fate)

O what a midnight curse has he, whose side
Is pester'd with a mood and figure bride!*
Let mine, ye gods! (if such must be my
No logic learn, nor history translate;
But rather be a quiet, humble fool:
I hate a wife to whom I
go to school.

Who climbs the grammar-tree, distinctly knows

Where noun, and verb, and participle grows;
Corrects her country neighbour; and, a-bed,
For breaking Priscian's, breaks her husband's
head.t

The gaudy gossip, when she 's set agog,
In jewels drest, and at each ear a bob,
Goes flaunting out, and, in her trim of pride,
Thinks all she says or does is justified.
When poor, she 's scarce a tolerable evil;
But rich and fine, a wife 's a very devil.

She duly once a month, renews her face; Mean time, it lies in daub, and hid in grease; Those are the husband's nights; she craves her due,

He takes fat kisses, and is stuck in glue.
But, to the lov'd adult'rer when she steers,
Fresh from the bath, in brightness she appears:
For him the rich Arabia sweats her gum;
And precious oils from distant Indies come :
How haggardly soe'er she looks at home.
Th' eclipse then vanishes; and all her face
Is open'd, and restor❜d to every grace,
The crust remov'd, her cheeks as smooth as
silk,

Are polish'd with a wash of asses' milk;
And should she to the farthest north be sent,
A train of these attend her banishment.
But hadst thou seen her plaster'd up before,
'T was so unlike a face, it seem'd a sore.

"T is worth our while to know what all the
day

They do, and how they pass their time away, For, if o'er-night the husband has been slack, Or counterfeited sleep, and turn'd his back, Next day, be sure, the servants go to wrack. The chamber-maid and dresser are call'd ;

The page is stript, and beaten out of doors. The whole house suffers for the master's crime: And he himself is warn'd to wake another time.

She hires tormentors by the year; she treats Her visiters, and talks; but still she beats. Beats while she paints her face, surveys her gown,

Casts up the day's account, and still beats on:

• A mood and figure bride] A woman who has learned logic.

↑ A woman grammarian, who corrects her husband for speaking false Latin, which is called breaking Priscian's head.

Tir'd out, at length, with an outrageous tone
She bids 'em in the devil's name be gone.
Campar'd with such a proud, insulting dame,
Sicilian tyrants may renounce their name.
For, if she hastes abroad to take the air,
Or goes to Isis' church, (the bawdy-house of
pray'r,)

She hurries all her handmaids to the task;
Her head, alone, will twenty dressers ask.
Psecas, the chief, with breast and shoulders
bare,

Trembling, considers ev'ry sacred hair;
If any straggler from his rank be found,
A pinch must, for the mortal sin, compound.
Psecas is not in fault: but, in the glass,
The dame 's offended at her own ill face.
The maid is banish'd; and another girl
More dext'rous, manages the comb and curl;
The rest are summon'd on a point so nice;
And first, the grave old woman gives advice.
The next is call'd, and so the turn goes round,
As each for age, or wisdom, is renown'd:
Such counsel, such deliberate care they take,
As if her life and honour lay at stake:
With curls on curls, they build her head before,
And mount it with a formidable tow'r.

A giantess she seems; but look behind,
And then she dwindles to the pigmy kind.
Duck-legg'd, short-waisted,such a dwarf she is,
That she must rise on tip-toes for a kiss.
Mean while, her husband's whole estate is
spent ;

He
may go bare, while she receives his rent.
She minds him not; she lives not as a wife,
But like a bawling neighbour, full of strife:
Near him in this alone, that she extends
Her hate to all his servants and his friends.

Bellona's priests, a eunuch at their head,
About the streets a mad procession lead;
The venerable gelding, large, and high,
O'erlooks the herd of his inferior fry.

His awkward clergymen about him prance;
And beat the timbrels to their mystic dance.
Guiltless of * *, they tear their throats,
And squeak, in treble, their unmanly notes.
Meanwhile, his cheeks the mitred prophet
swells,

And dire presages of the year foretells.
Unless with eggs (his priestly hire) they haste
To expiate, and avert th' autumnal blast
And add beside a murrey-colour'd vest,‡
Which, in their places, may receive the pest
And, thrown into the flood, their crimes may
bear,

To purge th' unlucky omens of the year.

And add beside,&c.] A garment was given to the priest, which he threw into the river; and that, they thought, bore all the sins of the people, which were drowned with it.

Th' astonish'd matrons pay, before the rest; That sex is still obnoxious to the priest.

Through ice they beat, and plunge into the
stream,

If so the god has warn'd 'em in a dream.
Weak in their limbs, but in devotion strong,
On their bare hands and feet they crawl along
A whole field's length, the laughter of the throng.
Should Io (Io's priest I mean) command
A pilgrimage to Meroe's burning sand, [spring;
Through deserts they would seek the secret
And holy water, for lustration, bring.
How can they pay their priests too much re-
spect,
[glect?
Who trade with heav'n, and earthly gains ne-
With him, domestic gods discourse by night:
By day, attended by his quire in white,
The bald-pate tribe runs madding through the
street,
[cheat.
And smile to see with how much ease they
The ghostly sire forgives the wife's delights,
Who sins, through frailty, on forbidden nights;
And tempts her husband in the holy time
When carnal pleasure is a mortal crime.
The sweating image shakes his head, but he
With mumbled pray'rs atones the deity.
The pious priesthood the fat goose receive,
And they once brib'd, the godhead must forgive.
No sooner these remove, but full of fear,
A gypsy Jewess whispers in your ear,
And begs an alms: a high-priest's daughter she,
Vers'd in their T'almud, and divinity,
And prophesies beneath a shady tree.
Her goods a basket, and old hay her bed,
She strolls, and, telling fortunes, gains her bread:
Farthings, and some small moneys, are her fees;
Yet she interprets all your dreams for these.
Foretells th' estate, when the rich uncle dies,
And sees a sweetheart in the sacrifice.
Such toys, a pigeon's entrails can disclose :
Which yet th' Armenian augur far outgoes:
In dogs, a victim more obscene, he rakes;
And murder'd infants for inspection takes:
For gain, his impious practice he pursues ;
For gain, will his accomplices accuse.

More credit, yet, is to Chaldeans giv'n ;*
What they foretell is deem'd the voice of heav'n.
Their answers, as from Hammon's altar, come;
Since now the Delphian oracles are dumb.
And mankind, ignorant of future fate,
Believes what fond astrologers relate.

Of these the most in vogue is he, who sent
Beyond seas, is return'd from banishment,
His art who to aspiring Otho sold ;
And sure succession to the crown foretold.

• Chaldeans are thought to have been the first astrologers.

Otho succeeded Galba in the empire; which was foretold him by an astrologer.

For his esteem is in his exile plac'd;
The more believ'd, the more he was disgrac'd.
No astrologic wizard honour gains,
Who has not oft been banish'd, or in chains.
He gets renown, who, to the halter near,
But narrowly escapes, and buys it dear.

From him your wife inquires the planets'
will,

When the black jaundice shall her mother kill:
Her sister's and her uncle's end would know:
But, first, consults his art, when you shall go.
And, what's the greatest gift that heav'n can
give,

If, after her, th' adulterer shall live,
She neither knows nor cares to know the rest,
If Mars and Saturn shall the world infest
Or Jove and Venus with their friendly rays
Will interpose, and bring us better days.

Beware the woman too, and shun her sight,
Who in these studies does herself delight.
By whom a greasy almanac is borne,
With often handling, like chaft amber, worn
Not now consulting, but consulted, she
Of the twelve houses, and their lords, is free.
She, if the scheme a fatal journey show,
Stays safe at home, but lets her husband go.
If but a mile she travels out of town,
The planetary hour must first be known,
And lucky moment; if her eye but aches
Or itches, its decumbiture she takes.
No nourishment receives in her disease,
But what the stars and Ptolemy shall please.‡
The middle sort, who have not much to

And, without nurses, their own infants rear: You seldom hear of the rich mantle, spread For the babe, born in the great lady's bed. Such is the pow'r of herbs: such arts they use To make them barren, or their fruit to lose. But thou, whatever slops she will have bought, Be thankful, and supply the deadly draught: 1 Ptolemy] A famous astrologer, an Egyptian. The Brachmans are Indian philosophers, who remain to this day; and hold, after Pythagoras, the translation of souls from one body to another.

Help her to make manslaughter; let her bleed,
And never want for savin at her need.
For, if she holds till her nine months be run,
Thou mayst be father to an Æthiop's son.*
A boy, who ready gotten to thy hands
By law is to inherit all thy lands:

One of that hue, that should he cross the way,
His omen would discolour all the day.f
So pass the foundling by, a race unknown,
At doors expos'd, whom matrons make their

own:

And into noble families advance

A nameless issue, the blind work of chance.
Indulgent Fortune does her care employ,
And, smiling, broods upon the naked boy:
Her garment spreads, and laps him in the fold,
And covers, with her wings, from nightly cold:
Gives him her blessing; puts him in a way;
Sets up the farce, and laughs at her own play.
Him she promotes; she favours him alone,
And makes provision for him as her own.

The craving wife the force of magic tries,
And philters for th' unable husband buys :
The potion works not on the part design'd;
But turns his brains, and stupifies his mind.
The sotted moon-calf gapes, and staring on,
Sees his own bus'ness by another done :
A long oblivion, a benumbing frost,
Constrains his head; and yesterday is lost:
Some nimbler juice would make him foam and

rave,

Like that Cæsonia to her Caius gave:
Who, plucking from the forehead of the fool
His mother's love, infus'd it in the bowl:
The boiling blood ran hissing in his veins,
Till the mad vapour mounted to his brains.
The Thund'rer was not half so much on fire,
When Juno's girdle kindled his desire.
What woman will not use the pois'ning trade,
When Cæsar's wife the precedent has made?
Let Agrippina's mushroom be forgot,§
Giv'n to a slav'ring, old, unuseful sot;
That only clos'd the driveling dotard's eyes,
And sent his godhead downward to the skies.

To an Ethiop's son) His meaning is, help her to any kind of slops, which may cause her to miscarry, for fear she may be brought to bed of a blackmoor, which thou, being her husband, art bound to father; and that bastard may by law inherit thy estate.

His omen, &c.] The Romans thought it ominous to see a blackmoor in the morning, if he were the first man they met.

1 Cæsonia, wife to Caius Caligula, the great ty rant: 't is said she gave him a love potion, which flying up into his head, distracted him; and was the occcasion of his committing so many acts of cruelty.

5 Agrippina was the mother of the tyrant Nero, who poisoned her husband Claudius, that Nero might succeed, who was her son, and not Britannicus, who was the son of Claudius, by a former wife.

But this fierce potion calls for fire and sword; Nor spares the commons, when it strikes the lord:

So many mischiefs were in one combin'd;
So much one single pois'ner cost mankind.

If step-dames seek their sons-in-law to kill,
'Tis venial trespass; let them have their will;
But let the child, intrusted to the care
Of his own mother, of her bread beware:
Beware the food she reaches with her hand;
The morsel is intended for thy land.
Thy tu or be thy taster, ere thou eat;
There's poison in thy drink, and in thy meat.

You think this feign'd; the satire in a rage
Struts in the buskins of the tragic stage,
Forgets his bus'ness is to laugh and bite;
And will of deaths and dire revenges write.
Would it were all a fable that you read
But Drymon's wife pleads guilty to the deed.]]
I (she confesses) in the fact was caught,
Two sons despatching at one deadly draught.
What two! two sons, thou viper, in one day!
Yes, seven, she cries, if seven were in my way.
Medea's legend is no more a lie ; ¶

One age adds credit to antiquity.
Great ills, we grant, in former times did reign,
And murders then were done: but not for gain.
Less admiration to great crimes is due,
Which they through wrath, or through revenge,

pursue.

For, weak of reason, impotent of will,
The sex is hurried headlong into ill :
And, like a cliff from its foundations torn,
By raging earthquakes, into seas is borne.
But those are fiends, who crimes from thought
begin:

And, cool in mischief, meditate the sin.
They read th' example of a pious wife,
Redeeming, with her own, her husband's life;
Yet, if the laws did that exchange afford,
Would save their lap-dog sooner than their lord.

Where'er you walk, the Belides you meet ;**
And Clytemnestrast† grow in ev'ry street:
But here's the difference; Agamemnon's wife
Was a gross butcher with a bloody knife
But murder, now, is to perfection grown,
And subtle poisons are employ'd alone:
Unless some antidote prevents their arts,
And lines with balsam all the nobler parts;

The widow of Drymon poisoned her sons, that she might succeed to their estate: This was done either in the poet's time, or just before it.

Medea.out of revenge to Jason, who had forsaken her, killed the children which she had by him.

↑ The Belides] Who were fifty sisters, married to fifty young men, their cousin germans; and killed them all on their wedding-night, excepting Hypermnestra, who saved her husband Linus.

↑ Clytemnestra] The wife of Agamemnon, who, in favour to her adulterer Egysthus, was consenting to his murder.

In such a case, reserv'd for such a need, Rather than fail,* the dagger does the deed.

THE TENTH SATIRE OF JUVENAL.

THE ARGUMENT.

The poet's design, in this divine satire, is to repre. sent the various wishes and desires of mankind; and to set out the folly of them. He runs through all the several heads of riches, honours, eloquence, fame for martial achievements, long life, and beauty; and gives instances, in cach, how frequently they have proved the ruin of those that owned them. He concludes therefore, that since we generally choose so ill for ourselves, we should do better to leave it to the geds, to make the choice for us. All we can safely ask of heaven lies within a very small compass. 'Tis but health of body and mind. And if we have these, it is not much matter what we want besides; for we have already enough to make us happy.

Look round the habitable world, how few
Know their own good; or knowing it, pursue
How void of reason are our hopes and fears!
What in the conduct of our life appears
So well design'd, so luckily begun,
But, when we have our wish, we wish undone ?
Whole houses, of their whole desires possest,
Are often ruin'd, at their own request.
In wars, and peace, things hurtful we require,
When made obnoxious to our own desire.
With laurels some have fatally been crown'd;
Some, who the depths of eloquence have found,
In that unnavigable stream were drown'd.

The brawny fool, who did his vigour boast,
In that presuming confidence was lost:
But more have been by avarice opprest,
And heaps of money crowded in the chest:
Unwieldy sums of wealth, which higher mount
Than files of marshall'd figures can account.
To which the stores of Croesus, in the scale,
Would look like little dolphins, when they sail
In the vast shadow of the British whale.

For this, in Nero's arbitrary time, When virtue was a guilt, and wealth a crime, A troop of cut-throat guards were sent to seize The rich men's goods, and gut their palaces: The mob, commission'd by the government, Are seldom to an empty garret sent.

• Rather than fail] It will easily be understood, why it was impossible to make a single observation on this Sixth Satire, which, as he finely says in another place, is

Too foul to name, too fulsome to be read. Yet Lud. Prateus wrote long notes for the use of the Dauphin, under the inspection of Bossuet. Dr. J. W.

Milo, of Crotona, who, for a trial of his strength, going to rend an oak, perished in the attempt; for his arms were caught in the trunk of it, and he was devoured by wild beasts.

The fearful passenger, who travels late,
Charg'd with the carriage of a paltry plate,
Shakes at the moonshine shadow of a rush
And sees a red-coat rise from every bush :
The beggar sings, e'en when he sees the place
Beset with thieves, and never mends his pace.
Of all the vows, the first and chief request
Of each is, to be richer than the rest:
And yet no doubts the poor man's draught con-
trol,

He dreads no poison in his homely bowl.
Then fear the deadly drug, when gems divine
Enchase the cup, and sparkle in the wine.

Will you not now the pair of sages praise,
Who the same end pursu'd, by several ways,
One pitied, one contemn'd the woful times:
One laugh'd at follies, one lamented crimes:
Laughter is easy; but the wonder lies,
What store of brine supplied the weeper's eyes
Democritus could feed his spleen, and shake
His sides and shoulders till he felt 'em ache
Though in his country-town no lictors were,
Nor rods, nor axe, nor tribune did appear;
Nor all the foppish gravity of show,
Which cunning magistrates on crowds bestow:
What had he done, had he beheld, on high
Our pretor seated, in mock majesty ;
His chariot rolling o'er the dusty place,
While, with dumb pride, and a set formal face,
He moves, in the dull ceremonial track,
With Jove's embroider'd coat upon his back:
A suit of hangings had not more opprest
His shoulders, than that long, laborious vest:
A heavy gewgaw, (call'd a crown,) that spread
About his temples, drown'd his narrow head;
And would have crush'd it with the massy
freight,

But that a sweating slave sustain'd the weight.
A slave in the same chariot seen to ride,
To mortify the mighty madman's pride.
Add now th' imperial eagle, rais'd on high,
With golden beak (the mark of majesty,)
Trumpets before, and on the left and right,
A cavalcade of nobles, all in white:
In their own natures false and flatt'ring tribes,
But made his friends, by places and by bribes.
In his own age, Democritus could find
Sufficient cause to laugh at human kind:
Learn from so great a wit; .a land of bogs
With ditches fenc'd, a heaven fat with fogs,
May form a spirit fit to sway the state;
And make the neighb'ring monarchs fear their
fate.

He laughs at all the vulgar cares and fears
At their vain triumphs, and their vainer tears:
An equal temper in his mind he found,
When Fortune flatter'd him, and when she

frown'd.