SATIRA II. UE virtus et quanta, boni, fit vivere parvo, (Nec mens hic fermo; fed quæ præcepit Ofellus, Rufticus, abnormis Sapiens, craffaque Minerva,) Difcite, e non inter lances menfafque nitentes; Cum ftupet infanis acies fulgoribus, et cum Acclinis falfis animus meliora recufat: Verum hic impranfi mecum difquirite. Cur hoc? Dicam, fi potero. male verum examinat omnis Corruptus judex. Leporem fectatus, equove Laffus ab indomito; vel (fi Romana fatigat Militia affuetum Græcari) feu pila velox, Molliter aufterum ftudio fallente laborem ; Seu te difcus agit, pete cedentem aëra difco: NOTES. VER. 2. To live on little] This difcourfe in praise of temperance lofes much of its grace and propriety by being put into the mouth of a person of a much higher rank in life than the boneft countryman Ofellus; whose patrimony had been seized by Auguftus, and given to one of his foldiers named Umbrenus, and whom, perhaps, Horace recommended to the Emperor, by making bin the chief fpeaker in this very fatire. We may imagine that a difcourfe on temperance from Horace raised a laugh among the courtiers of Auguftus; and we fee he could not venture to deliver it in his own perfon. This Imitation of Pope is not equal to moft of his others. Whenever I have ventured to cenfure any paffage of Pope, I with conftantly to add the following words of Fontenelle: "La cenfure que l'on exerce fur les ouvrages d'Autrui, a'engage point à en faire de meilleurs, à moins qu'elle ne fait amère, chagrine, et or gueilleuse." SATIRE II. a TO MR. BETHEL, WHAT, and how great, the Virtue and the Art To live on little with a cheerful heart; 5 Hear BETHEL'S Sermon, one not vers'd in schools, d But ftrong in sense, and wife without the rules. 10 h Go work, hunt, exercife! (he thus began,) Then scorn a homely dinner if you can. NOTE S. VER. 9. BETHEL] The fame to whom several of Mr. Pope's Letters are addreffed. W. VER. II. Go work, hunt,] These fix following lines are much inferior to the original, in which the mention of many particular exercifes gives it a pleafing variety. The fixth and feventh lines in Horace are nervous and ftrong. The third in Pope is languid and wordy, which renders foris eft promus. Defendens, and latrantem, and caro, and pinguem, and album, are all of them very expreffive epithets And the allufion to Socrates's conftant exercife, tu pulmentaria, &c. ought not to have been omitted. Pope's two laft lines in this passage are very exceptionable. We are informed by Mr. Stuart, in his Athens, that the honey of Hymeltus, even to this time, continues to be in vogue and that the feraglio of the Grand Seignor is ferved with a flated quantity of it yearly. Cum labor extulerit faftidia; ficcus, inanis, Quam laudas, pluma? co&tove num adeft honor idem? NOTES. VER. 18. Before a hen ;] He might have inferted the original word peacocks, as many of our English epicures are fond of them. Q. Hortenfius had the honour of being the firft Roman that in Your i Your wine lock'd up, your Butler ftroll'd abroad, Or fifh deny'd, (the river yet unthaw'd,) If then plain bread and milk will do the feat, NOTES. 15 20 troduced this bird to the table as a great dainty, in a magnificent feaft which he made on his being created Augur. The price of a peacock, fays Arbuthnot, page 129. was fifty denarii, that is, 1 1. 12 s. 3 d. A flock of a hundred was fold at a much dearer rate, for 322 1. 18. s. 4 d. of our money. M. Aufidius Lurco, according to Varro, used to make every year of his peacocks 484 1. 7 s. 6 d. VER. 21. Of carps and mullets] Very inferior to the original ; and principally fo, becaufe that pleafant froke is omitted of the cater's knowing in what part of the river the lupus was taken, and whether or no betwixt the two bridges, which was deemed an effential circumftance. The reader will be well entertained on this fubje& if he will look into the feventeenth chapter of the third book of Macrobius, particularly into a curious fpeech of C. Tertius there recited. But Horace feems to have had in his eye paffage of Lucilius, quoted by Macrobius: "Sed et Lucilius acer et violentus poeta, oftendit feire fe hunc pifcem egregii faporis, qui inter duos pontes captus effet." VOL. IV. G |