inconsiderable fragments, and those for the most part much corrupted.
The tithes of many of them are indeed preserved, and they are generally
double; from whence, at least, we may understand how many various
subjects were treated by that author. Tully in his “Academics”
introduces Varro himself giving us some light concerning the scope and
design of those works; wherein, after he had shown his reasons why he did
not _ex professo_ write of philosophy, he adds what
follows:—“Notwithstanding,” says he, “that those pieces of mine wherein I
have imitated Menippus, though I have not translated him, are sprinkled
with a kind of mirth and gaiety, yet many things are there inserted which
are drawn from the very entrails of philosophy, and many things severely
argued which I have mingled with pleasantries on purpose that they may
more easily go down with the common sort of unlearned readers.” The rest
of the sentence is so lame that we can only make thus much out of it—that
in the composition of his satires he so tempered philology with
philosophy that his work was a mixture of them both. And Tully himself
confirms us in this opinion when a little after he addresses himself to
Varro in these words:—“And you yourself have composed a most elegant and
complete poem; you have begun philosophy in many places; sufficient to
incite us, though too little to instruct us.” Thus it appears that Varro
was one of those writers whom they called σπουδογελοῖοι (studious of
laughter); and that, as learned as he was, his business was more to
divert his reader than to teach him. And he entitled his own satires
Menippean; not that Menippus had written any satires (for his were either
dialogues or epistles), but that Varro imitated his style, his manner,
and his facetiousness. All that we know further of Menippus and his
writings, which are wholly lost, is that by some he is esteemed, as,
amongst the rest, by Varro; by others he is noted of cynical impudence
and obscenity; that he was much given to those parodies which I have
already mentioned (that is, he often quoted the verses of Homer and the
tragic poets, and turned their serious meaning into something that was
ridiculous); whereas Varro’s satires are by Tully called absolute, and
most elegant and various poems. Lucian, who was emulous of this
Menippus, seems to have imitated both his manners and his style in many
of his dialogues, where Menippus himself is often introduced as a speaker
in them and as a perpetual buffoon; particularly his character is
expressed in the beginning of that dialogue which is called Νεκυομαντία.
But Varro in imitating him avoids his impudence and filthiness, and only
expresses his witty pleasantry.
This we may believe for certain—that as his subjects were various, so
most of them were tales or stories of his own invention; which is also
manifest from antiquity by those authors who are acknowledged to have
written Varronian satires in imitation of his—of whom the chief is
Petronius Arbiter, whose satire, they say, is now printing in Holland,
wholly recovered, and made complete; when it is made public, it will
easily be seen by any one sentence whether it be supposititious or
genuine. Many of Lucian’s dialogues may also properly be called
Varronian satires, particularly his true history; and consequently the
“Golden Ass” of Apuleius, which is taken from him. Of the same stamp is
the mock deification of Claudius by Seneca, and the Symposium or “Cæsars”
of Julian the Emperor. Amongst the moderns we may reckon the “Encomium
Moriæ” of Erasmus, Barclay’s “Euphormio,” and a volume of German authors
which my ingenious friend Mr. Charles Killigrew once lent me. In the
English I remember none which are mixed with prose as Varro’s were; but
of the same kind is “Mother Hubbard’s Tale” in Spenser, and (if it be not
too vain to mention anything of my own) the poems of “Absalom” and
“MacFlecnoe.”
This is what I have to say in general of satire: only, as Dacier has
observed before me, we may take notice that the word satire is of a more
general signification in Latin than in French or English; for amongst the
Romans it was not only used for those discourses which decried vice or
exposed folly, but for others also, where virtue was recommended. But in
our modern languages we apply it only to invective poems, where the very
name of satire is formidable to those persons who would appear to the
world what they are not in themselves; for in English, to say satire is
to mean reflection, as we use that word in the worst sense; or as the
French call it, more properly, _médisance_. In the criticism of
spelling, it ought to be with _i_, and not with _y_, to distinguish its
true derivation from _satura_, not from _Satyrus_; and if this be so,
then it is false spelled throughout this book, for here it is written
“satyr,” which having not considered at the first, I thought it not worth
correcting afterwards. But the French are more nice, and never spell it
any otherwise than “satire.”
I am now arrived at the most difficult part of my undertaking, which is
to compare Horace with Juvenal and Persius. It is observed by Rigaltius
in his preface before Juvenal, written to Thuanus, that these three poets
have all their particular partisans and favourers. Every commentator, as
he has taken pains with any of them, thinks himself obliged to prefer his
author to the other two; to find out their failings, and decry them, that
he may make room for his own darling. Such is the partiality of mankind,
to set up that interest which they have once espoused, though it be to
the prejudice of truth, morality, and common justice, and especially in
the productions of the brain. As authors generally think themselves the
best poets, because they cannot go out of themselves to judge sincerely
of their betters, so it is with critics, who, having first taken a liking
to one of these poets, proceed to comment on him and to illustrate him;
after which they fall in love with their own labours to that degree of
blind fondness that at length they defend and exalt their author, not so
much for his sake as for their own. It is a folly of the same nature
with that of the Romans themselves in their games of the circus. The
spectators were divided in their factions betwixt the Veneti and the
Prasini; some were for the charioteer in blue, and some for him in green.
The colours themselves were but a fancy; but when once a man had taken
pains to set out those of his party, and had been at the trouble of
procuring voices for them, the case was altered: he was concerned for his
own labour, and that so earnestly that disputes and quarrels,
animosities, commotions, and bloodshed often happened; and in the
declension of the Grecian empire, the very sovereigns themselves engaged
in it, even when the barbarians were at their doors, and stickled for the
preference of colours when the safety of their people was in question. I
am now myself on the brink of the same precipice; I have spent some time
on the translation of Juvenal and Persius, and it behoves me to be wary,
lest for that reason I should be partial to them, or take a prejudice
against Horace. Yet on the other side I would not be like some of our
judges, who would give the cause for a poor man right or wrong; for
though that be an error on the better hand, yet it is still a partiality,
and a rich man unheard cannot be concluded an oppressor. I remember a
saying of King Charles II. on Sir Matthew Hale (who was doubtless an
uncorrupt and upright man), that his servants were sure to be cast on any
trial which was heard before him; not that he thought the judge was
possibly to be bribed, but that his integrity might be too scrupulous,
and that the causes of the Crown were always suspicious when the
privileges of subjects were concerned.
It had been much fairer if the modern critics who have embarked in the
quarrels of their favourite authors had rather given to each his proper
due without taking from another’s heap to raise their own. There is
praise enough for each of them in particular, without encroaching on his
fellows, and detracting from them or enriching themselves with the spoils
of others. But to come to particulars: Heinsius and Dacier are the most
principal of those who raise Horace above Juvenal and Persius. Scaliger
the father, Rigaltius, and many others debase Horace that they may set up
Juvenal; and Casaubon, who is almost single, throws dirt on Juvenal and
Horace that he may exalt Persius, whom he understood particularly well,
and better than any of his former commentators, even Stelluti, who
succeeded him. I will begin with him who, in my opinion, defends the
weakest cause, which is that of Persius; and labouring, as Tacitus
professes of his own writing, to divest myself of partiality or
prejudice, consider Persius, not as a poet whom I have wholly translated,
and who has cost me more labour and time than Juvenal, but according to
what I judge to be his own merit, which I think not equal in the main to
that of Juvenal or Horace, and yet in some things to be preferred to both
of them.
First, then, for the verse; neither Casaubon himself, nor any for him,
can defend either his numbers or the purity of his Latin. Casaubon gives
this point for lost, and pretends not to justify either the measures or
the words of Persius; he is evidently beneath Horace and Juvenal in both.
Then, as his verse is scabrous and hobbling, and his words not everywhere
well chosen (the purity of Latin being more corrupted than in the time of
Juvenal, and consequently of Horace, who wrote when the language was in
the height of its perfection), so his diction is hard, his figures are
generally too bold and daring, and his tropes, particularly his
metaphors, insufferably strained.
In the third place, notwithstanding all the diligence of Casaubon,
Stelluti, and a Scotch gentleman whom I have heard extremely commended
for his illustrations of him, yet he is still obscure; whether he
affected not to be understood but with difficulty; or whether the fear of
his safety under Nero compelled him to this darkness in some places, or
that it was occasioned by his close way of thinking, and the brevity of
his style and crowding of his figures; or lastly, whether after so long a
time many of his words have been corrupted, and many customs and stories
relating to them lost to us; whether some of these reasons, or all,
concurred to render him so cloudy, we may be bold to affirm that the best
of commentators can but guess at his meaning in many passages, and none
can be certain that he has divined rightly.
After all he was a young man, like his friend and contemporary Lucan—both
of them men of extraordinary parts and great acquired knowledge,
considering their youth; but neither of them had arrived to that maturity
of judgment which is necessary to the accomplishing of a formed poet.
And this consideration, as on the one hand it lays some imperfections to
their charge, so on the other side it is a candid excuse for those
failings which are incident to youth and inexperience; and we have more
reason to wonder how they, who died before the thirtieth year of their
age, could write so well and think so strongly, than to accuse them of
those faults from which human nature (and more especially in youth) can
never possibly be exempted.
To consider Persius yet more closely: he rather insulted over vice and
folly than exposed them like Juvenal and Horace; and as chaste and modest
as he is esteemed, it cannot be denied but that in some places he is
broad and fulsome, as the latter verses of the fourth satire and of the
sixth sufficiently witness. And it is to be believed that he who commits
the same crime often and without necessity cannot but do it with some
kind of pleasure.
To come to a conclusion: he is manifestly below Horace because he borrows
most of his greatest beauties from him; and Casaubon is so far from
denying this that he has written a treatise purposely concerning it,
wherein he shows a multitude of his translations from Horace, and his
imitations of him, for the credit of his author, which he calls “Imitatio
Horatiana.”
To these defects (which I casually observed while I was translating this
author) Scaliger has added others; he calls him in plain terms a silly
writer and a trifler, full of ostentation of his learning, and, after
all, unworthy to come into competition with Juvenal and Horace.
After such terrible accusations, it is time to hear what his patron
Casaubon can allege in his defence. Instead of answering, he excuses for
the most part; and when he cannot, accuses others of the same crimes. He
deals with Scaliger as a modest scholar with a master. He compliments
him with so much reverence that one would swear he feared him as much at
least as he respected him. Scaliger will not allow Persius to have any
wit; Casaubon interprets this in the mildest sense, and confesses his
author was not good at turning things into a pleasant ridicule, or, in
other words, that he was not a laughable writer. That he was _ineptus_,
indeed, but that was _non aptissimus ad jocandum_; but that he was
ostentatious of his learning, that by Scaliger’s good favour he denies.
Persius showed his learning, but was no boaster of it; he did
_ostendere_, but not _ostentare_; and so, he says, did Scaliger (where,
methinks, Casaubon turns it handsomely upon that supercilious critic, and
silently insinuates that he himself was sufficiently vain-glorious and a
boaster of his own knowledge). All the writings of this venerable
censor, continues Casaubon, which are χρυσοῦ χρυσότερα (more golden than
gold itself), are everywhere smelling of that thyme which, like a bee, he
has gathered from ancient authors; but far be ostentation and vain-glory
from a gentleman so well born and so nobly educated as Scaliger. But,
says Scaliger, he is so obscure that he has got himself the name of
Scotinus—a dark writer. “Now,” says Casaubon, “it is a wonder to me that
anything could be obscure to the divine wit of Scaliger, from which
nothing could be hidden.” This is, indeed, a strong compliment, but no
defence; and Casaubon, who could not but be sensible of his author’s
blind side, thinks it time to abandon a post that was untenable. He
acknowledges that Persius is obscure in some places; but so is Plato, so
is Thucydides; so are Pindar, Theocritus, and Aristophanes amongst the
Greek poets; and even Horace and Juvenal, he might have added, amongst
the Romans. The truth is, Persius is not sometimes, but generally
obscure; and therefore Casaubon at last is forced to excuse him by
alleging that it was _se defendendo_, for fear of Nero, and that he was
commanded to write so cloudily by Cornutus, in virtue of holy obedience
to his master. I cannot help my own opinion; I think Cornutus needed not
to have read many lectures to him on that subject. Persius was an apt
scholar, and when he was bidden to be obscure in some places where his
life and safety were in question, took the same counsel for all his book,
and never afterwards wrote ten lines together clearly. Casaubon, being
upon this chapter, has not failed, we may be sure, of making a compliment
to his own dear comment. “If Persius,” says he, “be in himself obscure,
yet my interpretation has made him intelligible.” There is no question
but he deserves that praise which he has given to himself; but the nature
of the thing, as Lucretius says, will not admit of a perfect explanation.
Besides many examples which I could urge, the very last verse of his last
satire (upon which he particularly values himself in his preface) is not
yet sufficiently explicated. It is true, Holyday has endeavoured to
justify his construction; but Stelluti is against it: and, for my part, I
can have but a very dark notion of it. As for the chastity of his
thoughts, Casaubon denies not but that one particular passage in the
fourth satire (_At_, _si unctus cesses_, &c.) is not only the most
obscure, but the most obscene, of all his works. I understood it, but
for that reason turned it over. In defence of his boisterous metaphors
he quotes Longinus, who accounts them as instruments of the sublime, fit
to move and stir up the affections, particularly in narration; to which
it may be replied that where the trope is far-fetched and hard, it is fit
for nothing but to puzzle the understanding, and may be reckoned amongst
those things of Demosthenes which Æschines called θαύματα, not
ῥήματα—that is, prodigies, not words. It must be granted to Casaubon
that the knowledge of many things is lost in our modern ages which were
of familiar notice to the ancients, and that satire is a poem of a
difficult nature in itself, and is not written to vulgar readers; and
(through the relation which it has to comedy) the frequent change of
persons makes the sense perplexed, when we can but divine who it is that
speaks—whether Persius himself, or his friend and monitor, or, in some
places, a third person. But Casaubon comes back always to himself, and
concludes that if Persius had not been obscure, there had been no need of
him for an interpreter. Yet when he had once enjoined himself so hard a
task, he then considered the Greek proverb, that he must χελώνης φαγεῖν,
ἢ μὴ φαγεῖν (either eat the whole snail or let it quite alone); and so he
went through with his laborious task, as I have done with my difficult
translation.
Thus far, my lord, you see it has gone very hard with Persius. I think
he cannot be allowed to stand in competition either with Juvenal or
Horace. Yet, for once, I will venture to be so vain as to affirm that
none of his hard metaphors or forced expressions are in my translation.
But more of this in its proper place, where I shall say somewhat in
particular of our general performance in making these two authors
English. In the meantime I think myself obliged to give Persius his
undoubted due, and to acquaint the world, with Casaubon, in what he has
equalled and in what excelled his two competitors.
A man who is resolved to praise an author with any appearance of justice
must be sure to take him on the strongest side, and where he is least
liable to exceptions; he is therefore obliged to choose his mediums
accordingly. Casaubon (who saw that Persius could not laugh with a
becoming grace, that he was not made for jesting, and that a merry
conceit was not his talent) turned his feather, like an Indian, to
another light, that he might give it the better gloss. “Moral doctrine,”
says he, “and urbanity or well-mannered wit are the two things which
constitute the Roman satire; but of the two, that which is most essential
to this poem, and is, as it were, the very soul which animates it, is the
scourging of vice and exhortation to virtue.” Thus wit, for a good
reason, is already almost out of doors, and allowed only for an
instrument—a kind of tool or a weapon, as he calls it—of which the
satirist makes use in the compassing of his design. The end and aim of
our three rivals is consequently the same; but by what methods they have
prosecuted their intention is further to be considered. Satire is of the
nature of moral philosophy, as being instructive; he therefore who
instructs most usefully will carry the palm from his two antagonists.
The philosophy in which Persius was educated, and which he professes
through his whole book, is the Stoic—the most noble, most generous, most
beneficial to humankind amongst all the sects who have given us the rules
of ethics, thereby to form a severe virtue in the soul, to raise in us an
undaunted courage against the assaults of fortune, to esteem as nothing
the things that are without us, because they are not in our power; not to
value riches, beauty, honours, fame, or health any farther than as
conveniences and so many helps to living as we ought, and doing good in
our generation. In short, to be always happy while we possess our minds
with a good conscience, are free from the slavery of vices, and conform
our actions and conversation to the rules of right reason. See here, my
lord, an epitome of Epictetus, the doctrine of Zeno, and the education of
our Persius; and this he expressed, not only in all his satires, but in
the manner of his life. I will not lessen this commendation of the Stoic
philosophy by giving you an account of some absurdities in their
doctrine, and some perhaps impieties (if we consider them by the standard
of Christian faith). Persius has fallen into none of them, and therefore
is free from those imputations. What he teaches might be taught from
pulpits with more profit to the audience than all the nice speculations
of divinity and controversies concerning faith, which are more for the
profit of the shepherd than for the edification of the flock. Passion,
interest, ambition, and all their bloody consequences of discord and of
war are banished from this doctrine. Here is nothing proposed but the
quiet and tranquillity of the mind; virtue lodged at home, and afterwards
diffused in her general effects to the improvement and good of humankind.
And therefore I wonder not that the present Bishop of Salisbury has
recommended this our author and the tenth satire of Juvenal (in his
pastoral letter) to the serious perusal and practice of the divines in
his diocese as the best commonplaces for their sermons, as the
storehouses and magazines of moral virtues, from whence they may draw
out, as they have occasion, all manner of assistance for the
accomplishment of a virtuous life, which the Stoics have assigned for the
great end and perfection of mankind. Herein, then, it is that Persius
has excelled both Juvenal and Horace. He sticks to his own philosophy;
he shifts not sides, like Horace (who is sometimes an Epicurean,
sometimes a Stoic, sometimes an Eclectic, as his present humour leads
him), nor declaims, like Juvenal, against vices more like an orator than
a philosopher. Persius is everywhere the same—true to the dogmas of his
master. What he has learnt, he teaches vehemently; and what he teaches,
that he practises himself. There is a spirit of sincerity in all he
says; you may easily discern that he is in earnest, and is persuaded of
that truth which he inculcates. In this I am of opinion that he excels
Horace, who is commonly in jest, and laughs while he instructs; and is
equal to Juvenal, who was as honest and serious as Persius, and more he
could not be.
Hitherto I have followed Casaubon, and enlarged upon him, because I am
satisfied that he says no more than truth; the rest is almost all
frivolous. For he says that Horace, being the son of a tax-gatherer (or
a collector, as we call it) smells everywhere of the meanness of his
birth and education; his conceits are vulgar, like the subjects of his
satires; that he does _plebeium sepere_, and writes not with that
elevation which becomes a satirist; that Persius, being nobly born and of
an opulent family, had likewise the advantage of a better master
(Cornutus being the most learned of his time, a man of a most holy life,
the chief of the Stoic sect at Rome, and not only a great philosopher,
but a poet himself, and in probability a coadjutor of Persius): that as
for Juvenal, he was long a declaimer, came late to poetry, and had not
been much conversant in philosophy.