Would't thou, to run the gauntlet, these expofe
To a whole company of hob-nail'd fhoes?
Sure the good-breeding of wife citizens.

Should teach them more good-nature to their fhins.
Befides, whom canft thou think fo much thy friend,
Who dares appear thy businefs to defend ?
Dry up thy tears, and pocket up th' abuse,
Nor put thy friend to make a bad excuse:
The judge cries out, Your evidence produce.
Will he, who faw the foldier's mutton-fift,
And faw thee maul'd, appear within the lift,
To witness truth? When I fee one fo brave,
The dead, think I, are rifen from the grave;
And with their long spade beards, and matted hair,
Our honeft ancestors are come to take the air.
Against a clown, with more fecurity,

A witness may be brought to fwear a lye,
Than, though his evidence be full and fair,
To vouch a truth against a man of war.
More benefits remain, and claim'd as rights,
Which are a standing army's perquifites.
If any rogue vexatious fuits advance
Against me for my known inheritance,

Enter by violence my fruitful grounds,

Or take the facred land-mark from my bounds,
Those bounds, which with poffeffion and with prayerį
And offer'd cakes, have been my annual care :
Or if my debtors do not keep their day,
Deny their hands, and then refuse to pay;
I must, with patience, all the terms attend,
Among the common caufes that depend,

Till mine is call'd; and that long look'd-for day
Is ftill encumber'd with fome new delay:
Perhaps the cloth of ftate is only spread,
Some of the quorum may be fick a-bed;

That judge is hot, and doffs his gown, while this
O'er night was bowfy, and goes out to pifs:
So many rubs appear, the time is gone

For hearing, and the tedious fuit goes on:
But buff and belt-men never know thefe cares,
No time, nor trick of law their action bars:
Their caufe they to an easier iffue put :
They will be heard, or they lug out, and cut.
Another branch of their revenue ftill

Remains, beyond their boundless right to kill,
Their father, yet alive, impower'd to make a will.
For, what their prowefs gain'd, the law declares
Is to themselves alone, and to their heirs :
No fhare of that goes back to the begetter,
But if the fon fights well, and plunders better,
Like ftout Coranus, his old fhaking fire
Does a remembrance in his will defire:
Inquifitive of fights, and longs in vain
To find him in the number of the flain:
But ftill he lives, and rifing by the war,
Enjoys his gains, and has enough to spare:
For 'tis a noble general's prudent part

To cherish valour, and reward defert:

Let him be daub'd with lace, live high, and whore; Sometimes be loufy, but be never poor.

TRANS

TRANSLATIONS

FROM

PERSI U S.

VO L. VII.

X

THE defign of the author was to conceal his name and quality. He lived in the dangerous times of the tyrant Nero; and aims particularly at him in most of his fatires. For which reafon, though he was a Roman knight, and of a plentiful fortune, he would appear in this prologue but a beggarly poet, who writes for bread. After this, he breaks into the bufinefs of the firft fatire; which is chiefly to decry the poetry then in fashion, and the impudence of those who were endeavouring to pass their stuff upon the world.