Deproperare apio.coronas,

Curatve myrto?

But the perfumes most in request were those which came from Arabia, India, and Persia.

Non omnes possunt olere unguenta exotica.

It appears from Seneca, that one method of inviting a person of rank to supper, was to send him perfumes and garlands. (Seneca de Ira, L. ii.) Perfumes, among the Romans, were made from myrrh, cinnamon, nard, spikenard, casia, roses, baccar, &c.

Ver. 17. Et signum in vapida naso tetigisse lagena. This is to draw from the life. Horace himself could hardly have given a more striking picture of avarice.

Ver. 18.

Producis genio.

Genitos horoscope, varo

In the age of Persius the number of judicial astrologers at Rome seems more than once to have excited the indignation of the poet, who justly reprobated a superstition by which jugglers and sciolists imposed upon the credulity of the people. The senate had in vain decreed the expulsion of those cheats: they assumed the names of Chaldai, Genethliaci, and Mathematici; and obtained the highest credit among the lower orders of the Romans, who were the dupes of their impostures. Every body knows the weakness of Dryden upon the subject of astrology. He has no note upon these words of Persius.

Perhaps the French language would admit here of a more literal translation than ours can do without offending the idiom. J'userai moi, j'userai des biens que j'aye. An English translator, fearful of losing any of the graces of repetition, renders these words,

I, I will use, will use my fortune too.

Ver. 27.

BREWSTER,

trabe rupta, Bruttia saxa

Prendit amicus inops : &c.

Dryden conjectures that these lines are Lucan's, because they are more poetical than is common with the verses of Persius. Dryden's conjecture can hardly be admitted, I think, upon any one principle of critical justice. I remember six or eight very beautiful lines in Aurengzebe: shall we say, that they were not Dryden's, because they much surpass any others in that piece? Dryden says further, that except this passage, and two lines at the conclusion of the second satire, our poet has written nothing elegantly. I have very amply criticised upon Persius in my Preface, and shall not therefore discuss his poetical merits here. But before the reader determines upon the justice of Dryden's observation, I would wish him to examine the following passages in Persius. Satire I. from v. 115 to v. 119;. Satire II. from v. 23 to v. 27; from v. 59 to v. 69; Satire III. from v. 35 to v. 43; from v. 65 to v. 72; Satire V. from

v. 30 to v. 51. I do not contend that every thing in these passages is elegant, but I think they entitle Persius to put in his claim for the laurel, not less than those which are cited by Dryden.

Ver. 31.

Frange aliquid.

Nunc et de cespite vivo

Brewster has translated this,—

"Sell, sell some land, and so support thy friend.”

The general fidelity of Brewster's translation I admit, however in other respects I may speak of it naso adunco. His having mistaken his author here, I can therefore very easily forgive to him, and the more readily, that all the commentators seem to have misunderstood this passage.

Persius does not literally mean that the avaricious man should sell any part of his land to support his relation, as has been generally supposed. The private sacrifices to the Lares were made upon a turf, which probably (especially among the poor) supplied the place of a more costly altar. Thus Juvenal,

Qua festus promissa Deis animalia cespes
Expectat.

Horace says in one ode,

Hic vivum mihi cespitem, hic

Verbenas pueri, ponite thuraque

Bini cum patera meri.

He begins another,

Martiis calebs quid agam Calendis
Quid velint flores, et accerra thuris
Plena, miraris, positusque carbo in
Cespite vivo,

Docte sermones utriusque linguæ ?

Now as the sacrifices to the Lares were always in proportion to the daily consumption of provisions, and to the expenditure of the family; the person who lessened his household expences might be said, frangere aliquid de vivo cespite. He contracted the size of his altars, and the quantity of the offerings made upon them, because his mode of living, in other respects, was become less expensive.

The meaning of Persius, therefore, is, contract your own expences, and bestow some of your wealth on your indigent friend.

Ver. 32.

ne pictus oberret

Carulea in tabula.

Sailors escaped from shipwreck, were wont to carry about with them a picture descriptive of their misfortune. This was painted of a blue colour. See Casaubon.

Ver. 39.

maris expers.

Much has been written about these two words. Perhaps enough, to have made it better, to have written no more. But as I differ from other commentators about their import, I shall concisely state how I understand them.

According to some of the interpreters of Persius, these words signify void of manliness. Dryden seems to have understood them in this sense:

"Now toys and trifles from their Athens come,
And dates and pepper have unsinewed Rome."

If I understand rightly the following couplet of Brewster, he seems to have preferred a more literal signification :

"Pack'd up with dates and pepper, here they throng, And ship their damn'd philosophy along."

This expression is evidently copied from the phrase of Horace :

Chium maris expers.

Now did Horace mean Chian wine void of strength, or Chian wine which had never crossed the seas? I think, without doubt, the latter. The poet is ridiculing the entertainment of Nasidienus. Now if we understand Chium expers maris to mean weak Chian wine, we entirely lose the point, which Horace meant to give. Nasidienus, if he had no better wine to present his guests than weak Chian, was perhaps more to be pitied than to be blamed; but if he gave them bad Italian wine, and impudently called it Chian, his falsehood and his vanity were deservedly punished and exposed.

Having thus fixed the sense of the phrase maris expers, as it was used by Horace, we shall have the less difficulty in ascertaining how it was employed by Persius.