The depilation of thy modest part:

Thy catamite, the darling of thy heart,
The engine-hand, and every lewder art.

When, prone to bear, and patient to receive,
Thou tak'st the pleasure which thou canst not give.
With odorous oil thy head and hair are sleek;
And then thou kemb'st the tuzzes on thy cheek:
Of these thy barbers take a costly care,
While thy salt tail is overgrown with hair.
Not all thy pincers, nor unmanly arts,

Can smooth the roughness of thy shameful parts.
Not five, the strongest that the Circus breeds,
From the rank soil can root those wicked weeds:
Though suppled first with soap, to ease thy pain,
The stubborn fern springs up, and sprouts again.

Thus others we with defamations wound, While they stab us; and so the jest goes round. Vain are thy hopes, to 'scape censorious eyes; Truth will appear through all the thin disguise: Thou hast an ulcer which no leech can heal, Though thy broad shoulder-belt the wound conceal. Say thou art sound and hale in every part, We know, we know thee rotten at thy heart, We know thee sullen, impotent, and proud: Nor canst thou cheat thy nerve, who cheat'st the crowd.

But when they praise me, in the neighbourhood, When the pleas'd people take me for a God, Shall I refuse their incense? Not receive The loud applauses which the vulgar give?

If thou dost wealth, with longing eyes, behold; And, greedily, art gaping after gold; If some alluring girl, in gliding by, Shall tip the wink, with a lascivious eye, And thou with a consenting glance, reply ; If thou thy own solicitor become, And bid'st arise the lumpish pendulum: If thy lewd lust provokes an empty storm, And prompts to more than nature can perform; If, with thy guards, thou scour'st the streets by

night,

And dost in murders, rapes, and spoils delight;
Please not thyself, the flattering crowd to hear;
'Tis fulsome stuff to feed thy itching ear.
Reject the nauseous praises of the times:
Give thy base poets back thy cobbled rhimes:
Survey thy soul, not what thou dost appear,
But what thou art; and find the beggar there.

THE

FIFTH SATIRE

OF

PERSIU S.

Argument.

THE judicious Casaubon, in his proem to this satire, tells that Aristophanes the grammarian being asked, what poem of Archilochus's Lambics he preferred before the rest; answered, the longest. His answer may justly be applied to this fifth satire; which, being of a greater length than any of the rest, is also, by far, the most instructive: for this reason I have selected it from all the others, and inscribed it to my learned master, Doctor Busby; to whom I am not only obliged myself for the best part of my own education, and that of my two sons; but have also received from him the first and truest taste of Persius. May he be pleased to find in this translation, the gratitude, or at least some small acknowledgment of his unworthy scholar, at the distance of twentyfour years, from the time when 1 departed from under his

tuition.

This satire consists of two distinct parts: the first contains the praises of the stoic philosopher Cornutus, master and tutor to our Persius. It also declares the love and piety of Persius, to his well-deserving master; and the mutual friendship which continued betwixt them, after Persius was now grown a man. As also his exhortation to young noblemen, that they would enter themselves into his institution. From whence he makes an artful transition into the second part of his subject: wherein he first complains of the sloth of scholars, and afterwards persuades them to the pursuit of their true liberty. Here our author excellently treats that paradox of the Stoics, which affirms, that only the wise or virtuous man is free; and that all vicious men are naturally slaves. And, in the illustration of this dogma, he takes up the remaining part of this inimitable satire,

Whether to the well lung'd tragedian's rage
They recommend the labours of the stage,
Or sing the Parthian, when transfix'd he lies,
Wrenching the Roman javelin from his thighs.
Cornutus. And why would'st thou these mighty
morsels chuse,

Of words unchew'd, and fit to choak the Muse?
Let fustian poets, with their stuff, be gone,
And suck the mists that hang o'er Helicon;
When Progne or Thyestes' feast they write;
And, for the mouthing actor, verse indite.
Thou neither, like a bellows, swell'st thy face,
As if thou wert to blow the burning mass
Of melting ore; nor canst thou strain thy throat,
Or murmur in an undistinguish'd note,

Like rolling thunder till it breaks the cloud,
And rattling nonsense is discharg'd aloud.
Soft elocution does thy style renown,
And the sweet accents of the peaceful gown:
Gentle or sharp, according to thy choice,
To laugh at follies, or to lash at vice.
Hence draw thy theme, and to the stage permit
Raw-head and bloody-bones, and hands and feet,
Ragousts for Tereus or Thyestes drest;

'Tis task enough for thee t' expose a Roman feast.

Persius. 'Tis not, indeed, my talent to engage In lofty trifles, or to swell my page

With wind and noise; but freely to impart,
As to a friend, the secrets of my heart;
And, in familiar speech, to let thee know
How much I love thee, and how much I owe
Knock on my heart: for thou hast skill to find
If it sound solid, or be fill'd with wind;
And, through the veil of words, thou view'st
the naked mind.

For this a hundred voices I desire,

To tell thee what a hundred tongues would tire;
Yet never could be worthily exprest,

How deeply thou art seated in my breast.
When first
my childish robe resign'd the charge,
And left me, unconfin'd, to live at large;
When now my golden bulla (hung on high
To household Gods) declar'd me past a boy;
And my white shield proclaim'd my liberty: