"Whoso shall tell a tale after a man,

"He moste reherse as neighe as ever he can
"Everich word, if it be in his charge,

"All speke he never so rudely and so large:

And indeed the age of Chaucer, like that of Juvenal, allowed of such liberties. Other times, other manners. Many words were in common use with our ancestors, which raised no improper ideas, though they would not, and indeed could not, at this time be tolerated: with the Greeks and Romans, it was still worse: their dress, which left many parts of the body exposed, gave a boldness to their language, which was not perhaps lessened by the infrequency of women at those social conversations, of which they now constitute the refinement, and the delight. Add to this, that their mythology, and their sacred rights, which took their rise in very remote periods, abounded in the undisguised phrases of a rude and simple age, and being religiously handed down from generation to generation, gave a currency to many terms, which offered no violence to modesty, though, abstractedly considered by people of a different language and manners, they appear pregnant with turpitude and guilt.

When we observe this licentiousness (for I should wrong many of the ancient writers, to call it libertinism) in the pages of their historians and philosophers, we may be pretty confident that it raised no blush on the cheek of their readers. It was the language of the times

hæc illis natura est omnibus una: and if it be considered as venial in those, surely a little farther indulgence will not be mis-applied to the satirist, whose object is the exposure of what the former have only to notice.

Thus much may suffice for Juvenal: but shame and sorrow on the head of him, who presumes to transfer his grossness into the vernacular tongues. Though I have given him entire, I have endeavoured to make him speak as he would have spoken if he had lived amongst us; when, refined with the age, he would have fulminated against impurity in terms, to which, though delicacy might disavow them, manly decency might listen without offence.

I have said above, that "the whole of Juvenal” is here given; this must be understood with a few restrictions. Where vice, of whatever nature, formed the immediate object of reprobation, it has not been spared in the translation; but I have sometimes taken the liberty of omitting an exceptionable line, when it had no apparent connexion with the subject of the Satire. Some acquaintance with the original will be necessary to discover these lacunæ, which do not, in all, amount to half a page for the rest, I have no apologies to make. Here are no allusions, covert or open, to the follies and vices of modern times; nor has the dignity of the original been prostituted, in a single instance, to the gratification of private spleen.

I have attempted to follow, as far as I judged it feasible, the style of my author, which is more various than is usually supposed. It is not necessary to descend to particulars; but my meaning will be understood by those, who carefully compare the original of the thirteenth and fourteenth Satires, with the translation. In the twelfth, and in that alone, I have perhaps raised it a little; but it really appears so contemptible a performance in the doggerel of Dryden's coadjutor, (a Mr. Power) that I thought somewhat more attention than ordinary was in justice due to it. It is not a chef-d'œuvre by any means; but it is a pretty and a pleasing little poem, deserving more notice than it has usually received.

I could have been sagacious and obscure on many occasions, with very little difficulty; but I strenuously combated every inclination to find out more than my author meant. The general character of this translation, If I do not deceive myself, will be found to be plainness; and, indeed, the highest praise to which I aspire, is that of having left the original more intelligible than I found it.

On numbering the lines, I find that my translation contains a few more than Dryden's. This will not ap

Let me be explicit. Several of these Satires were Englished before I had acquired any precise notions of style. On the revision of what I had written, I certainly endeavoured to adapt it to my more mature ideas on the subject: it is not for me to say, how I have succeeded: but with the exception of the third Satire, which is almost literally transcribed from my school exercise, all have undergone considerable alterations.

pear extraordinary, when it is considered that I have introduced an infinite number of circumstances from the text which he thought himself justified in omitting; and that, with the trifling exceptions already mentioned, nothing has been passed, whereas he and his assistants overlooked whole sections, and sometimes (as in the fourteenth Satire) very considerable ones. Every where, too, I have endeavoured to render the transitions less abrupt, and to obviate or disguise the difficulties which a difference of manners, habits, &c. necessarily creates : all this calls for an additional number of lines; which the English reader at least, will seldom have occasion to regret.

Of the "borrowed learning of notes," which Dryden says he avoided as much as possible, I have amply availed myself. During the long period in which I have had my thoughts fixed on Juvenal, it has been usual with me, whenever I found a passage that related to him, to fix it on my memory, or to note it down. These, on the revision of the work for the press, I added to such reflections as arose in my own mind, and arranged in the manner they now appear. I confess that this was not an unpleasant task to me, and I will venture to hope, that if my own suggestions fail to please, yet the frequent recurrence of some of the most striking and beautiful passages of ancient and modern poetry, history, &c. will render it neither unamusing nor uninstructive to the general reader. The information insinuated into the mind by miscellaneous collections of this nature, is

much greater than is usually imagined; and I have been frequently encouraged to proceed, by recollecting the benefits I formerly derived from casual notices scattered over the margin, or dropped at the bottom of a page.

In this compilation, I proceeded on no regular plan, farther than considering what, if I had been a mere English reader, I should wish to have had explained: it is therefore extremely probable, as every rule of this nature must be imperfect, that I have frequently erred; have spoken where I should be silent, and been prolix where I should be brief; on the whole however, I chose to offend on the safer side; and to leave nothing unsaid, at the hazard of sometimes saying too much. Tedious, perhaps, I may be, but, I trust, not dull; and with this negative commendation I must be satisfied. The passages I have produced are not always translated; but the English reader needs not for that be discouraged in proceeding, as he will frequently find sufficient in the context, to give him a general idea of the meaning. In many places I have copied the words, together with the sentiments of the writer; for this, if it call for an apology, I shall take that of Macrobius, who had somewhat more occasion for it than I shall be found to have: Nec mihi vitio vertas, si res quas ex lectione varia mutuabor, ipsis sæpè verbis quibus ab ipsis auctoribus enarratæ sunt explicabo, quia præsens opus non eloquentiæ ostentationem, sed noscendorum congeriem pollicetur, &c.

Lib. I. c. I.

Saturn.