humbly of his poetry, he yet speaks of his beauties and defects, in a manner which evinces a more than common acquaintance with both. What Dryden left imperfect has been filled up in a great measure by Dusaulx, in the preliminary discourse to his transla tion of Juvenal, and by Rupert, in his learned and ingenious Essay De diversa Satirarum Lucil. Horat. Pers. et Juvenalis indole. With the assistance of these, I shall endeavour to give a more extended view of the characteristic excellencies and defects of the rival Satirists, than has yet appeared in our language; little solicitous for the praise of originality, if I may be allowed to aspire to that of candour and truth. Previously to this, however, it will be necessary to say something on the supposed origin of Satire: and as this is a very beaten subject, I shall discuss it as briefly as possible. It is probable that the first metrical compositions of the Romans, like those of every other people, were pious effusions for favours received or expected from the gods: of these, the earliest, according to Varro, were the hymns to Mars, which, though used by the Salii in the Augustan age, were no longer intelligible. To these, succeeded the Fescennine verses, which were sung, or rather recited, after the vintage and harvest, and appear to have been little more than rude praises of the tutelar divinities of the country, intermixed with clownish jeers and sarcasms, extemporally poured out by the rustics in some kind of measure, and indifferently directed at the spectators, or at one another. These, by degrees, assumed the form of a dialogue; of which, as nature is every where the same, and the progress of refinement but little varied, some resemblance may perhaps be found in the eclogues of Theocritus. Thus improved, (if the word may be allowed of such barbarous amusements) they formed, for near three centuries, the delight of that nation: popular favour, however, had a dangerous effect on the performers, whose licentiousness degenerated at length into such wild invective, that it was found necessary to restrain it by a positive law. Si qui populo occentassit, carmenve condisit, quod infamiam faxit flagitiumve alteri, fuste ferito.* From this time, we hear no farther complaints of the Fescennine verses, which continued to charm the Romans; until about a century afterwards, during the ravages of a dreadful pestilence, the senate, as the historians say, in order to propitiate the gods, called in a troop of players from Tuscany, to assist at the celebration of their ancient festivals. This was a wise and a salutary measure: the plague had spread dejection through the city, which was thus rendered more obr noxious to its fury; and it therefore became necessary, by novel and extraordinary amusements, to divert the attention of the people from the melancholy objects around them.. As the Romans were unacquainted with the language of Tuscany, the players, Livy tells us, omitted the modulation and the words, and confined themselves solely to gestures, which were accompanied by the flute. This imperfect exhibition, however, was so superior to their own, that the Romans eagerly strove to attain the art; and as soon as they could imitate what they admired, graced their rustic measures with music and dancing. By degrees they dropped the Fescennine verses, for something of a more regular kind, which now took the name of SATIRE.+ Rupert. Juv. LXXXV. The origin of this word is now acknowledged to be Roman. Scaliger derived it from carup (satyrus,) but Casaubon, Dacier and others, more reasonably, from satura (fem. of satur) rich, abounding, full of variety. In this sense it was applied to the lanx or charger, in which the various productions of the soil, were offered up to the gods; and thus came to be used for any miscellaneous collection in general. Satura olla, a hotch-potch; saturæ leges, laws comprehending a multitude of regulations, &c. This deduction of the name, may serve to explain, in some measure, the nature of the first Satires, which treated of various subjects, and were full of various matters: but enough on this trite topic. These Satires (for as yet they had little claim to the title of dramas) continued, without much alteration, to the year 514, when Livius Andronicus, a Greek by birth, and a freedman of L. Salinator, who was undoubtedly acquainted with the old comedy of his country, produced a regular play. That it pleased, cannot be doubted, for it surpassed the Satires, even in their improved state; and indeed banished them for some time from the scene. They had however taken too strong a hold of the affections of the people to be easily forgotten, and it was therefore found necessary to reproduce and join them to the plays of Andronicus, (the superiority of which could not be contested) under the name of Exodia or after-pieces. These partook, in a certain degree, of the general amelioration of the stage; something like a story was now introduced into them, which, though frequently indecent, and always extravagant, created a greater degree of interest, than the reciprocation of gross humour and scurrility in unconnected dialogues. Whether any of the old people still regretted this sophistication of their early amusements, it is not easy to say; but Ennius, whọ came to Rome about twenty years after this period, and who was more than half a Grecian, conceived he should perform an agree able service by reviving the ancient Satires.* He did not pretend to restore them to the stage, for which indeed the new pieces were infinitely better calculated, but endeavoured to adapt them to the closet, by refining their grossness, and softening their asperity. Success justified the attempt; Satire, thus freed from action, and formed into a poem, became a favourite pursuit, and was cultivated * It should be observed, however, that the idea was obvious, and the work itself highly necessary. The old Satire, amidst much coarse ribaldry, frequently attacked the follies and vices of the day. This could not be done by the comedy which superseded it, and which, by a strange perversity of taste, was never rendered national. Its customs, manners, nay, its very plots, were Grecian; and scarcely more applicable to the Romans than to us. by several writers of eminence. In imitation of his model, Ennius confined himself to no particular species of verse, nor indeed of language, for he mingled Greek expressions with his Latin, at will. It is solely with a reference to this new attempt, that Horace and Quintilian are to be understood, when they claim for the Romans the invention of this kind of poetry; and certainly they had * To extend this to Lucilius, as is sometimes done, is absurd, since he evidently had in view the old comedy of the Greeks, of which his satires, according to Horace, were rigid imitations: 66 Eupolis atque Cratinus, Aristophanesque poëtæ "Atque alii, quorum comedia prisca virorum est; "HINC omnis pendet Lucilius, hosce secutus, "Mutatis tantum pedibus numerisque :" Here the matter would seem to be at once determined by a very competent judge. Strip the old Greek comedy of its action, and change the metre from iambic to heroic, and you have the Roman satire! It is evident from this, that unless two things be granted; first, that the actors in those ancient satires were ignorant of the existence of the Greek comedy; and secondly, that Ennius, who knew it well, passed it by for a ruder model; the Romans can have no pretensions to the honour they claim. And even if these be granted, the honour appears to be scarcely worth the claiming; for the Greeks had not only dramatic, but lyric and heroic satire. To pass by the Margites, what were the iambics of Archilochus, and the scazons of Hipponax, but satires? nay, what were the Silli-Casaubon derives them aro Tov σawer, to scoff, to treat petulantly; and there is no doubt of the justness of his derivation. These little pieces were made up of passages from various poems, which, by slight alterations, were humourously or satirically applied at will. The satires of Ennius were probably little more; indeed we have the express authority of Diomedes the grammarian, for it. After speaking of Lucilius, whose writings he derives, with Horace, from the old comedy, he adds, et olim carmen, quod ex variis poematibus constabat, satira vocabatur; quale scripserunt Pacuvius et Ennius. Modern critics agree in understanding ex variis poematibus, of various kinds of metre; but, I do not see why it may not mean, as I have rendered it," of various poems;" unless we choose to compliment the Romans, by supposing that what was in the Grecks a mere cento, was in them an original composition. It would scarcely be doing justice, however, to Ennius, to suppose that he did not f opportunities of judging, which we have not, for little of Ennius, and nothing of the old satire, remains. It is not necessary to pursue the history of Satire farther in this place, or to speak of another species of it, the Varronian or, as Varro himself called it, the Menippean, which branched out from the former, and was a medley of prose and verse: it will be a more pleasing, as well as a more useful employ, to enter a little into what Dryden, I know not for what reason, calls the most difficult part of his undertaking, "a comparative view of the Satirists," not certainly with the design of depressing one at the expense of another, (for though I have translated Juvenal, I have no quarrel with Horace and Persius) but for the purpose of pointing out the characteristic excellencies and defects of them all. To do this the more effectually, it will be previously necessary to take a cursory view of the times in which their respective works were produced. surpass his models, for, to say the truth, the Greek Silli appear to have been no very extraordinary performances. A few short specimens of them may be seen in Diogenes Laertius, and a longer one, which has escaped the writers on this subject, in Dio Chrysostom. As this is, perhaps, the only Greek satire extant, it may be regarded as a curiosity; and as such, for as a literary effort it is worth nothing, a short extract from it may not be uninteresting. Sneering at the people of Alexandria, for their mad attachment to chariot-races, &c. he says, this folly of theirs is not ill exposed by one of those scurrilous writers of (Silli, or) parodies: & nunws TIS TAPETOINTE TWV ORTOWY Tätni ποιητων Αρματα δ' αλλοτε μεν χθονι πιλνατο πολυβοτείρη, Αλλοτε δ' αίξασκε μετηορα· τοι δε θεαται Ad Alexand. Orat. XXXII. |