Dryden, who had diligently studied the French critics, drew up from their remarks, assisted by a cursory perusal of what Casaubon, Heinsius, Rigaltius, and Scaliger had written on the subject, an account of the rise and progress of dramatic and satiric poetry among the Romans; which he prefixed to his translation of Juvenal. What Dryden knew, he told in a manner that renders every attempt to recount it after him equally hopeless and vain; but his acquaintance with works of literature was not very extensive, while his reliance on his own powers sometimes betrayed him into inaccuracies, to which the influence of his name gives a dangerous importance. "The comparison of Horace with Juvenal and Persius," which makes a principal part of his Essay, is not formed with much niceness of discrimination, or accuracy of judgment. To speak my mind, I do not think that he clearly perceived or fully understood the characters of the first two: of Persius indeed he had an intimate knowledge; for, though he certainly deemed too humbly of his poetry, he yet speaks of his beauties and defects in a manner which evinces a more than common acquaintance with both. What Dryden left imperfect has been filled up in a great measure by Dusaulx, in the preliminary discourse to his translation of Juvenal, and by Ruperti, in his critical Essay "De diversa Satirarum Lucil. Horat. Pers. et Juvenalis indole." With the assistance of the former of these I shall endeavor to give a more extended view of the characteristic excellencies and defects of the rival Satirists than has yet appeared in our language; little solicitous for the praise of originality, if I may be allowed to aspire to that of candor and truth. Previously to this, however, it will be necessary to say something on the supposed origin of Satire: and, as this is a very beaten subject, I shall discuss it as briefly as possible. It is probable that the first metrical compositions of the Romans, like those of every other people, were pious effusions for favors received or expected from the gods: of these, the earliest, according to Varro, were the hymns to Mars, which, though used by the Salii in the Augustan age, were no longer intelligible. To these succeeded the Fescennine verses, which were sung, or rather recited, after the vintage and harvest, and appear to have been little more than rude praises of the tutelar divinities of the country, intermixed with clownish jeers and sarcasms, extemporally poured out by the rustics in some kind of measure, and indifferently directed at the audience, or at one another. These, by degrees, assumed the form of a dialogue; of which, as nature is every where the same, and the progress of refinement but little varied, some resemblance may perhaps be found in the grosser eclogues of Theocritus.