The Romans, also, (as nature is the same in all places,) though they knew nothing of those Grecian demi-gods, nor had any communication with Greece, yet had certain young men, who, at their festivals, danced and sung, after their uncouth manner, to a certain kind of verse, which they called Saturnian. What it was, we have no certain light from antiquity to discover; but we may conclude, that, like the Grecian, it was void of art, or, at least, with very feeble beginnings of it. Those ancient Romans, at these holidays, which were a mixture of devotion and debauchery, had a custom of reproaching each other with their faults, in a sort of extempore poetry, or rather of tunable hobbling verse; and they answered in the same kind of gross raillery; their wit and their music being of a piece. The Grecians, says Casaubon, had formerly done the same, in the persons of their petulant Satyrs. But I am afraid he mistakes the matter, and confounds the singing and dancing of the Satyrs, with the rustical entertainments of the first Romans. The reason of my opinion is this; that Casaubon, finding little light from antiquity of these beginnings of poetry amongst the Grecians, but only these representations of Satyrs, who carried canisters and cornucopias full of several fruits in their hands, and danced with them at their public feasts; and afterwards reading Horace, who makes mention of his homely Romans jesting at one another in the same kind of solemnities, might suppose those wanton Satyrs did the same; and especially because Horace possibly might seem to him, to have shown the original of all poetry in general, including the Grecians as well as Romans; though it is plainly otherwise, that he only described the beginning, and first rudiments, of poetry in his own country. The verses are these, which he cites from the First Epistle of the Second Book, which was written to Augustus: _Agricolæ prisci, fortes, parvoque beati, Condita post frumenta, levantes tempore festo Corpus, et ipsum animum spe finis dura ferentem, Cum sociis operum, et pueris, et conjuge fidâ, Tellurem porco, Silvanum lacte piabant; Floribus et vino Genium memorem brevis ævi. Fescennina per hunc inventa licentia morem Versibus alternis opprobria rustica fudit._ Our brawny clowns, of old, who turned the soil, Content with little, and inured to toil, At harvest-home, with mirth and country cheer, Restored their bodies for another year; Refreshed their spirits, and renewed their hope Of such a future feast, and future crop. Then, with their fellow-joggers of the ploughs, Their little children, and their faithful spouse, A sow they slew to Vesta's deity, And kindly milk, Silvanus, poured to thee; With flowers, and wine, their Genius they adored; A short life, and a merry, was the word. From flowing cups, defaming rhymes ensue, And at each other homely taunts they threw.