be cautiously interpreted, where they affirm, that fatire is wholly Roman; and a fort of verfe, which was not touched on by the Grecians. The reconcilement of my opinion to the ftandard of their judgment, is not, however, very difficult, fince they fpake of fatire, not as in its first elements, but as it was formed into a feperate work; begun by Ennius, purfued by Lucilius, and compleated afterwards by Horace. The proof depends only on this poftulatum: that the comedies of Andronicus, which were imitations of the Greek, were alfo imitations of their railleries, and reflections on particular perfons. For if this be granted me, which is a moft probable fuppofition, it is easy to infer, that the firft light which was given to the Roman theatrical fatire, was from the plays of Livius Andronicus. Which will be more manifeftly difcovered, when I come to speak of Ennius. In the mean time I will return to Dacier.

The people, fays he, ran in crowds to these new entertainments of Andronicus, as to pieces which were more noble in their kind, and more perfect than their former fatires, which for fome time they neglected and abandoned. But not long after, they took them up again, and then they joined them to their comedies: playing them at the end of every drama; as the French continue at this day to act their farces; in the nature of a separate entertainment from their tragedies. But more particularly they were joined to the Attellane fables, fays Cafaubon; which were plays invented by the Ofci. Thofe fables, fays Valerius Maximus, out of Livy,

were

were tempered with the Italian severity, and free from any note of infamy or obfcenenefs; and, as an old commentator on Juvenal affirms, the Exodiarii, which were fingers and dancers, entered to entertain the people with light fongs, and mimical geftures, that they might not go away opprefied with melancholy, from those serious pieces of the theatre. So that the ancient fatire of the Romans was in extemporary reproaches: the next was farce, which was brought from Tuscany to that fucceeded the plays of Andronicus, from the old comedy of the Grecians: and out of all thefe, fprung two feveral branches of new Roman fatire; like different cyons from the fame root: which I fhall prove with as much brevity as the fubject will

allow.

A year after Andronicus had opened the Roman stage with his new dramas, Ennius was born; who, when he was grown to man's eftate, having feriously confidered the genius of the people, and how eagerly they followed the first fatires, thought it would be worth his pains to refine upon the project, and to write fatires, not to be acted on the theatre, but read. He preferved the ground-work of their pleafantry, their venom, and their raillery on particular perfons, and general vices: and by this means, avoiding the danger of any ill fuccefs, in a public reprefentation, he hoped to be as well received in the cabinet as Andronicus had been upon the ftage. The event was anfwerable to his expectation. He made difcourfes in feveral forts of verse, varied often in the fame paper; retaining till in the

title their original name of fatire. Both in relation to the subjects, and the variety of matters contained in them, the fatires of Horace are entirely like them; only Ennius, as I faid, confines not himself to one fort of verfe, as Horace does; but, taking example from the Greeks, and even from Homer himself in his Margites, which is a kind of fatire, as Scaliger obferves, gives himself the licence, when one fort of numbers comes not easily, to run into another, as his fancy dictates. For he makes no difficulty to mingle hexameter with iambick tremeters; or with trochaick tetrameters; as appears by those fragments which are yet remaining of him Horace has thought him worthy to be copied; inferting many things of his into his own fatires, as Virgil has done in his Æneid.

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Here we have Dacier making out that Ennius was the first fatirift in that way of writing, which was of his invention; that is, fatire abstracted from the stage, and new modelled into papers of verfe, on feveral fubjects. But he will have Ennius take the ground-work of fatire from the first farces of the Romans, rather than from the formed plays of Livius Andronicus, which were copied from the Grecian comedies. It may poffibly be fo; but Dacier knows no more of it than I do. And it feems to me the more probable opinion, that he rather imitated the fine railleries of the Greeks, which he faw in the pieces of Andronicus, than the coarfenefs of all his old countrymen, in their clownish extemporary way of jeering.

But, befides this, it is univerfally granted, that Ennius, though an Italian, was excellently learned in the Greek language. His verfes were ftuffed with fragments of it, even to a fault: and he himself believed, according to the Pythagorean opinion, that the foul of Homer was transfufed into him: which Perfius obferves, in his fixth fatire: " poftquam deftertuit effè "Mæonides." But this being only the private opinion of fo inconfiderable a man as I am, I leave it to the farther difquifition of the critics, if they think it worth their notice. Moft evident it is, that whether he imitated the Roman farce, or the Greek comedies, he is to be acknowledged for the first author of Roman fatire, as it is properly fo called, and diftinguifhed from any fort of ftage-play.

Of Pacuvius, who fucceeded him, there is little to be faid, because there is fo little remaining of him: only that he is taken to be the nephew of Ennius, his fifter's fon; that in probability he was inftructed by his uncle, in his way of fatire, which we are told he has copied; but what advances he made, we

know not.

Lucilius came into the world, when Pacuvius flourifhed moft; he alfo made fatires after the manner of Ennius, but he gave them a more graceful turn; and endeavoured to imitate more clofely the Vetus Comoda of the Greeks: of the which the old original Roman fatire had no idea, till the time of Livius Andronicus. And though Horace feems to have made Lucilius the first author of fatire in verfe amongst the Romans, in

thefe

thefe words, "Quid cum eft Lucilius aufus primus in "hunc operis componere carmina morem :" he is only thus to be understood, that Lucilius had given a more graceful turn to the fatire of Ennius and Pacuvius; not that he invented a new fatire of his own and Quintilian feems to explain this paffage of Horace, in thefe words: Satira quidem tota noftra eft, in qua "primus infignem laude adeptus est Lucilius.”

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Thus, both Horace and Quintilian give a kind of primacy of honour to Lucilius, amongst the Latin fatirifts. For as the Roman language grew more refined, fo much more capable it was of receiving the Grecian beauties in his time: Horace and Quintilian could mean no more, than that Lucilius writ better than Ennius and Pacuvius and on the fame account we prefer Horace to Lucilius: both of them imitated the old Greek comedy; and fo did Ennnius and Pacuvius before them. The polishing of the Latin tongue, in the fucceffion of times, made the only difference. And Horace himself, in two of his fatires, written purposely on this fubject, thinks the Romans of his age were too partial in their commendations of Lucilius; who writ not only loosely, and muddily, with little art, and much lefs care, but also in a time when the Latin tongue was not yet fufficiently purged from the dregs of barbarifm; and many fignificant and founding words, which the Romans wanted, were not admitted even in the times of Lucretius and Cicero, of which both complain.

But,