It may be noted that each of the three satirists of the Empire—Horace, Persius, Juvenal—gives us a dialogue between himself and an imaginary friend, who remonstrates with him for his rashness in imitating Lucilius, the outspoken satirist of the Republic. Horace, replies, in effect, “Never mind, _I’m_ not afraid—Augustus will stand by me as Scipio and Laelius stood by Lucilius;” but, in fact, Horace never strikes like Lucilius; he keeps us smiling while he probes our faults; “he gains his entrance, and plays about the heart;” his censures even when keen, show cautious tact. Persius replies: “You need not read me if you do not like: but the joke is too good; I _must_ tell some one that Midas has the ears of an ass.” When Juvenal is warned, we catch quite a different tone in the answer. After painting the Rome of his day, he says (I venture to give a version of my own):— “Nought worse remains: the men of coming times Can but renew our lusts, repeat our crimes. Vice holds the dizzy summit: spread thy sail, Indignant Muse, and drive before the gale! But who shall find, or whence—I hear thee ask— An inspiration level with the task? Whence that frank courage of an elder Rome, When Satire, fearless, sent the arrow home? ‘Whom am I bound,’ she then could cry, ‘to spare? If high-placed guilt forgive not, do I care?’ Paint _now_ the prompter of a Nero’s rage— The torments of a Christian were thy wage,— Pinned to the stake, in blazing pitch to stand, Or, on the hook that dragg’d thee, plough the sand.... * * * * * No danger will attend thee if thou tell How to Aeneas warlike Turnus fell; No spite resents Achilles’ fateful day, Or Hylas, with his urn, the Naiads’ prey; But when Lucilius, all his soul afire, Bared his good sword and wreak’d his generous ire, Flush’d cheeks bewrayed the secrets lock’d within, And chill hearts shivered with their conscious sin. Hence wrath and tears. Ere trumpets sound, debate: Warriors, once armed, repent of war too late. ‘Then shall plain speech be tried on those whose clay Rests by the Latin or Flaminian Way.’”