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SATIRE II.

Argument.

THIS Satire contains an irregular but animated attack, upon the hypocrisy of philosophers and reformers; whose ignorance, profligacy, and impiety, it exposes with just severity.

Domitian is here the hero: his vices are covertly or openly alluded to, under every different name; and it must give us a high opinion of the intrepid spirit of the man who could venture to produce and circulate, though but in private, so faithful a representation faithful a representation of that ferocious and blood-thirsty tyrant.

The difficulties in the way of translating this Satire, are scarcely to be conceived but by those who have made the experiment: if my success were but at all equal to my pains, I should dismiss it with some degree of confidence.

SATIRE II.

v. 1-10.

O, FOR an eagle's wings! for I could fly
To the bleak regions of the polar sky,
Whene'er THEY make morality their theme
Who live like Bacchanals, yet Curii seem!

Devoid of knowledge, as of worth, they thrust
In every nook some philosophic bust;

For he, amongst them, counts himself most wise,
Who most old sages of the sculptor buys;
Sets most true Zenos', most Cleanthes' heads,
To guard the volumes which he never reads.

VER. 4. Who live like Bacchanals, ye Curii seem!] The frugality and abstinence of the Curii, seem to have been proverbial. See Sat. 111. and x1.

VER. 9. Sets most true Zenos', most Cleanthes' heads, &c.] As these philosophers were notorious above all others, for the shrewdness and subtilty of their disquisitions, there is a considerable degree of humour in our author's making his blockheads fix on their busts, for the purpose of ornamenting their libraries.

If we could suppose Lucian to have read Juvenal, (and he probably had) he might have this passage in his thoughts, when he wrote his illiterate bookhunter, Awxideur xai woλλa bibλia wμer. Locher, who translated Brant's

TRUST NOT TO OUTWARD SHEW! in every street

Obscenity in formal garb, you meet.

And dost thou, hypocrite! our lusts arraign,

Thou! of Socratic pathics the mere drain!

Ship of Fools, had undoubtedly both Juvenal and Lucian before him, when he gave the following version,

"Spem quoque nec parvam collecta volumina præbent,

"Calleo nec verbum, nec libri sentio mentem,

"Attamen in magno per me servantur honore."

For the rest; if another Brant were to arise, and incline to furnish out a cargo of fools from the stock in hand, I much doubt whether the "illiterate bookhunter" would not still be the first he would put on board.

VER. 11. Trust not to outward show! &c.] Martial has a pleasant epigram on this passage. A lady of his acquaintance, anxious to get, what he calls, a true husband, had tried six, and failed! But they were fops, it seems; he therefore advises her to have recourse to the rough and hirsute, whom he describes in the very words of Juvenal; though even then he does not flatter her with any great hopes of success. (Lib. VII. 58.)

"Quære aliquem Curios semper Fabiosque loquentem,

"Hirsutum, et durâ rusticitate trucem,

"Invenies; sed habet tristis quoque turba cinados,

"Difficile est VERO nubere, Galla, VIRO."

VER. 14. Thou! of Socratic pathics the mere drain!] This line has given offence to some of the critics, who consider it as a wanton attack upon Socrates; while others, on the contrary, justify it, from the alleged propensities of that philosopher. This is no place to enter into a vindication of his character, which I believe, and which every good man must delight to think, unspotted; nor, indeed, does Juvenal afford the least occasion for it. The opposite terms, Socraticos cinados, conveyed not, in his mind, the slightest censure; they are merely a continuation of the double image with which he began, and must evidently be referred to the the qui Curios simulant, &c. It is extraordinary that the mistake should be so general, since whatever contempt our author might feel for the rabble of Greek philosophists, he never mentions

Thy rough and shaggy limbs might seem design'd
The index of a fierce, and vigorous mind;
But all's so smooth below, the surgeon smiles,
"And scarcely can, for laughter, lance the piles."
Gravely demure, in wisdom's solemn chair,
(His beetling eyebrows longer than his hair,)
In silent state, the affected stoic sits,

And drops his maxims on the crowd by fits.
Yon tottering pathic, whose wan look betrays
His rank debaucheries, and more rank disease,
With patience I can bear; he braves disgrace,
Nor skulks behind a sanctimonious face:
Him may his folly, or his fate excuse-

But whip me those, who Virtue's name abuse,
And, soil'd with all the vices of the times,

Thunder damnation on their neighbours' crimes.

Socrates but with the highest respect. He quotes him as a pattern of moderation and virtue in the last Satire but one; and few of his readers have forgotten, I trust, that most beautiful designation of him in the address to Calvinus

dulcique Senex vicinus Hymetto,

"Qui partem acceptæ sæva inter vincla cicuta

"Accusatori nollet dare.

But the misapprehension has had another ill effect; it has induced those who thought well of Socrates (and the learned Prideaux among the rest) to suspect the integrity of the text, and alter Socraticos into Sotadicos! A most injudicious step; for Sotades was certainly no hypocrite: indeed, he appears from Strabo, Athenæus, and Suidas to be so far from pretending to the character of a rigid moralist (turpium castigator) that he openly wrote of, and recommended, the most detestable vices.

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