[173] The Roman soldiers had the privilege of making a will, in their father's life-time, of what they had purchased in the wars, as being no part of their patrimony. By this will, they had power of excluding their own parents, and giving the estate so gotten to whom they pleased: Therefore, says the poet, Coranus, (a soldier contemporary with Juvenal, who had raised his fortune by the wars,) was courted by his own father, to make him his heir. TRANSLATIONS FROM PERSIUS. THE FIRST SATIRE OF PERSIUS. ARGUMENT OF THE PROLOGUE TO THE FIRST SATIRE. _The design of the author was to conceal his name and quality. He lived in the dangerous times of the tyrant Nero, and aims particularly at him in most of his Satires. For which reason, though he was a Roman knight, and of a plentiful fortune, he would appear in this Prologue but a beggarly poet, who writes for bread. After this, he breaks into the business of the First Satire; which is chiefly to decry the poetry then in fashion, and the impudence of those who were endeavouring to pass their stuff upon the world._ PROLOGUE TO THE FIRST SATIRE. I never did on cleft Parnassus dream, Nor taste the sacred Heliconian stream;[174] Nor can remember when my brain, inspired, Was by the Muses into madness fired. My share in pale Pyrene[175] I resign, And claim no part in all the mighty Nine. Statues, with winding ivy crowned,[176] belong To nobler poets, for a nobler song; Heedless of verse, and hopeless of the crown, } Scarce half a wit, and more than half a clown, } Before the shrine[177] I lay my rugged numbers down. } Who taught the parrot human notes to try, Or with a voice endued the chattering pye? 'Twas witty Want, fierce hunger to appease; Want taught their masters, and their masters these. Let gain, that gilded bait, be hung on high, The hungry witlings have it in their eye; Pyes, crows, and daws, poetic presents bring; You say they squeak, but they will swear they sing. THE FIRST SATIRE. IN DIALOGUE BETWIXT THE POET AND HIS FRIEND, OR MONITOR. ARGUMENT.