NIL HABET INFELIX PAUPERTAS DURIUS IN SE, QUAM QUOD RIDICULOS HOMINES FACIT. Exeat, in quit, Si pudor eft, & de pulvino furgat equeftri, Cujus res legi non fufficit, & fedeant hîc 155 Pinnirapi cultos juvenes, juvenesque lanistæ : Quis gener hîc placuit cenfu minor, atque puellæ 160 153. Says he. i. e. Says the perfon who has the care of placing the people in the theatre. Let him go out, &c.] Let the man who has not a knight's revenue go out of the knight's place or feat. It is to be observed, that, formerly, all perfons placed themfelves, as they came, in the theatre promiicuously: now, in contempt of the poor, that licence was taken away. Lucius Rofcius Otho, a Tribune of the people, inftituted a law, that there fhould be fourteen rows of feats, covered with cushions, on which the knights were to be feated. If a poor man got into one of thefe, or any other, who had not 400 feftertia a year income, which made a knight's eftate, he was turned out with the utmost contempt. 155. Is not fufficient for the law.] i. e. Who has not 400 feftertia a year, according to Otho's law. 156. The fons of pimps, &c.] The lowest, the most base-born fellows, who happen to be rich enough to answer the conditions of Otho's law, are to be feated in the knights feats; and perfons of the best family are turned out, to get a feat where they can, if they happen to be poor. See Hor. Epod. iv. 1. 15, 16. 157. Applaud.] Take the lead in applauding theatrical exhibitions.Applaufe was expreffed, as among us, by clapping of hands. Crier.] A low office among the Romans, as among us, who proclaimed the edicts of magiftrates, public fales of goods, &c. The poet fays--nitidi præconis, intimating that the criers got a good deal of money, lived well, were fat and fleek in their appearance, and affected great fprucenefs in their drefs. 158. Of a fword player.] Pinnirapi-denotes that fort of gladiator, called allo Retiarius, who, with a net which he had in his hand, was to furprise his adversary, and catch hold on the creft of his helmet, which was adorned with peacock's plumes: from pinna, a plane or feather, and rapio, to fnatch. See Sat. ii. 143, note, where we shall find the figure of a fish on the helmet ; UNHAPPY POVERTY HAS NOTHING HARDER IN ITSELF THAN THAT IT MAKES MEN RIDICULOUS. go out, fays he, Let him If he has any shame, and let him rife from the equestrian cushion, Whofe eftate is not fufficient for the law, and let there fit here The fons of pimps, in whatever brothel born. Here let the fon of a spruce crier applaud, among 155 The fmart youths of a fword-player, and the youths of a fencer : Thus it pleased vain Otho, who distinguished us. What fon-in-law, here, inferior in eftate, hath pleased, and unequal 160 helmet; and as pinna alfo means the fin of a fish, perhaps this kind of gladiator was called Pinnirapus, from his endeavouring to catch this in his net. A fencer.] Lanifta fignifies a fencing-mafter, one that taught boys to fence. The youths.] The fons-now grown young menjuvenes. Such people as these were entitled to feats in the fourteen rows of the equeftrian order, on account of their estates: while fons of nobles, and gentlemen of rank, were turned out because their income did not come up to what was required, by Otho's law, to conftitute a knight's eftate. 159. Thus it pleafed vain Otho.] q. d. No found or good reafon could be given for this; it was the mere whim of a vain man, who established this diftinction, from his own caprice and fancy, and to gratify his own pride and vanity. However, Otho's law not only diftinguished the knights from the plebeians, but the knights of birth from those who were advanced to that dignity by their fortunes or fervices; giving to the former the first rows on the equeftrian benches. Therefore Hor. Epod. iv. where he treats in the feverest manner Menas, the freedman of Cn. Pompeius, who had been advanced to a knight's eftate, mentions it as one inftance of his infolence and pride, that he fat himself in one of the first rows after he became poffeffed of a knight's eftate. Sedilibufque magnus in primis eques, See FRANCIS, notes in loc. 160. What fon-in-law.] Umbritius ftill proceeds in fhewing the Sarcinulis impar? quis pauper fcribitur hæres? Quando in confilio eft Edilibus? agmine facto HAUD FACILE EMERGUNT, QUORUM VIRTUTIBUS OBSTAT RES ANGUSTA DOMI; fed Romæ durior illis. 165 the miseries of being poor, and inftances the difadvantages which men of fmall fortunes lie under with respect to marriage. Cenfus fignifies a man's eftate, 160. Inferior in eftate.] wealth, or yearly revenue. be paid according to men's eftates. According to the firft meaning of cenfus-cenfu minor may fignify, that a man's having but a fmall fortune, unequal to that of the girl to whom he proposes himself in marriage, would occafion his being rejected, as by no means pleasing or accept, able to her father for a fon-in-law. According to the fecond interpretation of the word cenfus, cenfu minor may imply the man's property to be too fmall and inconfiderable for entry in the public register as an object of taxation. The copulative atque feems to favour the first interpretation, as it unites the two fentences-as if Umbritius had faid-Another inftance, to fhew how poverty renders men contemptible at Rome, is, that nobody will marry his daughter to one whofe fortune does not equal hers; which proves, that in this, as in all things elfe, money is the grand and primary confideration. Themistocles, the Athenian general, was of another mind, when he faid-" I had rather have a man for my daughter "without money, than money without a man." 161. Written down heir?] Who ever remembered a poor man in his will, fo as to make him his heir? 162. Ediles?] Magiftrates in Rome, whofe office it was to overfee the repairs of the public buildings and temples-alfo the treets and conduit to look to weights and measures-to regulate the price of corn and victuals-alfo to provide for solema funerals and plays. This officer was fometimes a fenator, who was called Curulis, a fellâ curuli, a chair of state made of ivory, carved, and placed, in curru, in a chariot, in which the head officers of Rome were wont to be carried into council. But there were meaner officers called Ediles, with a fimilar jurifdiction in the country towns, to inspect and correct abuses in weights and meafures, and the like. See Sat. x. 101—2. When, To the bags of a girl? what poor man written down heir? When is he in counsel with diles? In a formed body, The mean Romans ought long ago to have migrated. THEY DO NOT EASILY EMERGE, TO WHOSE VIRTUES A NARROW FORTUNE IS A HINDRANCE; but at Rome more hard to them is 165 The endeavour: a miserable lodging at a great price, at a great price When, fays Umbritius, is a poor man ever confulted by one of the magistrates? his advice is looked upon as not worth having-much lefs can he ever hope to be a magiftrate himself, however deferving or fit for it. In a formed body.] Agmine facto-i, e. collected together in one body, as we fay. So Virg. Georg. iv. 167, of the bees flying out in a fwarm against the drones. And again, En. i. 86, of the winds rufhing forth together from the cave of Eolus. 163. Long ago.] Alluding to the fedition and the defection of the plebeians, called here tenues Quirites-when oppreffed by the nobles and fenators, they gathered together, left Rome, and retired to the Mons Sacer, an hill near the city confecrated to Jupiter, and talked of going to fettle elsewhere; but the famous Apologue of Menenius Agrippa, of the belly and the members, prevailed on them to return. This happened about 500 years before Juvenal was born. See An. Un. Hift. vol. xi. 383, 403. Ought to have migrated.] To have perfifted in their intention of leaving Rome, and of going to fome other part, where they could have maintained their independency. See before, 1. 60. Quirites. 164. Eafily emerge.] Out of obfcurity and contempt. Whole virtues, &c.] The exercife of whofe faculties and good qualities is cramped and hindered by the narrowness of their circumftances: and, indeed, poverty will always prevent refpect, and be an obftacle to merit, however great it may þe. So Hor. Sat. v. Lib. ii. 1. 8. Atqui Et genus & virtus, nifi cum re, vilior algâ eft. But high defcent and meritorious deeds, FRANCIS. 166. The endeavour.] But to them-illis-to thofe who Servorum ventres, & frugi cœnula magno. Fictilibus cœnare pudet, quod turpe negavit Pars magna Italiæ eft, fi verum admittimus, in quâ 178 have small incomes, the endeavouring to emerge from contempt, is more difficult at Rome than in any other place; becaufe their little is, as it were, made lefs, by the exceffive dearnefs of even common neceffaries-a fhabby lodging, for inftance; maintenance of flaves, whofe food is but coarse; a fmall meal for one's felf, however frugal-all these are at an exorbitant price. 168. It fhameth, &c.] Luxury and expence are now got to fuch an height, that a man would be ashamed to have earthenware at his table. Which he denied, &c.] The poet is here fuppofed to allude to Curius Dentatus, who conquered the Samnites and the Marfi, and reduced the Sabellans (defcendents of the Sabines) into obedience to the Romans. When the Samnite ambaffadors came to him to treat about a league with the Romans, they found him among the Marfi, fitting on a wooden feat near the fire, dreffing his own dinner, which confifted of a few roots, in an earthen veffel, and offered him large fums of money-but he difmiffed them, saying, "I had rather command the rich, "than be rich myfelf; tell your countrymen, that they will "find it as hard to corrupt as to conquer me. Curius Dentatus was at that time conful with P. Corn. Rufinus, and was a man of great probity, and who, without any vanity or oftentation, lived in that voluntary poverty, and unaffected contempt of riches, which the philofophers of those times were wont to recommend. He might, therefore, well be thought to deny, that the use of earthen-ware was disgraceful, any more than of the homely and coarse cloathing of those people, which he was content to wear. See Ant. Univ. Hift. vol. xii. p. 139. But, among commentators, there are thofe, who, instead of negavit, are for reading negabit-not confining the fentiment to any particular perfon, but as to be understood in a general fenfe, as thus-However it may be reckoned difgraceful, at Rome, to use earthen-ware at table, yet he who should fuddenly be conveyed from thence to the Marfi, and behold their plain and frugal manner of living, as well as that of their neighbours the Sabellans, will deny that there is any fhame or difgrace in the |