Deaf to his voice, with growing speed they roll,

Smoke down the steep, and spurn the distant goal!

pace,

None sin by rule; none heed the charge precise, Thus, and no further, may ye step in vice; But leap the bounds prescribed, and, with free Scour far and wide the interdicted space. So, when you tell the youth, that FOOLS alone Regard a friend's distresses as their own, You bid him, in effect, rob, plunder, seize, And gather riches by the worst of ways; Riches, whose love is on your soul imprest, Deep as their country's on the Decii's breast, Or Thebes on his, who sought an early grave, If Greece say true, her sacred walls to save. Thebes, where, impregn'd with serpents teeth, the earth

Pour'd forth a marshall'd host, prodigious birth!
Horrent with arms, that fought with headlong rage,
Nor ask'd the trumpet's signal, to engage.

But mark the end! the fire, derived at first
From a small sparkle, by your folly nurst,
Blown to a flame, on all around it preys,
And wraps you in the universal blaze.

VER. 324. Deep as their country's on the Decii's breast, &c.] For the Decii see Satire VIII. The person alluded to immediately after, is Menaceus, son of Creon, king of Thebes. He had learnt from Tiresias that the city, which was then closely besieged, could not be taken if he would devote himself to a voluntary death; which he readily did. All this, and more, is finely told by Statius. Juvenal never forgets the verbiage and vanity of the Greeks, which he pleasantly imitates and ridicules in the succeeding lines.

So the young lion rent, with hideous roar,
His keeper's trembling limbs, and drank his gore.
"Tush! I am safe," you cry; "Chaldæan seers
"Have raised my scheme, and promised length
of years."

But has your son subscribed? will he await
The lingering distaff of decrepid Fate?
No, his impatience will the work confound,
And snap the vital thread ere half unwound.
Already, see! your stag-like age annoys
His prospects, and procrastinates his joys.
Fly then, and bid Archigenes prepare
An antidote, if life be worth your care;
If you would see another autumn close,
And pluck another fig, another rose :--
Take mithridate, rash man, before your meat,
A FATHER you! and without med'cine eat?

Come, my Fuscinus, come with me, and view
A scene more comick than the stage e'er knew.

VER. 335. So the young lion &c.] This alludes to a real incident which took place under Domitian, and is thus related by Martial:

"Læserat ingrato leo perfidus ore magistrum,
"Ausus tam notas contemerare manus:

"Sed dignas tanto persolvit crimine pœnas,
"Et qui non tulerat verbera, tela tulit."

De Spect. x.

From the mention of verbera, say the criticks, it appears that the keeper had wantonly irritated the natural ferocity of the animal. This renders the application infinitely more striking.

says

VER. 315. Fly then, and bid Archigenes prepare &c.] Archigenes is frequently mentioned by Juvenal. The Scholiast he was a very celebrated physician of his own times, who practised at Rome." It appears from Galen, that he was a native of Syria.

Lo! with what toil, what danger wealth is sought,
And to the fane of watchful Castor brought;
Since MARS THE AVENGER slumber'd to his cost,
And, with his helmet, all his credit lost!
Quit then the plays; the FARCE OF LIFE supplies
A sight more sportive in the sage's eyes.
For who amuses most?-the man who springs
Light through the hoop, and on the tight-rope
Or he who, to a fragile bark confined, [swings;
Dwells on the deep, the sport of every wind?

VER. 354. And to the fane of watchful Castor brought ;] E90 γας, says an old scholiast on Thucydides, παλαιον τα χρήματα εν τοις içois Tauisven. It was anciently the custom to deposit their money in the temples for the gods to keep. This was judicious enough ; some unlucky wight, however, might have asked, with our author, on another occasion-BUT WHO SHALL KEEP THE KEEPERS? for it appears that both gods and money were sometimes swept away together!

The publick treasure was laid up at Rome in the temple of Saturn, because, (says Macrobius,) when Saturn reigned in Italy, robbery was unknown; which, I dare say, it was: and, indeed, the money continued there pretty safe, unless from the clutches of such mighty robbers as Julius Cæsar, as a good guard was constantly stationed at the doors.

Individuals kept their money in the temple of Mars, which stood in the Forum of Augustus; hence our author says, in his tenth Satire:

ut maxima toto

"Nostra sit arca Foro."

After the misfortune which befel this poor god, whom the author, with the bitterest sarcasm, dignifies with the title of Ultor, (the Avenger,) they removed it to the temple of Castor and Pollux: here they were less fortunate than before. Mars was only stript of his armour, but these luckless beings, whose vigilance Juvenal also celebrates, were absolutely flayed-bracteolam de Castore ducat!

I should imagine that the temple of Peace succeeded to the credit of Castor and Pollux; for when that truly magnificent structure was destroyed by fire, in the reign of Commodus, treasures to an enormous amount were lost in the conflagration.

Foolhardy wretch! scrambling for every bale
Of stinking merchandize exposed to sale;
And proud to Crete, for ropy wine, to rove,
And jars, the fellow-citizens of Jove!
THAT skips along the rope with wavering tread,
Dangerous dexterity, which brings him bread;
THIS ventures life for wealth too vast to spend,
Farm join'd to farm, and villas without end!
Lo, every harbour throng'd and every bay,
And half mankind upon the watery way!
For where he hears the attractive voice of gain,
The merchant hurries, and defies the main.—
Nor will he only range the Lybian shore,
But, passing Calpé, other worlds explore ;
See Phebus, sinking in the Atlantick, lave
His fiery car, and hear the hissing wave.
And all for what? O glorious end! to come,
After such toils, with purse replenish'd, home,
And, with a traveller's privilege, to boast
Of unknown monsters on an unknown coast.

VER. 365. And proud to Crete, &c.] Crete, the commentators gravely tell us, was the native country of Jove, who was born and nursed on mount Ida! the satire totally escapes them. But Crete was not only the birth, but the burying-place of that deity, whose tomb the people of the island pretended to show. Callimachus, indeed, seems inclined to deprive them of their claims in both instances. The first he disputes rather faintly; but for the second, he rebukes them with a solemnity that borders on the sublime, "The Cretans, and the Arcadians boast of having given thee birth," says he to Jupiter:

ποτεξοι, Πάτερ, εψευσαντο ; Κρητες και ψευσαν και γαρ ταφον, ω ανα, σείο

Κρητες ετεκτήναντο.

Συ δ' ε θανες εστι γας αιεία

What varying forms in madness may we trace!—
Safe in his loved Electra's fond embrace,
Orestes sees the avenging Furies rise,

And wave their bloody torches in his eyes;
While Ajax strikes an ox, and, at the blow,
Hears Agamemnon or Ulysses low:

And surely he, though, haply, he forbear,
Like these, his keeper and and his clothes to tear,
Is just as mad, who, to the water's brim,

Loads his frail bark, a plank 'twixt death and him!
When all this risk is but to swell his store

With a few coins, a few gold pieces more.

Heaven lowers, and frequent, through the muttering air,

The nimble lightning glares, or seems to glare: "Weigh weigh!" the impatient man of traffick

cries, [skies, "These gathering clouds, this rack that dims the "Are but the pageants of a sultry day;

"A thunder shower, that frowns and melts away." Deluded wretch! dash'd on some dangerous coast, This night, this hour perhaps, his bark is lost ;

VER. 394. Concisum argentum in titulos faciesque minutas.] With a few coins, c.] This, which is merely a periphrasis for coined money, is thus rendered by Dryden :

"But silver makes him all this toil embrace,

"Silver with titles stampt, and a dull monarch's face."

I should not have noticed this, if his example had not seduced the last translator; whose book being designed for schools, should carefully avoid those gratuitous and illiberal reflections.

I must observe here, that the notes subjoined to this Satire by young Dryden, are ignorant, petulant, and licentious to the last degree. His father should have flung them into the fire.