Yes, all the hopes of learning, 'tis confess'd,And all the patronage, onCæsarrest:For he alone the drooping Nine regards—When, now, our best, and most illustrious bards,Quit their ungrateful studies, and retire,5Bagnios and bakehouses, for bread, to hire;With humbled views, a life of toil embrace,And deem a crier's business no disgrace;Since Clio, driven by hunger from the shade,Mixes in crowds, and bustles for a trade.10And truly, if (the bard's too frequent curse)No coin be found in your Pierian purse,'Twere not ill done to copy, for the nonce,Machæra, and turn auctioneer at once.Hie, my poetic friend; in accents loud,15Commend your precious lumber to the crowd,Old tubs, stools, presses, wrecks of many a chest,Paccius' damned plays, Thebes, Tereus, and the rest.—And better so—than haunt the courts of law,And swear, for hire, to what you never saw:20Leave this resource to Cappadocian knights,To Gallogreeks, and such new-fangled wights,As want, or infamy, has chased from home,And driven, in barefoot multitudes, to Rome.Come, my brave youths!—the genuine sons of rhyme,25Who, in sweet numbers, couch the true sublime,Shall, from this hour, no more their fate accuse,Or stoop to pains unworthy of the Muse.Come, my brave youths! your tuneful labors ply,Secure of favor; lo! the imperial eye30Looks round, attentive, on each rising bard,For worth to praise, for genius to reward!But if for other patronage you look,And therefore write, and therefore swell your book,Quick, call for wood, and let the flames devour35The hapless produce of the studious hour;Or lock it up, to moths and worms a prey,And break your pens, and fling your ink away:—Or pour it rather o'er your epic flights,Your battles, sieges (fruit of sleepless nights),40Pour it, mistaken men, who rack your brainsIn dungeons, cocklofts, for heroic strains;Who toil and sweat to purchase mere renown,A meagre statue, and an ivy crown!Here bound your expectations: for the great,45Grown, wisely, covetous, have learned, of late,To praise, andonlypraise, the high-wrought strain,As boys, the bird of Juno's glittering train.Meanwhile those vigorous years, so fit to bearThe toils of agriculture, commerce, war,50Spent in this idle trade, decline apace,And age, unthought of, stares you in the face:—O then, appalled to find your better daysHave earned you naught but poverty and praise,At all your barren glories you repine,55And curse, too late, the unavailing Nine!Hear, now, what sneaking ways your patrons find,To save their darling gold:—they pay in kind!Verses, composed in every Muse's spite,To the starved bard, they, in their turn, recite;60And, if they yield to Homer, let him know,'Tis—that he lived a thousand years ago!But if, inspired with genuine love of fame,A dry rehearsal only be your aim,The miser's breast with sudden warmth dilates,65And lo! he opes his triple-bolted gates;Nay, sends his clients to support your cause,And rouse the tardy audience to applause:But will not spare one farthing to defrayThe numerous charges of this glorious day,70The desk where, throned in conscious pride, you sit,The joists and beams, the orchestra and the pit.Still we persist; plow the light sand, and sowSeed after seed, where none can ever grow:Nay, should we, conscious of our fruitless pain,75Strive to escape, we strive, alas! in vain;Long habit and the thirst of praise beset,And close us in the inextricable net.The insatiate itch of scribbling, hateful pest,Creeps like a tetter, through the human breast,80Nor knows, nor hopes a cure; since years, which chillAll other passions, but inflame the ill!ButHE, the bard of every age and clime,Of genius fruitful, ardent and sublime,Who, from the glowing mint of fancy, pours85No spurious metal, fused from common ores,But gold, to matchless purity refined,And stamped with all the godhead in his mind;He whom I feel, but want the power to paint,Springs from a soul impatient of restraint,90And free from every care; a soul that lovesThe Muse's haunts, clear founts and shady groves.Never, no never, did He wildly rave,And shake his thyrsus in the Aonian cave,Whom poverty kept sober, and the cries95Of a lean stomach, clamorous for supplies:No; the wine circled briskly through the veins,When Horace poured his dithyrambic strains!—What room for fancy, say, unless the mind,And all its thoughts, to poesy resigned,100Be hurried with resistless force along,By the two kindred Powers of Wine and Song!O! 'tis the exclusive business of a breastImpetuous, uncontrolled—not one distress'dWith household cares, to view the bright abodes,105The steeds, the chariots, and the forms of gods:And the fierce Fury, as her snakes she shook,And withered the Rutulian with a look!Those snakes, had Virgil no Mæcenas found,}Had dropp'd, in listless length, upon the ground;}110And the still slumbering trump, groaned with no mortal sound.}Yet we expect, from Lappa's tragic rage,Such scenes as graced, of old, the Athenian stage;Though he, poor man, from hand to mouth be fed,And driven to pawn his furniture for bread!115When Numitor is asked to serve a friend,"He can not; he is poor." Yet he can sendRich presents to his mistress! he can buyTame lions, and find means to keep them high!What then? the beasts are still the lightest charge;120For your starved bards have maws so devilish large!Stretched in his marble palace, at his ease,Lucan may write, and only ask to please;But what is this, if this be all you give,To Bassus and Serranus? They must live!125When Statius fixed a morning, to reciteHis Thebaid to the town, with what delightThey flocked to hear! with what fond rapture hungOn the sweet strains, made sweeter by his tongue!Yet, while the seats rung with a general peal130Of boisterous praise, the bard had lacked a meal,Unless with Paris he had better sped,And trucked a virgin tragedy for bread.Mirror of men! he showers, with liberal hands,On needy poets, honors and commands:—135An actor's patronage a peer's outgoes,And what the last withholds, the first bestows!—And will you still on Camerinus wait,And Bareas? will you still frequent the great?Ah, rather to the player your labors take,140And at one lucky stroke your fortune make!Yet envy not the man who earns hard breadBy tragedy: the Muses' friends are fled!—Mæcenas, Proculeius, Fabius, gone,And Lentulus, and Cotta—every one!145Thenworth was cherished, then the bard might toil,Secure of favor, o'er the midnight oil;Then all December's revelries refuse,And give the festive moments to the Muse.So fare the tuneful race: but ampler gains150Await, no doubt, the graveHISTORIANS'pains!More time, more study they require, and pilePage upon page, heedless of bulk the while,Till, fact conjoined to fact with thought intense,The work is closed, at many a ream's expense!155Say now, what harvest was there ever found,What golden crop, from this long-labored ground?'Tis barren all; and one poor plodding scribeGets more by framing pleas than all the tribe.True:—'tis a slothful breed, that, nursed in ease,160Soft beds, and whispering shades, alone can please.Say then, what gain theLAWYER'Stoil affords,His sacks of papers, and his war of words?Heavens! how he bellows in our tortured ears;But then, then chiefly, when the client hears,165Or one prepared, with vouchers, to attestSome desperate debt, more anxious than the rest,Twitches his elbow: then, his passions rise!Then, forth he puffs the immeasurable liesFrom his swollen lungs! then, the white foam appears,170And, driveling down his beard, his vest besmears!Ask you the profit of this painful race?'Tis quickly summed: Here, the joint fortunes placeOf five-score lawyers; there, Lacerta's sole—And that one charioteer's, shall poise the whole!175The Generals take their seats in regal wise.You, my pale Ajax, watch the hour, and rise,In act to plead a trembling client's cause,Before Judge Jolthead—learned in the laws.Now stretch your throat, unhappy man! now raise180Your clamors, that, when hoarse, a bunch of bays,Stuck in your garret window, may declare,That some victorious pleader nestles there!O glorious hour! but what your fee, the while?A rope of shriveled onions from the Nile,185A rusty ham, a jar of broken sprats,And wine, the refuse of our country vats;Five flagons for four causes! if you hold,Though this indeed be rare, a piece of gold;The brethren,as per contract, on you fall,190And share the prize, solicitors and all!Whate'er he asks, Æmilius may command,Though more of law be ours: but lo! there standBefore his gate, conspicuous from afar,Four stately steeds, yoked to a brazen car:195And the great pleader, looking wary round,On a fierce charger that disdains the ground,Levels his threatening spear, in act to throw,And seems to meditate no common blow.Such arts as these, to beggary Matho brought,200And such the ruin of Tongillus wrought,Who, with his troop of slaves, a draggled train,Annoyed the baths, of his huge oil-horn vain;Swept through the Forum, in a chair of state,To every auction—villas, slaves, or plate;205And, trading on the credit of his dress,Cheapened whate'er he saw, though penniless!And some, indeed, have thriven by tricks like these:Purple and violet swell a lawyer's fees;Bustle and show above his means conduce210To business, and profusion proves of use.The vice is universal: Rome confoundsThe wealthiest;—prodigal beyond all bounds!Could our old pleaders visit earth again,Tully himself would scarce a brief obtain,215Unless his robe were purple, and a stone,Diamond or ruby, on his finger shone.The wary plaintiff, ere a fee he gives,Inquires at what expense his counsel lives;Has he eight slaves, ten followers? chairs to wait,220And clients to precede his march in state?This Paulus knows full well, and, therefore, hiresA ring to plead in; therefore, too, acquiresMore briefs than Cossus:—preference not unsound,For how should eloquence in rags be found?225Who gives poor Basilus a cause of state?When, to avert a trembling culprit's fate,Shows he a weeping mother? or who heedsHow close he argues, and how well he pleads?Unhappy Basilus!—but he is wrong:230Would he procure subsistence by his tongue,Let him renounce the forum, and withdrawTo Gaul, or Afric, the dry-nurse of law.But Vectius, yet more desperate than the rest,Has opened (O that adamantine breast!)235ARHETORICschool; where striplings rave and stormAt tyranny, through many a crowded form.—The exercises lately, sitting, read,Standing, distract his miserable head,And every day and every hour affords240The selfsame subjects, in the selfsame words;Till, like hashed cabbage served for each repast,The repetition—kills the wretch at last!Where the main jet of every question lies,And whence the chief objections may arise,245All wish to know; but none the price will pay."The price," retorts the scholar, "do you say!What have I learned?" There go the master's pains,Because, forsooth, the Arcadian brute lacks brains!And yet this oaf, every sixth morn, prepares250To split my head with Hannibal's affairs,While he debates at large, "Whether 'twere rightTo take advantage of the general fright,And march to Rome; or, by the storm alarmed,And all the elements against him armed,255The dangerous expedition to delay,And lead his harassed troops some other way."—Sick of the theme, which still returns, and stillThe exhausted wretch exclaims, Ask what you will,I'll give it, so you on his sire prevail,260To hear, thus oft, the booby's endless tale!So Vectius speeds: his brethren, wiser far,Have shut up school, and hurried to the bar.Adieu the idle fooleries of Greece,The soporific drug, the golden fleece,265The faithless husband, and the abandoned wife,And Æson, coddled to new light and life,A long adieu! on more productive themes,On actual crimes, the sophist now declaims:Thou too, my friend, would'st thou my counsel hear,270Should'st free thyself from this ungrateful care;Lest all be lost, and thou reduced, poor sage,To want a tally in thy helpless age!Bread still the lawyer earns; but tell me yet,What your Chrysogonus and Pollio get275(The chief of rhetoricians), though they teachOur youth of quality,the Art of Speech?Oh, no! the great pursue a nobler end:—Five thousand on a bath they freely spend;More on a portico, where, while it lours,280They ride, and bid defiance to the showers.Shall they, for brighter skies, at home remain,Or dash their pampered mules through mud and rain?No: let them pace beneath the stately roof,For there no mire can soil the shining hoof.285See next, on proud Numidian columns riseAn eating-room, that fronts the eastern skies,And drinks the cooler sun. Expensive these!But (cost whate'er they may), the times to please,Sewers for arrangement of the board admired,290And cooks of taste and skill must yet be hired.Mid this extravagance, which knows no bounds,Quintilian gets, and hardly gets, ten pounds:—On education all is grudged as lost,And sons are still a father's lightest cost.295Whence has Quintilian, then, his vast estate?Urge not an instance of peculiar fate:Perhaps, by luck. The lucky, I admit,Have all advantages; have beauty, wit,And wisdom, and high blood: the lucky, too,300May take, at will, the senatorial shoe;Be first-rate speakers, pleaders, every thing;And, though they croak like frogs, be thought to sing.O, there's a difference, friend, beneath what signWe spring to light, or kindly or malign!305Fortune is all: She, as the fancy springs,Makes kings of pedants, and of pedants kings.For, what were Tullius, and Ventidius, say,But great examples of the wondrous swayOf stars, whose mystic influence alone,310Bestows, on captives triumphs, slaves a throne?He, then, is lucky; and, amid the clan,Ranks with the milk-white crow, or sable swan:While all his hapless brethren count their gains,And execrate, too late, their fruitless pains.315Witness thy end, Thrasymachus! and thine,Unblest Charinas!—Thou beheld'st him pine,Thou, Athens! and would'st naught but bane bestow;The only charity—thou seem'st to know!Shades of our sires! O, sacred be your rest,320And lightly lie the turf upon your breast!Flowers round your urns breathe sweets beyond compare,And spring eternal shed its influence there!You honored tutors, now a slighted race,And gave them all a parent's power and place.325Achilles, grown a man, the lyre assayedOn his paternal hills, and, while he played,With trembling eyed the rod;—and yet, the tailOf the good Centaur, scarcely, then, could failTo force a smile: such reverence now is rare,330And boys with bibs strike Rufus on his chair,Fastidious Rufus, who, with critic rage,Arraigned the purity of Tully's page!Enough of these. Let the last wretched band,The poorGRAMMARIANS, say, what liberal hand335Rewards their toil: let learned Palæmon tell,Who proffers what his skill deserves so well.Yet from this pittance, whatsoe'er it be(Less, surely, than the rhetorician's fee),The usher snips off something for his pains,340And the purveyor nibbles what remains.Courage, Palæmon! be not over-nice,But suffer some abatement in your price;As those who deal in rugs, will ask you high,And sink by pence and half-pence, till you buy.345Yes, suffer this; while something's left to payYour rising hours before the dawn of day,When e'en the laboring poor their slumbers take,And not a weaver, not a smith's awake:While something's left to pay you for the stench350Of smouldering lamps, thick spread o'er every bench,Where ropy vapors Virgil's pages soil,And Horace looks one blot, all soot and oil!Even then, the stipend thus reduced, thus small,Without a lawsuit, rarely comes at all.355Add yet, ye parents, add to the disgrace,And heap new hardships on this wretched race.Make it a point that all, and every part,Of their own science, be possessed by heart;That general history with our own they blend,360And have all authors at their fingers' end:Still ready to inform you, should you meet,And ask them at the bath, or in the street,Who nursed Anchises; from what country cameThe step-dame of Archemorus, what her name;365How long Acestes flourished, and what storeOf generous wine the Phrygians from him bore—Make it a point too, that, like ductile clay,They mould the tender mind, and day by dayBring out the form of Virtue; that they prove370A father to the youths, in care and love;And watch that no obscenities prevail—And trust me, friend, even Argus' self might fail,The busy hands of schoolboys to espy,And the lewd fires which twinkle in their eye.375All this, and more, exact; and, having foundThe man you seek, say—When the year comes round,We'll give thee for thy twelve months' anxious pains,As much—as,IN AN HOUR, A FENCER GAINS!
Yes, all the hopes of learning, 'tis confess'd,And all the patronage, onCæsarrest:For he alone the drooping Nine regards—When, now, our best, and most illustrious bards,Quit their ungrateful studies, and retire,5Bagnios and bakehouses, for bread, to hire;With humbled views, a life of toil embrace,And deem a crier's business no disgrace;Since Clio, driven by hunger from the shade,Mixes in crowds, and bustles for a trade.10And truly, if (the bard's too frequent curse)No coin be found in your Pierian purse,'Twere not ill done to copy, for the nonce,Machæra, and turn auctioneer at once.Hie, my poetic friend; in accents loud,15Commend your precious lumber to the crowd,Old tubs, stools, presses, wrecks of many a chest,Paccius' damned plays, Thebes, Tereus, and the rest.—And better so—than haunt the courts of law,And swear, for hire, to what you never saw:20Leave this resource to Cappadocian knights,To Gallogreeks, and such new-fangled wights,As want, or infamy, has chased from home,And driven, in barefoot multitudes, to Rome.Come, my brave youths!—the genuine sons of rhyme,25Who, in sweet numbers, couch the true sublime,Shall, from this hour, no more their fate accuse,Or stoop to pains unworthy of the Muse.Come, my brave youths! your tuneful labors ply,Secure of favor; lo! the imperial eye30Looks round, attentive, on each rising bard,For worth to praise, for genius to reward!But if for other patronage you look,And therefore write, and therefore swell your book,Quick, call for wood, and let the flames devour35The hapless produce of the studious hour;Or lock it up, to moths and worms a prey,And break your pens, and fling your ink away:—Or pour it rather o'er your epic flights,Your battles, sieges (fruit of sleepless nights),40Pour it, mistaken men, who rack your brainsIn dungeons, cocklofts, for heroic strains;Who toil and sweat to purchase mere renown,A meagre statue, and an ivy crown!Here bound your expectations: for the great,45Grown, wisely, covetous, have learned, of late,To praise, andonlypraise, the high-wrought strain,As boys, the bird of Juno's glittering train.Meanwhile those vigorous years, so fit to bearThe toils of agriculture, commerce, war,50Spent in this idle trade, decline apace,And age, unthought of, stares you in the face:—O then, appalled to find your better daysHave earned you naught but poverty and praise,At all your barren glories you repine,55And curse, too late, the unavailing Nine!Hear, now, what sneaking ways your patrons find,To save their darling gold:—they pay in kind!Verses, composed in every Muse's spite,To the starved bard, they, in their turn, recite;60And, if they yield to Homer, let him know,'Tis—that he lived a thousand years ago!But if, inspired with genuine love of fame,A dry rehearsal only be your aim,The miser's breast with sudden warmth dilates,65And lo! he opes his triple-bolted gates;Nay, sends his clients to support your cause,And rouse the tardy audience to applause:But will not spare one farthing to defrayThe numerous charges of this glorious day,70The desk where, throned in conscious pride, you sit,The joists and beams, the orchestra and the pit.Still we persist; plow the light sand, and sowSeed after seed, where none can ever grow:Nay, should we, conscious of our fruitless pain,75Strive to escape, we strive, alas! in vain;Long habit and the thirst of praise beset,And close us in the inextricable net.The insatiate itch of scribbling, hateful pest,Creeps like a tetter, through the human breast,80Nor knows, nor hopes a cure; since years, which chillAll other passions, but inflame the ill!ButHE, the bard of every age and clime,Of genius fruitful, ardent and sublime,Who, from the glowing mint of fancy, pours85No spurious metal, fused from common ores,But gold, to matchless purity refined,And stamped with all the godhead in his mind;He whom I feel, but want the power to paint,Springs from a soul impatient of restraint,90And free from every care; a soul that lovesThe Muse's haunts, clear founts and shady groves.Never, no never, did He wildly rave,And shake his thyrsus in the Aonian cave,Whom poverty kept sober, and the cries95Of a lean stomach, clamorous for supplies:No; the wine circled briskly through the veins,When Horace poured his dithyrambic strains!—What room for fancy, say, unless the mind,And all its thoughts, to poesy resigned,100Be hurried with resistless force along,By the two kindred Powers of Wine and Song!O! 'tis the exclusive business of a breastImpetuous, uncontrolled—not one distress'dWith household cares, to view the bright abodes,105The steeds, the chariots, and the forms of gods:And the fierce Fury, as her snakes she shook,And withered the Rutulian with a look!Those snakes, had Virgil no Mæcenas found,}Had dropp'd, in listless length, upon the ground;}110And the still slumbering trump, groaned with no mortal sound.}Yet we expect, from Lappa's tragic rage,Such scenes as graced, of old, the Athenian stage;Though he, poor man, from hand to mouth be fed,And driven to pawn his furniture for bread!115When Numitor is asked to serve a friend,"He can not; he is poor." Yet he can sendRich presents to his mistress! he can buyTame lions, and find means to keep them high!What then? the beasts are still the lightest charge;120For your starved bards have maws so devilish large!Stretched in his marble palace, at his ease,Lucan may write, and only ask to please;But what is this, if this be all you give,To Bassus and Serranus? They must live!125When Statius fixed a morning, to reciteHis Thebaid to the town, with what delightThey flocked to hear! with what fond rapture hungOn the sweet strains, made sweeter by his tongue!Yet, while the seats rung with a general peal130Of boisterous praise, the bard had lacked a meal,Unless with Paris he had better sped,And trucked a virgin tragedy for bread.Mirror of men! he showers, with liberal hands,On needy poets, honors and commands:—135An actor's patronage a peer's outgoes,And what the last withholds, the first bestows!—And will you still on Camerinus wait,And Bareas? will you still frequent the great?Ah, rather to the player your labors take,140And at one lucky stroke your fortune make!Yet envy not the man who earns hard breadBy tragedy: the Muses' friends are fled!—Mæcenas, Proculeius, Fabius, gone,And Lentulus, and Cotta—every one!145Thenworth was cherished, then the bard might toil,Secure of favor, o'er the midnight oil;Then all December's revelries refuse,And give the festive moments to the Muse.So fare the tuneful race: but ampler gains150Await, no doubt, the graveHISTORIANS'pains!More time, more study they require, and pilePage upon page, heedless of bulk the while,Till, fact conjoined to fact with thought intense,The work is closed, at many a ream's expense!155Say now, what harvest was there ever found,What golden crop, from this long-labored ground?'Tis barren all; and one poor plodding scribeGets more by framing pleas than all the tribe.True:—'tis a slothful breed, that, nursed in ease,160Soft beds, and whispering shades, alone can please.Say then, what gain theLAWYER'Stoil affords,His sacks of papers, and his war of words?Heavens! how he bellows in our tortured ears;But then, then chiefly, when the client hears,165Or one prepared, with vouchers, to attestSome desperate debt, more anxious than the rest,Twitches his elbow: then, his passions rise!Then, forth he puffs the immeasurable liesFrom his swollen lungs! then, the white foam appears,170And, driveling down his beard, his vest besmears!Ask you the profit of this painful race?'Tis quickly summed: Here, the joint fortunes placeOf five-score lawyers; there, Lacerta's sole—And that one charioteer's, shall poise the whole!175The Generals take their seats in regal wise.You, my pale Ajax, watch the hour, and rise,In act to plead a trembling client's cause,Before Judge Jolthead—learned in the laws.Now stretch your throat, unhappy man! now raise180Your clamors, that, when hoarse, a bunch of bays,Stuck in your garret window, may declare,That some victorious pleader nestles there!O glorious hour! but what your fee, the while?A rope of shriveled onions from the Nile,185A rusty ham, a jar of broken sprats,And wine, the refuse of our country vats;Five flagons for four causes! if you hold,Though this indeed be rare, a piece of gold;The brethren,as per contract, on you fall,190And share the prize, solicitors and all!Whate'er he asks, Æmilius may command,Though more of law be ours: but lo! there standBefore his gate, conspicuous from afar,Four stately steeds, yoked to a brazen car:195And the great pleader, looking wary round,On a fierce charger that disdains the ground,Levels his threatening spear, in act to throw,And seems to meditate no common blow.Such arts as these, to beggary Matho brought,200And such the ruin of Tongillus wrought,Who, with his troop of slaves, a draggled train,Annoyed the baths, of his huge oil-horn vain;Swept through the Forum, in a chair of state,To every auction—villas, slaves, or plate;205And, trading on the credit of his dress,Cheapened whate'er he saw, though penniless!And some, indeed, have thriven by tricks like these:Purple and violet swell a lawyer's fees;Bustle and show above his means conduce210To business, and profusion proves of use.The vice is universal: Rome confoundsThe wealthiest;—prodigal beyond all bounds!Could our old pleaders visit earth again,Tully himself would scarce a brief obtain,215Unless his robe were purple, and a stone,Diamond or ruby, on his finger shone.The wary plaintiff, ere a fee he gives,Inquires at what expense his counsel lives;Has he eight slaves, ten followers? chairs to wait,220And clients to precede his march in state?This Paulus knows full well, and, therefore, hiresA ring to plead in; therefore, too, acquiresMore briefs than Cossus:—preference not unsound,For how should eloquence in rags be found?225Who gives poor Basilus a cause of state?When, to avert a trembling culprit's fate,Shows he a weeping mother? or who heedsHow close he argues, and how well he pleads?Unhappy Basilus!—but he is wrong:230Would he procure subsistence by his tongue,Let him renounce the forum, and withdrawTo Gaul, or Afric, the dry-nurse of law.But Vectius, yet more desperate than the rest,Has opened (O that adamantine breast!)235ARHETORICschool; where striplings rave and stormAt tyranny, through many a crowded form.—The exercises lately, sitting, read,Standing, distract his miserable head,And every day and every hour affords240The selfsame subjects, in the selfsame words;Till, like hashed cabbage served for each repast,The repetition—kills the wretch at last!Where the main jet of every question lies,And whence the chief objections may arise,245All wish to know; but none the price will pay."The price," retorts the scholar, "do you say!What have I learned?" There go the master's pains,Because, forsooth, the Arcadian brute lacks brains!And yet this oaf, every sixth morn, prepares250To split my head with Hannibal's affairs,While he debates at large, "Whether 'twere rightTo take advantage of the general fright,And march to Rome; or, by the storm alarmed,And all the elements against him armed,255The dangerous expedition to delay,And lead his harassed troops some other way."—Sick of the theme, which still returns, and stillThe exhausted wretch exclaims, Ask what you will,I'll give it, so you on his sire prevail,260To hear, thus oft, the booby's endless tale!So Vectius speeds: his brethren, wiser far,Have shut up school, and hurried to the bar.Adieu the idle fooleries of Greece,The soporific drug, the golden fleece,265The faithless husband, and the abandoned wife,And Æson, coddled to new light and life,A long adieu! on more productive themes,On actual crimes, the sophist now declaims:Thou too, my friend, would'st thou my counsel hear,270Should'st free thyself from this ungrateful care;Lest all be lost, and thou reduced, poor sage,To want a tally in thy helpless age!Bread still the lawyer earns; but tell me yet,What your Chrysogonus and Pollio get275(The chief of rhetoricians), though they teachOur youth of quality,the Art of Speech?Oh, no! the great pursue a nobler end:—Five thousand on a bath they freely spend;More on a portico, where, while it lours,280They ride, and bid defiance to the showers.Shall they, for brighter skies, at home remain,Or dash their pampered mules through mud and rain?No: let them pace beneath the stately roof,For there no mire can soil the shining hoof.285See next, on proud Numidian columns riseAn eating-room, that fronts the eastern skies,And drinks the cooler sun. Expensive these!But (cost whate'er they may), the times to please,Sewers for arrangement of the board admired,290And cooks of taste and skill must yet be hired.Mid this extravagance, which knows no bounds,Quintilian gets, and hardly gets, ten pounds:—On education all is grudged as lost,And sons are still a father's lightest cost.295Whence has Quintilian, then, his vast estate?Urge not an instance of peculiar fate:Perhaps, by luck. The lucky, I admit,Have all advantages; have beauty, wit,And wisdom, and high blood: the lucky, too,300May take, at will, the senatorial shoe;Be first-rate speakers, pleaders, every thing;And, though they croak like frogs, be thought to sing.O, there's a difference, friend, beneath what signWe spring to light, or kindly or malign!305Fortune is all: She, as the fancy springs,Makes kings of pedants, and of pedants kings.For, what were Tullius, and Ventidius, say,But great examples of the wondrous swayOf stars, whose mystic influence alone,310Bestows, on captives triumphs, slaves a throne?He, then, is lucky; and, amid the clan,Ranks with the milk-white crow, or sable swan:While all his hapless brethren count their gains,And execrate, too late, their fruitless pains.315Witness thy end, Thrasymachus! and thine,Unblest Charinas!—Thou beheld'st him pine,Thou, Athens! and would'st naught but bane bestow;The only charity—thou seem'st to know!Shades of our sires! O, sacred be your rest,320And lightly lie the turf upon your breast!Flowers round your urns breathe sweets beyond compare,And spring eternal shed its influence there!You honored tutors, now a slighted race,And gave them all a parent's power and place.325Achilles, grown a man, the lyre assayedOn his paternal hills, and, while he played,With trembling eyed the rod;—and yet, the tailOf the good Centaur, scarcely, then, could failTo force a smile: such reverence now is rare,330And boys with bibs strike Rufus on his chair,Fastidious Rufus, who, with critic rage,Arraigned the purity of Tully's page!Enough of these. Let the last wretched band,The poorGRAMMARIANS, say, what liberal hand335Rewards their toil: let learned Palæmon tell,Who proffers what his skill deserves so well.Yet from this pittance, whatsoe'er it be(Less, surely, than the rhetorician's fee),The usher snips off something for his pains,340And the purveyor nibbles what remains.Courage, Palæmon! be not over-nice,But suffer some abatement in your price;As those who deal in rugs, will ask you high,And sink by pence and half-pence, till you buy.345Yes, suffer this; while something's left to payYour rising hours before the dawn of day,When e'en the laboring poor their slumbers take,And not a weaver, not a smith's awake:While something's left to pay you for the stench350Of smouldering lamps, thick spread o'er every bench,Where ropy vapors Virgil's pages soil,And Horace looks one blot, all soot and oil!Even then, the stipend thus reduced, thus small,Without a lawsuit, rarely comes at all.355Add yet, ye parents, add to the disgrace,And heap new hardships on this wretched race.Make it a point that all, and every part,Of their own science, be possessed by heart;That general history with our own they blend,360And have all authors at their fingers' end:Still ready to inform you, should you meet,And ask them at the bath, or in the street,Who nursed Anchises; from what country cameThe step-dame of Archemorus, what her name;365How long Acestes flourished, and what storeOf generous wine the Phrygians from him bore—Make it a point too, that, like ductile clay,They mould the tender mind, and day by dayBring out the form of Virtue; that they prove370A father to the youths, in care and love;And watch that no obscenities prevail—And trust me, friend, even Argus' self might fail,The busy hands of schoolboys to espy,And the lewd fires which twinkle in their eye.375All this, and more, exact; and, having foundThe man you seek, say—When the year comes round,We'll give thee for thy twelve months' anxious pains,As much—as,IN AN HOUR, A FENCER GAINS!
"Your ancient house!" no more.—I can not seeThe wondrous merits of a pedigree:No, Ponticus;—nor of a proud displayOf smoky ancestors, in wax or clay;Æmilius, mounted on his car sublime,5Curius, half wasted by the teeth of time,Corvinus, dwindled to a shapeless bust,And high-born Galba, crumbling into dust.What boots it, on theLINEAL TREEto trace,Through many a branch, the founders of our race,10Time-honored chiefs; if, in their sight, we giveA loose to vice, and like low villains live?Say, what avails it, that, on either hand,The stern Numantii, an illustrious band,Frown from the walls, if their degenerate race15Waste the long night at dice, before their face?If, staggering, to a drowsy bed they creep,At that prime hour when, starting from their sleep,Their sires the signal of the fight unfurled,And drew their legions forth, and won the world?20Say, why should Fabius, of the Herculean name,To theGREAT ALTARvaunt his lineal claim,If, softer than Euganean lambs, the youth,His wanton limbs, with Ætna's pumice, smooth,And shame his rough-hewn sires? if greedy, vain,25If, a vile trafficker in secret bane,He blast his wretched kindred with a bust,For public vengeance to—reduce to dust!Fond man! though all the heroes of your lineBedeck your halls, and round your galleries shine30In proud display; yet, take this truth from me,Virtue alone is true nobility.Set Cossus, Drusus, Paulus, then, in view,The bright example of their lives pursue;Let these precede the statues of your race,35And these, when Consul, of your rods take place.O give me inborn worth! dare to be just,Firm to your word, and faithful to your trust:These praises hear, at least deserve to hear,I grant your claim, and recognize the peer.40Hail! from whatever stock you draw your birth,The son of Cossus, or the son of Earth,All hail! in you, exulting Rome espiesHer guardian Power, her great Palladium rise;And shouts like Egypt, when her priests have found,45A new Osiris, for the old one drowned!But shall we call those noble, who disgraceTheir lineage, proud of an illustrious race?Vain thought!—but thus, with many a taunting smile,The dwarf an Atlas, Moor a swan, we style;50The crookbacked wench, Europa; and the hound,With age enfeebled, toothless, and unsound,That listless lies, and licks the lamps for food,Lord of the chase, and tyrant of the wood!You, too, beware, lest Satire's piercing eye55The slave of guilt through grandeur's blaze espy,And, drawing from your crime some sounding name,Declare at once your greatness and your shame.Ask you for whom this picture I design?Plautus, thy birth and folly make it thine.60Thou vaunt'st thy pedigree, on every sideTo noble and imperial blood allied;As if thy honors by thyself were won,And thou hadst some illustrious action done,To make the world believe thee Julia's heir,65And not the offspring of some easy fair,Who, shivering in the wind, near yon dead wall,Plies her vile labor, and is all to all."Away, away! ye slaves of humblest birth,Ye dregs of Rome, ye nothings of the earth,70Whose fathers who shall tell! my ancient lineDescends from Cecrops." Man of blood divine!Live, and enjoy the secret sweets which springIn breasts, affined to so remote a king!—Yet know, amid these "dregs," low grandeur's scorn,75Will those be found whom arts and arms adorn:Some, skilled to plead a noble blockhead's cause,And solve the dark enigmas of the laws;Some, who the Tigris' hostile banks explore,And plant our eagles on Batavia's shore:80While thou, in mean, inglorious pleasure lost,With "Cecrops! Cecrops!" all thou hast to boast,Art a full brother to the crossway stone,Which clowns have chipped the head of Hermes on:For 'tis no bar to kindred, that thy block85Is formed of flesh and blood, and theirs of rock.Of beasts, great son of Troy, who vaunts the breed,Unless renowned for courage, strength, or speed?'Tis thus we praise the horse, who mocks our eyes,While, to the goal, with lightning's speed, he flies!90Whom many a well-earned palm and trophy grace,And the Cirque hails, unrivaled in the race!—Yes, he is noble, spring from whom he will,Whose footsteps, in the dust, are foremost still;While Hirpine's stock are to the market led,95If Victory perch but rarely on their head:For no respect to pedigree is paid,No honor to a sire's illustrious shade.Flung cheaply off, they drag the cumbrous wain,With shoulders bare and bleeding from the chain;100Or take, with some blind ass in concert found,At Nepo's mill, their everlasting round.That Rome may, therefore,YOU, notYOURS, admire,By virtuous actions, first, to praise aspire;Seek not to shine by borrowed light alone,105But with your father's glories blend your own.Thisto the youth, whom Rumor brands as vain,And swelling—full of his Neronian strain;Perhaps, with truth:—for rarely shall we findA sense of modesty in that proud kind.110But were my Ponticus content to raiseHis honors thus, on a forefather's praise,Worthless the while—'twould tinge my cheeks with shame—'Tis dangerous building on another's fame,Lest the substructure fail, and on the ground115Your baseless pile be hurled, in fragments, round.—Stretched on the plain, the vine's weak tendrils tryTo clasp the elm they drop from; fail—and die!Be brave, be just; and when your country's lawsCall you to witness in a dubious cause,120Though Phalaris plant his bull before your eye,And, frowning, dictate to your lips the lie,Think it a crime no tears can e'er efface,To purchase safety with compliance base,At honor's cost a feverish span extend,125And sacrifice for life, life's only end!Life!'tis not life—who merits death is dead;Though Gauran oysters for his feasts be spread,Though his limbs drip with exquisite perfume,And the late rose around his temples bloom!130O, when the province, long desired, you gain,Your boiling rage, your lust of wealth, restrain,And pity our allies: all Asia grieves—Her blood, her marrow, drained by legal thieves.Revere the laws, obey the parent state;135Observe what rich rewards the good await.What punishments the bad: how Tutor sped,While Rome's whole thunder rattled round his head!And yet what boots it, that one spoiler bleed,If still a worse, and still a worse succeed;140If neither fear nor shame control their theft,And Pansa seize the little Natta left?Haste then, Chærippus, ere thy rags be known,And sell the few thou yet canst call thine own,And O, conceal the price! 'tis honest craft;145Thou could'st not keep the hatchet—save the haft.Not such the cries of old, nor such the stroke,When first the nations bowed beneath our yoke.Wealth, then, was theirs, wealth without fear possess'd,Full every house, and bursting every chest—150Crimson, in looms of Sparta taught to glow,And purple, deeply dyed in grain of Co;Busts, to which Myro's touch did motion give,And ivory, taught by Phidias' skill to live;On every side a Polyclete you viewed,155And scarce a board without a Mentor stood.These, these, the lust of rapine first inspired,These, Antony and Dolabella fired.And sacrilegious Verres:—so, for RomeThey shipped their secret plunder; and brought home160More treasures from our friends, in peace obtained,Than from our foes, in war, were ever gained!Now all is gone! the stallion made a prey,The few brood mares and oxen swept away,The Lares—if the sacred hearth possess'd}165One little god, that pleased above the rest—}Mean spoils, indeed! but such were now their best}Perhaps you scorn (and may securely scorn)The essenced Greek, whom arts, not arms, adorn:Soft limbs, and spirits by refinement broke,170Would feebly struggle with the oppressive yoke.But spare the Gaul, the fierce Illyrian spare,And the rough Spaniard, terrible in war;Spare too the Afric hind, whose ceaseless painFills our wide granaries with autumnal grain,175And pampers Rome, while weightier cares engageHer precious hours—the Circus and the Stage!For, should you rifle them, O think in time,What spoil would pay the execrable crime,When greedy Marius fleeced them all so late,180And bare and bleeding left the hapless state!But chief the brave, and wretched—tremble there;Nor tempt too far the madness of despair:For, should you all their little treasures drain,Helmets, and spears, and swords, would still remain;185The plundered ne'er want arms. What I foretell}Is no trite apophthegm, but—mark me well—}True as a Sibyl's leaf! fixed as an oracle!}If men of worth the posts beneath you hold,And no spruce favorite barter law for gold;190If no inherent stain your wife disgrace,Nor, harpy-like, she flit from place to place,A fell Celæno, ever on the watch,And ever furious, all she sees to snatch;Then choose what race you will: derive your birth195From Picus, or those elder sons of earth,Who shook the throne of heaven; call him your sire,Who first informed our clay with living fire;Or single from the songs of ancient days,What tale may suit you, and what parent raise.200But—if rash pride, and lust, your bosom sway,If, with stern joy, you ply, from day to dayThe ensanguined rods, and head on head demand,Till the tired axe drop from the lictor's hand;Then, every honor, by your father won,205Indignant to be borne by such a son,Will, to his blood, oppose your daring claim,And fire a torch to blaze upon your shame!—Vice glares more strongly in the public eye,As he who sins, in power or place is high.210See!by his great progenitors' remainsFat Damasippus sweeps, with loosened reins.Good Consul! he no pride of office feels,But stoops, himself, to clog his headlong wheels."But this is all by night," the hero cries.215Yet theMOONsees! yet theSTARSstretch their eyes,Full on your shame!—A few short moments wait,And Damasippus quits the pomp of state:Then, proud the experienced driver to display,He mounts his chariot in the face of day,220Whirls, with bold front, his grave associate by,And jerks his whip, to catch the senior's eye:Unyokes his weary steeds, and, to requiteTheir service, feeds and litters them, at night.Meanwhile, 'tis all he can, what time he stands225At Jove's high altar, as the law commands,And offers sheep and oxen, he forswearsThe Eternal King, and gives his silent prayersTo thee, Hippona, goddess of the stalls,And gods more vile, daubed on the reeking walls!230At night, to his old haunts he scours, elate(The tavern by the Idumean gate),Where, while the host, bedrenched with liquid sweets,With many a courteous phrase his entrance greets,And many a smile; the hostess nimbly moves,235And gets the flagon ready, which he loves.Here some, perhaps, my growing warmth may blame:"In youth's wild hours," they urge, "we did the same."'Tis granted, friends; but then we stopped in time,Nor hugged our darling faults beyond our prime.240Brief let our follies be! and youthful sinFall, with the firstlings of the manly chin!—Boys we may pity, nay, perhaps, excuse:But DamasippusSTILLfrequents the stews,Though now mature in vigor, ripe in age,245Of Cæsar's foes to check the headlong rage,On Tigris' banks, in burnished arms, to shine,And sternly guard the Danube, or the Rhine."The East revolts." Ho! let the troops repairTo Ostium, quick! "But where's the General?" Where!250Go, search the taverns; there the chief you'll find,With cut-throats, plunderers, rogues of every kind,Bier-jobbers, bargemen, drenched in fumes of wine,And Cybele's priests, mid their loose drums, supine!There none are less, none greater than the rest,255There my lord gives, and takes the scurvy jest;There all who can, round the same table sprawl.And there one greasy tankard serves for all.Blessings of birth!—but, Ponticus, a word:Owned you a slave like this degenerate lord,260What were his fate? your Lucan farm to till,Or aid the mules to turn your Tuscan mill.But Troy's great sons dispense with being good,And boldly sin by courtesy of blood;Wink at each other's crimes, and look for fame265In what would tinge a cobbler's cheek with shame.And have I wreaked on such foul deeds my rage,That worse should yet remain to blot my page!—See Damasippus, all his fortune lost,Compelled, for hire, to play a squealing ghost!270While Lentulus, his brother in renown,Performs, with so much art, the perjured clown,And suffers with such grace, that, for his pains,I hold him worthy of—theCROSShe feigns.Nor deem the heedless rabble void of blame:—275Strangers alike to decency and shame,They sit with brazen front, and calmly seeThe hired patrician's low buffoonery;Laugh at the Fabii's tricks, and grin to hearThe cuffs resound from the Mamerci's ear!280Who cares how low their blood is sold, how high?—No Nero drives them, now, their fate to try:Freely they come, and freely they exposeTheir lives for hire, to grace the public shows!But grant the worst: suppose the arena here,285And there the stage; on which would you appear?The first: for who of death so much in dread,As not to tremble more, the stage to tread,Squat on his hams, in some blind nook to sit,And watch his mistress, in a jealous fit!—290But 'tis not strange, that, when the Emperor tunesA scurvy harp, the lords should turn buffoons;The wonder is, they turn not fencers too,Secutors, Retiarians—AND THEY DO!Gracchus steps forth: No sword his thigh invests—295No helmet, shield—such armor he detests,Detests and spurns; and impudently stands,With the poised net and trident in his hands.The foe advances—lo! a cast he tries,But misses, and in frantic terror flies300Round the thronged Cirque; and, anxious to be known,Lifts his bare face, with many a piteous moan."'Tis he! 'tis he!—I know the Salian vest,With golden fringes, pendent from the breast;The Salian bonnet, from whose pointed crown305The glittering ribbons float redundant down.O spare him, spare!"—The brave Secutor heard,And, blushing, stopped the chase; for he preferredWounds, death itself, to the contemptuous smile,Of conquering one so noble, and—so vile!310Who, Nero, so depraved, if choice were free,To hesitate 'twixt Seneca and thee?Whose crimes, so much have they all crimes outgone,Deserve more serpents, apes, and sacks, than one.Not so, thou say'st; there are, whom I could name,315As deep in guilt, and as accursed in fame;Orestes slewHISmother. True; but know,The same effects from different causes flow:A father murdered at the social board,And heaven's command, unsheathed his righteous sword.320Besides, Orestes, in his wildest mood,Poisoned no cousin, shed no consort's blood,Buried no poniard in a sister's throat,Sung on no public stage,no Troics wrote.—Thistopped his frantic crimes!THISroused mankind!325For what could Galba, what Virginius find,In the dire annals of that bloody reign,Which called for vengeance in a louder strain?Lo here, the arts, the studies that engageThe world's great master! on a foreign stage,330To prostitute his voice for base renown,And ravish, from the Greeks, a parsley crown!Come then, great prince, great poet! while we throngTo greet thee, recent from triumphant song,Come, place the unfading wreath, with reverence meet,335On the Domitii's brows! before their feetThe mask and pall of old Thyestes lay,And Menalippé; while, in proud display,From the colossal marble of thy sire,Depends, the boast of Rome, thy conquering lyre!340Cethegus! Catiline! whose ancestorsWere nobler born, were higher ranked, than yours?Yet ye conspired, with more than Gallic hate,To wrap in midnight flames this hapless state;On men and gods your barbarous rage to pour,345And deluge Rome with her own children's gore:Horrors, which called, indeed, for vengeance dire,For the pitched coat and stake, and smouldering fire!But Tully watched—your league in silence broke,And crushed your impious arms, without a stroke.350Yes he, poor Arpine, of no name at home,And scarcely ranked among the knights at Rome,Secured the trembling town, placed a firm guardIn every street, and toiled in every ward:—And thus, within the walls, theGOWNobtained,355More fame, for Tully, than Octavius gainedAt Actium and Philippi, from asword,Drenched in the eternal stream by patriots poured!For Rome, free Rome, hailed him, with loud acclaim,The Father of his Country—glorious name!360Another Arpine, trained the ground to till,Tired of the plow, forsook his native hill,And joined the camp; where, if his adze was slow,The vine-twig whelked his back with many a blow:And yet, when the fierce Cimbri threatened Rome365With swift, and scarcely evitable doom,This man, in the dread hour, to save her rose,And turned the impending ruin on her foes!For which, while ravening birds devoured the slain,And their huge bones lay whitening on the plain,370His high-born colleague to his worth gave way,And took, well pleased, the secondary bay.The Decii were plebeians! mean their name,And mean the parent stock from which they came:Yet they devoted, in the trying hour,375Their heads to Earth, and each infernal Power;And by that solemn act, redeemed from fate,}Auxiliars, legions, all the Latian state;}More prized than those they saved, in heaven's just estimate!}And him, who graced the purple which he wore380(The last good king of Rome), a bondmaid bore.The Consul's sons (while storms yet shook the state,And Tarquin thundered vengeance at the gate),Who should, to crown the labors of their sire,Have dared what Cocles, Mutius, might admire,385And she, who mocked the javelins whistling round,And swam the Tiber, then the empire's bound;Had to the tyrant's rage the town exposed,But that a slave their dark designs disclosed.—For Him, when stretched upon his honored bier,390The grateful matrons shed the pious tear,While, with stern eye, the patriot and the sireSaw, by the axe, the high-born pair expire:They fell—just victims to the offended laws,And the first sacrifice toFREEDOM'Scause!395For me, who naught but innate worth admire,I'd rather vile Thersites were thy sire,So thou wert like Achilles, and could'st wieldVulcanian arms, the terror of the field,Than that Achilles should thy father be,400And, in his offspring, vile Thersites see.And yet, how high soe'er thy pride may traceThe long-forgotten founders of thy race,Still must the search with that Asylum end,From whose polluted source we all descend.405Haste then, the inquiry haste; secure to findThy sire some vagrant slave, some bankrupt hind,Some—but I mark the kindling glow of shame,And will not shock thee with a baser name.
"Your ancient house!" no more.—I can not seeThe wondrous merits of a pedigree:No, Ponticus;—nor of a proud displayOf smoky ancestors, in wax or clay;Æmilius, mounted on his car sublime,5Curius, half wasted by the teeth of time,Corvinus, dwindled to a shapeless bust,And high-born Galba, crumbling into dust.What boots it, on theLINEAL TREEto trace,Through many a branch, the founders of our race,10Time-honored chiefs; if, in their sight, we giveA loose to vice, and like low villains live?Say, what avails it, that, on either hand,The stern Numantii, an illustrious band,Frown from the walls, if their degenerate race15Waste the long night at dice, before their face?If, staggering, to a drowsy bed they creep,At that prime hour when, starting from their sleep,Their sires the signal of the fight unfurled,And drew their legions forth, and won the world?20Say, why should Fabius, of the Herculean name,To theGREAT ALTARvaunt his lineal claim,If, softer than Euganean lambs, the youth,His wanton limbs, with Ætna's pumice, smooth,And shame his rough-hewn sires? if greedy, vain,25If, a vile trafficker in secret bane,He blast his wretched kindred with a bust,For public vengeance to—reduce to dust!Fond man! though all the heroes of your lineBedeck your halls, and round your galleries shine30In proud display; yet, take this truth from me,Virtue alone is true nobility.Set Cossus, Drusus, Paulus, then, in view,The bright example of their lives pursue;Let these precede the statues of your race,35And these, when Consul, of your rods take place.O give me inborn worth! dare to be just,Firm to your word, and faithful to your trust:These praises hear, at least deserve to hear,I grant your claim, and recognize the peer.40Hail! from whatever stock you draw your birth,The son of Cossus, or the son of Earth,All hail! in you, exulting Rome espiesHer guardian Power, her great Palladium rise;And shouts like Egypt, when her priests have found,45A new Osiris, for the old one drowned!But shall we call those noble, who disgraceTheir lineage, proud of an illustrious race?Vain thought!—but thus, with many a taunting smile,The dwarf an Atlas, Moor a swan, we style;50The crookbacked wench, Europa; and the hound,With age enfeebled, toothless, and unsound,That listless lies, and licks the lamps for food,Lord of the chase, and tyrant of the wood!You, too, beware, lest Satire's piercing eye55The slave of guilt through grandeur's blaze espy,And, drawing from your crime some sounding name,Declare at once your greatness and your shame.Ask you for whom this picture I design?Plautus, thy birth and folly make it thine.60Thou vaunt'st thy pedigree, on every sideTo noble and imperial blood allied;As if thy honors by thyself were won,And thou hadst some illustrious action done,To make the world believe thee Julia's heir,65And not the offspring of some easy fair,Who, shivering in the wind, near yon dead wall,Plies her vile labor, and is all to all."Away, away! ye slaves of humblest birth,Ye dregs of Rome, ye nothings of the earth,70Whose fathers who shall tell! my ancient lineDescends from Cecrops." Man of blood divine!Live, and enjoy the secret sweets which springIn breasts, affined to so remote a king!—Yet know, amid these "dregs," low grandeur's scorn,75Will those be found whom arts and arms adorn:Some, skilled to plead a noble blockhead's cause,And solve the dark enigmas of the laws;Some, who the Tigris' hostile banks explore,And plant our eagles on Batavia's shore:80While thou, in mean, inglorious pleasure lost,With "Cecrops! Cecrops!" all thou hast to boast,Art a full brother to the crossway stone,Which clowns have chipped the head of Hermes on:For 'tis no bar to kindred, that thy block85Is formed of flesh and blood, and theirs of rock.Of beasts, great son of Troy, who vaunts the breed,Unless renowned for courage, strength, or speed?'Tis thus we praise the horse, who mocks our eyes,While, to the goal, with lightning's speed, he flies!90Whom many a well-earned palm and trophy grace,And the Cirque hails, unrivaled in the race!—Yes, he is noble, spring from whom he will,Whose footsteps, in the dust, are foremost still;While Hirpine's stock are to the market led,95If Victory perch but rarely on their head:For no respect to pedigree is paid,No honor to a sire's illustrious shade.Flung cheaply off, they drag the cumbrous wain,With shoulders bare and bleeding from the chain;100Or take, with some blind ass in concert found,At Nepo's mill, their everlasting round.That Rome may, therefore,YOU, notYOURS, admire,By virtuous actions, first, to praise aspire;Seek not to shine by borrowed light alone,105But with your father's glories blend your own.Thisto the youth, whom Rumor brands as vain,And swelling—full of his Neronian strain;Perhaps, with truth:—for rarely shall we findA sense of modesty in that proud kind.110But were my Ponticus content to raiseHis honors thus, on a forefather's praise,Worthless the while—'twould tinge my cheeks with shame—'Tis dangerous building on another's fame,Lest the substructure fail, and on the ground115Your baseless pile be hurled, in fragments, round.—Stretched on the plain, the vine's weak tendrils tryTo clasp the elm they drop from; fail—and die!Be brave, be just; and when your country's lawsCall you to witness in a dubious cause,120Though Phalaris plant his bull before your eye,And, frowning, dictate to your lips the lie,Think it a crime no tears can e'er efface,To purchase safety with compliance base,At honor's cost a feverish span extend,125And sacrifice for life, life's only end!Life!'tis not life—who merits death is dead;Though Gauran oysters for his feasts be spread,Though his limbs drip with exquisite perfume,And the late rose around his temples bloom!130O, when the province, long desired, you gain,Your boiling rage, your lust of wealth, restrain,And pity our allies: all Asia grieves—Her blood, her marrow, drained by legal thieves.Revere the laws, obey the parent state;135Observe what rich rewards the good await.What punishments the bad: how Tutor sped,While Rome's whole thunder rattled round his head!And yet what boots it, that one spoiler bleed,If still a worse, and still a worse succeed;140If neither fear nor shame control their theft,And Pansa seize the little Natta left?Haste then, Chærippus, ere thy rags be known,And sell the few thou yet canst call thine own,And O, conceal the price! 'tis honest craft;145Thou could'st not keep the hatchet—save the haft.Not such the cries of old, nor such the stroke,When first the nations bowed beneath our yoke.Wealth, then, was theirs, wealth without fear possess'd,Full every house, and bursting every chest—150Crimson, in looms of Sparta taught to glow,And purple, deeply dyed in grain of Co;Busts, to which Myro's touch did motion give,And ivory, taught by Phidias' skill to live;On every side a Polyclete you viewed,155And scarce a board without a Mentor stood.These, these, the lust of rapine first inspired,These, Antony and Dolabella fired.And sacrilegious Verres:—so, for RomeThey shipped their secret plunder; and brought home160More treasures from our friends, in peace obtained,Than from our foes, in war, were ever gained!Now all is gone! the stallion made a prey,The few brood mares and oxen swept away,The Lares—if the sacred hearth possess'd}165One little god, that pleased above the rest—}Mean spoils, indeed! but such were now their best}Perhaps you scorn (and may securely scorn)The essenced Greek, whom arts, not arms, adorn:Soft limbs, and spirits by refinement broke,170Would feebly struggle with the oppressive yoke.But spare the Gaul, the fierce Illyrian spare,And the rough Spaniard, terrible in war;Spare too the Afric hind, whose ceaseless painFills our wide granaries with autumnal grain,175And pampers Rome, while weightier cares engageHer precious hours—the Circus and the Stage!For, should you rifle them, O think in time,What spoil would pay the execrable crime,When greedy Marius fleeced them all so late,180And bare and bleeding left the hapless state!But chief the brave, and wretched—tremble there;Nor tempt too far the madness of despair:For, should you all their little treasures drain,Helmets, and spears, and swords, would still remain;185The plundered ne'er want arms. What I foretell}Is no trite apophthegm, but—mark me well—}True as a Sibyl's leaf! fixed as an oracle!}If men of worth the posts beneath you hold,And no spruce favorite barter law for gold;190If no inherent stain your wife disgrace,Nor, harpy-like, she flit from place to place,A fell Celæno, ever on the watch,And ever furious, all she sees to snatch;Then choose what race you will: derive your birth195From Picus, or those elder sons of earth,Who shook the throne of heaven; call him your sire,Who first informed our clay with living fire;Or single from the songs of ancient days,What tale may suit you, and what parent raise.200But—if rash pride, and lust, your bosom sway,If, with stern joy, you ply, from day to dayThe ensanguined rods, and head on head demand,Till the tired axe drop from the lictor's hand;Then, every honor, by your father won,205Indignant to be borne by such a son,Will, to his blood, oppose your daring claim,And fire a torch to blaze upon your shame!—Vice glares more strongly in the public eye,As he who sins, in power or place is high.210See!by his great progenitors' remainsFat Damasippus sweeps, with loosened reins.Good Consul! he no pride of office feels,But stoops, himself, to clog his headlong wheels."But this is all by night," the hero cries.215Yet theMOONsees! yet theSTARSstretch their eyes,Full on your shame!—A few short moments wait,And Damasippus quits the pomp of state:Then, proud the experienced driver to display,He mounts his chariot in the face of day,220Whirls, with bold front, his grave associate by,And jerks his whip, to catch the senior's eye:Unyokes his weary steeds, and, to requiteTheir service, feeds and litters them, at night.Meanwhile, 'tis all he can, what time he stands225At Jove's high altar, as the law commands,And offers sheep and oxen, he forswearsThe Eternal King, and gives his silent prayersTo thee, Hippona, goddess of the stalls,And gods more vile, daubed on the reeking walls!230At night, to his old haunts he scours, elate(The tavern by the Idumean gate),Where, while the host, bedrenched with liquid sweets,With many a courteous phrase his entrance greets,And many a smile; the hostess nimbly moves,235And gets the flagon ready, which he loves.Here some, perhaps, my growing warmth may blame:"In youth's wild hours," they urge, "we did the same."'Tis granted, friends; but then we stopped in time,Nor hugged our darling faults beyond our prime.240Brief let our follies be! and youthful sinFall, with the firstlings of the manly chin!—Boys we may pity, nay, perhaps, excuse:But DamasippusSTILLfrequents the stews,Though now mature in vigor, ripe in age,245Of Cæsar's foes to check the headlong rage,On Tigris' banks, in burnished arms, to shine,And sternly guard the Danube, or the Rhine."The East revolts." Ho! let the troops repairTo Ostium, quick! "But where's the General?" Where!250Go, search the taverns; there the chief you'll find,With cut-throats, plunderers, rogues of every kind,Bier-jobbers, bargemen, drenched in fumes of wine,And Cybele's priests, mid their loose drums, supine!There none are less, none greater than the rest,255There my lord gives, and takes the scurvy jest;There all who can, round the same table sprawl.And there one greasy tankard serves for all.Blessings of birth!—but, Ponticus, a word:Owned you a slave like this degenerate lord,260What were his fate? your Lucan farm to till,Or aid the mules to turn your Tuscan mill.But Troy's great sons dispense with being good,And boldly sin by courtesy of blood;Wink at each other's crimes, and look for fame265In what would tinge a cobbler's cheek with shame.And have I wreaked on such foul deeds my rage,That worse should yet remain to blot my page!—See Damasippus, all his fortune lost,Compelled, for hire, to play a squealing ghost!270While Lentulus, his brother in renown,Performs, with so much art, the perjured clown,And suffers with such grace, that, for his pains,I hold him worthy of—theCROSShe feigns.Nor deem the heedless rabble void of blame:—275Strangers alike to decency and shame,They sit with brazen front, and calmly seeThe hired patrician's low buffoonery;Laugh at the Fabii's tricks, and grin to hearThe cuffs resound from the Mamerci's ear!280Who cares how low their blood is sold, how high?—No Nero drives them, now, their fate to try:Freely they come, and freely they exposeTheir lives for hire, to grace the public shows!But grant the worst: suppose the arena here,285And there the stage; on which would you appear?The first: for who of death so much in dread,As not to tremble more, the stage to tread,Squat on his hams, in some blind nook to sit,And watch his mistress, in a jealous fit!—290But 'tis not strange, that, when the Emperor tunesA scurvy harp, the lords should turn buffoons;The wonder is, they turn not fencers too,Secutors, Retiarians—AND THEY DO!Gracchus steps forth: No sword his thigh invests—295No helmet, shield—such armor he detests,Detests and spurns; and impudently stands,With the poised net and trident in his hands.The foe advances—lo! a cast he tries,But misses, and in frantic terror flies300Round the thronged Cirque; and, anxious to be known,Lifts his bare face, with many a piteous moan."'Tis he! 'tis he!—I know the Salian vest,With golden fringes, pendent from the breast;The Salian bonnet, from whose pointed crown305The glittering ribbons float redundant down.O spare him, spare!"—The brave Secutor heard,And, blushing, stopped the chase; for he preferredWounds, death itself, to the contemptuous smile,Of conquering one so noble, and—so vile!310Who, Nero, so depraved, if choice were free,To hesitate 'twixt Seneca and thee?Whose crimes, so much have they all crimes outgone,Deserve more serpents, apes, and sacks, than one.Not so, thou say'st; there are, whom I could name,315As deep in guilt, and as accursed in fame;Orestes slewHISmother. True; but know,The same effects from different causes flow:A father murdered at the social board,And heaven's command, unsheathed his righteous sword.320Besides, Orestes, in his wildest mood,Poisoned no cousin, shed no consort's blood,Buried no poniard in a sister's throat,Sung on no public stage,no Troics wrote.—Thistopped his frantic crimes!THISroused mankind!325For what could Galba, what Virginius find,In the dire annals of that bloody reign,Which called for vengeance in a louder strain?Lo here, the arts, the studies that engageThe world's great master! on a foreign stage,330To prostitute his voice for base renown,And ravish, from the Greeks, a parsley crown!Come then, great prince, great poet! while we throngTo greet thee, recent from triumphant song,Come, place the unfading wreath, with reverence meet,335On the Domitii's brows! before their feetThe mask and pall of old Thyestes lay,And Menalippé; while, in proud display,From the colossal marble of thy sire,Depends, the boast of Rome, thy conquering lyre!340Cethegus! Catiline! whose ancestorsWere nobler born, were higher ranked, than yours?Yet ye conspired, with more than Gallic hate,To wrap in midnight flames this hapless state;On men and gods your barbarous rage to pour,345And deluge Rome with her own children's gore:Horrors, which called, indeed, for vengeance dire,For the pitched coat and stake, and smouldering fire!But Tully watched—your league in silence broke,And crushed your impious arms, without a stroke.350Yes he, poor Arpine, of no name at home,And scarcely ranked among the knights at Rome,Secured the trembling town, placed a firm guardIn every street, and toiled in every ward:—And thus, within the walls, theGOWNobtained,355More fame, for Tully, than Octavius gainedAt Actium and Philippi, from asword,Drenched in the eternal stream by patriots poured!For Rome, free Rome, hailed him, with loud acclaim,The Father of his Country—glorious name!360Another Arpine, trained the ground to till,Tired of the plow, forsook his native hill,And joined the camp; where, if his adze was slow,The vine-twig whelked his back with many a blow:And yet, when the fierce Cimbri threatened Rome365With swift, and scarcely evitable doom,This man, in the dread hour, to save her rose,And turned the impending ruin on her foes!For which, while ravening birds devoured the slain,And their huge bones lay whitening on the plain,370His high-born colleague to his worth gave way,And took, well pleased, the secondary bay.The Decii were plebeians! mean their name,And mean the parent stock from which they came:Yet they devoted, in the trying hour,375Their heads to Earth, and each infernal Power;And by that solemn act, redeemed from fate,}Auxiliars, legions, all the Latian state;}More prized than those they saved, in heaven's just estimate!}And him, who graced the purple which he wore380(The last good king of Rome), a bondmaid bore.The Consul's sons (while storms yet shook the state,And Tarquin thundered vengeance at the gate),Who should, to crown the labors of their sire,Have dared what Cocles, Mutius, might admire,385And she, who mocked the javelins whistling round,And swam the Tiber, then the empire's bound;Had to the tyrant's rage the town exposed,But that a slave their dark designs disclosed.—For Him, when stretched upon his honored bier,390The grateful matrons shed the pious tear,While, with stern eye, the patriot and the sireSaw, by the axe, the high-born pair expire:They fell—just victims to the offended laws,And the first sacrifice toFREEDOM'Scause!395For me, who naught but innate worth admire,I'd rather vile Thersites were thy sire,So thou wert like Achilles, and could'st wieldVulcanian arms, the terror of the field,Than that Achilles should thy father be,400And, in his offspring, vile Thersites see.And yet, how high soe'er thy pride may traceThe long-forgotten founders of thy race,Still must the search with that Asylum end,From whose polluted source we all descend.405Haste then, the inquiry haste; secure to findThy sire some vagrant slave, some bankrupt hind,Some—but I mark the kindling glow of shame,And will not shock thee with a baser name.