For like their mouldering tenants, tombs decay, |So Xerxes sped; so speed the conquering race; They catch at glory, and they clasp disgrace.

With stripes ne'er suffered by the Eolian god-Hence, perhaps, the notion in after times, that it was im

JUVENAL.

INVITATION TO PERSICUS, WITH A PICTURE OF And both were born on my estate, and one

THE POET'S OWN DOMESTIC ECONOMY.
ENOUGH: to-day my Persicus shall see
Whether my precepts with my life agree;
Whether, with feign'd austerity, I prize
The spare repast, a glutton in disguise!
Bawl for coarse pottage, that my friends may hear,
But whisper "turtle!" in my servant's ear.
For since, by promise, you are now my guest,
Know, I invite you to no sumptuous feast,
But to such simple fare, as long, long since,
The good Evander gave the Trojan prince.*
Come then, my friend, you will not, sure, despise
The food, that pleas'd an offspring of the skies;
Come, and, while fancy brings past times to view,
I'll think myself the king, the hero you.

Take now your bill of fare: my simple board
Is with no dainties from the market stor'd,
From Tibur's stock,
But dishes, all my own.

A kid shall come, the fattest of the flock,
With more of milk than blood; and pullets drest
With new-laid eggs, yet tepid from the nest,
And sperage wild, which, from the mountain's
side,

My housemaid left her spindle to provide;
And grapes long kept, yet pulpy still, and fair,
And the rich Signian, and the Syrian pear;
And apples, that, in flavour and in smell,
The boasted Picene equal or excel;
Nor need you fear, my friend, their liberal use,
For age has mellow'd and improv'd their juice.

How homely this! and yet this homely fare
A senator would once have counted rare;
When the good Curius thought it no disgrace
O'er a few sticks a little pot to place,
With herbs by his small garden-plot supplied-
Food which the squalid wretch would now deride,
Who digs in fetters, and, with fond regret,
The tavern's savoury dish remembers yet.

To me for ever be the guest unknown,
Who, measuring my expenses by his own,
Remarks the difference with a scornful leer,
And slights my humble house and homely cheer.
Look not to me for ivory; I have none:
My chess-board and my men are all of bone;
Nay, my knife-handles; yet, my friend, for this,
My pullets neither cut nor taste amiss.

I boast no artist, tutor'd in the school
Of learned Trypherus, to carve by rule:†
My simple lad, whose highest efforts rise
To broil a steak, in the plain country guise,
Knows no such art; humbly content to serve,
And bring the dishes which he cannot kerve.
Another lad (for I have two to-day)

Clad, like the first, in home-spun russet gray,
Shall fill our earthen bowls: no Phrygian he,
No pamper'd attribute of luxury,

But a rude rustic;-when you want him, speak,
And speak in Latin, for he knows no Greek.
Both go alike, with close-cropp'd hair, undrest,
But spruced to-day in honour of my guest;

523

Is my rough shepherd's, one my neatherd's son.
Poor youth! he mourns, with many an artless

tear,

His long, long absence from his mother dear;
Sighs for his little cottage, and would fain
Meet his old playfellows, the goats, again.
Though humble be his birth, ingenuous grace
Beams from his eye, and flushes in his face;
Charming suffusion! that would well become
The youthful offspring of the chiefs of Rome.-
He, Persicus, shall fill us wine, that grew
Where first the breath of life the stripling drew,
On Tibur's hills: dear hills, that, many a day,
Witness'd the transports of his infant play.

But you, perhaps, expect a wanton throng
Of Gaditanian girls, with dance and song,
To kindle loose desire; girls that now bound
Aloft, with active grace, now, on the ground
round.-
Quivering alight, while peals of praise go
Such vicious fancies are too great for me:
Let him the wanton dance, unblushing, see,
And hear the immodest terms, which, in the

stews,

The veriest strumpet would disdain to use;
Whose drunken spawlings roll, tumultuous, o'er
The proud expansion of a marble floor:
For there the world a large allowance make,
And spare the folly for the fortune's sake.-
Dice and adultery, with a small estate,
Are damning crimes, but venial with a great;
Venial? nay, graceful: witty, gallant, brave,
And such wild tricks "as gentlemen should
have."

My feast, to-day, shall other joys afford :—
Hush'd, as we sit around the frugal board,
Great Homer shall his deep-toned thunder roll,
And mighty Maro elevate the soul;

Maro, who, warm'd with all the poet's fire,
Disputes the palm of victory with his sire.
Come then, my friend, an hour of pleasure spare,
And quit awhile your business and your care;
The day is all our own.*-

FROM SATIRE XIII.-ADVANTAGES OF WISDOM
AND EXPERIENCE.-EXTREME WICKEDNDSS OF
THE AGE.

WISDOM, I know, contains a sovereign charm,
To vanquish Fortune, or at least disarm:
Blest they who walk by her unerring rule!-
Nor those unblest, who, tutor'd in life's school,
Have learn'd of old experience to submit,
And lightly bear the yoke they cannot quit.

What day so sacred, which no guilt profanes,
No secret fraud, no open rapine, stains?
What hour, in which no dark assassins prowl,
Nor point the sword for hire, nor drug the bowl?

In a similar spirit, our Milton addresses his friend,
Henry Lawrence :-

What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice,
Of Attic taste, with wine, whence we may rise
To hear the lute well touch'd, or artful voice
Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air?
He, who of those delights can judge, and spare
To interpose them oft, is not unwise.

THE GOOD, ALAS, ARE FEW! "The valued file,"
Less than the gates of Thebes, the mouths of
Nile!

Illumin'd by thy beam, Revenge we find The abject pleasure of an abject mind, And hence so dear to poor, weak womankind.* For now an age is come, that teems with crimes, But why are those, Calvinus, thought to scape

Beyond all precedent of former times;

An age so bad, that Nature cannot frame
A metal base enough to give it name.

ATHEISTS AND SCEPTICS.

THERE are, who think that chance is all in all,
That no First Cause directs the eternal ball;
But that brute Nature, in her blind career,
Varies the seasons, and brings round the year:
These rush to every shrine with equal ease,
And, owning none, swear by what Power they
please.

Others believe, and but believe, a God,
And think that punishment may follow fraud;
Yet they forswear, and, reasoning on the deed,
Thus reconcile their actions with their creed:
"Let Isis storm, if to revenge inclin'd,

And, with her angry sistrum, strike me blind,*
So, with my eyes, she ravish not my ore,
But let me keep the pledge that I forswore.
Are putrid sores, catarrhs that seldom kill,
And crippled limbs, forsooth, so great an ill?
Ladas, if not stark mad, would change, no doubt,
His flying feet for riches and the gout;
For what do those procure him? Mere renown,

And the starv'd honour of an olive crown.

“But grant the wrath of Heaven be great; 'tis

blow.

If then to punish ALL the gods decree,
When, in their vengeance, will they come to me?
But I, perhaps, their anger may appease-
For they are wont to pardon faults like these:
At worst, there's hope; since every age and clime
See different fates attend the self-same crime;
Some made by villainy, and some undone,
And this ascend a scaffold, that a throne."

REVENGE.

Unpunish'd, whom, in every fearful shape,
Guilt still alarms, and conscience, ne'er asleep,
Wounds with incessant strokes, "not loud, but
deep,"

While the vex'd mind, her own tormentor, plies
A scorpion scourge, unmark'd by human eyes.
Trust me, no tortures which the poets feign,
Can match the fierce, the unutterable pain
He feels, who night and day, devoid of rest,
Carries his own accuser in his breast.

To solve a scruple which perplex'd his thought,

A Spartan once the oracle besought

And plainly tell him, if he might forswear
A purse, of old, confided to his care.
Incens'd, the priestess answer'd-« Waverer, no!
Nor shalt thou, for the doubt, unpunish'd go."-
With that he hasten'd to restore the trust;
But fear alone, not virtue, made him just:
Hence he soon proved the oracle divine,
And all the answer worthy of the shrine;
For plagues pursued his race without delay,
And swept them from the earth, like dust, away.
By such dire sufferings did the wretch atone

The crime of meditated fraud alone!
Devised, is done :†-what, then, if we proceed?
For, in the eye of Heaven, a wicked deed
Perpetual fears the offender's peace destroy,

And rob the social hour of all its joy:

Feverish and parch'd, he chews, with many a

pause,

The tasteless food that swells beneath his jaws:
Spits out the produce of the Albanian bill,
Mellow'd by age;-you bring him mellower still,
And lo, such wrinkles on his brow appear,
As if you brought Falernian vinegar!

These, these are they, who tremble and turn pale,
At the first mutterings of the hollow gale!
Who sink with terror at the transient glare
Of meteors glancing through the turbid air!
Oh, 'tis not chance, they cry: this hideous crash

"REVENGE THEY SAY-and I believe their Is not the war of winds; nor this dread flash

words,

A pleasure, sweeter far than life affords."
WHO SAY? the fools, whose passions, prone to ire,
At SLIGHTEST causes, or, at none, take FIRE;
Whose boiling breasts, at every turn, o'erflow
With rancorous gall: Chrysippus SAID not so;
Nor Thales, to our frailties clement still,
Nor that old man, by sweet Hymettus' hill,
Who drank the poison with unruffled soul,
And, dying, from his foes withheld the bowl.
Divine Philosophy! by whose pure light
We first distinguish, then pursue, the right,
Thy power the breast from every error frees,
And weeds out all its vices by degrees:-

The encounter of dark clouds; but blasting fire,
Charged with the wrath of heaven's insulted sire!
That dreaded peal, innoxious, dies away;
Shuddering, they wait the next with more dismay,
As if the short reprieve were only sent
To add new horrors to their punishment.
Yet more; when the first symptoms of disease,
When feverish heats their restless members seize,
They think the plague by wrath divine bestow'd,
And feel in every pang the avenging god.
Rack'd at the thought, in hopeless grief they lie,
And dare not tempt the mercy of the sky:

* Whatever may have been the belief of pagan times, on this subject, there is no one, I am sure, who will venture on such an assertion in the nineteenth century. Neither abject-mindedness, nor love of revenge, (except in eastern harems,) but proneness to mercy, and forgetfulness of injury, are the true characteristics of civilized woman.

There is a propriety in attributing the infliction of this punishment to an Egyptian deity, blindness being a disease more frequent in that country than elsewhere. + A celebrated runner of antiquity. Such were his velocity and lightness of foot, (says some ancient writer,) that he left no trace of his steps in the dust behind him. The tale is taken from Herodotus, Erato 86.

For what can such expect, what victim slay,
That is not worthier far to live than they?—
With what a rapid change of fancy roll
The varying passions of the guilty soul!
Bold to offend, they scarce commit the offence,
Ere the mind labours with an innate sense
Of right and wrong;—not long, for Nature still,
Incapable of change, and fix`d in ill,
Recurs to her old habits;-never yet
Could sinner to his sin a period set.
When did the flush of modest blood inflame
The cheek, once harden'd to a sense of shame?
Or when the offender, since the birth of time,
Retire, contented with a single crime?*

Ye dangerous knaves, who pander to be fed,
And sell yourselves to infamy for bread,
REVERENCE TO CHILDREN, AS TO HEAVEN, IS DUE:
When you would, then, some darling sin pursue,
Think that your infant offspring eyes the deed,
And let the thought abate your guilty speed:
Back from the headlong steep your steps entice,
And check you, tottering on the verge of vice.
O yet reflect! for should he e'er provoke,
In riper age the law's avenging stroke,
(Since not alone in person and in face,
But e'en in morals he will prove his race,
And, while example acts with fatal force,
Side, nay, outstrip you, in the vicious course)
Vex'd, you will rave and storm: perhaps prepare,

FROM SATIRE XIV. TRAIN UP A CHILD IN THE Should threat'ning fail, to name another heir!

WAY HE SHOULD GO.

YES, there are faults, Fuscinus, that disgrace
The noblest qualities of birth and place;
Which, like infectious blood, transmitted, run
In one eternal stream from sire to son.

If, in destructive play, the senior waste
His joyous nights, the child, with kindred taste,
Repeats in miniature the darling vice,
Shakes the small box, and cogs the little dice.
Nor does that infant fairer hopes inspire,
Who, train'd by the gray epicure, his sire,
Has learn'd to pickle mushrooms, and, like him,
To souse the beccaficos, till they swim!
For take him thus to early luxury bred,

-Audacious! with what front do you aspire
To exercise the license of a sire,
When all with rising indignation view
The youth in turpitude surpass'd by you?

Is there a guest expected? all is haste,
All hurry in the house, from first to last.
"Sweep the dry cobwebs down!" the master cries,
Whips in his hand, and fury in his eyes-
"Let not a spot the clouded columns stain;
Scour you the figur'd silver, you the plain!"

O, inconsistent wretch! is all this coil,
Lest the front hall or gallery, daub'd with soil,
(Which yet a little sand removes,) offend
The prying eye of some indifferent friend?

Ere twice four springs have blossom'd o'er his And do you stir not, that your son may see

head,

And let ten thousand teachers, hoar with age,
Inculcate temperance from the stoic page;
His wish will ever be in state to dine,
Aud keep his kitchen's honour from decline!

So Nature prompts; drawn by her secret tie,
We view a parent's deeds with reverent eye,
With fatal haste, alas! the example take,
And love the sin for the dear sinner's sake.
One youth, perhaps, form'd of superior clay,
And warm'd by Titan with a purer ray,
May dare to slight proximity of blood,
And, in despite of Nature, to be good:
One youth-the rest the beaten pathway tread,
And blindly follow where their fathers led.
O fatal guides! this reason should suffice,
To win you from the slippery route of vice,
This powerful reason; lest your sons pursue
The guilty track, thus plainly mark'd by you!
For youth is facile, and its yielding will
Receives with fatal ease the imprint of ill:,
Hence Catilines in every clime abound;
But where are Cato and his nephew found?
Swift from the roof where youth, Fuscinus,
dwell,

Immodest sights, immodest sounds, expel;
THE PLACE IS SACRED: Far, far hence, remove,
Ye venal votaries of illicit love!

Heathenism could offer no sufficient inducement to

repentance, and therefore, the mind once engaged in sin,

was for ever enslaved to it.-Juvenal, though uninfluenced by the faith of Christianity, had been clearly, though unconsciously, benefited by its precepts and examples.

The house from moral filth, from vices free?
True, you have given a citizen to Rome;
And she shall thank you, if the youth become,
By your o'er-ruling care, or soon, or late,
A useful member of the parent state:
For all depends on you; the stamp he'll take
From the strong impress which at first you make;
And prove, as vice or virtue was your aim,
His country's glory, or his country's shame.

But youth, so prone to follow other ills,
And driven to AVARICE, against their wills,
For this grave vice assuming Virtue's guise,
Seems Virtue's self to undiscerning eyes.
The miser, hence, a frugal man they name,
And hence they follow with their whole acclaim,
The griping wretch, who strictlier guards his
store,

Than if the Hesperian dragon kept the door.
Add that the vulgar, still a slave to gold,
The worthy, in the wealthy man behold;
And, reasoning from the fortune he has made,
Hail him a perfect master of his trade!
And true, indeed, it is-such MASTERS raise
Immense estates; no matter by what ways;
But raise they do, with brows in sweat still dyed,
With forge still glowing, and with sledge still
plied.

The father, by the love of wealth possest,
Convinced the covetous alone are blest,
And that, nor past, nor present times, e'er knew
A poor man happy,-bids his son pursue
The paths they take, the courses they affect,
And follow, at the heels, this thriving sect.