FOOTNOTES:
[16] The origin of this word is now acknowledged to be Roman. Scaliger derived it from σατυρος (satyrus), but Casaubon, Dacier, and others, more reasonably, from satura (fem. of satur), rich, abounding, full of variety. In this sense it was applied to the lanx or charger, in which the various productions of the soil were offered up to the gods; and thus came to be used for any miscellaneous collection in general. Satura olla, a hotch-potch; saturæ leges, laws comprehending a multitude of regulations, etc. This deduction of the name may serve to explain, in some measure, the nature of the first Satires, which treated of various subjects, and were full of various matters: but enough on this trite topic.
[17] It should be observed, however, that the idea was obvious, and the work itself highly necessary. The old Satire, amid much coarse ribaldry, frequently attacked the follies and vices of the day. This could not be done by the comedy which superseded it, and which, by a strange perversity of taste, was never rendered national. Its customs, manners, nay, its very plots, were Grecian; and scarcely more applicable to the Romans than to us.
[18] To extend this to Lucilius, as is sometimes done, is absurd, since he evidently had in view the old comedy of the Greeks, of which his Satires, according to Horace, were rigid imitations:
"Eupolis atque Cratinus, Aristophanesque poëtæ
Atque alii, quorum comœdia prisca virorum est;
Si quia erat dignus describi, quod malus, aut fur,
Quod mœchus foret, aut sicarius, aut alioqui
Famosus, multa cum libertate notabant.
Hinc omnis pendet Lucilius, hosce secutus,
Mutatis tantum pedibus, numerisque."
Here the matter would seem to be at once determined by a very competent judge. Strip the old Greek comedy of its action, and change the metre from Iambic to Heroic, and you have the Roman Satire! It is evident from this, that, unless two things be granted, first, that the actors in those ancient Satires were ignorant of the existence of the Greek comedy; and, secondly, that Ennius, who knew it well, passed it by for a ruder model; the Romans can have no pretensions to the honor they claim.
And even if this be granted, the honor appears to be scarcely worth the claiming; for the Greeks had not only Dramatic, but Lyric and Heroic Satire. To pass by the Margites, what were the Iambics of Archilochus, and the Scazons of Hipponax, but Satires? nay, what were the Silli? Casaubon derives them απο του σιλλαινειν, to scoff, to treat petulantly; and there is no doubt of the justness of his derivation. These little pieces were made up of passages from various poems, which by slight alterations were humorously or satirically applied at will. The Satires of Ennius were probably little more; indeed, we have the express authority of Diomedes the grammarian for it. After speaking of Lucilius, whose writings he derives, with Horace, from the old comedy, he adds, "et olim carmen, quod ex variis poematibus constabat, satira vocabatur; quale scripserunt Pacuvius et Ennius." Modern critics agree in understanding "ex variis poematibus," of various kinds of metre; but I do not see why it may not mean, as I have rendered it, "of various poems;" unless we choose to compliment the Romans, by supposing that what was in the Greeks a mere cento, was in them an original composition.
It would scarcely be doing justice, however, to Ennius, to suppose that he did not surpass his models, for, to say the truth, the Greek Silli appear to have been no very extraordinary performances. A few short specimens of them may be seen in Diogenes Laertius, and a longer one, which has escaped the writers on this subject, in Dio Chrysostom. As this is, perhaps, the only Greek Satire extant, it may be regarded as a curiosity; and as such, for as a literary effort it is worth nothing, a short extract from it may not be uninteresting. Sneering at the people of Alexandria, for their mad attachment to chariot-races, etc., he says, this folly of theirs is not ill exposed by one of those scurrilous writers of (Silli, or) parodies: ου κακως τις παρεποιησε των σαπρων τουτων ποιητων·
Ἁρματα δ' αλλοτε μεν χθονι πιλνατο πουλυβοτειρῃ,
Αλλοτε δ' αεξασκε μετηορα· τοι δε θεαται
Θωκοις εν σφετεροις, ουθ' ἑστασαν, ουδ' εκαθηντο,
Χλωροι ὑπαι δειους πεφοβημενοι, ουδ' ὑπο νικες
Αλληλοισι τε κεκλομενοι, και πασι θεοισι
Χειρας ανισχοντες, μεγαλ' ευχετοωντο ἑκαστοι.
Ἡυτε περ κλαγγη γερανων πελει, ηε κολοιων,
Ἁι τ' επει ουν ζυθον τ' επιον, και αθεσπατον οινον,
Κλαγγῃ ται γε πετονται απο σταδιοιο κελευθου. κ. τ. λ.
Ad Alexand. Orat. xxxii.
[19] I doubt whether he was ever a good royalist at heart; he frequently, perhaps unconsciously, betrays a lurking dissatisfaction; but having, as Johnson says of a much greater man, "tasted the honey of favor," he did not choose to return to hunger and philosophy. Indeed, he was not happy; in the country he sighs for the town, in town for the country; and he is always restless, and straining after something which he never obtains. To float, like Aristippus, with the stream, is a bad recipe for felicity; there must be some fixed principle, by which the passions and desires may be regulated.
[20] He is careful to disclaim all participation in public affairs. He accompanies Mæcenas in his carriage; but their chat, he wishes it to be believed, is on the common topics of the day, the weather, amusements, etc. Though this may not be strictly true, it is yet probable that politics furnished but a small part of their conversation. That both Augustus and his minister were warmly attached to him, can not be denied; but then it was as to a plaything. In a word, Horace seems to have been the "enfant gaté," of the palace, and was viewed, I believe, with more tenderness than respect.
[21] Mr. Drummond has given this passage with equal elegance and truth:
"With greater art sly Horace gain'd his end,
But spared no failing of his smiling friend;
Sportive and pleasant round the heart he play'd,
And wrapt in jests the censure he convey'd;
With such address his willing victims seized,
That tickled fools were rallied, and were pleased."
[22] Dusaulx accounts for this by the general consternation. Most of those, he says, distinguished for talents or rank, took refuge in the school of Zeno; not so much to learn in it how to live, as how to die. I think, on the contrary, that this would rather have driven them into the arms of Epicurus. "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die," will generally be found, I believe, to be the maxim of dangerous times. It would not be difficult to show, if this were the place for it, that the prevalency of Stoicism was due to the increase of profligacy, for which it furnished a convenient cloak. This, however, does not apply to Persius.
[23] I believe that Juvenal meant to describe himself in the following spirited picture of Lucilius:
"Ense velut stricto quoties Lucilius ardens
Infremuit, rubet auditor, cui frigida mens est
Criminibus, tacita sudant præcordia culpa."
[24] This is an error which has been so often repeated, that it is believed. What liberty was destroyed by the usurpation of Augustus? For more than half a century, Rome had been a prey to ambitious chiefs, while five or six civil wars, each more bloody than the other, had successively delivered up the franchises of the empire to the conqueror of the day. The Gracchi first opened the career to ambition, and wanted nothing but the means of corruption, which the East afterward supplied, to effect what Marius, Sylla, and the two triumvirates brought about with sufficient ease.
[25] This is a very strange observation. It looks as if Dusaulx had leaped from the times of old Metellus to those of Augustus, without casting a glance at the interval. The chef d'œuvres of Roman literature were in every hand, when he supposed them to be neglected: and, indeed, if Horace had left us nothing, the qualities of which Dusaulx speaks might still be found in many works produced before he was known.
[26] I have often wished that we had some of the pleadings of Juvenal. It can not be affirmed, I think, that there is any natural connection between prose and verse in the same mind, though it may be observed, that most of our celebrated poets have written admirably "solutâ oratione:" yet if Juvenal's oratory bore any resemblance to his poetry, he yielded to few of the best ornaments of the bar. The "torrens dicendi copia" was his, in an eminent degree; nay, so full, so rich, so strong, and so magnificent is his eloquence, that I have heard one well qualified to judge, frequently declare that Cicero himself, in his estimation, could hardly be said to surpass him.
[27] With all my respect for the learning of the good old man, it is impossible, now and then, to suppress a smile at his simplicity. In apologizing for his translation, he says: "As for publishing poetry, it needs no defense; there being, if my Lord of Verulam's judgment shall be admitted, 'a divine rapture in it!'"
[28] He evidently alludes to the versions of the second and eighth Satires by Tate and Stepney, but principally to the latter, in which Juvenal illustrates his argument by the practice of Smithfield and Newmarket! Indeed, Dryden himself, though confessedly aware of its impropriety, is not altogether free from "innovation;" he talks of the Park, and the Mall, and the Opera, and of many other objects, familiar to the translator, but which the original writer could only know by the spirit of prophecy.
I am sensible how difficult it is to keep the manners of different ages perfectly distinct in a work like this: I have never knowingly confounded them, and, I trust, not often inadvertently; yet more occasions perhaps of exercising the reader's candor will appear, after all, than are desirable.
[29] Yet Johnson knew him well. The peculiarity of Juvenal, he says (vol. ix., p. 424), "is a mixture of gayety and stateliness, of pointed sentences, and declamatory grandeur." A good idea of it may be formed from his own beautiful imitation of the third Satire. His imitation of the tenth (still more beautiful as a poem) has scarcely a trait of the author's manner—that is to say, of that "mixture of gayety and stateliness," which, according to his own definition, constitutes the "peculiarity of Juvenal." "The Vanity of Human Wishes" is uniformly stately and severe, and without those light and popular strokes of sarcasm which abound so much in his "London."
[30] In the fourteenth Satire, for example, there is an omission of fifteen lines, and this, too, in a passage of singular importance.
[31] Sub-Dean and Prebendary of Westminster, and Vicar of Croydon, in Surrey.
[32] The architect of Eton Hall, Cheshire, a structure which even now stands pre-eminent among the works which embellish the nation, and which future times will contemplate with equal wonder and delight.