But if Persius borrowed the form of his Satires from the drama, he copied (say the criticks) the language of them, from his immediate predecessor. That he conveyed far too many expressions from Horace, must be admitted; his larcenies, however, seldom extend beyond the mere words, which were probably considered as common property; and it is really matter of surprise how, with such unbounded predilection for his phraseology, he should manifest such provoking contempt for his reasoning. His object, indeed, was different. Horace probably wished for little more than to correct les travers de l'esprit, and to establish a kind of conventional morality, in which the balance between virtue and vice should be fairly struck, and the pursuit of both checked on this side pain; but our poet had other and higher views, and he therefore forces his imitations beyond their original purpose, or, as Casaubon expresses himself, quæ tractaverat Horatius, alia via,ac ratione diversa explicare aggreditur, and adapts them to his peculiar tenets; not much, perhaps, to the advantage of their perspicuity.

But Persius is still a poet-thrown away, if the reader pleases, upon an unpoetical creed—but, nevertheless, with very considerable claims upon the applause of mankind. What he appears to want is genius, or that portion of it which comes under the faculty of invention, and in which both Horace and Juvenal greatly excelled. Had his mind been as comprehensive as his fancy was

quick and fervid, he would not be far behind the best of the Roman writers; but his deficiency in this respect is strikingly obvious: hence, though his Satires, generally speaking, are less diversified than those of Horace and Juvenal, he seldom appears to have taken a comprehensive view of his subject. Whatever be the outline, it is not adequately filled up: little pieces of exquisite colouring, finished with all the painful nicety of a Flemish picture, embellish the canvas; but the master hand is not there to combine them in an harmonious whole. In a word, the imagination of our author is neither rich, nor copious, nor flowing; and he therefore breaks down his materials into minute parts, on which he ordinarily dwells with too much complacency

Captus amore loci cursum obliviscitur, anceps

Quo fluat, et dulces nectit in omne moras.

This is more particularly the case, where the maxims of his school are to be recommended to admiration; on other occasions, and when he is borne away by the natural feelings of an ardent and virtuous mind, he pours forth a strain of full and exquisite harmony, that cannot be heard without delight.

How Dryden could be so unjust to the merits of Persius as to affirm that he had no poetry in him, it is hard to guess. If we even suppose that he only compared him with Juvenal, whose long resounding march, and energy divine, he confessedly does not equal, yet so many beautiful pas

sages are scattered through his works, that no one alive to the charms of verse, (and the perception of Dryden, though not quick, was strong,) could possibly be insensible to his claims. We must therefore be content to set it down as one of those careless assertions which he was in the habit of making, and which, had he written again on the subject, he would, with equal levity, perhaps, have disproved.

Our poet (as he says of himself) was prone to satirick mirth — petulanti splene cachinno: this, I think, may be fairly questioned; though he appears so convinced of it as to put a similar description of himself into the mouth of his preceptor ingenuo defigere ludo. In his attempts at wit he rarely succeeds; his jests are commonly frigid; and if he laughs outright, less fortunate than his rammish Centurion, he generally laughs alone; his irony, indeed, is unusually caustick; and prejudice itself must allow that he is a great and unrivalled master of humour :-not of that refined species which is found in such perfection in the Epistles, and even in some of the Satires of Horace; but of that broader kind which arises from a grotesque and extravagant exaggeration or diminution of objects, and of which the harvest-feast of Vectidius, and several other descriptions, which will readily occur to the reader, furnish very amusing examples. The pleasure is occasionally heightened by a felicity of language peculiar to the poet. No writer of his time, — no writer, in fact, of any time, with

the exception of Shakspeare, ever used such picturesque terms as Persius; his words have a kind of motion and life about them, which carries the reader beyond the sober import of the expression, and flatters at once his fancy and his understanding.

These vivid gleams, however, are rare :— short and far between, are the gratifications which they afford for the poet, with fatal perversity, eagerly sacrifices this, with every other natural advantage, to the prejudices of his school, and compresses and stiffens his language, till it has commonly as little left of life as of grace and ease. In general, says Peacham, (the old critick quoted above) "the style of Persius is broken, froward, harsh and unpleasing." This is somewhat severely expressed; yet it cannot be denied that though vehement, elevated, and brilliant, it is too frequently abrupt, arid, and over strained; crowded with violent tropes, and darkened with unwonted and even unwarrantable inversions.

The personal character of our author has been already noticed, in the Introduction to Juvenal. His moral qualities, indeed, can scarcely be too frequently or too highly commended; he was grateful, and affectionate; of rigid and austere virtue in himself, and in his abhorrence of vice, consistent, ardent, and sincere. He never compromises his satire, and we have only to lament, that in the warmth of inexperienced youth and zeal, his censure is indiscriminately severe. He

is a moral Draco, who writes his dispensations in blood. From an intensity of feeling, quickened, perhaps, by his mode of education, he appears to attribute a degree of importance to many things very disproportionate to the opinion generally conceved of them; and his surprise, as well as his anger, is excited at perceiving that mankind, in general, are not prepared to sympathize with his boiling indignation. This had not escaped Koenig "Quid? si ea castigasset, quæ Juvenalis exagitat, quibus tandem verbis eum usurum fuisse existimemus? Verum illæ dictiones, quas adhibuit, rebus, quæ notantur adcommodatæ sunt, nec dici potest, eum indignatione abreptum virgineum illum pudorem, quem vulgo illi tribuerunt, exuisse ; quum illa verba tunc vel a viris honestis usurparentur nec Cicero erubuerit in Philippicis suis de rebus fœdioribus verbis etiam obscenioribus uti."

There is justice in many of these remarks :for that Persius was really modest and reserved cannot be doubted. He has no allusions to the depravities of the female sex, nor to the abominations which Horace notices with disgraceful levity, and Juvenal reprehends with rank and disgusting freedom. It is, therefore, highly probable, not only, as Koenig observes, that these obscene and liberal terms were used by grave and respectable men; but that they had, in some measure, lost their primitive signification, and acquired a conventional meaning, not altogether offensive to se

verer ears.