If, with thy guards, thou fcourt the Atreets by night,
And dok in murders, rapes, and spoils delight;
Picafe not thyself, the flattering crowd to hear;
Tis fulfome ftuff to feed thy itching ear.
Reject, the nauseous praifts of the times:
Give thy bafe poets back thy cobbled rhimes:
Survey thy foul, not what thou doft appear,
But what thou art, and find the beggar there.

THE

THE judicious Cafaubon, in his proem to this fatire, tells us, that Ariftophanes the grammarian being afked, what poem of Archilochus's Iambics he preferred before the reft; anfwered, the longeft. His answer may juftly be applied to this fifth fatire; which, being of a greater length than any of the reft, is alfo, by far, the most inftructive : for this reafon I have felected it from all the others, and infcribed it to my learned mafter, Doctor Bulby; to whom I am not only obliged myself for the best part of my own education, and that of my two fons; but have alfo received from him the first and trueft tafte of Perfius. May he be pleased to find in this tranflation, the gratitude, or at leaft fome fmall acknowledgment of his unworthy fcholar, at the

distance of twenty-four years, from the time when I departed from under his tuition.

This fatire confits of two diftin& parts: the firft contains the praifes of the ftcick philofopher Cornutus, matter and tutor to our Pertus. It alfo declares the love and piety of Pertius, to his well-deferving matter; and the mutual friendship which continued betwixt them, after Peruus was now grown a man. As alfo his exhortation to young noblemen, that they would enter themfelves into his inftitution. From whence he makes an artful tranfition into the fecond part of his fubject: wherein he first complains of the floth of fcholars, and afterwards perfuades them to the puriuit of their true liberty: Here our author excellently treats that paradox of the Stoicks, which affirms, that only the wife or virtucus man is free; and that all vicious men are naturally flaves. And, in the illuftration of this dogma, he takes up the remaining part of this inimitable fatire.

THE

THE FIFTH SATIRE.

Infcribed to the Reverend Dr. BUSBY.

The Speakers PERSIUS and CORNUTU s.

PERSIUS.

F ancient ufe to poets it belongs,

OF

To with themselves an hundred mouths and tongues :

Whether to the well lung'd tragedian's rage

They recommend the labours of the stage,
Or fing the Parthian, when transfix'd he lies,
Wrenching the Roman javelin from his thighs.

CORNUTUS.

And why would'ft thou thefe mighty morfels chufe, Of words unchew'd, and fit to choak the Mufe?

Let fuftian poets, with their stuff, be gone,
And fuck the mists that hang o'er Helicon;
When Progne or Thyestes' feast they write;
And, for the mouthing actor, verse indite.
Thou neither, like a bellows, fwell'ft thy face,
As if thou wert to blow the burning mafs

Of melting ore; nor canst thou ftrain thy throat,
Or murmur in an undistinguish'd note,

Like rolling thunder till it breaks the cloud,
And rattling nonfenfe is discharg`d aloud.
Soft elocution does' thy ftyle renown,

And the sweet accents of the peaceful gown :

Get

Another shakes the bed, diffolving there,
Till knots upon his gouty joint appear,
And chalk is in his crippled fingers found;
Rots like a doddard oak, and piecemeal falls to ground;
Then his lewd follies he would late repent;

And his past years, that in a mift were spent.
PERSIUS.

But thou art pale, in nightly studies, grown,
To make the stoick inftitutes thy own :

Thou long with studious care haft till'd our youth,
And sown our well-purg'd ears with wholesome truth.
From thee both old and young, with profit, learn
The bounds of good and evil to difcern.
CORNUTUS.

Unhappy he who does this work adjourn,
And to to-morrow would the search delay :
His lazy morrow will be like to-day.

PERSIUS.

But is one day of ease too much to borrow?
CORNUTUS.

Yes, fure: for yesterday was once to-morrow.
That yesterday is gone, and nothing gain'd:
And all thy fruitless days will thus be drain'd;
For thou hast more to-morrows yet to ask,
And wilt be ever to begin thy task;

Who, like the hindmost chariot-wheels, art curft,
Still to be near, but ne'er to reach the first.
dom! first delight of human kind!

t which bondmen from their mafters find,

The