Thus far, my lord, you see it has gone very hard with Persius: I think he cannot be allowed to stand in competition either with Juvenal or Horace. Yet for once I will venture to be so vain, as to affirm, that none of his hard metaphors, or forced expressions, are in my translation. But more of this in its proper place, where I shall say somewhat in particular, of our general performance, in making these two authors English. In the mean time, I think myself obliged to give Persius his undoubted due, and to acquaint the world, with Casaubon, in what he has equalled, and in what excelled, his two competitors.
A man who is resolved to praise an author, with any appearance of justice, must be sure to take him on the strongest side, and where he is least liable to exceptions. He is therefore obliged to chuse his mediums accordingly. Casaubon, who saw that Persius could not laugh with a becoming grace, that he was not made for jesting, and that a merry conceit was not his talent, turned his feather, like an Indian, to another light, that he might give it the better gloss. Moral doctrine, says he, and urbanity, or well-mannered wit, are the two things which constitute the Roman satire; but of the two, that which is most essential to this poem, and is, as it were, the very soul which animates it, is the scourging of vice, and exhortation to virtue. Thus wit, for a good reason, is already almost out of doors; and allowed only for an instrument, a kind of tool, or a weapon, as he calls it, of which the satirist makes use in the compassing of his design. The end and aim of our three rivals is consequently the same. But by what methods they have prosecuted their intention, is farther to be considered. Satire is of the nature of moral philosophy, as being instructive: he, therefore, who instructs most usefully, will carry the palm from his two antagonists. The philosophy in which Persius was educated, and which he professes through his whole book, is the Stoick; the most noble, most generous, most beneficial to human kind, amongst all the sects, who have given us the rules of ethics, thereby to form a severe virtue in the soul; to raise in us an undaunted courage against the assaults of fortune; to esteem as nothing the things that are without us, because they are not in our power; not to value riches, beauty, honours, fame, or health, any farther than as conveniencies, and so many helps to living as we ought, and doing good in our generation: in short, to be always happy, while we possess our minds with a good conscience, are free from the slavery of vices, and conform our actions and conversations to the rules of right reason. See here, my lord, an epitome of Epictetus; the doctrine of Zeno, and the education of our Persius: and this he expressed, not only in all his satires, but in the manner of his life. I will not lessen this commendation of the Stoick philosophy, by giving you an account of some absurdities in their doctrine, and some perhaps impieties, if we consider them by the standard of christian faith. Persius has fallen into none of them; and therefore is free from those imputations. What he teaches might be taught from pulpits, with more profit to the audience, than all the nice speculations of divinity, and controversies concerning faith; which are more for the profit of the shepherd, than for the edification of the flock. Passions, interest, ambition, and all their bloody consequences of discord, and of war, are banished from this doctrine. Here is nothing proposed but the quiet and tranquillity of the mind; virtue lodged at home, and afterwards diffused in her general effects, to the improvement and good of human kind. And therefore I wonder not that the present Bishop of Salisbury[34] has recommended this our author, and the Tenth Satire of Juvenal, in his Pastoral Letter, to the serious perusal and practice of the divines in his diocese, as the best common-places for their sermons, as the store-houses and magazines of moral virtues, from whence they may draw out, as they have occasion, all manner of assistance for the accomplishment of a virtuous life, which the stoicks have assigned for the great end and perfection of mankind. Herein then it is, that Persius has excelled both Juvenal and Horace. He sticks to his own philosophy; he shifts not sides, like Horace, who is sometimes an Epicurean, sometimes a Stoick, sometimes an Eclectic, as his present humour leads him; nor declaims like Juvenal against vices, more like an orator, than a philosopher. Persius is every where the same; true to the dogmas of his master. What he has learnt, he teaches vehemently; and what he teaches, that he practises himself. There is a spirit of sincerity in all he says; you may easily discern that he is in earnest, and is persuaded of that truth which he inculcates. In this I am of opinion that he excels Horace, who is commonly in jest, and laughs while he instructs; and is equal to Juvenal, who was as honest and serious as Persius, and more he could not be.
Hitherto I have followed Casaubon, and enlarged upon him, because I am satisfied that he says no more than truth; the rest is almost all frivolous. For he says that Horace, being the son of a tax-gatherer, or a collector, as we call it, smells every where of the meanness of his birth and education: his conceipts are vulgar, like the subjects of his satires; that he does plebeium sapere, and writes not with that elevation, which becomes a satirist: that Persius, being nobly born, and of an opulent family, had likewise the advantage of a better master; Cornutus being the most learned of his time, a man of the most holy life, the chief of the Stoick sect at Rome, and not only a great philosopher, but a poet himself, and in probability a coadjutor of Persius: that, as for Juvenal, he was long a declaimer, came late to poetry, and has not been much conversant in philosophy.
It is granted that the father of Horace was libertinus, that is, one degree removed from his grandfather, who had been once a slave. But Horace, speaking of him, gives him the best character of a father, which I ever read in history; and I wish a witty friend of mine, now living, had such another.[35] He bred him in the best school, and with the best company of young noblemen; and Horace, by his gratitude to his memory, gives a certain testimony that his education was ingenuous. After this, he formed himself abroad, by the conversation of great men. Brutus found him at Athens, and was so pleased with him, that he took him thence into the army, and made him tribunus militum, a colonel in a legion, which was the preferment of an old soldier. All this was before his acquaintance with Mecænas, and his introduction into the court of Augustus, and the familiarity of that great emperor; which, had he not been well-bred before, had been enough to civilize his conversation, and render him accomplished and knowing in all the arts of complacency and good behaviour; and, in short, an agreeable companion for the retired hours and privacies of a favourite, who was first minister. So that, upon the whole matter, Persius may be acknowledged to be equal with him in those respects, though better born, and Juvenal inferior to both. If the advantage be any where, it is on the side of Horace; as much as the court of Augustus Cæsar was superior to that of Nero. As for the subjects which they treated, it will appear hereafter, that Horace writ not vulgarly on vulgar subjects, nor always chose them. His style is constantly accommodated to his subject, either high or low. If his fault be too much lowness, that of Persius is the fault of the hardness of his metaphors, and obscurity: and so they are equal in the failings of their style; where Juvenal manifestly triumphs over both of them.
The comparison betwixt Horace and Juvenal is more difficult; because their forces were more equal. A dispute has always been, and ever will continue, betwixt the favourers of the two poets. Non nostrum est tantas componere lites. I shall only venture to give my own opinion, and leave it for better judges to determine. If it be only argued in general, which of them was the better poet, the victory is already gained on the side of Horace. Virgil himself must yield to him in the delicacy of his turns, his choice of words, and perhaps the purity of his Latin. He who says that Pindar is inimitable, is himself inimitable in his Odes. But the contention betwixt these two great masters, is for the prize of Satire; in which controversy, all the Odes and Epodes of Horace are to stand excluded. I say this, because Horace has written many of them satyrically, against his private enemies; yet these, if justly considered, are somewhat of the nature of the Greek Silli, which were invectives against particular sects and persons. But Horace has purged himself of this choler, before he entered on those discourses, which are more properly called the Roman Satire. He has not now to do with a Lyce, a Canidia, a Cassius Severus, or a Menas; but is to correct the vices and the follies of his time, and to give the rules of a happy and virtuous life. In a word, that former sort of satire, which is known in England by the name of lampoon, is a dangerous sort of weapon, and for the most part unlawful. We have no moral right on the reputation of other men. It is taking from them what we cannot restore to them. There are only two reasons, for which we may be permitted to write lampoons; and I will not promise that they can always justify us. The first is revenge, when we have been affronted in the same nature, or have been any ways notoriously abused, and can make ourselves no other reparation. And yet we know, that, in christian charity, all offences are to be forgiven, as we expect the like pardon for those which we daily commit against Almighty God. And this consideration has often made me tremble when I was saying our Saviour's prayer; for the plain condition of the forgiveness which we beg, is the pardoning of others the offences which they have done to us; for which reason I have many times avoided the commission of that fault, even when I have been notoriously provoked. Let not this, my lord, pass for vanity in me; for it is truth. More libels have been written against me, than almost any man now living; and I had reason on my side, to have defended my own innocence. I speak not of my poetry, which I have wholly given up to the critics: let them use it as they please: posterity, perhaps, may be more favourable to me; for interest and passion will lie buried in another age, and partiality and prejudice be forgotten. I speak of my morals, which have been sufficiently aspersed: that only sort of reputation ought to be dear to every honest man, and is to me. But let the world witness for me, that I have been often wanting to myself in that particular; I have seldom answered any scurrilous lampoon, when it was in my power to have exposed my enemies: and, being naturally vindicative, have suffered in silence, and possessed my soul in quiet.
Any thing, though never so little, which a man speaks of himself, in my opinion, is still too much; and therefore I will wave this subject, and proceed to give the second reason which may justify a poet when he writes against a particular person; and that is, when he is become a public nuisance. All those, whom Horace in his Satires, and Persius and Juvenal have mentioned in theirs, with a brand of infamy, are wholly such. It is an action of virtue to make examples of vicious men. They may and ought to be upbraided with their crimes and follies; both for their amendment, if they are not yet incorrigible, and for the terror of others, to hinder them from falling into those enormities, which they see are so severely punished in the persons of others. The first reason was only an excuse for revenge; but this second is absolutely of a poet's office to perform: but how few lampooners are now living, who are capable of this duty![36] When they come in my way, it is impossible sometimes to avoid reading them. But, good God! how remote they are, in common justice, from the choice of such persons as are the proper subject of satire! And how little wit they bring for the support of their injustice! The weaker sex is their most ordinary theme; and the best and fairest are sure to be the most severely handled. Amongst men, those who are prosperously unjust, are entitled to panegyric; but afflicted virtue is insolently stabbed with all manner of reproaches; no decency is considered, no fulsomeness omitted; no venom is wanting, as far as dulness can supply it: for there is a perpetual dearth of wit; a barrenness of good sense and entertainment. The neglect of the readers will soon put an end to this sort of scribbling. There can be no pleasantry where there is no wit; no impression can be made, where there is no truth for the foundation. To conclude: they are like the fruits of the earth in this unnatural season; the corn which held up its head is spoiled with rankness; but the greater part of the harvest is laid along, and little of good income and wholesome nourishment is received into the barns. This is almost a digression, I confess to your lordship; but a just indignation forced it from me. Now I have removed this rubbish, I will return to the comparison of Juvenal and Horace.
I would willingly divide the palm betwixt them, upon the two heads of profit and delight, which are the two ends of poetry in general. It must be granted, by the favourers of Juvenal, that Horace is the more copious and profitable in his instructions of human life; but, in my particular opinion, which I set not up for a standard to better judgements, Juvenal is the more delightful author. I am profited by both, I am pleased with both; but I owe more to Horace for my instruction, and more to Juvenal for my pleasure. This, as I said, is my particular taste of these two authors: they who will have either of them to excel the other in both qualities, can scarce give better reasons for their opinion than I for mine. But all unbiassed readers will conclude, that my moderation is not to be condemned: to such impartial men I must appeal; for they who have already formed their judgment, may justly stand suspected of prejudice; and though all who are my readers will set up to be my judges, I enter my caveat against them, that they ought not so much as to be of my jury; or, if they be admitted, it is but reason that they should first hear what I have to urge in the defence of my opinion.
That Horace is somewhat the better instructor of the two, is proved from hence,—that his instructions are more general, Juvenal's more limited. So that, granting that the counsels which they give are equally good for moral use, Horace, who gives the most various advice, and most applicable to all occasions which can occur to us in the course of our lives,—as including in his discourses, not only all the rules of morality, but also of civil conversation,—is undoubtedly to be preferred to him who is more circumscribed in his instructions, makes them to fewer people, and on fewer occasions, than the other. I may be pardoned for using an old saying, since it is true, and to the purpose: Bonum quò communis, eò melius. Juvenal, excepting only his first Satire, is in all the rest confined to the exposing of some particular vice; that he lashes, and there he sticks. His sentences are truly shining and instructive; but they are sprinkled here and there. Horace is teaching us in every line, and is perpetually moral: he had found out the skill of Virgil, to hide his sentences; to give you the virtue of them, without shewing them in their full extent; which is the ostentation of a poet, and not his art: and this Petronius charges on the authors of his time, as a vice of writing which was then growing on the age: ne sententiæ extra corpus orationis emineant: he would have them weaved into the body of the work, and not appear embossed upon it, and striking directly on the reader's view. Folly was the proper quarry of Horace, and not vice; and as there are but few notoriously wicked men, in comparison with a shoal of fools and fops, so it is a harder thing to make a man wise than to make him honest; for the will is only to be reclaimed in the one, but the understanding is to be informed in the other. There are blind sides and follies, even in the professors of moral philosophy; and there is not any one sect of them that Horace has not exposed: which, as it was not the design of Juvenal, who was wholly employed in lashing vices, some of them the most enormous that can be imagined, so, perhaps, it was not so much his talent.
Omne vafer vitium ridenti Flaccus amico
Tangit, et admissus circum præcordia ludit.
This was the commendation which Persius gave him: where, by vitium, he means those little vices which we call follies, the defects of human understanding, or, at most, the peccadillos of life, rather than the tragical vices, to which men are hurried by their unruly passions and exorbitant desires. But, in the word omne, which is universal, he concludes with me, that the divine wit of Horace left nothing untouched; that he entered into the inmost recesses of nature; found out the imperfections even of the most wise and grave, as well as of the common people; discovering, even in the great Trebatius, to whom he addresses the first Satire, his hunting after business, and following the court, as well as in the persecutor Crispinus, his impertinence and importunity. It is true, he exposes Crispinus openly, as a common nuisance; but he rallies the other, as a friend, more finely. The exhortations of Persius are confined to noblemen; and the stoick philosophy is that alone which he recommends to them; Juvenal exhorts to particular virtues, as they are opposed to those vices against which he declaims; but Horace laughs to shame all follies, and insinuates virtue, rather by familiar examples than by the severity of precepts.