les grammairiens leur donnent, ou celui de _vers mordans_, comme en parle Ovide dans un passage, où je trouve qu'il se défend de n'avoir point écrit de Satyres. _Non ego mordaci distrinxi carmine quemquam, Nec meus ullius crimina versus habet._ "Je ne touche pas enfin la différence, qu'on pourroit encore alléguer de la composition diverse des unes et des autres; les Satires Romaines, dont il est ici proprement question et qui ont été conservées jusques à nous, ayant été écrites en vers héroiques, et les poëmes satyriques des Grecs en vers jambiques. Ce qui devroit néanmoins être d'autant plus remarqué, qu'Horace ne trouve point d'autre différence entre l'inventeur des Satires Romaines et les auteurs de l'ancienne comédie, comme Cratinus et Eupolis, si non que les Satires du premier étoient écrites dans un autre genre de vers."--See Baron SPANHEIM'S Dissertation, _Sur les_ Cesars _de_ Julien, _et en général sur les ouvrages satyriques des Anciens_, prefixed to his translation of Julian's work, Amsterdam, 1728, 4to. and Malone's "Dryden," Vol. IV. p. 130. [21] Horace, in the beginning of the Fourth Satire of his First Book, introduces Lucilius as imitating the ancient Greek comedians: _Hinc omnis pendet Lucilius, hosce secutus, Mutatis tantum pedibus numerisque; facetus, Emunctæ naris, durus componere versus. Nam fuit hoc vitiosus: in hora sæpe ducentos, Ut magnum, versus dictabat stans pede in uno. Cum flueret lutulentus, erat quod tollere velles; Garrulus, atque piger scribendi ferre laborem; Scribendi recte; nam ut multum, non moror._-- Towards the end of the Tenth Satire, the poet resumes the subject, and vindicates his character of Lucilius against those who had accused him of too much severity towards the ancient satirist; and again accuses him of carelessness, though he acknowledges his superiority to the more ancient models: ----_fuerit Lucilius, inquam, Comis et urbanus; fuerit limatior idem, Quam rudis, et Græcis intacti carminis auctor, Quamque poetarum seniorum turba: Sed ille, Si foret hoc nostrum fato dilatus in ævum, Detereret sibi multa: recideret omne, quod ultra Perfectum traheretur: et in versu faciendo Sæpe caput scaberet, vivos et roderet ungues._ [22] The original runs thus: "_Et tamen in illis veteribus nostris quæ Menippum imitati, non interpretati, quadam hilaritate conspersimus, multa admis admista ex intima philosophia, multa dicta dialectice, quæ quo facilius minus docti intelligerent jucunditate quadam ad legendum invitati; in laudationibus, in iis ipsis antiquitatum proæmiis, philosophice scribere voluimus si modo consecuti sumus_."--Academic lib. iii. sect. 2. The sense of the last clause seems to be, that Varro had attempted, even in panegyrics, and studied imitations of the ancient satirists, to write philosophically, although he modestly affects to doubt of his having been able to accomplish his purpose.