Not all thy pincers, nor unmanly arts,
Can smooth the roughness of thy shameful parts.
Not five, the strongest that the Circus breeds,
From the rank foil can root those wicked weeds :
Though suppled first with soap, to ease thy pain, .
The stubborn fern springs up, and sprouts again.

Thus others we with defamations wound,
While they stab us; and so the jest goes round.
Vain are thy hopes, to 'scape cenforious eyes;
Truth will appear through all the thin disguise :
Thou hast an ulcer which no leech can heal,
Though thy broad shoulder-belt the wound conceal.
Say thou art found and hale in

every part,
We know, we know thee rotten at thy heart;
We know thee sullen, impotent, and proud:
Nor canst thou cheat thy nerve, who cheat'st the croud.

But when they praise me, in the neighbourhood,
When the pleas'd people take me for a God,
Shall I refuse their incense? Not receive
The loud applauses which the vulgar give?

If thou dost wealth, with longing eyes, behold;
And, greedily, art gaping after gold;
If some alluring girl, in gliding by,
Shal tip the wink, with a lascivious eye,
And thou with a consenting glance, reply;
If thou thy own solicitor become,
And bid'st arise the lumpish pendulum :
If thy lewd lust provokes an empty storm,
And prompts to more than nature can perform ;

}

If, with thy guards, thou scour'st the streets by night,
And doft in murders, rapes, and spoils delight;
Please not thyself, the flattering crowd to hear;
'Tis fulsome stuff to feed thy itching ear.
Reject the nauseous praises of the times :
Give thy base poets back thy cobbled rhimes :
Survey thy soul, not what thou doit appear,
But what thou art; and find the beggar there,

THE

THE judicious Casaubon, in his proem to this satire,

tells' us, that Aristophanes the grammarian being asked, what poem of Archilochus's Iambics he preferred before the rest; answered, the longest. His answer may justly be applied to this fifth fatire; which, being of a greater length than any of the rest, is also, by far, the most instructive : for this reason I have selected it from all the others, and inscribed it to my learned master, Doctor Bulby; to whom I am not only obliged myself for the best

iny own education, and that of my two sons ; but have also received from him the first and trueft taste of Persius. May he be pleased to find in this translation, the gratitude, or at least some small acknowledgment of his unworthy scholar, at the

distance

part of

ZA

distance of twenty-four years, from the time when

I departed from under his tuition. This satire confifts of two distinct parts: the first con

tains the praises of the stoick philofopher Cornutus, master and tutor to our Persius. It also declares the love and piety of Perlius, to his well-deserving master; and the mutual friendship which continued betwixt them, after Persius was now grown a man. As also his exhortation to young noblemen, that they would enter themselves into his institution. From whence he makes an artful transition into the second part of his subject: wherein he first complains of the soth of scholars, and afterwards persuades them to the pursuit of their true liberty: Here our author excellently treats that paradox of the Stoicks, which affirms, that only the wife or virtuous man is free; and that all vicious men are naturally saves. And, in the illustration of this dogma, he takes up the remaining part of this inimitable fatire.

THE

THE FIFTH SATIRE.

Inscribed to the Reverend Dr. BUSBY.

The Speakers PER ŠIUS and CORNUTU S.

PERSIUS.

OF

F ancient use to poets it belongs,
To wish themselves an hundred mouths and

tongues :
Whether to the well lung'd tragedian's rage
They recommend the labours of the stage,
Or sing the Parthian, when transfix'd he lies,
Wrenching the Roman javelin froin his thighs.

CORNUTUS.
And why would'st thou these mighty morsels chuse,
Of words unchew'd, and fit to choak the Muse ?
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, swell'st thy face,
As if thou wert to blow the burning mass
Of melting ore; nor canst thou strain thy throat,
Or murmur in an undistinguish'd note,
Like rolling thunder till it breaks the cloud,
And rattling nonsense is discharg'd aloud.
Soft elocution does thy style renown,
And the sweet accents of the peaceful gown :

Gentle