were common; for he not only exhibited combats of men with wild beasts, but of women also; and the noblest of both sexes were sometimes engaged in them!

Dryden read, in a note on this passage, Alia indignatio in mulierum impudentiam quæ temporibus Domitiani, in venationes et pugnas theatrales descendebant.

S

Enter the lists, and, to the middle bare,

Hurls at the Tuscan boar the quivering spear;
When he who oft, since manhood first appear'd,

Hath trimm'd the exuberance of this sounding beard,

The word venationes (the technical term for these kinds of combats) struck him, and he accordingly rendered the original thus,

"When mannish Mævia, that two-handed whore,

"Astride on horse-back hunts the Tuscan boar."

For this, a late translator condescends to pity him, "Unhappy Dryden," saith he, "but he shall appear but once more." Now this, as Parson Hugh sagely observes, "is affectations;" and should, I think, be "reformed altogether." If Pope called Dryden unhappy, it was not for an unimportant mistake; besides, that great man might venture to say what we small poets cannot with modesty repeat after him; and methinks it would not be amiss if an observation of our author's, on another occasion, were sometimes in our minds.

plurima sunt quæ

"Non audent homines pertusâ dicere lænâ."

Of Mævia I can find no account: there is, indeed, a strumpet so called in Martial, but she was poor: her profligacy, however, may have tempted Juvenal to transfer her name to this noble gladiatrix.

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Juvenal seems pleased with this line, for he introduces it in a subsequent passage. I suppose he meant it for a specimen of the mock-heroic; it is not, however a very successful one. Holyday's translation of it, is curious enough.

"One whose officious scissars went snip, snip,

"As he my troublesome young beard did clip!”

Vies with the state in riches: when that vile

And low-bred reptile, from the slime of Nile,
Crispinus, from his lady shoulder throws

The purple cloke which too luxuriant flows,

This "snipper" was Cinnamus, who, from the servile employment here mentioned, raised himself, by ministering to the pleasures of the ladies, to a knight's estate, and a prodigious fortune. He is brought forward again in the tenth Satire, and nearly in the same words. His fate affords a striking illustration of the great truths contained in that admirable piece: for not long after it was written, he was prosecuted for some offence not now known, and, to avoid condemnation, left all his wealth behind him, and fled into Sicily where Martial, who is frequently the best commentator on Juvenal, honours him with an epigram; in which, after bitterly condoling with him on his helpless old age, and reckoning up a variety of employments for which he is not fit, he points out to him the necessity of turning barber again.

:

"Non rhetor, non grammaticus, ludive magister,
"Non Cynicus, non tu Stoicus esse potes;

"Vendere nec vocem, Siculis plausumque theatris,

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Quod Superest iterum Cinname, tonsor eris." Ep. lxiv. lib. v11.

To this man, and to his fortunes, might justly be applied the fine sarcasm of Claudian on the eunuch Eutropius:

"Culmine dejectum vitæ Fortuna priori

"Reddidit INSANO JAM SATIATA JOCO!

VER. 41. Cùm pars Niliaca plebis, cùm verna Canopi

Crispinus,

-] This man rose, under Nero, from the condition of a slave, to riches and honours. His connection with that monster recommended him to Domitian, with whom he seems to have been in high favour. He shared his counsels, ministered to his amusements, and was the ready instrument of his cruelties. For these, and other causes, Juvenal regarded him

Or fans his finger, labouring with the freight
Of a light summer ring; and, faint with heat,
Cries, "save me from a gem of greater weight!"

with perfect detestation. He cannot speak of him with temper; and whenever he introduces him, which he does on all occasions, it is with mingled contempt and horror. Here he is not only a Niliacan (an expression which conveyed more to Juvenal's mind than it does to ours) but a Canopian, a native of the most profligate spot in Egypt; not only one of the dregs of the people, but a slave; and not only a slave, but a slave born of a slave! Hence the poet's indignation at his effeminate luxury.

Martial, always begging, and always in distress, has a hue and cry after a "purple cloke," stolen from this minion, while he was bathing:

"Nescit cui dederit Tyriam Crispinus abollam*

"Dum mutat cultus," &c.

and in an epigram equally contemptible for its baseness, and its impiety, entreats his favourable word with Domitian: Sic, says he,

"Sic placidum videas semper, Crispine, tonantem,
"Nec te Roma minus quam tua Memphis amat."

*The abolla (which I suppose to be the lacerna of our author,) was a loose upper garment or wrapper, worn by philosophers, magistrates, senators, &c.: "that it was a grave habit" (says Holyday, on another occasion), "I nothing doubt, from Pegasus' taking it with him to the council." This, however, depended on circumstances. A cloke of coarse gray cloth was neither repugnant to the age, nor gravity of the præfect: but the abolla of Crispinus was a very different thing; it was dyed in Tyrian purple, the most expensive of all colours; and, from its size, must have cost an inconceivable sum.

It may seem odd, that he who could scarce bear the weight of a summer ring, should nevertheless load his shoulders with a robe of this kind: but it was the splendour and extravagance of it, which influenced his choice. Vanity, as Shakspeare somewhere says of misery, makes a man acquainted with strange garments!

'Tis hard to choose a less indignant strain-
For who so slow of heart, so dull of brain,
So patient of the town's increasing crimes,
As not to burst impetuous into rhymes!
When bloated Matho, in a new-built chair,
Stuft with himself, is borne abroad for air;

But he has his reward: his adulation was then neglected, and is now despised; while the severity of his manlier friend, was the admiration of his own age, and will be the delight of posterity.

I do not know whether Ammianus Marcellinus had the character of Crispinus in his thoughts, when he wrote the following elegant passage; but it certainly throws more light than any other I am acquainted with, on the bumero revocante lacernas, the flinging back and recovering the "purple cloke." Alii summum decus in ambitioso vestium cultu ponentes, sudant sub ponderibus lacernarum, quas collis insertas singulis ipsis adnectunt, nimia subteminum tenuitate perflabiles, expectantes crebris agitationibus, maximèque sinistra, ut longiores fimbriæ tunicæque perspicuè luceant.

VER. 44. Of a light summer ring, &c.] The "dainty pride" of the Romans, as Holyday calls it, had arrived at such a pitch, that they had different rings for different seasons: not that so absurd a refinement in luxury could be general; it serves, however, to mark the affected delicacy of Crispinus.

VER. 50. When bloated Matho, &c.] Matho (as we find from the seventh Satire) originally followed the profession of a lawyer; but meeting, perhaps deserving no encouragement, he fell into the extremes of poverty, and broke. He then turned informer; the dreadful resuorce of men of desperate fortunes and desperate characters. In this he seems to have been successful: he has a chair, which Juvenal takes care to tell us had not been long in his possession, and he is grown immoderately fat, for he fills it himself.

Critics are divided about the man who followed Matho. The old Scholiast says it was Heliodorus the Stoic, who informed against his friend and pupil Silanus; or it was Egnatius Celer, or Demetrius, the lawyer, &c. It was

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