And reeds, and leaves pluck'd from the neighbouring

tree;

A woman, Cynthia, far unlike to thee,

Or thee, weak child of fondness and of fears, Whose eyes a sparrow's death suffus'd with tears: But strong, and reaching to her burly brood

Her big swoll'n breasts, replete with wholesome food,

Phil. O, that I had but digg'd myself a cave,

Where I, my fire, my cattle, and my bed

Might have been shut together in one shed;

And then had taken me some mountain girl,

Beaten with winds, chaste as the harden'd rock,
Whereon she dwells; that might have strew'd my bed
With leaves and reeds, and with the skins of beasts,
Our neighbours; and have borne at her big breasts,
My large coarse issue.

Act. IV.

Thus did the reading of the old dramatists enable them to enrich their works with passages that charmed alike in the closet, and on the stage. The reading of the present race of Bartholomew-fair farce-mongers, seldom, I believe, extends, beyond the nursery, and their productions are in consequence of it, the disgrace of the one, and the contempt and aversion of the other.

VER. 9. Or thee, weak child of fondness, &c.] He means Lesbia, the mistress of Catullus, whose exquisite hendecasyllables on the death of her favourite sparrow are still extant. The lines to which Juvenal particularly alludes are

these,

"O factum malè, O miselle passer,

"Tuâ nunc operâ meæ puellæ

"Flendo turgiduli rubent ocelli."

Cynthia, mentioned in the preceeding line, was the mistress of Propertius.

And rougher than her husband, gorg'd with mast,
And frequent belching from his coarse repast.
For when the world was new, the race that broke,
Unfather'd, from the soil, or opening oak,

Liv'd most unlike the men of later times,
The puling brood of follies and of crimes.
Nay, after this, some trace perhaps, remain'd
Of chastity, while Jove usurping reign'd,
But while he yet was beardless; ere mankind
Learn'd by each others' heads their faith to bind,

VER. 15. For when the world was new, &c.] Juvenal had Lucretius in his eye in this passage:

"Et genus humanum multo fuit illud in arvis
"Durius, ut decuit, tellus quod dura creasset;
"Et majoribus, &c."

Lib. v. 923.

It is not to be supposed, that he adopted the ideas of this Epicurean systemmonger with his words, and spoke his real sentiments here -No; he had juster and more elevated notions of the origin of mankind; and in his 15th Satire, as Owen well observes, almost speaks the language of Holy Writ. But see the introduction.

VER. 21.

ere mankind] In the original," ere the Greeks," the standing objects of his dislike. Holyday has a long and learned note on this passage, which is worth consulting: though it is probable, after all, that the poet only meant, that in those days of innocence, men had not the trick, afterwards so common, of binding themselves by the most solemn asseverations to an untruth. It is well known, that the Greeks were as much talked of for their bad faith, as the Carthaginians, and, as some think, with much more reason; and that their usual form of oath was by another's head. I do not

Or, dreading theft, their gardens to immure;
And all was unenclos'd, and all secure.

At length Astrea, from these confines driven,
Regain'd, by slow degrees, her native heaven;
With her retir'd her sister in disgust,

And left the world to rapine, and to lust.

'Tis, my good friend, no modern vice, to slight

The sacred Genius of the nuptial rite,

And climb another's couch: all other crimes
Were the sad offspring of the iron times,
All but adultery, that, and that alone,
E'en in the silver age too well was known.
Yet thou, it seems, art labouring to engage
Thy witless neck, in this degenerate age!

call the reader's attention to the contemptuous sneer at Jupiter in the preceding lines, because it must have pressed itself on his notice. To do the author justice, he treats the vices and follies of the popular divinities with as little ceremony as those of Nero or Domitian, or any other object of his abhorrence.

VER. 25. At length Astrea, &c.] Juvenal seems to have had in view in this place, that beautiful passage of Hesiod Mnxer' E&IT" wQeihov, x. v. λ of which the concluding lines form the more immediate subject of his imitation: Καὶ τοτε δη προς Ολυμπον απο χθονα ευρυοδείης,

Λευκοῖσιν φαρεεσσι καλυψαμένω χρόα καλόν,
Αθανατων μετα φυλ ̓ την προλιποντ' ανθρωπες,

Αιδως καὶ Νεμεσις. Τα δε λέιψεται αλγεα λυγρα

Θνητοις ανθρωποισι· κακε δ' εκ εσσεται αλκη, Ερ. καὶ Ημ.

v. 197.

E'en now thy hair the modish curl is taught
By master hands; e'en now the ring is bought;
E'en now-thou once, Ursidius, hadst thy wits;
But thus to talk of wiving! O, these fits-
What madness, prithee, has thy soul possest,
What snakes, what furies agitate thy breast?
Heavens, wilt thou tamely drag the galling chain,
While hemp is to be bought, while knives remain?
While windows woo thee so divinely high,

And Tiber, and the Æmilian bridge, are nigh?
But should'st thou, Posthumus, too hard to please,
Take no great fancy to such leaps as these,
Say, art thou not already better sped,

With a soft blooming boy to share thy bed?—

Ay, but the law," thou criest, "the Julian law, "Will keep my wife secure from every flaw;

VER. 51.

rors.

"the Fulian law,] So called because Augustus, the author of it, had been adopted by Julius Cæsar. It was meant to prevent adultery; but the increasing depravity of the times, rendered it of little effect, and, indeed, it was almost forgotten, when Domitian revived it with all its terStatius calls it a castum fulmen, but there are not many instances of offenders being struck by it, (one is to be found in Pliny, Lib. v1. Ep. xxxi.) as it was rendered nugatory, at least as to the spirit of it, by the facility with which illusory divorces might be obtained. Martial has a good epigram on the subject (Lib. vi. Ep. vii.) "It is hardly thirty days," says he, "since the Julian law was revived, and Thelesina, to escape the odium of adultery, has already taken her tenth husband!"

Authors are not agreed on the punishment inflicted by this law; some maintaining it to be death, and others banishment: it was most probably the latter.

"Besides, I long for heirs." Good! and for those Ursidius will, forsooth, the turtle lose,

And all the dainties, which the flatterer still
Heaps on the childless, to secure his Will!

But what will hence impossible be held,
If thou, old friend, to wedlock art impell❜d?
If thou, the veriest debauchee in town,

With whom wives, widows, every thing, went down,
Should'st change at this late hour, and idly poke
Thy aukward nose into the marriage yoke?

Thou, fam'd for scapes, and, by the trembling wife, Thrust in a chest so oft, to save thy life?

But what! Ursidius hopes a mate to gain

Frugal and chaste, and of the good old strain :
Alas, he's frantic! ope a vein with speed,

And bleed him copiously, good doctor, bleed.—
Jewel of dotards! lowly bending, pay
Thy vows to Juno, and a heifer slay;

If thy researches for a wife, be blest

With one who is not.......need I speak the rest?
For few the matrons Ceres now can find

Her hallow'd fillets with chaste hands to bind;
Few whom their fathers with their lips can trust,
So strong their filial kisses smack of lust!