of his author's blind-side, thinks it time to abandon a post that was untenable. He acknowledges that Persius is obscure in some places; but so is Plato, so is Thucydides; so are Pindar, Theocritus, and Aristophanes, amongst the Greek poets; and even Horace and Juvenal, he might have added, amongst the Romans. The truth is, Persius is not sometimes, but generally, obscure; and therefore Casaubon at last is forced to excuse him, by alleging that it was se defendendo, for fear of Nero, and that he was commanded to write so cloudily by Cornutus,' in virtue of holy obedience to his master. I cannot help my own opinion; I think Cornutus needed not to have read many lectures to him on that subject. Persius was an apt scholar; and when he was bidden to be obscure, in some places, where his life and safety were in question, took the same counsel for all his book; and never afterwards wrote ten lines together clearly. Casaubon, being upon this chapter, has not failed, we may be sure, of making a compliment to his own dear comment. If Persius, says he, be in himself obscure, yet my interpretation has made him intelligible. There is no question but he deserves that praise which he has given to himself; but the nature of the thing, as Lucretius says, will not admit of a perfect explanation. Besides many examples which I could

.3 A stoick philosopher, whom Persius has highly extolled in his fifth Satire. Cornutus was his preceptor, and revised his Satires, before they were given to the publick.

urge, the very last verse of his last Satire, upon which he particularly values himself in his Preface, is not yet sufficiently explicated. It is true, Holyday has endeavoured to justify his construction; but Stelluti is against it: and, for my part, I can have but a very dark notion of it. As for the chastity of his thoughts, Casaubon denies not but that one particular passage in the fourth Satire, At, si unctus cesses, &c. is not only the most obscure, but the most obscene of all his works. I understood it: but for that reason turned it over. In defence of his boisterous metaphors, he quotes Longinus, who accounts them as instruments of the sublime, fit to move and stir up the affections, particularly in narration. To which it may be replied, that where the trope is far-fetched and hard, it is fit for nothing but to puzzle the understanding, and may be reckoned amongst those things of Demosthenes, which Eschines called Daípara, not jhuara, that is, prodigies, not words. It must be granted to Casaubon, that the knowledge of many things is lost in our modern ages, which were of familiar notice to the ancients; and that satire is a poem of a difficult nature in itself, and is not written to vulgar readers: and, through the relation which it has to comedy, the frequent change of persons makes the sense perplexed, when we can but divine who it is that speaks; whether Persius himself, or his friend and monitor, or, in some places, a third person. But Casaubon comes back always to himself, and concludes, that

if Persius had not been obscure, there had been no need of him for an interpreter. Yet when he had once enjoined himself so hard a task, he then considered the Greek proverb, that he must xxvns Payεïv, ŵ μù Pay, either eat the whole snail, or let it quite alone; and so he went through with his laborious task, as I have done with my difficult translation.

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 choose 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,

4

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 ethicks; 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 conveniences, 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 conversation 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. Passion, 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 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 commonplaces for their sermons, as the storehouses and magazines of moral virtues, from

• Dr. Burnet.