SATIRA PRIMA.

HORATIUS. TREBATIUS.

HORATIUS.

SUNT, quibus in Satira videar nimis acer, et ultra

Legem tendere opus! b fine nervis altera, quidquid Compofui, pars effe putat ; fimilefque meorum Mille die verfus deduci poffe.

Quid faciam? præfcribe.

NOTES.

Trebatî,

VER. 1. There are] "When I had a fever one winter in town," faid Pope to Mr. Spence, "that confined me to my room for five or fix days, Lord Bolingbroke came to fee me, happened to take up a Horace that lay on the table, aud, in turning it over, dipt on the firft fatire of the fecond book. He obferved how well that would fuit my cafe, if I were to imitate it in English. After be was gone, I read it over, tranflated it in a morning or two, and fent it to prefs in a week or fortnight after. And this was the occafion of my imitating fome other of the Satires and Epiftles." "To bow casual a beginning," adds Spence, “we are obliged for the moft delightful things in our language! When I was faying to him, that he had already imitated near a third part of Horace's fatires and epiftles, and how much it was to be wished that he would go on with them, he could not believe that he had gone fo far; but, upon computing. it, it appeared to be above a third. He feemed on this not difinclined to carry it farther; but his last illness was then growing upon him, and robbed us of him, and of all hopes of that kind, in a few months." Tranfcribed from Spence's Anecdotes; 1754. No parts of our Author's Works have been more admired than thofe imitations. The aptaefs of the allufions, and the happiness

SATIRE I.

TO MR. FORTESCUE.

P.THERE are, (I scarce can think it, but am told,)
a There are, to whom my Satire feems to bold:
Scarce to wife Peter complaifant enough,
And fomething faid of Chartres much too rough.
b The lines are weak, another's pleas'd to fay,
Lord Fanny fpins a thoufand fuch a day.
Tim'rous by nature, of the Rich in awe,

C I come to Council learned in the Law:
You'll give me, like a friend both fage and free,
Advice; and (as you use) without a Fee.

NOTES.

5

10

of many of the parallels, give a pleasure that is always no fmall one to the mind of a reader-the pleasure of comparison. He that has the leaft acquaintance with these pieces of Horace, which refemble the Old Comedy, immediately perceives, indeed, that our Author affumed a higher tone, and frequently has deferted the free colloquial air, the infinuating Socratic manner of his original: and that be clearly resembles in his ftyle, as he did in his natural temper, the fevere and serious Juvenal more than the fmiling and sportive Horace. Let us fele& some paffages in which he may be thought to have equalled, excelled, or fallen fhort of the original; the latter of which cannot be deemed a disgrace to our Poet, or to any other writer, if we confider the extreme difficulty of transfufing into another language the subtle beauties of Horace's' dignified familiarity, and the uncommen union of fo much facility and force.

VER. 10. Advice; and, as you use,] Horace, with much feeming ferioufnefs, app lies for advice to the celebrated Roman lawyer C. Trebatius Tefta, an intimate friend of Julius Cæfar, and of Tully

Omnino verfus ?

T. Quiefcas.

H. Ne faciam, inquis,

T. Aio.

H. Peream, male, fi non

Optimum erat: verum nequeo dormire.

T. Ter uncti

Tranfnanto, Tiberim, fomno quibus eft opus alto; Irriguumve mero fub noctem corpus habento.

NOTES.

as appears from many of his epiftles to Atticus; the gravity and felfimportance of whofe character is admirably fupported throughout this little drama. His answers are short, authoritative, and decifive. "Quiefcas, aio." And, as he was known to be a great drinker and fwimmer, his two abfurd pieces of advice have infinite pleafantry. All thefe circumftances of humour are dropt in the copy. The lettuce and cowflip-wine are infipid and unmeaning prescriptions, and have nothing to do with Mr. Fortefcue's chara&er. The third, fourth, and ninth lines of this Imitation are flat and languid. We muft alfo obferve, from the old commentators, that the verbs tranf nanto and habento are in the very ftyle of the law: "Vide ut dire&is jurifconfultorum verbis utitur ad Trebatium jurifconfultum.",

There are many excellent remarks in Acro and Porphyrio: from whom, as well as from Cruquius, Dacier has borrowed much, without owning it. Dacier's tranflation of Horace is not equal to his Ariftode's Poetics. In the former, he is perpetually friving to discover new meanings in his author, which Boileau called, The Revelations of Dacier.

Cicero, as appears from many of his letters, had a great regard for this Trebatius, to whom he fays, fpeaking of his accompany iog Cæfar in his expedition to Britain, "I bear there is either filver nor gold in that island." On which Middleton finely ob ferves, "From their railleries of this kind, on the barbarity and mifery of our island, one cannot help reflecting on the furprifing fate and revolutions of kingdoms: how Rome, once the miftrefs of the world, the feat of arts, empire, and glory, now lies funk

F. I'd write no more.

P. Not write? but then I think, And for my foul I cannot fleep a wink. I nod in company, I wake at night, Fools rush into my head, and fo I write.

your

14

F. You could not do a worse thing for life. Why, if the nights feem tedious-take a Wife: f Or rather truly, if your point be reft, Lettuce and cowflip wine; Probatum eft. But talk with Celfus, Celfus will advise Hartfhorn, or fomething that fhall clofe your eyes.

NOTES.

19

in floth, ignorance, and poverty; enslaved to the moft cruel, as well as to the most contemptible of tyrants, fuperftition and religious impofture: while this remote country, antiently the jeft and contempt of the polite Romans, is become the happy feat of liberty, plenty, and letters; flourishing in all the arts and refinements of civil life; yet running, perhaps, the fame courfe which Rome itfelf had run before it; from virtuous induftry to wealth; from wealth to luxury; from luxury to an impatience of difcipline and corruption of morals; till, by a total degeneracy and lofs of virtue, being grown ripe for deftru&ion, it falls a prey at laft to fome hardy oppreffor, and, with the lofs of liberty lofing every thing elfe that is valuable, finks gradually again into its original barbarifm."

VER. II. Not write? &c.] He has omitted the most humorous part of the answer,

Peream male, fi non

Optimum erat:

and has loft the grace, by not imitating the concifenefs, of verum nequeo dormire.

For concifenefs, when it is clear. (as in this place,) gives the high- But what follows is as much eft grace to elegance of expreffion.

above the Original, as this falls fhort of it.

W.

VIR. 12. Sleep a wink.] The rhyme conceals the vulgarity of the expreffion, fleep a wink, Rhyme bas often this effea. But familiarity was perhaps intended.

* Aut, fi tantus amor fcribendi te rapit, aude CÆSARIS invicti res dicere; hmulta laborum Pramia laturus.

H. Cupidum, pater optime, vires Deficiunt: neque enim quivis horrentia pilis Agmina, nec fracta pereuntes cufpide Gallos, Aut labentis equo del ribat vulnera Parthi.

T.

Attamen etjuflum poteras et fcribere fortem, Scipiadem ut fapiens Lucilius.

H. Haud mihi deero, Cum res ipfa feret: nifi dextro tempore, Flacci

NOTES.

VER. 23. What? like Sir Richard, &c.] Mr. Molyneux, a great Mathematician and Philofopher, had a high opinion of Sir Richard Blackmore's poetic vein. All our English poets, except Milton, lays he in a Letter to Mr Loke, i have been mere ballad makers in comparison of him And Mr. Locke, in answer to this obfervation, replies, I find, with pleasure, a frange harmony throughout, bet een your thoughts and mine. Juft fo, a Roman Lawyer, and a Greek Hiftorian, thought of the poetry of Cicero. But these being judgmen s made by men out of their own profeffion, are lule regarded. And Pope and Juwenal will make Blackmore and Tully pafs for Poetafters to the World's end.

१ W.

Pope has turned the compliment to Auguftus into a fevere farcafm. All the wits feem to have leagued against Sir Richard Black more In a letter now lying before me from Eijab Fenton to my father, dated Jan. 24, 1707, e fays, I am glad to hear Mr. Philips will publish his Pomona: Who prints it? I shall be mightily obliged to you if you could get me a copy of his verses againf Blackmorel As the letter contains one or lars. I will tranfcribe the left. two literary particumaking a coiledion, I can only advise you to buy what poems to what you write about you can, that Tofoa has printed, except the Ode to The Sun; unless you will take it in, because I writ it; which I am freer to own, that Mat. Prior may not fuffer in his reputation by hav ang it afcribed to him. My humble fervice to Mr. Sacheverell and

As