Studious to please the genius of the times, PERSIUS. He seems a trap for charity to lay, FRIEND. But to raw numbers, and unfinished verse, Sweet sound is added now, to make it terse : "'Tis tagged with rhyme, like Berecynthian Atys, "The mid-part chimes with art, which never flat is. † "The dolphin brave, that cuts the liquid wave, "Or he who in his line can chine the long-ribbed Appennine." PERSIUS. All this is doggrel stuff. What if I bring 66 FRIEND. A nobler verse? Arms and the man I sing." PERSIUS. Why name you Virgil with such fops as these? He's truly great, and must for ever please : Not fierce, but aweful, is his manly page; FRIEND. What poems think you soft, and to be read With languishing regards, and bending head? PERSIUS. "Their crooked horns the Mimallonian crew "With blasts inspired; * and Bassaris, who slew "The scornful calf, with sword advanced on high, "Made from his neck his haughty head to fly: "And Manas, when with ivy bridles bound, "She led the spotted lynx, then Evion rung around; "Evion from woods and floods repairing echo's sound." ho's Could such rude lines a Roman mouth become, Were any manly greatness left in Rome? Mænas and Atyst in the mouth were bred, And never hatched within the labouring head ; No blood from bitten nails those poems drew, But churned, like spittle, from the lips they flew. FRIEND. "Tis fustian all; 'tis execrably bad; But if they will be fools, must you be mad? Your satires, let me tell you, are too fierce; The great will never bear so blunt a verse. Their doors are barred against a bitter flout; Snarl, if you please, but you shall snarl without. Expect such pay as railing rhymes deserve; You're in a very hopeful way to starve. PERSIUS. Rather than so, uncensured let them be: All, all is admirably well, for me. My harmless rhyme shall 'scape the dire disgrace Laughed at his friend, and looked him in the face; Nor will I change for all the flashy wit, Thou, if there be a thou in this base town, Like Aristophanes, let him but smile On this my honest work, though writ in homely style; Who fortune's fault upon the poor can throw, t Who thinks all science, as all virtue, vain ; ; NOTES ON TRANSLATIONS FROM PERSIUS. SATIRE I. Note I. Should cry up Labeo's stuff, and cry me down.-P. 208. Nothing is remaining of Atticus Labeo (so he is called by the learned Casaubon); nor is he mentioned by any other poet, besides Persius. Casaubon, from an old commentator on Persius, says, that he made a very foolish translation of Homer's Iliads. Note II. They comb, and then they order every hair ; A gown, or white, or scoured to whiteness, wear; A birth-day jewel bobbing at their ear.---P. 209. He describes a poet, preparing himself to rehearse his works in public, which was commonly performed in August. A room was hired, or lent, by some friend; a scaffold was raised, and a pulpit placed for him who was to hold forth; who borrowed a new gown, or scoured his old one, and adorned his ears with jewels, &c. |