THE

SIXTH SATIRE

O F

JUVE NA L.

ARGUMEN T.

THIS fatire, of almoft double length to any of the reft, is a bitter invective against the fair fex. It is indeed, a common-place, from whence all the moderns have notoriously stolen their sharpeft railleries. In his other fatires, the poet has only glanced on fome particular women, and generally scourged the men. But this he referved wholly for the ladies. How they had offended him, I know not but upon the whole matter he is not to be excufed for imputing to all, the vices of fome few amongst them. Neither was it generously done of him, to attack the weakest as well as the fairest part of the creation: neither do I know what moral he could reasonably draw from it. It could not be to avoid the whole fex, if all had been true which he alledges against them: for that had been to put an end to human-kind. And to bid us beware of their artifices, is a kind of filent acknowledgment, that they have more wit than men : which turns the fatire upon us, and particularly upon the poet; who thereby makes a compliment, where

he meant a libel. If he intended only to exercife his wit, he has forfeited his judgment, by making the one half of his readers his mortal enemies: and; amongst the men, all the happy lovers, by their own experience, will difprove his accufations. The whole world must allow this to be the wittieft of his fatires; and truly he had need of all his parts, to maintain with fo much violence fo unjust a charge. I am fatisfied he will bring but few over to his opinion: and on that confideration chiefly I ventured to translate him. Though there wanted not another reafon, which was, that no one elfe would undertake it: at leaft, Sir C. S. who could have done more right to the author, after a long delay, at length abfolutely refused fo ungrateful an employment: and every one will grant, that the work must have been imperfect and lame, if it had appeared without one of the principal members belonging to it. Let the poet. therefore bear the blame of his own invention; and let me fatisfy the world, that I am not of his opinion. Whatever his Roman ladies were, the English are: free from all his imputations. They will read with wonder and abhorrence the vices of an age, which was the most infamous of any on record. They will blefs themfelves when they behold thofe examples, related of Domitian's time they will give back to antiquity thofe monsters it produced and believe with reafon, that the fpecies hofe women is extinguished; or at least, that vere never here propagated. I may fafely there

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fore

fore proceed to the argument of a fatire, which is no way relating to them: and first observe, that my author makes their luft the most heroic of their vices: the rest are in a manner but digreffion. He fkims them over; but he dwells on this: when he seems to have taken his laft leave of it, on the fudden he returns to it it is one branch of it in Hippia, another in Messalina, but luft is the main body of the tree. He begins with this text in the firft line, and takes it with intermiflions to the end of the chapter. up Every vice is a loader, but that's a ten. The fillers, or intermediate parts, are their revenge; their contrivances of fecret crimes; their arts to hide them; their wit to excuse them; and their impudence to own them, when they can no longer be kept fecret. Then the perfons to whom they are most addicted; and on whom they commonly beftow the last favours: as ftage-players, fiddlers, finging-boys, and fencers. These who pafs for chaste amongst them, are not really fo; but only, for their vaft dowries, are rather fuffered than loved by their own hufbands. That they are imperious, domineering, fcolding wives: fet up for learning and criticism in poetry; but are falfe judges. Love to speak Greek (which was then the fashionable tongue, as French is now with us). That they plead caufes at the bar, and play prizes at the beargarden. That they are goffips and news-monger : wrangle with their neighbours abroad, and beat their fervants at home. That they lie-in for new faces once a month, are fluttish with their husbands in

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private; and paint and drefs in public for their lovers. That they deal with Jews, diviners, and fortune-tellers: learn the arts of miscarrying, and barrennefs. Buy children, and produce them for their own. Murder their husbands fons, if they ftand in their way to his eftate; and make their adulterers his heirs. Frrom hence the poet proceeds to fhew the occasion of all these vices, their original, and how they were introduced in Rome, by peace, wealth, and luxury. In conclufion, if we will take the word of our malicious author, bad women are the general standing rule: and the good, but fome few exceptions to it.

N Saturn's reign, at Nature's early birth,

There was that thing call'd chastity on earth;
When in a narow cave, their common fhade,

The fheep, the fhepherds, and their gods were laid :
When reeds and leaves, and hides of beafts were spread
By mountain-housewives for their homely bed,
And moffy pillows rais'd, for the rude husband's head:
Unlike the nicenefs of our modern dames
(Affected nymphs with new-affected names):
The Cynthia's and the Lesbia's of our years,
Who for a sparrow's death diffolve in tears.
Those first unpolish'd matrons, big and bold,
Gave fuck to infants of gigantic mold;
Rough as their favage lords who rang'd the wood,
And, fat with acorns, belch'd their windy food.
when the world was buckfome, fresh, and young,
were undebauch'd, and therefore strong;

And

And whether born in kindly beds of earth,
Or ftruggling from the teeming oaks to birth,
Or from what other atoms they begun,

No fires they had, or, if a fire, the fun.
Some thin remains of chastity appear'd,
Ev'n under Jove, but Jove without a beard;
Before the fervile Greeks had learnt to fwear
By heads of kings; while yet the bounteous year
Her common fruits in open plains expos'd,

Ere thieves were fear'd, or gardens were inclos'd.
At length uneafy Juftice upwards flew,

And both the fifters to the fars withdrew;
From that old æra whoring did begin,

So venerably ancient is the fin.
Adulterers next invade the nuptial state,

And marriage-beds creak'd with a foreign weight;
All other ills did iron times adorn;

But whores and filver in one age were born.
Yet thou, they fay, for marriage doft provide:
Is this an age to buckle with a bride?
They say thy hair the curling art is taught,
The wedding-ring perhaps already bought:
A fober man, like thee, to change his life!
What fury would poffefs thee with a wife?
Art thou of every other death bereft,
No knife, no ratsbane, no kind halter left?
(For every noofe compar'd to her's is cheap):
Is there no city-bridge from whence to leap?
Would'st thou become her drudge, who dost enjoy
A better fort of bedfellow, thy boy?