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There will now be no parafite: but who will bear that Filthiness of luxury? how great is the gullet, which, for

itself, puts

Whole boars, an animal born for feafts?

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Yet there is a prefent punishment, when you put off your cloaths,

Turgid, and carry an indigefted peacock to the baths:
Hence fudden deaths, and inteftate old age.

A new ftory, nor is it a forrowful one, goes thro' all com

panies :

145 A funeral, to be applauded by angry friends, is carried forth. There will be nothing farther, which pofterity can add To our morals: those born after us, will defire, and do the fame things.

143. An indigefted peacock.] Which you have devoured, and which is crude and indigefted within you.

To the baths.] It was the custom to bathe before meals; the contrary was reckoned unwholesome. See Perf. Sat. iii. 1. 98-105. and Hor. Epift. Lib. i. Ep. vi. 1. 61.

144. Sudden deaths.] Apoplexies and the like, which arise from too great repletion. Bathing, with a full ftomach, muft be likely to occafion thefe, by forcing the blood with too great violence towards the brain.

Inteftate old age.] i. e. Old gluttons thus fuddenly cut off, without time to make their wills.

145. A new story, &c.] A fresh piece of news, which nobody is forry for.

146. A funeral is carried forth.] The word ducitur is peculiarly used to denote the carrying forth a corpfe to burial, or to the funeral pile. So Virg. Geor. iv. 256.

Exportant tectis, & triftia funera DUCUNT.

Owing, perhaps, to the proceffion of the friends, &c. of the deceased, which went before the corpfe, and led it to the place of burning, or interment.

Applauded by angry friends.] Who, difobliged by having nothing left them, from the deceafed's dying fud denly, and without a will, exprefs their refentment by rejoicing at his death, inftead of lamenting it. See Perf. Sat. vi. 33-4.

148. To our morals.] Our vices and debaucheries, owing to the depravity and corruption of our morals.

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148. Thofe

OMNE IN PRÆCIPITI VITIUM STETIT: utere velis,

Totos pande finus: dicas hîc forfitan, "undè

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Ingenium par materiæ? undè illa priorum "Scribendi quodcunque animo flagrante liberet Simplicitas, cujus non audeo dicere nomen? "Quid refert diétis ignofcat Mutius, an non? "Pone Tigellinum, tædâ lucebis in illâ,

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Quâ ftantes ardent, qui fixo gutture fumant, "Et latum mediâ fulcum deducis arenâ.

150

155

148. Those born after us.] Minores, i. e. natu-our defcendents; the oppofite of majores natu-our ancestors.

149. All vice is at the height.] In præcipiti ftetit-hath flood-hath been for fome time at its highest pitch-at its fummit-fo that our pofterity can carry it no higher. Compare the two preceding lines.

Vice is at stand, and at the highest flow. DRYDEN. On tip toe. AINSW.

149-50. Use fails-Spread, &c.] A metaphor taken from failors, who, when they have a fair wind, fpread open their fails. as much as they can. The poet here infinuates, that there is now a fair opportunity for fatire to difplay all its powers.

150-1. Whence is there genius, &c.] Here he is fuppofed to be interrupted by fome friend, who starts an objection, on his invocation to Satire to fpread all its fails, and use all its powers against the vices of the times.

Where thall we find genius equal to the matter?-equal to range fo wide a field-equal to the defcription, and due correction, of fo much vice?

151. Whence that fimplicity, &c.] That fimple and undif guifed freedom of reproof, which former writers exercised. Alluding, perhaps, to Lucilius, Horace, and other writers of former times.

153. A burning mind.] Inflamed with zeal, and burning with fatiric rage against the vices and abufes of their times.

Of which I dare not, &c.] It is hardly fafe now to name, or mention, the liberty of the old writers; it is so funk and gone, that the very naming it is dangerous.

154. Mutius.] Titus Mutius Albutius-a very great and powerful man. He was fatirized by Lucilius, and this, most feverely, by name. See note on Perf. Sat. i. 1. 115.

Lucilius feared no bad confequences of this, in thofe days of liberty.

155. Set

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Spread their whole bofoms open. Here, perhaps, you'll fay-" Whence

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"Is there genius equal to the matter? Whence that fim

"plicity

"Of former (writers), of writing whatever they might "like, with

"A burning mind, of which I dare not tell the name. . "What fignifies it, whether Mutius might forgive what "they faid, or not?

"Set down Tigellinus, and you will fhine in that torch, 155 "In which standing they burn, who with fixed throat smoke; "And you draw out a wide furrow in the midst of sand..

155. Set down Tigellinus.] i. e. Expofe him as an object of fatire-fatirize this creature and infamous favourite of Nero's, and most terrible will be the confequence.

In that torch.] This cruel punishment feems to have been proper to incendiaries, in which light the poet humourously supposes the fatirizers of the emperor's favourites, and other great men, to be looked upon at that time.

After Nero had burnt Rome, to fatisfy his curiofity with the profpect, he contrived to lay the odium on the Chriftians, and charged them with fetting the city on fire. He caused them to be wrapped round with garments, which were bedaubed with pitch, and other combustible matters, and fet on fire at night, by way of torches to enlighten the streets---and thus they miferably perifhed. See Kennet, Ant. p. 147.

156. Standing.] In an erect pofture,

With fixed throat.] Faftened by the neck to a ftake. 157. And you draw out a wide furrow, &c.] After all the danger, which a fatirift runs of his life, for attacking Tigellinus, or any other minion of the emperor's-all his labour will be in vain; there is no hope of doing any good. It would be like ploughing in the barren fand, which would yield nothing to reward your pains.

Commentators have given various explanations of this line, which is very difficult, and almoft unintelligible, where the copies read deducet, as if relating to the fumant in the preceding line; but this cannot well be, that the plural fhould be expreffed by the third perfon fingular. They talk of the sufferers making a trench in the fand, by running round the poft, to avoid the flames-but how can this be, when the perfon has the combuftibles

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" Qui dedit ergo tribus patruis aconita, vehetur
"Penfilibus plumis, atque illinc defpiciet nos?"
" Cùm veniet contrà, digito compesce labellum:
"Accufator erit, qui verbum dixerit, hic est.
"Securus licet Æneam, Rutilumque ferocem
"Committas: nulli gravis eft percuffus Achilles :

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buftibles faftened round him, and must be in the midst of fire, go where he may ?-Befides, this idea does not agree with fixo gutture, which implies being faftened, or fixed, so as not to be

able to ftir.

Inftead of deducet, or deducit, I fhould think deducis the right reading, as others have thought before me. This agrees, in number and perfon, with lucebis, 1. 155, and gives us an eafy and natural folution of the obfervation; viz. that, after all the danger incurred, by fatirizing the emperor's favourites, no good was to be expected; they were too bad to be reformed.

The Greeks had a proverbial faying, much like what I contend for here, to express labouring in vain-viz. Appov μelgers— Arenam metiris; you measure the fand-i. e. of the fea.

Juvenal expreffes the fame thought, Sat. vii. 48—9, as I would fuppofe him to do in this line:

Nos tamen hoc agimus, tennique in pulvere fulcos
Ducimus, & littus fterili verfamus aratro.

158. Wolf's-bane.] Aconitum is the Latin for this poifonous herb; but it is used in the plural, as here, to denote other forts of poison, or poison in general. See Ovid. Met. i. 147.

Lurida terribiles mifcent AcoNITA novercæ.

Three uncles.] Tigellinus is here meant, who poifoned three uncles that he might poffefs himself of their eftates. And, after their death, he forged wills for them, by which he became poffeffed of all they had. He likewife impeached several of the nobility, and got their eftates. See more in AINSW. under Tigellinus.

Shall be, therefore, &c.] And because there may be "danger in writing fatire, as things now are, is fuch a cha*racter as this to triumph in his wickedness unmolested? "Shall he be carried about in ftate, and look down with contempt upon other people, and fhall 1 not dare to say a "word?"This we may fuppofe Juvenal to mean, on hearing what is faid about the danger of writing fatire, and on being cautioned against it.

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159. With penfile feathers.] Penfilis means, literally, hanging in the air. It was a piece of luxury, to have a mattress and

pillows

"Shall he, therefore, who gave wolf's-bane to three uncles,

❝ be carried

"With penfile feathers, and from thence look down on us?" "When he shall come oppofite, reftrain your lip with your << finger

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"There will be an accufer (of him) who fhall say the "word "That's he."

"Though, fecure, Æneas and the fierce Rutilian "You may match: fmitten Achilles is grievous to none:

pillows ftuffed with feathers; on which the great man repofed himself in his litter. Hence the poet makes ufe of the term penfilibus to plumis, as being in the litter which hung in the air, as it was carried along by the bearers. See before, 1. 32, and note; and 1. 64-5, and note.

159. From thence.] From his eafy litter.

Look down.] With contempt, and disgain.

160. When be shall come oppofite.] The moment you meet him, carried along in his ftately litter (fays Juvenal's fuppofed adviser) instead of faying any thing, or taking any notice of him, let him pafs quietly-lay your hand on your mouth-hold your tongue-be filent.

161. There will be an accufer.] An informer, who will lay an accufation before the emperor, if you do but fo much as point with your finger, or utter with your lips" That's he." Therefore, that neither of these may happen, lay your finger upon your lips, and make not the flightest remark.

qui, &c.

Of him who.] Illi or illius is here understood before

162. Though fecure.] Though you must not meddle with the living, you may securely write what you please about the dead.

- Æneas and the fierce Rutilian.] i. e. Æneas, and Turnus, a king of the Rutilians, the rival of Æneas, and flain by him. See Virg. Æn. xii. 919, &c.

163. You may match.] Committas-is a metaphorical expreffion, taken from matching or pairing gladiators, or others, in fingle combat.

Martial fays

Cum JUVENALE meo cur me committere tentas ?

"Why do you endeavour to match me with my friend Juvenal ?” i. e. in a poetical conteft with him.

By committas we are therefore to understand, that one might very fafely write the hiftory of Eneas and Turnus, and match them together in fight-as Virgil has done.

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163. Smitten

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