I know not why such dread should be felt at approaching this Satire. The ashes of the ladies whose actions are here recorded, have long been covered by the Latin and Flaminian ways; nor have their follies, or their vices, much similarity with those of modern times. If there be any, however, who recognize themselves (for guilt is sometimes ingenuous) in the pictures here drawn, let them shudder in silence, and amend; while the rest gaze with a portion of indignant curiosity, on the representation of a profligate and abandoned race, not more distant in time, than in every virtue and accomplishment, from themselves.

It would seem from internal evidence, that this Satire was written under Domitian. It has few political allusions; and might not from its subject, perhaps, have been displeasing to that ferocious hypocrite, who affected, at various times, a wonderful anxiety to restrain the licentiousness of the age.

?

SATIRE VI.

TO URSIDIUS POSTHUMUS.

v. 1-6.

YES, I believe that CHASTITY was known,

And priz'd on earth, while Saturn fill'd the throne;
When rocks a bleak and scanty shelter gave,

When sheep and shepherds throng'd one common cave,
And when the mountain wife her couch bestrew'd

With skins of beasts, joint tenants of the wood,

VER. 5. And when the mountain wife, &c.] "That is," says Stapylton, "the wife that dwelt in the mountain before such time as the men, although they came down themselves, durst bring their wives into the level!" This is the strangest idea imaginable. The women here spoken of, were not very likely to create any fears on their account: they were not less bold and adventurous than the men, nay often, says the poet, more so.-But thus it is, when the author is thinking of one thing, and the translator of another. A few lines below, because Juvenal calls the children of these primeval women large, Madan tells us that they were suckled till they were near a hundred years

old!

This passage is charmingly imitated by Beaumont and Fletcher in their tragedy of Philaster:

Phil. O, that I had but digg'd myself a cave,
Where I, my fire, my cattle, and my bed

Y

And reeds, and leaves pluck'd from the neighbouring tree;

A woman, Cynthia, far unlike to thee,

Or thee, weak child of fondness and of fears,

Whose eyes a sparrow's death suffus'd with tears:
But strong, and reaching to her burly brood

Her big-swoll'n breasts, replete with wholesome food,
And rougher than her husband, gorg'd with mast,
And frequent belching from his coarse repast.
For when the world was new, the race that broke,
Unfather'd, from the soil, or opening oak,

Might have been shut together in one shed;
And then had taken me some mountain girl,
Beaten with winds, chaste as the harden'd rock,
Whereon she dwells; that might have strew'd my bed
With leaves and reeds, and with the skins of beasts,
Our neighbours; and have borne at her big breasts,
My large coarse issue.

Act. IV.

Thus did the reading of the old dramatists enable them to enrich their works with passages that charmed alike in the closet, and on the stage. The reading of the present race of Bartholomew-fair farce-mongers, seldom, I believe, extends, beyond the nursery, and their productions are in consequence of it, the disgrace of the one, and the contempt and aversion of the other.

VER. 9. Or thee, weak child of fondness, &c.] He means Lesbia, the mistress of Catullus, whose exquisite hendecasyllables on the death of her favourite sparrow are still extant. The lines to which Juvenal particularly alludes are these,

"O factum malè, O miselle passer,

"Tuâ nunc operâ meæ puellæ

"Flendo turgiduli rubent ocelli."

Cynthia, mentioned in the preceding line, was the mistress of Propertius. VER. 15. For when the world was new, &c.] Juvenal had Lucretius in his eye in this passage:

Liv'd most unlike the men of later times,
The puling brood of follies and of crimes.

Nay, after this, some trace perhaps, remain'd
Of chastity, while Jove usurping reign'd,
But while he yet was beardless; ere mankind
Learn'd by each others' heads their faith to bind,
Or, dreading theft, their gardens to immure;
And all was unenclos'd, and all secure.

At length Astrea, from these confines driven,
Regain'd, by slow degrees, her native heaven;

"Et genus humanum multo fuit illud in arvis
"Durius, ut decuit, tellus quod dura creasset;
"Et majoribus, &c."

Lib. v. 923.

It is not to be supposed, that he adopted the ideas of this Epicurean systemmonger with his words, and spoke his real sentiments here.-No; he had juster and more elevated notions of the origin of mankind; and in his 15th Satire, as Owen well observes, almost speaks the language of Holy Writ. But see the introduction.

VER. 21.

ere mankind,] In the original, "ere the Greeks," the standing objects of his dislike. Holyday has a long and learned note on this passage, which is worth consulting: though it is probable, after all, that the poet only meant, that in those days of innocence, men had not the trick, afterwards so common, of binding themselves by the most solemn asseverations to an untruth. It is well known, that the Greeks were as much talked of for their bad faith, as the Carthaginians, and, as some think, with much more reason; and that their usual form of oath was by another's head. I do not call the reader's attention to the contemptuous sneer at Jupiter in the preceding lines, because it must have pressed itself on his notice. To do the author justice, he treats the vices and follies of the popular divinities with as little ceremony as those of Nero or Domitian, or any other object of his abhorrence.

With her retir'd her sister in disgust,

And left the world to rapine, and to lust.

'Tis, my good friend, no modern vice, to slight
The sacred Genius of the nuptial rite,

And climb another's couch: all other crimes
Were the sad offspring of the iron times,
All but adultery; that, and that alone,
E'en in the silver age too well was known.
Yet thou, it seems, art labouring to engage
Thy witless neck, in this degenerate age!
E'en now thy hair the modish curl is taught
By master hands; e'en now the ring is bought;
E'en now-thou once, Ursidius, hadst thy wits;
But thus to talk of wiving! O, these fits-
What madness, prithee, has thy soul possest,
What snakes, what furies agitate thy breast?
Heavens, wilt thou tamely drag the galling chain,
While hemp is to be bought, while knives remain?
While windows woo thee so divinely high,

And Tiber, and the Æmilian bridge, are nigh?

VER. 25. At length Astrea, &c.] Juvenal seems to have had in view in this place, that beautiful passage of Hesiod Μηκετ' επειτ' ωφειλον, κ. τ. λ. of which the concluding lines form the more immediate subject of his imitation:

Και τοτε δη προς Ολυμπον απο χθονος ευρυοδείης,
Λευκοῖσιν φαρέεσσι καλυψαμένω χροα καλόν,
Αθανατων μετα φυλ ̓ ἴτην προλιποντ' ανθρωπος,
Αιδως καὶ Νεμεσις. Τα δε λέιψεται αλγεα λυγρα
Θνητοις ανθρωποισι· κακε δ' εκ εσσεται αλκη.

Ερ. καὶ Ημ. ν. 197.