If we small difficulty in transferring them to canvas. believed in the metempsychosis doctrine, we might almost suppose that the soul of Juvenal reappeared in Hogarth. The crowd hurrying to the sportula or 'dole;' the streets of Rome by day and night; the court of Domitian, his worthless parasites and their trumpery subjects of discussion; the poor dependent dining with the rich patron, and the insults he is exposed to; the senator's wife eloping with a gladiator; the interior of fashionable ladies' boudoirs, and the frivolous pursuits and superstitions of ladies of rank; the arts and shifts of starveling poets; the nobleman addicted to the turf; the aspect of the city on the fall of a great minister; a tête-à-tête supper of two friends: these and many other scenes of Roman life are brought before us with the vivid touches of a Defoe or a Swift. They are sketches' in the modern sense; and I know of nothing exactly resembling them in any other ancient author. The modes of expression, again, the turns of thought, the humor, are often distinctly modern, and such as we should look for in the pages of Fielding or Thackeray. The upstart coming on in his litter, which is filled up by himself;' the poor man who had nothing, it is true, but who lost all that nothing' in the fire; the sycophant who, when his patron complains of the heat, immediately sweats;' 'the rustic infant in his mother's lap, gazing with horror at the frightful mask of the actor' when taken to the play; the chaff, as we style it, of the fast young Roman noble directed against the plebeian whom he is going to pommel, 'Whose vinegar and beans are you distended with? What cobbler have you been supping off sheep's-head with, you beggar?' the description of the fight, if fight it may be called, where one man does the pommelling and the other man's part is limited to being pommelled;' the prayer of the poor wretch that he may be allowed to return home 'with a few teeth left him;' the compliment of the fisherman on presenting an enormous turbot to Domitian, Depend upon it, sire, the fish got himself caught on purpose!' the school-master whose class proceeds to 'destroy wicked tyrants,' and whose head is made to ache by that dreadful Hannibal;' Hannibal himself stalking across the Alps in order to amuse school-boys, and be turned into the theme for an exercise ;' the exclamations of the Romans on hearing of the fall of Sejanus,' Believe me, there was something about that man which I never liked. What a repulsive countenance he had, to be sure!' the picture of the old ex-Dictator, in the primitive times, trudging off with a spade over his shoulder to a supper party, where bacon and perhaps a trifle of fresh meat were to be the fare, 'with a dash of haste' so as to be sure to be in time; the advice to the civilian in a dispute with soldiers never to commence an action, with only two legs to plead against a thousand hobnails; such turns of expression as the fires, the falling in of roofs, the thousand perils of cruel Rome, last of all, the poets reciting in the dog-days;' or again, in a comparison of Orestes and Nero, 'At any rate, Orestes did not murder his sister and his wife, he did not poison his relations, he did not write rubbishy poems about Troy;' the remark about Horace, 'Horace has had enough to eat when he cries out 'Euoe!'examples of this kind might be multiplied in support of my assertion that there is in Juvenal a humor quite distinct from the quaint humor of Plautus and the delicate banter of Horace, of which no example existed previous to his time in Roman literature, while modern literature furnishes much that is akin to it." D. IVNII IVVENALIS SATVRA E. I. SEMPER ego auditor tantum? numquamne reponam, impune ergo mihi recitaverit ille togatas, pelliculae, quantas jaculetur Monychus ornos, Frontonis platani convulsaque marmora clamant semper et adsiduo ruptae lectore columnae : exspectes eadem a summo minimoque poeta. 5 10 e et nos ergo manum ferulae subduximus, et nos dormiret; stulta est clementia, cum tot ubique per quem magnus equos Auruncae flexit alumnus, si vacat ac placidi rationem admittitis, edam. Cum tener uxorem ducat spado, Mevia Tuscum figat aprum et nuda teneat venabula mamma, patricios omnis opibus cum provocet unus quo tondente gravis juveni mihi barba sonabat, cum pars Niliacae plebis, cum verna Canopi Crispinus, Tyrias umero revocante lacernas, ventilet aestivum digitis sudantibus aurum, nec sufferre queat majoris pondera gemmae, 20 25 difficile est saturam non scribere. nam quis iniquae 30 tam patiens urbis, tam ferreus, ut teneat se, causidici nova cum veniat lectica Mathonis plena ipso, post hunc magni delator amici et cito rapturus de nobilitate comesa quod superest, quem Massa timet, quem munere palpat Carus et a trepido Thymele summissa Latino? quid referam quanta siccum jecur ardeat ira, சுக 36 45 cum populum gregibus comitum premit hic spoliator pupilli prostantis? et hic damnatus inani judicio (quid enim salvis infamia nummis ?) exul ab octava Marius bibit et fruitur dis iratis, at tu victrix provincia ploras? Haec ego non credam Venusina digna lucerna? haec ego non agitem? sed quid magis? Heracleas aut Diomedeas aut mugitum labyrinthi et mare percussum puero fabrumque volantem? cum-leno accipiat moechi bona, si capiendi 50 55 jus nullum uxori, doctus spectare lacunar, qui bona donavit praesepibus et caret omni 60 hinc atque inde patens ac nuda paene cathedra 65 et multum referens de Maecenate supino, 70 75 80 |