Nor, much in the same vein, was he indisposed occasionally for a gentle kind of satire, as in the following vigorous paraphrase, which some readers may perhaps be surprised to find falling from the pen of Watts. “When I meet with persons,” he says, “of a worldly character, they bring to my mind some scraps of Horace:”
“Nos numerus sumus, et fruges consumere nati,
Alcinoique juventus
Cui pulchrum fuit in medios dormire dies,” etc.
Paraphrase.
There are a number of us creep
Into this world, to eat and sleep;
And know no reason why they’re born,
But merely to consume the corn,
Devour the cattle, fowl, and fish,