The Satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius. Sulpicia

novice in scholarship, that the whole life of Juvenal, as usually given, is a mere myth, to which one can not even apply, as in many legendary biographies, the epithet of poetical.

      L. E.

ARGUMENTS OF THE SATIRES OF JUVENAL.

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SATIRE I.

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      This Satire seems, from several incidental circumstances to have been produced subsequently to most of them; and was probably drawn up after the author had determined to collect and publish his works, as a kind of Introduction.

      He abruptly breaks silence with an impassioned complaint of the importunity of bad writers, and a resolution of retaliating upon them; and after ridiculing their frivolous taste in the choice of their subjects, declares his own intention to devote himself to Satire. After exposing the corruption of men, the profligacy of women, the luxury of courtiers, the baseness of informers and fortune-hunters, the treachery of guardians, and the peculation of officers of state, he censures the general passion for gambling, the servile rapacity of the patricians, the avarice and gluttony of the rich, and the miserable poverty and subjection of their dependents; and after some bitter reflections on the danger of satirizing living villainy, concludes with a resolution to attack it under the mask of departed names.

SATIRE II.

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      This Satire contains an animated attack upon the hypocrisy of the philosophers and reformers of the day, whose ignorance, profligacy, and impiety it exposes with just severity.

      Domitian is here the object; his vices are alluded to under every different name; and it gives us a high opinion of the intrepid spirit of the man who could venture to circulate, even in private, so faithful a representation of that blood-thirsty tyrant.

SATIRE III.

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      Umbritius, an Aruspex and friend of the author, disgusted at the prevalence of vice and the disregard of unassuming virtue, is on the point of quitting Rome; and when a little way from the city stops short to acquaint the poet, who has accompanied him, with the causes of his retirement. These may be arranged under the following heads: That Flattery and Vice are the only thriving arts at Rome; in these, especially the first, foreigners have a manifest superiority over the natives, and consequently engross all favor—that the poor are universally exposed to scorn and insult—that the general habits of extravagance render it difficult for them to subsist—that the want of a well-regulated police subjects them to numberless miseries and inconveniences, aggravated by the crowded state of the capital, from all which a country life is happily free: on the tranquillity and security of which he dilates with great beauty.

SATIRE IV.

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      In this Satire Juvenal indulges his honest spleen against Crispinus, already noticed, and Domitian, the constant object of his scorn and abhorrence. The introduction of the tyrant is excellent; the mock solemnity with which the anecdote of the Turbot is introduced, the procession of the affrighted counselors to the palace, and the ridiculous debate which terminates in as ridiculous a decision, show a masterly hand. The whole concludes with an indignant and high-spirited apostrophe.

SATIRE V.

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      Under pretense of advising one Trebius to abstain from the table of Virro, a man of rank and fortune, Juvenal takes occasion to give a spirited detail of the insults and mortifications to which the poor were subjected by the rich, at those entertainments to which, on account of the political connection subsisting between patrons and clients, it was sometimes thought necessary to invite them.

SATIRE VI.

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      The whole of this Satire, not only the longest, but the most complete of the author's works, is directed against the female sex. It may be distributed under the following heads: Lust variously modified, imperiousness of disposition, fickleness, gallantry, attachment to improper pursuits, litigiousness, drunkenness, unnatural passions, fondness for singers, dancers, etc.; gossiping, cruelty, ill manners; outrageous pretensions to criticism, grammar, and philosophy; superstitious and unbounded credulity in diviners and fortune-tellers; introducing supposititious children; poisoning their step-sons to possess their fortunes; and, lastly, murdering their husbands.

SATIRE VII.

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      This Satire contains an animated account of the general discouragement under which literature labored at Rome. Beginning with poetry, it proceeds through the various departments of history, law, oratory, rhetoric, and grammar; interspersing many curious anecdotes, and enlivening each different head with such satirical, humorous, and sentimental remarks as naturally flow from the subject.

SATIRE VIII.

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      Juvenal demonstrates, in this Satire, that distinction is merely personal; that though we may derive rank and titles from our ancestors, yet if we degenerate from the virtues by which they obtained them, we can not be considered truly noble. This is the main object of the Satire; which, however, branches out into many collateral topics—the profligacy of the young nobility; the miserable state of the provinces, which they plundered and harassed without mercy; the contrast between the state of debasement to which the descendants of the best families had sunk, and the opposite virtues to be found in persons of the lowest station and humblest descent.

SATIRE IX.

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      The Satire consists of a dialogue between the poet and one Nævolus, a dependent of some wealthy debauchee, who, after making him subservient to his unnatural passions, in return starved, insulted, hated, and discarded him. The whole object seems to be, to inculcate the grand moral lesson, that, under any circumstances, a life of sin is a life of slavery.

SATIRE X.

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      The subject of this inimitable Satire is the vanity of human wishes. From the principal events of the lives of the most illustrious characters of all ages, the poet shows how little happiness is promoted by the attainment of what our indistinct and limited views represent as the greatest of earthly blessings. Of these he instances wealth, power, eloquence, military glory, longevity, and personal accomplishments; all of which,