_I need not repeat, that the chief aim of the author is against bad poets in this Satire. But I must add, that he includes also bad orators, who began at that time (as Petronius in the beginning of his book tells us) to enervate manly eloquence by tropes and figures, ill placed, and worse applied. Amongst the poets, Persius covertly strikes at Nero; some of whose verses he recites with scorn and indignation. He also takes notice of the noblemen, and their abominable poetry, who, in the luxury of their fortunes, set up for wits and judges. The Satire is in dialogue betwixt the author, and his friend, or monitor; who dissuades him from this dangerous attempt of exposing great men. But Persius, who is of a free spirit, and has not forgotten that Rome was once a commonwealth, breaks through all those difficulties, and boldly arraigns the false judgment of the age in which he lives. The reader may observe, that our poet was a Stoic philosopher; and that all his moral sentences, both here and in all the rest of his Satires, are drawn from the dogmas of that sect._ PERSIUS. How anxious are our cares, and yet how vain The bent of our desires! FRIEND. Thy spleen contain; For none will read thy satires.? PERSIUS. This to me? FRIEND. None, or, what's next to none, but two or three. 'Tis hard, I grant. PERSIUS. 'Tis nothing; I can bear, That paltry scribblers have the public ear; That this vast universal fool, the town, Should cry up Labeo's stuff,[178] and cry me down. They damn themselves; nor will my muse descend To clap with such, who fools and knaves commend: Their smiles and censures are to me the same; I care not what they praise, or what they blame. In full assemblies let the crowd prevail; I weigh no merit by the common scale. The conscience is the test of every mind; "Seek not thyself, without thyself, to find." But where's that Roman----Somewhat I would say, But fear----let fear, for once, to truth give way. Truth lends the Stoic courage; when I look On human acts, and read in Nature's book, From the first pastimes of our infant age, To elder cares, and man's severer page; When stern as tutors, and as uncles hard, We lash the pupil, and defraud the ward, Then, then I say--or would say, if I durst-- But, thus provoked, I must speak out, or burst. FRIEND. Once more forbear. PERSIUS.