If, softer than Euganean lambs, the youth,
His wanton limbs, with Ætna's pumice, smooth,
And shame his rough-hewn sires? if greedy, vain,
If, a vile trafficker in secret bane,

He blast his wretched kindred with a bust,

For publick vengeance to-reduce to dust!

VER. 23. If, softer than Euganean lambs, &c.] The lambs of this district, which lay in the neighbourhood of Verona, were highly valued for the fineness of their fleece. The pumice mentioned

in the next line, came from Catana, a town at the foot of mount Ætna, and which, as Mrs. Quickly says, "lay under an ill name," on account of the great use which the inhabitants were supposed to make of it. All the baths of Italy were supplied with pumice from this neighbourhood.

VER. 27.

a bust,

For publick vengeance to reduce to dust!] The busts and statues of such as had been guilty of any notorious crime, were sometimes delivered up to the common executioner to be destroyed, that they might not disgrace the name, by being carried with the rest, in the funeral processions of the family. This might have operated as a very powerful preventive of vice, had it not, like many other salutary customs, been perverted by the emperours, and their favourites, to the purposes of private hatred and revenge. Motions were sometimes made in the senate, for breaking the busts of such as were obnoxious to the tyrant of the day and even so early as the reign of Tiberius, we find that it was not considered safe, in the splendid funeral of Junia, the wife of Cassius, to bring out, amongst the numerous busts of her illustrious family, either that of her husband or her brother.

De Foe, in a poem which I yet remember with pleasure, has compressed this and the following idea into a few lines pregnant

Fond man! though all the heroes of your line Bedeck your halls, and round your galleries shine, In proud display; yet, take this truth from me, VIRTUE ALONE IS TRUE Nobility.

Set Cossus, Drusus, Paulus, then, in view,
The bright example of their lives pursue ;
Let these precede the statues of your race,
And these, when Consul, of your rods take place.
O give me inborn worth! Dare to be just,
Firm to your word, and faithful to your trust:
These praises hear, at least deserve to hear,

I grant your claim, and recognise the peer.
Hail from whatever stock you draw your birth,

The son of Cossus, or the son of Earth,

All hail in you, exulting Rome espies

Her guardian Power, her great Palladium rise;

with good sense. I quote from memory, for I have not seen the book since I was at school;

"Could but our fathers break the bonds of fate,

"And see their offspring thus degenerate;

'How they contend for birth and names unknown,

"And build on others actions, not their own,

They'd burn their titles, and their tombs deface, "And disavow the vile, degenerate race:

"For fame of families is all a cheat,

""Tis personal virtue only, makes us great."

And shouts like Egypt, when her priests have

found,

A new Osiris, for the old one drown'd!

But shall we call those noble, who disgrace Their lineage, proud of an illustrious race?

VER. 45. And shouts like Ægypt, &c.] It will be sufficient, for the understanding of this passage, to remark, that Osiris was worshipped in that country, under the figure of a live ox, which he was supposed to animate. When the animal grew old, and consequently unfit for the residence of the divinity, he was thought to quit it, and migrate into a younger body of the same species; just as the Tartars, with infinitely more good sense, are taught to believe that their Lama migrates from one human body to another. The deserted ox was drowned with much ceremonious sorrow; when, those melancholy maniacks, his priests, attended by an immense concourse of people, dispersed themselves over the country, wailing and lamenting, in quest of the favoured individual which Osiris had selected to dwell in. This the priests were supposed to know by some sacred marks, and this they always took carę to find in due time: the lamentations of the people were then changed into songs of joy: they conducted the sacrosanct beast with great pomp to the shrine of his predecessor, shouting and calling to the inhabitants as they passed, "We have found him, we have found him! come, and let us rejoice together."

All the rites of the Egyptians were of a gloomy cast. I should be inclined to give this as one of the causes of the singular attachment of the women to them, wherever they were introduced: —this, however, by the way. We have seen, in the sixth Satire, in what manner the priests of Isis ran up and down the streets of Rome, howling and lamenting for Osiris: this was a paltry imitation of their native ceremonies; to the clamorous termination of which Juvenal here alludes.

Vain thought!-but thus, with many a taunting

smile,

The dwarf an Atlas, Moor a swan, we style;
The crookback'd wench, Europa; and the hound,
With age enfeebled, toothless, and unsound,
That listless lies, and licks the lamps for food,
Lord of the chase, and tyrant of the wood!
You, too, beware, lest Satire's piercing eye

The slave of guilt through grandeur's blaze espy,
And, drawing from your crime some sounding

name,

Declare at once your greatness, and your shame.

Ask you for whom this picture I design? Plautus, thy birth and folly make it thine.

:

VER. 60. Plautus, &c.] The commentators will have this to be the Rubellius Plautus mentioned by Tacitus, in the life of Nero but the account there given of him, (ipse placita majorum colebat, habitu severo, casta et secreta domo, &c. Ann. xiv. 22,) agrees but ill with the description of our author. If, however, he be the person intended, it must be confessed that he had some grounds for his pride; for he was descended from Julia, the sister of Cæsar; and thus as nearly related to the purple as Nero. Indeed, there was, more than once, a design on foot for removing that monster, and putting Rubellius in his place. After all, I am disposed to think, both from what is said above, and from the date of this Satire, that the person here meant was a son of this Plautus, for we learn from the account of his assassination by Nero, that he left several children.

Here is the maternal line of the family, as it is given by

Thou vaunt'st thy pedigree, on every side
To noble, and imperial blood, allied;
As if thy honours by thyself were won,
And thou hadst some illustrious action done,
To make the world believe thee Julia's heir,
And not the offspring of some easy fair,
Who, shivering in the wind, near yon dead wall,
Plies her vile labour, and is all to all.

Away, away! ye slaves of humblest birth,
"Ye dregs of Rome, ye nothings of the earth,
"Whose fathers who shall tell! my ancient line
"Descends from Cecrops." Man of blood divine!
Live, and enjoy the secret sweets which spring
In breasts, affined to so remote a king!—
Yet know, amid these "dregs," low grandeur's scorn,
Will those be found whom arts and arms adorn:
Some, skill'd to plead a noble blockhead's cause,
And solve the dark enigmas of the laws;
Some, who the Tigris' hostile banks explore,
And plant our eagles on Batavia's shore:
While thou, in mean, inglorious pleasure lost,
With "Cecrops! Cecrops!" all thou hast to boast,

Lipsius: Julia, (Cæsar's sister,) Atia, Octavia, Antonia, Julia, the mother of Rubellius Plautus, and, as I suppose, the grandmother of the vain and insolent young nobleman here introduced.