SATIRE V. TO TREBIUS. v. 1-8. IF, by reiterated scorn made bold, Thy mind can still its shameless tenor hold, VER. 7. Cans't brook what sneaking Galba would have spurn'd, And mean Sarmentus, &c.] Galba. This is probably the person mentioned in the notes to the first Satire, (p. 17,) and who, from the anecdote there recorded, appears not altogether unworthy of the epithet here assigned him. He is frequently noticed by Martial; and appears to have been a kind of necessary fool or jester, on whom every one broke his witticisms with impunity. Sarmentus was a run-a-way slave, who, instead of being sent back to his mistress to be whipt, as he deserved, was taken into the family of a man, who At Cæsar's haughty board dependants both; The belly's fed with little cost: yet grant has been usually supposed to have other, and better claims on the gratitude of posterity, than the patronage of a scurrilous buffoon. In his journey to Brundusium, Horace gives an account of a scolding match, which he witnessed, between this Sarmentus, and a fellow of the name of Messius. There was not much humour in the dispute, yet Mæcenas, who was also present at it, found it so agreeable to his taste, that he took the former into his train, carried him to Rome, and recommended him to Augustus, with whom (as we learn from Plutarch) he became a kind of favourite. The old scholiast gives a long account of him; from which it appears, that what was so unworthily bestowed by the emperor, was as unworthily spent by his minion; who was again reduced, in the decline of life, to a state of absolute beggary and dependence. VER. 11. The belly's fed, &c.] and Spencer, " Discite quam parvo liceat producere vitam Lucan, 1v. 377. "But would men think with how small allowance "Untroubled nature doth herself suffice, "Such superfluity they would despise "As with sad care impeach their native joys." Here is the moral of the Satire in three words, and a very fine one it is :-but intemperance, as Cowley says of avarice, has been so pelted with good sayings, that every reader can suggest them to himself. VER. 13. Some vacant bridge, &c.] See Sat. IV. v. 166. Thy shivering limbs compassion's sigh might wake, For, first, of this be sure: whene'er thy lord Trembling, lest every levee should be o'er, And what a meal at last! such ropy wine Not such his beverage; he enjoys the juice VER. 53. The nectar of the times, when civil bate Raged with wild fury, &c.] He speaks of the Social or Marsian war, which broke out in Italy near two centuries before this Satire was written. Can wines be kept so long? Those of Italy were, indeed, of a roughness and ssrength that a considerable lapse of time only could subdue:-but such a period! Pliny the Elder, however, mentions a wine which had been kept for 200 years; but then it had acquired, he says, the colour, and, I suppose, the consistency of honey; and was no longer drinkable. Hall has imitated this passage with much humour: 4 "What though he quaff pure amber in his bowl "Of March-brew'd wheat; he slakes thy thirsting soul Enjoys it to himself; nor condescends To cheer, with one small cup, his drooping friends. "With palish oat frothing in Boston clay, VER. 58. The mellow vintage of the Alban bill,) This wine is frequently alluded to by our author, as of peculiar excellency. Addison tells us in his Italian travels, that Alba still preserves its credit for wine, " which would probably be as good now as it was anciently, did they preserve it to so great an age." Setine wine was still more excellent; at least, if we may trust Augustus, who is said, by Pliny, to have preferred it to all others: it grew in Campania. This passage also is well imitated by Hall : "If Virro list revive his heartless graine: VER. 62. As Thrasea or Helvidius, &c.] Of these two eminent men, the former was put to death, and the latter driven into banishment, by Nero. Tacitus dwells with singular complacency on their virtues; and, indeed, we may gather from the concurring testimonies of historians, that Rome had seldom, if ever, produced two worthier citizens. They fell, in truth, " on evil days," but they seem to have "bated no jot of heart," and in every circumstance to have acted |