which _Persius_ so bitterly ridicules in his first Satire, were _Nero_'s own Verses; and yet we have no account that _Nero_ (so much a Tyrant as he was) caus'd _Persius_ to be punish'd; Enemy as he was to Reason, and fond as every one knows of his own Works, he was gallant enough to take this Raillery on his Verses, and did not think that the Emperor on this occasion should assert the Character of the Poet. _Juvenal_, who flourish'd under _Trajan_, shews a little more respect towards the great Men of his age; and was contented to sprinkle the gall of his Satire on those of the precedent reign. But as for the _Writers_, he never look'd for them further than his own time. At the very beginning of his Work you find him in a very bad humor against all his _cotemporary Scriblers_: ask _Juvenal_ what oblig'd him to take up his Pen? he was weary of hearing the _Theseide_ of _Codrus_, the _Orestes_ of this man, and the _Telephus_ of that, and all the Poets (as he elsewhere says) who recited their Verses in the Month of _August_, _----&_ Augusto _recitantes Mense Poetas._ So true it is that the right of blaming bad Authors, is an ancient Right, pass'd into a Custom, among all the Satirists, and allow'd in all ages. * * * * * To come from the Ancients to the Moderns. _Regnier_ who is almost the only Satirical Poet we have, has in truth been a little more discreet than the rest; nevertheless he speaks very freely of _Gallet_ the famous Gamester, who paid his Creditors with _Sept_ and _Quatorze_, and of the _Sieur de Provins_ who chang'd his long Cloak into a Doublet, and of _Cousin_ who run from his house for fear of repairing it, and of _Pierre de Puis_, and many others. What will my Critics say to this? When they are ever so little touch'd, they wou'd drive from the Republick of Letters all the Satirical Poets, as so many disturbers of the Peace of the Nation. But what will they say of _Virgil_; the wise, the discreet _Virgil_? who in an Eclog where he has nothing to do with Satire, has made in one Line two Poets for ever ridiculous. _Qui_ Bavium _non odit, amet tua carmina_ Moevi.