SATIRE VI.

TO URSIDIUS POSTHUMUS.

v. 1-8.

YES, I believe that CHASTITY was known,

And prized on earth, while Saturn fill'd the throne; When rocks a bleak and scanty shelter gave,

When sheep and shepherds throng'd one common

cave,

And when the mountain wife her couch bestrew'd.
With skins of beasts, joint tenants of the wood,
And reeds, and leaves pluck'd from the neighbour-
ing tree :-

A woman, Cynthia, far unlike to thee,

VER. 5. And when the mountain wife, &c.] "That is," says Stapylton, "the wife that dwelt in the mountain before such time as the men, although they came down themselves, durst bring their wives into the level." This is the strangest idea imaginable. The women here spoken of were not very likely to excite any fears on their account: they were not less bold and adventurous than the men, nay, often, says the poet, more so.But thus it is, when the author is thinking of one thing, and the translator of another. A few lines below, because Juvenal calls

Or thee, weak child of fondness and of fears,
Whose eyes a sparrow's death suffused with tears:

the children of these primeval women large, Madan tells us that they were suckled till they were near a hundred years old! This passage is charmingly imitated in the tragedy of Phil

aster:

"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 born 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 of perennial beauty, which charmed alike the closet and the stage. The reading of the present race of farce-mongers, seldom, I believe, extends beyond the nursery; and their productions are, therefore, 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 male, O miselle passer,

"Tua nunc opera meæ puellæ

"Flendo turgiduli rubent ocelli.”

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

It may be worth observing, that Juvenal has not made his age of chastity very inviting: he proceeds with too rapid a step

But strong, and reaching to her burly brood [food,
Her big-swoll'n breasts, replete with wholesome
And rougher than her husband, gorged with mast,
And frequent belching from the coarse repast.
For when the world was new, the race that broke,
Unfather'd, from the soil or opening oak,

Lived most unlike the men of later times,
The puling brood of follies and of crimes.
Haply some trace of Chastity remain'd,

While Jove, but Jove as yet unbearded, reign'd :
Before the Greek bound, by another's head,
His doubtful faith; or men, of theft in dread,

from all the savage roughness of innocence, to the morbid delicacy of polish'd vice. The progress of corruption is marked with more distinctness by Horace.

VER. 15. For when the world was new, &c.] Juvenal had Lucretius in view:

"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 system-monger 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. Before the Greek, &c.] From the multiplied forms of oaths among the Greeks, Juvenal concludes, rationally enough, that this people invented them :-jurare per caput alterius, how

He pours Venafran oil upon his fish,
While the stale coleworts in your wooden dish,
Stink of the lamp; for such to you is thrown,
Such rancid grease, as Africk sends to town;
So strong! that when her factors seek the bath,
All wind, and all avoid, the noisome path;
So pestilent! that her own serpents fly
The horrid stench, or meet it but to die.

See a sur-mullet now before him set,
From Corsica, or isles more distant yet,
Brought post to Rome; since Ostia's shores no more,
Supply the insatiate glutton, as of yore,
Thinn'd by the net, whose everlasting throw
Allows no Tuscan fish, in peace, to grow.
Still luxury yawns, unfill'd; the nations rise,
And ransack all their coasts for fresh supplies:
Thence come your presents; thence, as rumour tells,
The dainties Lenas buys, Aurelia sells.

Aurelia sells,]

66

VER. 149. Aurelia," Madan says, was probably the name of some famous dealer in fine fish!" It is not in this manner that Juvenal is to be read. Aurelia was a rich and childless old lady, whom Lenas, one of those legacy-hunters who swarmed in Rome, endeavoured to wheedle out of a bequest in his favour, by costly presents of fish, &c. So far, indeed, she might be termed a "dealer in fine fish," that, preferring money o sur-mullets, she sent what was given her

to market.

Aurelia is mentioned by Pliny, who calls her a respectable

A lamprey next, from the Sicilian straits, Of more than common size, on Virro waitsFor oft as Auster seeks his cave, and flings The cumbrous moisture from his dripping wings, Forth flies the daring fisher, lured by gain, While rocks oppose, and whirlpools threat in vain. To you an eel is brought, whose slender make, Speaks him a famish'd cousin to the snake ; Or some frost-bitten pike, who, day by day, Through half the city's ordure, suck'd his way! Would Virro deign to hear me, I could give A few brief hints :--We look not to receive, What Seneca, what Cotta used to send, What the good Piso, to an humble friend; For bounty once preferr'd a fairer claim, Than birth or power, to honourable fame:

-

lady, and tells an amusing story of her being obliged to tack a codicil to her will in favour of a more daring, and, apparently, a more successful hæredipeta than Lenas; the detestable Regulus, Lib. 11. Epist. 20.

VER. 150. A lamprey, &c.] The reader must not always expect literal versions of these and similar words. The muræna of the text, strictly taken, is a species of eel found in the Mediterranean, and still in high estimation there: it differs, in some particulars, from the fish which we call a lamprey, but chiefly in the conformation of its head. Our lamprey is principally confined to the Severn: when brought to market, which is very rarely, it fetches an extravagant price.