forehead (as it often happens) be supported by a tender hoof, it may not take in the buyer, eager for the bargain, because the back is handsome, the head little, and the neck stately. This they do judiciously. Do you, therefore, in the same manner, contemplate the perfections of each fair one's person with the eyes of Lynceus: * but be blinder than Hypsæa,t when you survey such parts as aredeformed. You may cry out, O what a handsome leg! O what delicate arms! but you must suppress that she is low hipped, short-waisted, with a long nose, and a splay foot. A man can see nothing but the face of a matron, who carefully conceals her other charms, unless it be a Catia. But if you will seek after forbidden charms, (for the circumstance of their being forbidden makes you mad after them,) surrounded as they are with a fortification, many obstacles will then be in your way: such as guardians, the sedan, dressers, parasites, the long robe hanging down to the ancles, and covered with an upper garment: in short, there will be a multiplicity of circumstances, which will hinder you from having a fair view. The other ‡ throws no obstacles in your way: through the silken vest you may discern her almost as well as if she was naked; that she hath neither a bad leg, nor a disagreeable foot, you may survey her perfectly with your eye. Or would you choose to have a trick put upon you, and your money extorted, before the goods are shown you? But per

*One of the Argonauts, so sharp-sighted that he was fabled to see at the distance of one hundred and thirty miles. A lady of the Plâutian family, remarkable for bad eyes or perhaps injudicious in the choice of her lovers. The courtesan.

haps you will sing to me these verses out of Callimachus. As the huntsman pursues the hare in the deep snow, but disdains to touch it when it is placed before him. Thus sings the rake, and applies it to himself; my love is like to this, for it passes over with contempt an easy prey, and pursues what flies from it. But do you hope that grief and uneasiness, and bitter anxieties, will be expelled from your breast by such verses as these? Would it not be more profitable to inquire what boundary nature has affixed to the appetites, namely, what she can patiently do without, and what she would lament the deprivation of, and by this means separate what is solid from what is vain? What! when thirst parches your jaws, are you solicitous for golden cups to drink out of! What! when you are hungry, do you despise every thing but peacock and turbot? and when your passions are inflamed, and a common gratification is at hand, would you rather be consumed with desire, than possess it? If you would, I would not for I love such pleasures as are of easiest attainment: But she whose language is, by and by," "but for a small matter more," "if my husband should be out of the way," is only for petits maitres: and for himself, Philodenus says, he chooses her who neither stands for a great price, nor delays to come when she is ordered. Let her be fair and straight, and so far decent, as not to appear desirous of seeming fairer than nature has made her. When I am in the company of such a one, says he, she is my Ilia and Egeria: in short I give her any tender name. Nor am I apprehensive, while I am in her company, lest her husband should return from the

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country, the door should be broken open; the dog should bark; the house shaken, should resound on all sides with a great noise; lest the woman, pale with fear, should bound away from me; lest the maid, conscious of guilt, should cry out she is undone; lest she should be in apprehension for her limbs, the detected wife for her portion, and I for myself; lest I must run away with my clothes® all loose, and barefooted, for fear my money, or my person, or, finally, my character, should be demolished. It is a dreadful thing to be catched; I could prove this, even if Fabius* was the judge.

SATIRE III.

We ought to connive at the faults of our friends, and all faults are not to be ranked in the catalogue of

crimes.

THIS is a fault common to all singers, that amongst their friends they never are inclined to sing when they are asked, but unrequested they never desist. Tigellius, that singer of Sardinia, had this fault. Had Cæsar, who could have forced him to compliance, beseeched him on account of his father's friendship, and his own, he would have had no success: But if he himself was disposed to sing, he would chant Io Bacchet over and over, from the beginning of an enter

* An eminent lawyer, who had himself been detected in a frolic of this nature.

The two initial words of some drinking song, from which the whole took its appellation.

From the egg to the apple: the former of which was served up at the opening, the latter at the conclusion, of the feast.

tainment to the very conclusion of it; one while at the highest pitch of his voice, at another time with that which answers to the deepest string of the tetrachord. There was nothing uniform in that fellow frequently would he run along as one flying from an enemy; more frequently he walked as if he bore in procession the sacrifice of Juno: he had often two hundred slaves, and often but ten; one while, talking of kings and potentates, and every thing that was magnificent; at another, "Let me have only a three-legged table, and a shell of clean salt, and a gown, which, though coarse, may be sufficient to keep out the cold." Had you given ten hundred thousand sesterces to this moderate man, who was content with such small matters, in five days' time there would be nothing in his bags. He sat up at nights, even to day-light; he snored out all the day. Never was there any thing so inconsistent with itself. Now some person may say to me, what are you? have you no faults? but they are others, and haps of a less culpable nature.

per

When Mænius railed at Novius in his absence: hark ye, says a certain person, are you ignorant of your own character? or do you think to impose yourself upon us as a person we do not know? As for me, I forgive myself, quoth Mænius. This is a foolish and impious self-love, and worthy to be stigmatized. When you look over your own vices, winking wilfully at them, as it were, with sore eyes, why are you, with regard to those of your friends, as sharp-sighted as an eagle, or the Epidaurian serpent? but on the other side of the question, it is your fate, that your friends should inquire into your vices in turn. A.

certain person is a little too hasty in his temper, and and not well calculated to bear the sharpwitted sneers of these men: he may be made a jest of, because his gown hangs awkwardly, he at the same time being trimmed in a very rustic manner, and his wide shoe hardly sticks to his foot. But he is so good, that no man can be better; but he is your friend; but an immense ge nius is concealed under this unpolished person of his. Finally, sift yourself thoroughly, whether nature has originally sown the seeds of any vices in you, or even an ill habit has done it. For the fern, fit only to be burned, overruns the neglected fields.

But let us return from our digression. As his mistress' disagreeable failings escape the blinded lover, or even these give him pleasure, as Agna's wen does to Balbinus, I could wish that we erred in this manner with regard to friendship, and that virtue had affixed a reputable appellation to such an error. And as a father ought not to contemn his son if he has any defect, in the same manner we ought not to contemn our friend. The father calls his squinting boy, a pretty leering rogue; and if any man has a little despicable brat, such as the abortive Sisyphus* formerly was, he calls it a sweet moppet: this child with distorted legs, the father, in a fondling voice, calls one of the Vari; and another, who is club-footed, he calls a Scauras. Thus, if this friend of yours lives more sparingly than ordinary, let him be styled a

* Sisyphus, the son of M. Antony, the triumvir, was only two feet high.

+ The Vari and Scauri were very noble families, and had their names originally from some of these defects.