Page images
PDF
EPUB

SATIRES AND EPISTLES

OF

HORACE

IMITATED.

Ludentis speciem dabit, et torquebitur*. HoR.

* This motto suited the free and easy manner of Horace; not the more solemn tones of his imitator. Pope told Mr. Spence, that he wrote this Imitation in two mornings, excellent as it is.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE Occasion of publishing these Imitations was the Clamour raised on some of my Epistles. An Answer from Horace was both more full, and of more

Dignity, than any I could have made in my own Person; and the Example of much greater Freedom in so eminent a Divine as Dr. Donne, seemed a proof with what indignation and contempt a Christian may treat Vice or Folly, in ever so low, or ever so high a Station. Both these Authors were acceptable to the Princes and Ministers under whom they lived. The Satires of Dr. Donne I versified, at the desire of the Earl of Oxford, while he was Lord Treasurer, and of the Duke of Shrewsbury, who had been Secretary of State; neither of whom looked upon a Satire on Vicious Courts as any Reflection on those they served in. And indeed there is not in the world a greater error, than that which Fools are so apt to fall into, and Knaves with good reason to encourage, the mistaking a Satirist for a Libeller; whereas to a true Satirist nothing is so odious as a Libeller, for the same reason as to a man truly virtuous nothing is so hateful as a Hypocrite.

Uni æquus Virtuti atque ejus Amicis. P.

Few Imitations of Horace are executed with more fidelity and spirit than that of the 1st Sat. of B. i. by Sir Brooke Boothby,

addressed to his amiable and poetical friend Dr. Darwin. "Had Horace wrote his Satires or Epistles in the same kind of numbers with Virgil's Æneid, it would have been a monstrous impropriety; like hunting the fox or the hare on a war-horse, with the equipage of a General at a review, or in the day of battle. He knew very well, that, in familiar writings, dignity of versification would be quite ridiculous."-Armstrong.

[blocks in formation]

a SUNT quibus in Satira videar nimis acer, et ultra Legem tendere opus; 'sine nervis altera, quidquid Composui, pars esse putat, similesque meorum

Mille die versus deduci

Quid faciam? præscribe.

posse.

Trebati,

NOTES.

Ver. 1. There are] "When I had a fever one winter in town," said Pope to Mr. Spence, "that confined me to my room for five or six days, Lord Bolingbroke came to see me, happened to take up a Horace that lay on the table, and, in turning it over, dipt on the first satire of the second book. He observed how well that would suit my case, if I were to imitate it in English. After he was gone, I read it over, translated it in a morning or two, and sent it to press in a week or fortnight after. And this was the occasion of my imitating some other of the Satires and Epistles." "To how casual a beginning," adds Spence, "we are obliged for the most delightful things in our language! When I was saying to him, that he had already imitated near a third part of Horace's satires and epistles, and how much it was to be wished that he would go on with them, he could not believe that he had gone so far; but, upon computing it, it appeared to be above a third. He seemed on this not disinclined to carry it farther; but his last illness was then growing upon him, and robbed us of him, and of all hopes of that kind, in a few months." Transcribed from Spence's Anecdotes; 1754.

No parts of our Author's Works have been more admired than those Imitations. The aptness of the allusions, and the happiness of many of the parallels, give a pleasure that is always no

SATIRE I.

TO MR. FORTESCUE.

P. THERE are (I scarce can think it, but am told), "There are, to whom my Satire seems too bold: Scarce to wise Peter complaisant enough, And something said of Chartres much to rough. The lines are weak, another's pleas'd to say, Lord Fanny spins a thousand such a day. Tim'rous by nature, of the Rich in awe,

I come to Council learned in the Law:

You'll give me, like a friend both sage and free,
Advice; and (as you use) without a Fee.

NOTES.

5

10

small one to the mind of a reader-the pleasure of comparison. He that has the least acquaintance with these pieces of Horace, which resemble the Old Comedy, immediately perceives, indeed, that our Author has assumed a higher tone, and frequently has deserted the free colloquial air, the insinuating Socratic manner, of his original: and that he clearly resembles in his style, as he did in his natural temper, the severe and serious Juvenal more than the smiling and sportive Horace. Let us select some passages in which he may be thought to have equalled, excelled, or fallen short of, the original; the latter of which cannot be deemed a disgrace to our Poet, or to any other writer, if we consider the extreme difficulty of transfusing into another language the subtle beauties of Horace's dignified familiarity, and the uncommon union of so much facility and force.

Ver. 10. Advice; and, as you use,] Horace, with much seeming seriousness, applies for advice to the celebrated Roman lawyer C. Trebatius Testa, an intimate friend of Julius Cæsar, and of

« PreviousContinue »