The works of John Dryden :: :: University of Virginia Library

Our author has made two Satires concerning study, the first and the third: the first related to men; this to young students, whom he desired to be educated in the Stoic philosophy. He himself sustains the person of the master, or preceptor, in this admirable Satire, where he upbraids the youth of sloth, and negligence in learning. Yet he begins with one scholar reproaching his fellow-students with late rising to their books. After which, he takes upon him the other part of the teacher; and, addressing himself particularly to young noblemen, tells them, that, by reason of their high birth, and the great possessions of their fathers, they are careless of adorning their minds with precepts of moral philosophy: and withal inculcates to them the miseries which will attend them in the whole course of their life, if they do not apply themselves betimes to the knowledge of virtue, and the end of their creation, which he pathetically insinuates to them. The title of this satire, in some ancient manuscripts, was, “The Reproach of Idleness;” though in others of the scholiasts it is inscribed, “Against the Luxury and Vices of the Rich.” In both of which, the intention of the poet is pursued, but principally in the former.

(I remember I translated this satire when I was a king's scholar at Westminster School, for a Thursday-night's exercise; and believe that it, and many other of my exercises of this nature in English verse, are still in the hands of my learned master, the Rev. Dr. Busby.)

Is this thy daily course? The glaring sun
Breaks in at every chink; the cattle run
To shades, and noon-tide rays of summer shun;

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Yet plunged in sloth we lie, and snore supine,
As filled with fumes of undigested wine.

This grave advice some sober student bears,
And loudly rings it in his fellow's ears.
The yawning youth, scarce half awake, essays
His lazy limbs and dozy head to raise;
Then rubs his gummy eyes, and scrubs his pate,
And cries, “I thought it had not been so late!
My clothes, make haste!”—why then, if none be near,
He mutters, first, and then begins to swear;
And brays aloud, with a more clamorous note,
Than an Arcadian ass can stretch his throat.

With much ado, his book before him laid,
And parchment with the smoother side displayed,
He takes the papers; lays them down again,
And with unwilling fingers tries the pen.
Some peevish quarrel straight he strives to pick,
His quill writes double, or his ink's too thick;
Infuse more water,—now 'tis grown so thin,
It sinks, nor can the characters be seen.

O wretch, and still more wretched every day!
Are mortals born to sleep their lives away?
Go back to what thy infancy began,
Thou, who wert never meant to be a man;
Eat pap and spoon-meat, for thy gewgaws cry;
Be sullen, and refuse the lullaby.
No more accuse thy pen; but charge the crime
On native sloth, and negligence of time.

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Think'st thou thy master, or thy friends, to cheat?
Fool, 'tis thyself, and that's a worse deceit.
Beware the public laughter of the town;
Thou spring'st a leak already in thy crown;
A flaw is in thy ill-baked vessel found;
'Tis hollow, and returns a jarring sound.

Yet thy moist clay is pliant to command,
Unwrought, and easy to the potter's hand:
Now take the mould; now bend thy mind to feel
The first sharp motions of the forming wheel.

But thou hast land; a country seat, secure
By a just title; costly furniture;
A fuming pan thy Lares to appease:
What need of learning when a man's at ease?
If this be not enough to swell thy soul,
Then please thy pride, and search the herald's roll,
Where thou shalt find thy famous pedigree
Drawn from the root of some old Tuscan tree,
And thou, a thousand off, a fool of long degree;
Who, clad in purple, canst thy censor greet,
And loudly call him cousin in the street.

Such pageantry be to the people shown:
There boast thy horse's trappings, and thy own.
I know thee to thy bottom, from within
Thy shallow centre, to the utmost skin:

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Dost thou not blush to live so like a beast,
So trim, so dissolute, so loosely drest?

But 'tis in vain; the wretch is drenched too deep,
His soul is stupid, and his heart asleep;
Fattened in vice, so callous, and so gross,
He sins, and sees not, senseless of his loss.
Down goes the wretch at once, unskilled to swim,
Hopeless to bubble up, and reach the water's brim.

Great father of the gods, when for our crimes
Thou send'st some heavy judgment on the times;
Some tyrant-king, the terror of his age,
The type, and true vicegerent of thy rage;
Thus punish him: set virtue in his sight,
With all her charms adorned, with all her graces bright;
But set her distant, make him pale to see
His gains outweighed by lost felicity!

Sicilian tortures, and the brazen bull,
Are emblems, rather than express the full
Of what he feels; yet what he fears is more:
The wretch, who, sitting at his plenteous board,
Looked up, and viewed on high the pointed sword
Hang o'er his head, and hanging by a twine,
Did with less dread, and more securely dine.

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Even in his sleep he starts, and fears the knife,
And, trembling, in his arms takes his accomplice wife;
Down, down he goes; and from his darling friend
Conceals the woes his guilty dreams portend.

When I was young, I, like a lazy fool,
Would blear my eyes with oil, to stay from school:
Averse from pains, and loth to learn the part
Of Cato, dying with a dauntless heart;
Though much my master that stern virtue praised,
Which o'er the vanquisher the vanquished raised;
And my pleased father came with pride to see
His boy defend the Roman liberty.

But then my study was to cog the dice,
And dexterously to throw the lucky sice;
To shun ames-ace, that swept my stakes away,
And watch the box, for fear they should convey
False bones, and put upon me in the play;
Careful, besides, the whirling top to whip,
And drive her giddy, till she fell asleep.

Thy years are ripe, nor art thou yet to learn
What's good or ill, and both their ends discern:
Thou in the Stoic-porch, severely bred,
Hast heard the dogmas of great Zeno read;
Where on the walls, by Polygnotus' hand,
The conquered Medians in trunk-breeches stand;

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Where the shorn youth to midnight lectures rise,
Roused from their slumbers to be early wise;
Where the coarse cake, and homely husks of beans,
From pampering riot the young stomach weans;
And where the Samian Y directs thy steps to run
To Virtue's narrow steep, and broad-way Vice to shun.
And yet thou snor'st, thou draw'st thy drunken breath,
Sour with debauch, and sleep'st the sleep of death:
Thy chaps are fallen, and thy frame disjoined;
Thy body is dissolved as is thy mind.

Hast thou not yet proposed some certain end,
To which thy life, thy every act, may tend?
Hast thou no mark, at which to bend thy bow?
Or, like a boy, pursuest the carrion crow
With pellets, and with stones, from tree to tree,
A fruitless toil, and livest extempore?
Watch the disease in time; for when within
The dropsy rages, and extends the skin,
In vain for hellebore the patient cries,
And fees the doctor, but too late is wise;
Too late, for cure he proffers half his wealth;
Conquest and Guibbons cannot give him health.
Learn, wretches, learn the motions of the mind,
Why you were made, for what you were designed,
And the great moral end of humankind.
Study thyself, what rank, or what degree,
The wise Creator has ordained for thee;

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And all the offices of that estate
Perform, and with thy prudence guide thy fate.
Pray justly to be heard, nor more desire
Than what the decencies of life require.
Learn what thou owest thy country, and thy friend;
What's requisite to spare, and what to spend:
Learn this; and after, envy not the store
Of the greased advocate, that grinds the poor;
Fat fees from the defended Umbrian draws,
And only gains the wealthy client's cause;
To whom the Marsians more provision send,
Than he and all his family can spend.
Gammons, that give a relish to the taste,
And potted fowl, and fish come in so fast,
That ere the first is out, the second stinks,
And mouldy mother gathers on the brinks.
But here some captain of the land, or fleet,
Stout of his hands, but of a soldier's wit,
Cries, “I have sense to serve my turn in store,
And he's a rascal who pretends to more.
Damn me, whate'er those book-learned blockheads say,
Solon's the veriest fool in all the play.
Top-heavy drones, and always looking down,
(As over-ballasted within the crown,)
Muttering betwixt their lips some mystic thing,
Which, well examined, is flat conjuring;
Mere madmen's dreams; for what the schools have taught,
Is only this, that nothing can be brought
From nothing, and what is can ne'er be turned to nought.

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Is it for this they study? to grow pale,
And miss the pleasures of a glorious meal?
For this, in rags accoutred, are they seen,
And made the May-game of the public spleen?”

Proceed, my friend, and rail; but hear me tell
A story, which is just thy parallel:—
A spark, like thee, of the man-killing trade,
Fell sick, and thus to his physician said,—
“Methinks I am not right in every part;
I feel a kind of trembling at my heart,
My pulse unequal, and my breath is strong,
Besides a filthy fur upon my tongue.”
The doctor heard him, exercised his skill,
And after bade him for four days be still.
Three days he took good counsel, and began
To mend, and look like a recovering man;
The fourth he could not hold from drink, but sends
His boy to one of his old trusty friends,
Adjuring him, by all the powers divine,
To pity his distress, who could not dine
Without a flagon of his healing wine.
He drinks a swilling draught; and, lined within,
Will supple in the bath his outward skin:
Whom should he find but his physician there,
Who wisely bade him once again beware.
“Sir, you look wan, you hardly draw your breath;
Drinking is dangerous, and the bath is death.”
“'Tis nothing,” says the fool; “But,” says the friend,
“This nothing, sir, will bring you to your end.
Do I not see your dropsy belly swell?
Your yellow skin?”—“No more of that; I'm well.
I have already buried two or three
That stood betwixt a fair estate and me,
And, doctor, I may live to bury thee.

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Thou tell'st me, I look ill; and thou look'st worse.”
“I've done,” says the physician; “take your course.”
The laughing sot, like all unthinking men,
Bathes, and gets drunk; then bathes, and drinks again:
His throat half throttled with corrupted phlegm,
And breathing through his jaws a belching steam,
Amidst his cups with fainting shivering seized,
His limbs disjointed, and all o'er diseased,
His hand refuses to sustain the bowl,
And his teeth chatter, and his eye-balls roll,
Till with his meat he vomits out his soul.
Then trumpets, torches, and a tedious crew
Of hireling mourners, for his funeral due.
Our dear departed brother lies in state,
His heels stretched out, and pointing to the gate;
And slaves, now manumized, on their dead master wait.
They hoist him on the bier, and deal the dole,
And there's an end of a luxurious fool.

“But what's thy fulsome parable to me?
My body is from all diseases free;
My temperate pulse does regularly beat;
Feel, and be satisfied, my hands and feet:
These are not cold, nor those opprest with heat.
Or lay thy hand upon my naked heart,
And thou shalt find me hale in every part.”

I grant this true; but still the deadly wound
Is in thy soul, 'tis there thou art not sound.
Say, when thou seest a heap of tempting gold,
Or a more tempting harlot dost behold;

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Then, when she casts on thee a sidelong glance,
Then try thy heart, and tell me if it dance.

Some coarse cold salad is before thee set;
Bread with the bran, perhaps, and broken meat;
Fall on, and try thy appetite to eat.
These are not dishes for thy dainty tooth:
What, hast thou got an ulcer in thy mouth?
Why stand'st thou picking? Is thy palate sore,
That beet and radishes will make thee roar?
Such is the unequal temper of thy mind,
Thy passions in extremes, and unconfined;
Thy hair so bristles with unmanly fears,
As fields of corn, that rise in bearded ears;
And when thy cheeks with flushing fury glow,
The rage of boiling caldrons is more slow,
When fed with fuel and with flames below.
With foam upon thy lips and sparkling eyes,
Thou say'st, and dost, in such outrageous wise,
That mad Orestes, if he saw the show,
Would swear thou wert the madder of the two.

The students used to write their notes on parchments; the inside, on which they wrote, was white; the other side was hairy, and commonly yellow. Quintilian reproves this custom, and advises rather table-books, lined with wax, and a style, like that we use in our vellum table-books, as more easy.

Before eating, it was customary to cut off some part of the meat, which was first put into a pan, or little dish, then into the fire, as an offering to the household gods: this they called a libation.

The Tuscans were accounted of most ancient nobility, Horace observes this in most of his compliments to Mæcenas, who was derived from the old kings of Tuscany; now the dominion of the Great Duke.

The Roman knights, attired in the robe called trabea, were summoned by the censor to appear before him, and to salute him in passing by, as their names were called over. They led their horses in their hands. See more of this in Pompey's Life, written by Plutarch.

Some of the Sicilian kings were so great tyrants, that the name is become proverbial. The brazen bull is a known story of Phalaris, one of those tyrants, who, when Perillus, a famous artist, had presented him with a bull of that metal hollowed within, which, when the condemned person was inclosed in it, would render the sound of a bull's roaring, caused the workman to make the first experiment—docuitque suum mugire juvencum.

He alludes to the story of Damocles, a flatterer of one of those Sicilian tyrants, namely Dionysius. Damocles had infinitely extolled the happiness of kings: Dionysius, to convince him of the contrary, invited him to a feast, and clothed him in purple; but caused a sword, with the point downward, to be hung over his head by a silken twine; which, when he perceived, he could eat nothing of the delicates that were set before him.

The Stoics taught their philosophy under a porticus, to secure their scholars from the weather. Zeno was the chief of that sect.

Polygnotus, a famous painter, who drew the pictures of the Medes and Persians conquered by Miltiades, Themistocles, and other Athenian captains, on the walls of the portico, in their natural habits.

Pythagoras, of Samos, made the allusion of the Y, or Greek upsilon, to Vice and Virtue. One side of the letter being broad, characters Vice, to which the ascent is wide and easy; the other side represents Virtue, to which the passage is strait and difficult; and perhaps our Saviour might also allude to this, in those noted words of the evangelist, “The way to heaven,” etc.

Casaubon here notes, that, among all the Romans who were brought up to learning, few, besides the orators or lawyers, grew rich.

Orestes was son to Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. Agamemnon, at his return from the Trojan wars, was slain by Ægysthus, the adulterer of Clytemnestra. Orestes, to revenge his father's death, slew both Ægysthus and his mother; for which he was punished with madness by the Eumenides, or Furies, who continually haunted him.