This, indeed, was not till some time after the date of this epistle. But we may guess from hence what must have been the tendency of the general disposition, and may see to how little effect the poet had laboured to divert the public attention from the Mimes to his reformed Atellanes.
251. Syllaba longa brevi, &c.] This whole critique on the satyrs concludes with some directions about the Iambic verse. When the commentary asserts, that this metre was common to tragedy and the satyrs, this is not to be taken strictly; the satyrs, in this respect, as in every other, sustaining a sort of intermediate character betwixt tragedy and comedy. For, accurately speaking, their proper measure, as the Grammarians teach, was the Iambic enlivened with the tribrachys. “Gaudent [Victor. l. ii. c. met. Iamb.] trisyllabo pede et maxime tribrache.” Yet there was likeness enough to consider this whole affair of the metre under the same head. The Roman dramatic writers were very careless in their versification, which arose, as is hinted, v. 259, from an immoderate and undistinguishing veneration of their old poets.
In conclusion of all that has been delivered on the subject of these satyrs, it may be amusing to the learned reader to hear a celebrated French critic express himself in the following manner: “Les Romains donnoient encore le nom de Satyre à une espece de Piece Pastorale; qui tenoit, dit on le milieu entre la Tragedie et la Comedie. C’est tout ce que nous en sçavons.” [Mem. de l’Hist. des Belles Lett. tom. xvii. p. 211.]
264. Et data Romanis venia est indigna poetis.] It appears certainly, that what is said here concerning the metre of dramatic poems, was peculiarly calculated for the correction of the Roman negligence, and inaccuracy in this respect. This, if it had not been so expresly told us, would have been seen from the few remaining fragments of the old Latin plays, in which a remarkable carelessness of numbers is observed. This gives a presumption, that, with the like advantage of consulting them, it would also appear, that the rest of the poet’s rules were directed to the same end, and that even such, as are delivered in the most absolute and general form, had a peculiar reference, agreeably to what is here taught of the plan of this poem, to the corresponding defects in the state of the Roman stage.
270. At vestri proavi Plautinos et numeros et Laudavere sales; nimium patienter utrumque, Ne dicam stulte, mirati;] It hath been thought strange, that Horace should pass so severe a censure on the wit of Plautus, which yet appeared to Cicero so admirable, that he speaks of it as elegans, urbanum, ingeniosum, facetum. [De Off. i. 29.] Nor can it be said, that this difference of judgment was owing to the improved delicacy of taste for wit, in the Augustan age, since it doth not appear, that Horace’s own jokes, when he attempts to divert us in this way, are at all better than Cicero’s.
The common answer, so far as it respects the poet, is, I believe, the true one: “that endeavouring to beat down the excessive veneration of the elder Roman poets, and, among the rest (as appears from 2 Ep. i. and A. P. 54.) of Plautus, he censures, without reserve, every the least defect in his writings; though, in general, he agreed with Cicero in admiring him.” But then this was all. For that he was not so over-nice as to dislike Plautus’ wit in the main, and, but in this view, probably had not criticized him at all, I collect from his express approbation of the wit of the old comedy; which certainly was not more delicate, than that of Plautus.
ridiculum acri
Fortius et melius magnas plerumque secat res.
Illi, scripta quibus comœdia prisca viris est,
Hoc stabant, HOC SUNT IMITANDI.
I S. x. 15.