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

He lived therefore in an age in which the struggle between the old and new manners, though daily becoming more equal, or rather inclining to the worse side, was still far from being decided. The freedom of speaking and writing was yet unchecked by fear, or by any law more precise than that which, as has been already mentioned, was introduced to restrain the coarse ebullitions of rustic malignity. Add to this, that Lucilius was of a most respectable family (he was great-uncle to Pompey), and lived in habits of intimacy with the chiefs of the republic, with Lælius, Scipio, and others, who were well able to protect him from the Lupi and Mutii of the day, had they attempted, which they probably did not, to silence or molest him. Hence that boldness of satirizing the vicious by name, which startled Horace, and on which Juvenal and Persius delight to felicitate him.

      Too little remains of Lucilius, to enable us to judge of his manner: his style seems, however, to bear fewer marks of delicacy than of strength, and his strictures appear harsh and violent. With all this, he must have been an extraordinary man; since Horace, who is evidently hurt by his reputation, can say nothing worse of his compositions than that they are careless and hasty, and that if he had lived at a more refined period, he would have partaken of the general amelioration. I do not remember to have heard it observed, but I suspect that there was something of political spleen in the excessive popularity of Lucilius under Augustus, and something of courtly complacency in the attempt of Horace to counteract it. Augustus enlarged the law of the twelve tables respecting libels; and the people, who found themselves thus abridged of the liberty of satirizing the great by name, might not improbably seek to avenge themselves by an overstrained attachment to the works of a man who, living, as they would insinuate, in better times, practiced without fear, what he enjoyed without restraint.

      The space between Horace and his predecessor, was a dreadful interval "filled up with horror all, and big with death." Luxury and a long train of vices, which followed the immense wealth incessantly poured in from the conquered provinces, sapped the foundations of the republic, which were finally shaken to pieces by the civil wars, the perpetual dictatorship of Cæsar, and the second triumvirate, which threw the Roman world, without a hope of escape, into the power of an individual.

      Augustus, whose sword was yet reeking with the best blood of the state, now that submission left him no excuse for farther cruelty, was desirous of enjoying in tranquillity the fruits of his guilt. He displayed, therefore, a magnificence hitherto unknown; and his example, which was followed by his ministers, quickly spread among the people, who were not very unwilling to exchange the agitation and terror of successive proscriptions, for the security and quiet of undisputed despotism.

      Tiberius had other views, and other methods of accomplishing them. He did not indeed put an actual stop to the elegant institutions of his predecessor, but he surveyed them with silent contempt, and they rapidly degenerated. The race of informers multiplied with dreadful celerity; and danger, which could only be averted by complying with a caprice not always easy to discover, created an abject disposition, fitted for the reception of the grossest vices, and eminently favorable to the designs of the emperor; which were to procure, by universal depravation, that submission which Augustus sought to obtain by the blandishments of luxury and the arts.

      From this gloomy and suspicious tyrant, the empire was transferred to a profligate madman. It can scarcely be told without indignation, that when the sword of Chærea had freed the earth from his disgraceful sway, the senate had not sufficient virtue to resume the rights of which they had been deprived; but, after a timid debate, delivered up the state to a pedantic dotard, incapable of governing himself.

      To the vices of his predecessors, Nero added a frivolity which rendered his reign at once odious and contemptible. Depravity could reach no farther, but misery might yet be extended. This was fully experienced through the turbulent and murderous usurpations of Galba, Otho, and Vitellius; when the accession of Vespasian and Titus gave the groaning world a temporary respite.

      To these succeeded Domitian, whose crimes form the subject of many a melancholy page in the ensuing work, and need not therefore be dwelt on here. Under him, every trace of ancient manners was obliterated; liberty was unknown, law openly trampled upon, and, while the national rites were either neglected or contemned, a base and blind superstition took possession of the enfeebled and distempered mind.

      Better times followed. Nerva, and Trajan, and Hadrian, and the Antonines, restored the Romans to safety and tranquillity; but they could do no more; liberty and virtue were gone forever; and after a short period of comparative happiness, which they scarcely appear to have deserved, and which brought with it no amelioration of mind, no return of the ancient modesty and frugality, they were finally resigned to destruction.

      I now proceed to the "comparative view" of which I have already spoken: as the subject has been so often treated, little of novelty can be expected from it; to read, compare, and judge, is almost all that remains.

Horace, who was gay, and lively, and gentle, and affectionate, seems fitted for the period in which he wrote. He had seen the worst times of the republic, and might therefore, with no great suspicion of his integrity, be allowed to acquiesce in the infant monarchy, which brought with it stability, peace, and pleasure. How he reconciled himself to his political tergiversation it is useless to inquire.[19] What was so general, we may suppose, brought with it but little obloquy; and it should be remembered, to his praise, that he took no active part in the government which he had once opposed.[20]

      If he celebrates the master of the world, it is not until he is asked by him whether he is ashamed that posterity should know them to be friends; and he declines a post, which few of his detractors have merit to deserve, or virtue to refuse.

      His choice of privacy, however, was in some measure constitutional; for he had an easiness of temper which bordered on indolence; hence he never rises to the dignity of a decided character. Zeno and Epicurus share his homage and undergo his ridicule by turns: he passes without difficulty from one school to another, and he thinks it a sufficient excuse for his versatility, that he continues, amid every change, the zealous defender of virtue. Virtue, however, abstractedly considered, has few obligations to his zeal.

      But though, as an ethical writer, Horace has not many claims to the esteem of posterity; as a critic, he is entitled to all our veneration. Such is the soundness of his judgment, the correctness of his taste, and the extent and variety of his knowledge, that a body of criticism might be selected from his works, more perfect in its kind than any thing which antiquity has bequeathed us.

      As he had little warmth of temper, he reproves his contemporaries without harshness. He is content to "dwell in decencies," and, like Pope's courtly dean, "never mentions hell to ears polite." Persius, who was infinitely better acquainted with him than we can pretend to be, describes him, I think, with great happiness:

      "Omne vafer vitium ridenti Flaccus amico

       Tangit, et admissus circum præcordia ludit,

       Callidus excusso populum suspendere naso."

      "He, with a sly insinuating grace,

       Laugh'd at his friend, and look'd him in the face:

       Would raise a blush, where secret vice he found,

       And tickle, while he gently probed the wound:

       With seeming innocence the crowd beguiled;

       But made the desperate passes when he smiled."

These beautiful lines have a defect under which Dryden's translations frequently labor; they do not give the true sense of the original. Horace "raised no blush" (at least Persius does not insinuate any such thing), and certainly "made no desperate passes."[21] His aim rather seems to be, to keep the objects of his satire in good humor with himself, and with one another.

      To raise a laugh at vice, however (supposing it feasible), is not the legitimate office of Satire, which is to hold up the vicious, as objects of reprobation and scorn, for the example of others, who may be deterred by their sufferings. But it is time to be