Under the color of declaring his purpose of writing Satire and the plan he intends to adopt, and of defending himself against the idle criticism of an imaginary and nameless adversary, Persius lashes the miserable poets of his own day, and in no very obscure terms, their Coryphæus himself, Nero. The subject of the Satire is not very unlike the first of the second book of Horace's Satires, and comes very near in some points to the first Satire of Juvenal. But the manner of treatment is distinct in each, and quite characteristic of the three great Satirists. Horace's is more full of personality, one might say, of egotism, and his own dislike and contempt of the authors of his time, more lively and brilliant, more pungent and witty, than either of the others; more pregnant with jokes, and yet rising to a higher tone than the Satire of Persius. That of Juvenal is in a more majestic strain, as befits the stern censor of the depraved morals of his day; full of commanding dignity and grave rebuke, of fiery indignation and fierce invective; and is therefore more declamatory and oratorical in its style, more elevated in its sentiment, more refined in its diction. While in that of Persius we trace the workings of a young and ardent mind, devoted to literature and intellectual pleasures, of a philosophical turn, and a chastened though somewhat fastidious taste. We see the student and devotee of literature quite as much as the censor of morals, and can see that he grieves over the corruption of the public _taste_ almost as deeply as over the general depravity of public _morals_. Still there breathes through the whole a tone of high and right feeling, of just and stringent criticism, of keen and pungent sarcasm, which deservedly places this Satire very high in the rank of intellectual productions.