The works of John Dryden Illustrated with notes, historical, critical, and explanatory, and a life of the author, by Sir Walter Scott |
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 | The works of John Dryden |  |
THE FIRST SATIRE.
IN DIALOGUE BETWIXT THE POET AND HIS FRIEND, OR MONITOR.
ARGUMENT.
I need not repeat, that the chief aim of the author is against bad poets in this Satire. But I must add, that he includes also bad orators, who began at that time (as Petronius in the beginning of his book tells us) to enervate manly eloquence by tropes and figures, ill placed, and worse applied. Amongst the poets, Persius covertly strikes at Nero, some of whose verses he recites with scorn and indignation. He also takes notice of the noblemen, and their abominable poetry, who, in the luxury of their fortunes, set up for wits and judges. The Satire is in dialogue betwixt the author and his friend, or monitor; who dissuades him from this dangerous attempt of exposing great men. But Persius, who is of a free spirit, and has not forgotten that Rome was once a commonwealth, breaks through all those difficulties, and boldly arraigns the false judgment of the age in which he lives. The reader may observe, that our poet was a Stoic philosopher; and that all his moral sentences, both here and in all the rest of his Satires, are drawn from the dogmas of that sect.
How anxious are our cares, and yet how vain
The bent of our desires!
Friend.
Thy spleen contain;
For none will read thy satires.
This to me?
Friend.
None, or, what's next to none, but two or three.
'Tis hard, I grant.
Persius.
'Tis nothing; I can bear,
That paltry scribblers have the public ear;
That this vast universal fool, the town,
Should cry up Labeo's stuff, and cry me down.
They damn themselves; nor will my muse descend
To clap with such, who fools and knaves commend:
Their smiles and censures are to me the same;
I care not what they praise, or what they blame.
In full assemblies let the crowd prevail;
I weigh no merit by the common scale.
The conscience is the test of every mind;
“Seek not thyself, without thyself, to find.”
But where's that Roman—Somewhat I would say,
But fear—let fear, for once, to truth give way.
Truth lends the Stoic courage; when I look
On human acts, and read in Nature's book,
From the first pastimes of our infant age,
To elder cares, and man's severer page;
When stern as tutors, and as uncles hard,
We lash the pupil, and defraud the ward,
Then, then I say—or would say, if I durst—
But, thus provoked, I must speak out, or burst.
Once more forbear.
Persius.
My scorn rebels, and tickles me within.
In lonely rooms, secured from public sight;
Whether in prose, or verse, 'tis all the same,
The prose is fustian, and the numbers lame:
All noise, and empty pomp, a storm of words,
Labouring with sound, that little sense affords.
They comb, and then they order every hair;
A gown, or white, or scoured to whiteness, wear,
A birthday jewel bobbing at their ear;
Next, gargle well their throats; and, thus prepared,
They mount, a-God's name, to be seen and heard;
From their high scaffold, with a trumpet cheek,
And ogling all their audience ere they speak.
The nauseous nobles, even the chief of Rome,
With gaping mouths to these rehearsals come,
And pant with pleasure, when some lusty line
The marrow pierces, and invades the chine;
At open fulsome bawdry they rejoice,
And slimy jests applaud with broken voice.
Base prostitute! thus dost thou gain thy bread?
Thus dost thou feed their ears, and thus art fed?
At his own filthy stuff he grins and brays,
And gives the sign where he expects their praise.
I choke the noble vigour of my mind?
Know, my wild fig-tree, which in rocks is bred,
Will split the quarry, and shoot out the head.
Fine fruits of learning! old ambitious fool,
Darest thou apply that adage of the school,
As if 'tis nothing worth that lies concealed,
And “science is not science till revealed”?
Oh, but 'tis brave to be admired, to see
The crowd, with pointing fingers, cry,—That's he;
That's he, whose wondrous poem is become
A lecture for the noble youth of Rome!
Who, by their fathers, is at feasts renowned,
And often quoted when the bowls go round.
Full gorged and flushed, they wantonly rehearse,
And add to wine the luxury of verse.
One, clad in purple, not to lose his time,
Eats and recites some lamentable rhyme,
Some senseless Phyllis, in a broken note,
Snuffling at nose, and croaking in his throat.
Then graciously the mellow audience nod;
Is not the immortal author made a god?
Are not his manes blest, such praise to have?
Lies not the turf more lightly on his grave?
And roses (while his loud applause they sing)
Stand ready from his sepulchre to spring?
Mere malice, and you drive the jest too far:
For does there breathe a man, who can reject
A general fame, and his own lines neglect?
That need not fish, or frankincense, to fear?
Be answered thus:—If I by chance succeed
In what I write (and that's a chance indeed),
Know, I am not so stupid, or so hard,
Not to feel praise, or fame's deserved reward;
But this I cannot grant, that thy applause
Is my work's ultimate, or only cause.
Prudence can ne'er propose so mean a prize;
For mark what vanity within it lies.
Like Labeo's Iliads, in whose verse is found
Nothing but trifling care, and empty sound;
Such little elegies as nobles write,
Who would be poets, in Apollo's spite.
Them and their woful works the Muse defies;
Products of citron beds, and golden canopies.
To give thee all thy due, thou hast the heart
To make a supper, with a fine dessert,
And to thy thread-bare friend a cast old suit impart.
(For I love truth, nor can plain speech offend,)
What says the world of me and of my muse?”
But shall I speak? Thy verse is wretched rhyme,
And all thy labours are but loss of time.
Thy strutting belly swells, thy paunch is high;
Thou writ'st not, but thou pissest poetry.
Hadst thou but, Janus-like, a face behind,
To see the people, what splay-mouths they make;
To mark their fingers, pointed at thy back;
Their tongues lolled out, a foot beyond the pitch,
When most athirst, of an Apulian bitch:
But noble scribblers are with flattery fed,
For none dare find their faults, who eat their bread.
To pass the poets of patrician blood,
What is't the common reader takes for good?
The verse in fashion is, when numbers flow,
Soft without sense, and without spirit slow;
So smooth and equal, that no sight can find
The rivet, where the polished piece was joined;
So even all, with such a steady view,
As if he shut one eye to level true.
Whether the vulgar vice his satire stings,
The people's riots, or the rage of kings,
The gentle poet is alike in all;
His reader hopes no rise, and fears no fall.
Friend.
Attempt to mount, and fights and heroes sing;
Who for false quantities was whipt at school
But t'other day, and breaking grammar-rule;
Whose trivial art was never tried above
The bare description of a native grove;
Who knows not how to praise the country store,
Nor paint the flowery fields that paint themselves before;
Where Romulus was bred, and Quintius born,
Whose shining plough-share was in furrows worn,
Met by his trembling wife returning home,
And rustically joyed, as chief of Rome:
She wiped the sweat from the Dictator's brow,
And o'er his back his robe did rudely throw;
The lictors bore in state their lord's triumphant plough.
And some on antiquated authors pore;
Rummage for sense, and think those only good
Who labour most, and least are understood.
When thou shalt see the blear-eyed fathers teach
Their sons this harsh and mouldy sort of speech,
Or others new affected ways to try,
Of wanton smoothness, female poetry;
One would inquire from whence this motley style
Did first our Roman purity defile.
For our old dotards cannot keep their seat,
But leap and catch at all that's obsolete.
When called before the bar, to save their head,
Bring trifling tropes, instead of solid sense,
And mind their figures more than their defence;
Well moved, oh finely said, and decently!
Theft (says the accuser) to thy charge I lay,
O Pedius: what does gentle Pedius say?
Studious to please the genius of the times,
With periods, points, and tropes, he slurs his crimes:
“He robbed not, but he borrowed from the poor,
“And took but with intention to restore.”
He lards with flourishes his long harangue;
'Tis fine, say'st thou;—what, to be praised, and hang?
Effeminate Roman, shall such stuff prevail
To tickle thee, and make thee wag thy tail?
Say, should a shipwrecked sailor sing his woe,
Wouldst thou be moved to pity, or bestow
An alms? What's more preposterous than to see
A merry beggar, mirth in misery?
Persius.
He seems a trap for charity to lay,
And cons, by night, his lesson for the day.
Friend.
But to raw numbers, and unfinished verse,
Sweet sound is added now, to make it terse:
“'Tis tagged with rhyme, like Berecynthian Atys,
The mid-part chimes with art, which never flat is.
Or he who in his line can chine the long-ribbed Apennine.”
Persius.
All this is doggrel stuff.
Friend.
What if I bring
A nobler verse? “Arms and the man I sing.”
Persius.
Why name you Virgil with such fops as these?
He's truly great, and must for ever please:
Not fierce, but awful, is his manly page;
Bold is his strength, but sober is his rage.
Friend.
What poems think you soft, and to be read
With languishing regards, and bending head?
Persius.
With blasts inspired; and Bassaris, who slew
The scornful calf, with sword advanced on high,
Made from his neck his haughty head to fly:
And Mænas, when with ivy bridles bound,
She led the spotted lynx, then Evion rung around;
Evion from woods and floods repairing echoes sound.”
Were any manly greatness left in Rome?
And never hatched within the labouring head;
No blood from bitten nails those poems drew,
But churned, like spittle, from the lips they flew.
Friend.
'Tis fustian all; 'tis execrably bad;
But if they will be fools, must you be mad?
Your satires, let me tell you, are too fierce;
The great will never bear so blunt a verse.
Their doors are barred against a bitter flout;
Snarl, if you please, but you shall snarl without.
Expect such pay as railing rhymes deserve;
You're in a very hopeful way to starve.
Persius.
All, all is admirably well, for me.
My harmless rhyme shall 'scape the dire disgrace
Of common-shores, and every pissing-place.
Two painted serpents shall on high appear;
'Tis holy ground; you must not urine here.
This shall be writ, to fright the fry away,
Who draw their little baubles when they play.
But lashed the city, and dissected crimes.
Mutius and Lupus both by name he brought;
He mouthed them, and betwixt his grinders caught.
Did crafty Horace his low numbers join;
And, with a sly insinuating grace,
Laughed at his friend, and looked 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.
By servile awe? Born free, and not be bold?
At least, I'll dig a hole within the ground,
And to the trusty earth commit the sound;
The reeds shall tell you what the poet fears,
“King Midas has a snout, and ass's ears.”
This mean conceit, this darling mystery,
Which thou think'st nothing, friend, thou shalt not buy;
Nor will I change for all the flashy wit,
That flattering Labeo in his Iliads writ.
Who dares, with angry Eupolis, to frown;
He who, with bold Cratinus, is inspired
With zeal, and equal indignation fired;
Who at enormous villainy turns pale,
And steers against it with a full-blown sail,
On this my honest work, though writ in homely style;
And if two lines or three in all the vein
Appear less drossy, read those lines again.
May they perform their author's just intent,
Glow in thy ears, and in thy breast ferment!
But from the reading of my book and me,
Be far, ye foes of virtuous poverty;
Who fortune's fault upon the poor can throw,
Point at the tattered coat, and ragged shoe;
Lay nature's failings to their charge, and jeer
The dim weak eye-sight, when the mind is clear;
When thou thyself, thus insolent in state,
Art but, perhaps, some country magistrate,
Whose power extends no further than to speak
Big on the bench, and scanty weights to break.
Who thinks all science, as all virtue, vain;
Who counts geometry, and numbers, toys,
And with his foot the sacred dust destroys;
Whose pleasure is to see a strumpet tear
A cynic's beard, and lug him by the hair.
Such all the morning to the pleadings run;
But when the business of the day is done,
On dice, and drink, and drabs, they spend their afternoon.
Nothing is remaining of Atticus Labeo (so he is called by the learned Casaubon); nor is he mentioned by any other poet besides Persius. Casaubon, from an old commentator on Persius, says that he made a very foolish translation of Homer's Iliads.
He describes a poet, preparing himself to rehearse his works in public, which was commonly performed in August. A room was hired, or lent, by some friend; a scaffold was raised, and a pulpit placed for him who was to hold forth; who borrowed a new gown, or scoured his old one, and adorned his ears with jewels, etc.
Trees of that kind grow wild in many parts of Italy, and make their way through rocks, sometimes splitting the tombstones.
The Romans wrote on cedar and cypress tables, in regard of the duration of the wood. Ill verses might justly be afraid of frankincense; for the papers in which they were written, were fit for nothing but to wrap it up.
Janus was the first king of Italy, who refuged Saturn when he was expelled, by his son Jupiter, from Crete (or, as we now call it, Candia). From his name the first month of the year is called January. He was pictured with two faces, one before and one behind—as regarding the past time and the future. Some of the mythologists think he was Noah, for the reason given above.
He speaks of the country in the foregoing verses; the praises of which are the most easy theme for poets, but which a bad poet cannot naturally describe: then he makes a digression to Romulus, the first king of Rome, who had a rustical education; and enlarges upon Quintius Cincinnatus, a Roman senator, who was called from the plough to be dictator of Rome.
Persius here names antitheses, or seeming contradictions; which, in this place, are meant for rhetorical flourishes, as I think, with Casaubon.
Foolish verses of Nero, which the poet repeats; and which cannot be translated properly into English.
Other verses of Nero, that were mere bombast. I only note, that the repetition of these and the former verses of Nero, might justly give the poet a caution to conceal his name.
Poems on the Mænades, who were priestesses of Bacchus; and of Atys, who made himself an eunuch to attend on the sacrifices of Cybele, called Berecynthia by the poets. She was mother of the gods.
Two snakes, twined with each other, were painted on the walls, by the ancients, to show the place was holy.
Lucilius wrote long before Horace, who imitates his manner of satire, but far excels him in the design.
The story is vulgar, that Midas, king of Phrygia, was made judge betwixt Apollo and Pan, who was the best musician: he gave the prize to Pan; and Apollo, in revenge, gave him ass's ears. He wore his hair long to hide them; but his barber discovering them, and not daring to divulge the secret, dug a hole in the ground, and whispered into it: the place was marshy; and, when the reeds grew up, they repeated the words which were spoken by the barber. By Midas, the poet meant Nero.
Eupolis and Cratinus, as also Aristophanes, mentioned afterwards, were all Athenian poets; who wrote that sort of comedy which was called the Old Comedy, where the people were named who were satirised by those authors.
| The works of John Dryden | |