iJS]Sll3MSlM5MlM5ltal^^
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE 
 
 Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN
 
 EPISTLES, SATIRES 
 
 AND 
 
 EPIGRAMS 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES Ey THOROLD ROGERS 
 
 Inveniat quod quisque velit, non omnibus unum est 
 Quod placet, hie spinas coliigit, ille rosas. 
 
 Pet. Akb. 
 
 LONDON 
 RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET 
 
 |JubIisIjcrs in ©r&inarp lo |jtr HJajestii tbc ftjuccii 
 1876 
 
 [Ail rights rcservedl
 
 K<6 £ 6^ 
 
 LONDON : TRINTED BY 
 SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW -STREET SQIARK 
 
 AND PARLIAMENT STREET
 
 To George Waring. 
 
 Why is it that the meed of changeless fame 
 Is grudged the present^ granted to the past? 
 Why is it that the praise will seldom last 
 With which its flatterers deck a living name ? 
 Must all success be boimded by its aim? 
 c^ Shall tinsoiiglit gloiy brighten aiid grow vast ? 
 
 Does future time its warmest radiance cast 
 <^07i wJiat its own day left to scorn or blame, 
 
 V As the true crop thrives by the whiter' s blast? 
 ^ Then shall the man who labours for his age, 
 
 \ Who heeds no purpose but divinest trutJi, 
 
 V And bends not to the passion of the hour, 
 ^ Though wrath and envy wreak their fellesi rage, 
 
 Be gifted with the boon of deathless youth, 
 N^ And as he grows in honour, grozv in power. 
 
 \
 
 HORACE. 
 
 Epistles : I. xx. 
 
 [In the last epistle of his first book, Horace addresses his poems as 
 though they were eager for publication.] 
 
 The Author to his Book. 
 
 Tricked out by dainty paper, dad in blue, 
 Marked with some quaint device and lettered too, 
 Like a weak bird, in gaudy plumage dressed, 
 You strive, poor book, to flutter from your nest, 
 And win attention from the noisy throng. 
 Will they believe your twitter is a song? 
 Bentley, forsooth, must tell your little all\ 
 And Smith - must vend you at the station-stall ; 
 
 * Vertumnum Janumque, liber, spectare videris 
 Scihcet ut praestes Sosiorum pumice mundus. 
 The places referred to by Horace were the Row of Rome, the Sosii were 
 leading publishers. 
 
 ^ Mr. \V. H. Smith is the contractor for most of the railway book-stalls. 
 '» B
 
 2 HORACE, EP. I. XX. 
 
 His boys must seek to catch the languid eye, 
 Clip off your H -^ and bid the traveller buy ; 
 Or Mudie deign to circulate your page — 
 Mudie, the one Mecaenas of the age. 
 What, are you weary of the kindly key* 
 Which kept you from the risks which I foresee? 
 The drawer which should, if you were wisely coy, 
 Remain your only home, your modest joy? 
 You murmur that you only know a few\ 
 And long to mingle with the general crew. 
 'Twas not for this I trained your stumbling feet", 
 That you should fhrt with every one you meet. 
 Well, if you must, depart, my counsel spurn, 
 But know, once gone, you never can return. 
 'Unhappy me"!' you'll cry, when all too late; 
 'What did I do, to rush upon my fate? 
 'What did I dream of, wish, devise, intend, 
 'To seek a foe and quit a faithful friend? 
 'He warned me, and I find his warning true 
 'When flouted by this slashing, smart review, 
 'Whose savants use their instincts, spare their eyes, 
 'And rarely read the books they criticise. 
 
 ' These imitations were originally published under the name of ' Horace 
 ■without his Totja.' 
 
 * Odisti claves, et grata sigilla pudico. 
 ^ Faucis ostendi gemis, et communia laudas. 
 ^ Non ita nutritus, etc. 
 ' Quid miser egi? etc.
 
 HORACE, EP. I. XX. 3 
 
 ' Whose constant rule is, " 'Tis a sneer that pays : 
 
 ' " There "s nothing so unsaleable as praise." ' 
 
 But if they spare you, or you heed them not, 
 
 And chance to hit upon a happier lot ; 
 
 If there be some who love you in your prime, 
 
 They will be cloyed and surfeited in time : 
 
 Love may be roused, I grant it, by a look ; 
 
 But very few are constant to a book ; 
 
 And when that doom is yours you will confess 
 
 Neglect exceeds all scorn in bitterness. 
 
 And yet, unless my wrath at your offence ^ 
 
 Deprives my judgment of its finer sense, 
 
 You will be liked awhile in Town, as loner 
 
 As youth and freshness keep you bright and strong; 
 
 But when you sink into a commonplace, 
 
 Become a public, a familiar face ; 
 
 Or, when neglected, laid upon the shelf, 
 
 You seek to drown the knowledge of yourself, 
 
 Ere you are left to gathering dust a prey, 
 
 Or feel the slow corrosion of decay, 
 
 Fly while you can, and seek another clime, 
 
 Another market and a happier time. 
 
 Perhaps some Yankee publisher may give^ 
 
 A shoddy dress in which to ply and live ; 
 
 * Quod si non odio peccantis desipit augur, 
 Carus eris Romae, donee te deserat aetas. 
 ^ Aut fugies Ulicam, aut vinctus mitteris Ilerdam. 
 
 B 2
 
 4 HORACE, EP. I. XX. 
 
 Perhaps the charms which pall in English eyes 
 
 Australia's squatters may admit and prize. 
 
 The world is wide, then wander where you can ; 
 
 They're learning English, settle in Japan. 
 
 Like Ida Pfeiffer^°, roam the ocean o'er; 
 
 Lean, ragged, dirty, visit shore on shore. 
 
 I warned you, and you heard not ^^. I disdain 
 
 To take such truants to my home again ; 
 
 I loved you as a father, but can bear 
 
 To laugh at that which once was all my care. 
 
 I often told you when you were a child, 
 
 When you where docile and yet unbeguiled. 
 
 How, down the precipice he would not pass, 
 
 The angry master drove his stubborn ass ; 
 
 So though I strove to guide you, shall I still 
 
 Strive till I'm weary, and against your will? 
 
 This, let me also tell you, is your end^^: 
 
 When tattered, dirty, torn, you find no friend ; 
 
 When the smart covers which were once your pride, 
 
 Have left you shelterless on cither side ; 
 
 '» Madame Pfeiffer was a great traveller, and was said, like the late 
 Dr. Woolf, to have owed her life or safety to that total neglect of personal 
 adornment which necessity or policy led her to practise. 
 " Ridebit monitor non exauditus; ut illc 
 
 Qui male parentem in rupes prolrusil aselhim 
 Iralus: quis enim invilum scrvare laLoret? 
 " Hoc quoque te manet, etc.
 
 HORACE, EP. I. XX. 
 
 When the poor fragments of each tattered page 
 
 Are Hke the broken talk of doting age, 
 
 Your fate may be to serve, as fortune leads, 
 
 The basest uses and the meanest needs. 
 
 Enough have I predicted, and the worst : 
 
 You may be armed if you are cautioned first. 
 
 The shrewdest prophets share the common lot^'': 
 
 What they foretell will either be, or not. 
 
 But while your looks are fresh, your life is gay. 
 
 And you can gossip through the summer day. 
 
 While men are not yet weary of your tongue, 
 
 And while your prattle 's borne because it 's young ; 
 
 If those who learn your parentage inquire 
 
 What were the place and fortunes of your sire, 
 
 Say that those fortunes were not over rife 
 
 When he was started on the race of life. 
 
 The fourteenth issue of a younger son 
 
 Can fairly boast that what he has he 's won : 
 
 That from a village, which could hardly name 
 
 A single change since Cerdic thither came, 
 
 Pure Saxon in its labours and its rest, 
 
 He ventured early, left the peaceful nest. 
 
 If he has gained but little for his purse 
 
 His conscience, happily, is none the worse ; 
 
 " O Laertiade, quicquid dico, aut eiit aut non. 
 A general and necessary qualification to the prctenbions of a prophet.
 
 6 HORACE, EP. I. XX. 
 
 He never flouted peasant, fawned on peer, 
 He neither stooped to flattery nor to fean 
 Knew in familiar fashion, face to face, 
 The wisest and the best of England's race ; 
 Still walks erect, although his head is gray, 
 And feels his youth not wholly slipped away ; 
 Can live alone, if books are in his reach. 
 But loves to live with men. and hear their speech ; 
 Knows that contentment only makes men blest, 
 And honestly avows what is, is best ; 
 Sees others struggle for the foremost place, 
 But thinks it not worth while to join the race : 
 Gladly accepts goodwill, but won't and can't 
 Seek to win aught but what men freely grant ; 
 Reser\'es his wrath for meanness and for spite, 
 Nor cares to strive, nor ever fears to fight ; 
 Jests at the follies and the faults he notes, 
 Hates without malice, loves, but never dotes. 
 And now, if any cares his age to ask ^*, 
 Thus far at least he lets you raise the mask : 
 He dates his birth from that great epoch when 
 George cherished tailors and ruled over men. 
 
 ^* Forte meum si quis te percontabitur ae\-um, etc.
 
 HORACE. 
 
 Epistles : I. vi. 
 
 [In the epistle of which the following is an imitation, Horace writes to his 
 friend Numicius and informs him as to what the true philosophy of life 
 suggests or teaches.] 
 
 To G. \V,. Esq. 
 
 Not to be over-earnest, but to bear ^ 
 Whate'er betides one with an easy air, 
 Is the one rule b\- which a wise man Hves, 
 Which gives content, and aids the gift it gives. 
 Should Gumming future destiny unfold - 
 And sell his prophecies for current gold, 
 Should Shaftesbun.' seek to raise a pious fear^, 
 (Some man of science hoaxed the unctuous peer.) 
 
 ^ Nil admirari prope res est una, Xumici, 
 Solaque, quae possit facere et servare beatum. 
 
 * The Rev. Dr. Gumming has been engaged for many years in the inter- 
 pretation of prophecy. His books are said to be popular. 
 
 ^ Some time ago. Lord Shaftesburj' expressed his alarm at what he 
 believed were signs of extensive volcanic agency, and of impending 
 eruptions.
 
 8 HORACE, EP. I. VI. 
 
 By telling us that just below the soil 
 Volcanoes strive to burst and geysers boil ; 
 Though timorous souls may feel themselves afraid. 
 Some men exist who never are dismayed. 
 Who do not care one jot for Grosvenor^s rents, 
 For all that 's Overstone's in Three per Cents ; 
 And were it offered even, would refuse 
 The fortunes won by money-lending Jews*. 
 
 No man, unless he's knave or fool, would stoop 
 To dupe, or willingly to be a dupe. 
 Can we not guess the measure of his ears 
 Whom agents cheat— the venal voter cheers^? 
 Trust me, my friend, a man with sense and eyes 
 Can well afford such trifles to despise, 
 While he who fears to lose them is the same 
 As one who makes them his absorbing aim. 
 Each is a prey to fear, each lives in pain, 
 Lest sudden change may rob him of his gain ; 
 He joys, he grieves, he 's filled with hope or dread. 
 What can it matter, if it racks his head. 
 If at whatever happens, good or ill. 
 He stands amazed, and cannot use his will? 
 If mind and body, staked upon the strife, 
 Are wrecked in seeking for the gains of life ? 
 
 * Quid maris extremes Arabas dilantis et Indos? 
 ' Amici dona Quirilis.
 
 HORACE, EP. I. VI. 
 
 That man 's a fool, however wise he seems. 
 And this does wrong, however just his dreams, 
 Who, when for virtue's self they've fairly sought*^, 
 Carry their virtue farther than they ought. 
 
 Well prosecute your aims, get tons of plate '^ 
 Old pictures, china, at the dearest rate, 
 Buy violins and paintings by the score, 
 As Gillott did '^ ; if possible, get more. 
 Pick up the knickknacks and bijouterie 
 Which Cole collects and Kensington may see ; 
 Boast, if you like, that when you talk and teach 
 Reporters hurry to take down your speech ; 
 Pore in your chambers over many a brief; 
 Plead for the swindler, and defend the thief, 
 Or from the records of Penzance's court ^ 
 Win your own luck, and find the public sport ; 
 Begin your labours with the morning light 
 And wearied home return at dead of night ; 
 
 * Insani sapiens nomen ferat, acqinis iniqui 
 Ultra quam satis est virtutem si petat ipsam. 
 
 ' I nunc, argentum et marmor, etc. 
 
 * Mr. Gillott, the steel pen manufacturer of Birmingham, was a great 
 collector of violins and other articles. 
 
 * The Divorce Court over which Lord Penzance did or does preside is one 
 which nothing but the necessity of open justice should allow to be matter 
 of public audience.
 
 10 HORACE, EP. I. VI. 
 
 Grudge the fat acres of the lucky sot'"^ 
 
 Whose wife has given him what his brains could not, 
 
 Who, snob and fool confest, through fortune's whim, 
 
 Is envied more by you than you by him. 
 
 For change and time, experience still has found, 
 
 Are one at least in sense, if not in sound. 
 
 Thus Fortune, when she lets her work be seen 
 
 Puts down the noble and puts up the mean, 
 
 Chooses her puppets, and, no matter which, 
 
 Can make a Clmton poor, a Padwick rich. 
 
 Should everybody know you in St. James, 
 Should Rotten Row allow your proudest claims, 
 Should Charing Cross salute you as you walk, 
 Should you become the town's incessant talk, 
 At last, you must perforce, do what you can, 
 Go the same road which once went good Queen Anne'^. 
 Your head grows dizzy, in your feet 's the gout. 
 What's to be done? Go, find a doctor out. 
 Would you live honestly? As most pretend, 
 Think you that virtue is a proper end ? 
 The man who seeks to make a thing his own 
 Must set his heart on that, and that alone. 
 
 '" Ne plus fiumenti dotalibus emetat agris, etc. 
 " Ire tamen restat, Numa quo devenit et Ancus.
 
 HORACE, EP. I. VI. I I 
 
 ' Virtue 's a name,' you say, ' while money sticks ^^,' 
 A church is only timber, stones, and bricks. 
 You long for wealth ; of course you '11 advertise, 
 And learn to deftly mix up truth with lies. 
 Strain every inch of canvas on the seas, 
 Hurry to London Docks the earliest teas. 
 Traffic in tallow, wool, guano, leather, 
 Bring Russian and Australian goods together. 
 If you build ships, secure yourself a seat, 
 And you may get an order for a fleet. 
 Compete for contracts, fee the clerks all round ; 
 Spend but a penny, and you'll make a pound. 
 Smith — decent man — one rarely fit for trade ^-^^ 
 By one good stroke of wit a fortune made. 
 Far more astute than any of his tribe. 
 He bought the budget for a heavy bribe ; 
 Armed with the facts, to Mincing Lane he went, 
 Purchased ad lib. and won his cent, per cent. 
 The world condones the trick by which he gained : 
 Knowledge is power — however 'tis obtained. 
 You've gained a million, for another try^"*; 
 With proper pains a third comes by-and-by. 
 
 " Virtutem verba putas et 
 
 Lucum ligna. 
 " The story referred to here is said to be a fact. The name in the verse 
 is of course fictitious. 
 
 " Mille talenta rotundentur, etc.
 
 12 HORACE, EP. I. VI 
 
 A prudent man still lets his money roll, 
 
 And lo ! a fourth appears to square the whole. 
 
 Money's a gracious queen to men of thrift ^''; 
 
 She heaps upon her courtier every gift ; 
 
 Finds him an heiress, if he needs a wife; 
 
 Gives credit, friends, the dearest friends in life; 
 
 Grants pedigree and arms, and beauty too. 
 
 What ? a rich man — there 's nothing he can't do. 
 
 He drops his h's, talks the sorriest stuff; 
 
 But people follow him, and that "s enough. 
 
 Let him appear as ugly as you will, 
 
 No man of fortune needs a Rachel's skilP*', 
 
 Though if he cares to do so he can buy 
 
 A portrait of himself— a painted lie. 
 
 A rich Thersites — what's the need to blush — 
 
 Grows an Adonis under Richmond's brush ^^. 
 
 Nay more, since most men think that heaven is worth 
 About as much as what they loved on earth, 
 No marvel that they measure that by this 
 And make investments in the hope of bliss. 
 
 " Et genus et formam regina Pecunia donat, etc. 
 
 '* Madame Rachel was a notorious improver of complexions, etc. She 
 got into trouble at last. 
 
 " Mr. Richmond is an artist who has the faculty of imparling much 
 youthful beauty to his portraits.
 
 HORACE, EP. I. VI. 13 
 
 An ancient Begum, when her death drew near^^, 
 
 (She had good reason, I admit, for fear,) 
 
 Hit on a plan by which she shrewdly thought 
 
 Her soul might really win the rest she sought ; 
 
 Summoned her lawyer, made him read her will, 
 
 And bade him add another codicil : 
 
 ' On my decease, let there be no delay, 
 
 ' I order my executors to pay 
 
 ' A thousand pounds (it must be duty free) 
 
 ' To each of these by way of legacy : 
 
 ' The Pope ; the Patriarch ; and the chiefest Jew ; 
 
 ' The Sheyk ul Islam ; the Grand Lama too ; 
 
 ' All England's primate ; — mind what I have said ; 
 
 ' Pay them the cash as soon as I am dead. 
 
 ' They promise fairly, each with all his might ; 
 
 ' 'Tis true they differ, but may all be right ; 
 
 ' At any rate they cannot be so nice 
 
 ' As not to grant a prayer at such a price. 
 
 ' And then perhaps I may be with the blest. 
 
 ' There — let me sign it. Now I feel at rest. 
 
 'Is it witnessed?' 'Yes.' 'Well, then I'm satisfied.' 
 
 And with a heavenly smile the Begum died. 
 
 'Tis ready money only makes men great. 
 Upon some Russian noble's huge estate 
 
 " This is a fact.
 
 14 HORACE, EP. I. VI. 
 
 A hundred thousand serfs may fear the lash ^^ 
 And yet their master may be short of cash. 
 
 In France, while Eugenie still held her svvay-^, 
 Some folks of fashion chose to act a play. 
 One stage direction ran, ' A hundred girls, 
 ' Dressed in white satin, trimmed with lace and pearls, 
 ' Here enter on the stage at once, and then ' — 
 ' Impossible ! we scarce can furbish ten ! 
 ' Let 's ask the Empress.' So the thing was done. 
 'A hundred?' said she, 'why, I mayn't have one! 
 ' But I'll be sure to bear your wish in mind, 
 ' And promise that I'll send you all I find.' 
 Then comes : ' The Empress hears that she has got 
 ' Five thousand ; take a part or take the lot.' 
 That 's a poor place, where everything is known. 
 Whose master 's able to count up his own, 
 Whose servants mayn't be undiscovered thieves — 
 A fact that Bonaparte now believes. 
 
 So then, if fortune only makes you blest, 
 Follow that only, and neglect the rest ; 
 Begin it early and continue late. 
 If popularity will make you great, 
 
 '* Mancipiis locuples tget aeiis Cappadocum rex. 
 This was written before the final emancipation of the serfs. 
 
 -" Chlamydes Lucullus, ut aiunt, etc. 
 The reference is to the singular extravagance of the Imperial government.
 
 HORACE, EP. I. VI. 15 
 
 An agent's services you must not grudge ^\ 
 He'll tell important names, and with a nudge 
 Bid you to cross the road your friend to greet, 
 Nay, dash between the waggons in the Street. 
 ' That man is absolute in Cofrers' Hall : 
 ' Trades unions follow upon this man's call ; 
 ' A thousand licensed victuallers this man leads ; 
 ' With Nonconformist votes a fourth succeeds. 
 ' They give the seat, I say, to whom they please, 
 ' Or take it from you, with the greatest ease. 
 ' Be very civil, with — -Dear Sir — My friend — 
 ' If they advise, keen interest pretend. 
 'Admire the children, grasp the voter's hands 
 ' Profess yourself the slave to his commands -'^.' 
 
 If ' to live well ' with you is how to dine, 
 Learn where the cookery 's best and where the wine. 
 Buy fish in Billingsgate, and as for game 
 Hear what the Cockney did, and do the same. 
 Rigged as a sportsman, with his brace of dogs 
 At early dawn along the road he jogs ; 
 Two servants sit behind him on his drae : 
 This carries guns, that a capacious bag : 
 He drives apace ; the villagers admire 
 And touch their hats with reverence to the Squire. 
 
 " Mercemur servum, qui dicttt nomina, etc. 
 '^ Modern experience has proved this.
 
 1 6 HORACE, EP. I. VI. 
 
 At evening he returns ; his neighbours see 
 His game-bag stuffed as full as it can be, 
 Envy his sport, admire his spattered clotKes. 
 Who shot the game, the poulterer only knows. 
 
 Look to your health. That man 's a greater fool 
 Than the worst blockhead ever birched at school 
 Who, though he knows his proper diet, still 
 Cannot abstain from that which makes him ill. 
 If life's best pleasures lie in love and wit, 
 Listen to Moore's advice, and follow it. 
 And now farewell. I've told you all I can -^ ; 
 Inform me plainly of a better plan 
 (If you have found it) how a man may live; 
 If not, accept the counsels which I give. 
 
 ^ Vive, vale. Si quid novisti rectius istis, 
 Candidus imperii; si non, his utere mecum.
 
 HORACE. 
 
 Epistles : I. v. 
 
 [In a letter addressed to his friend Torquatus, Horace invites him to pay a 
 visit to the poet's country home, and describes the entertainment and 
 company he will meet there.] 
 
 To J. S., Esq., M.P. 
 
 If you can quit the fuss and noise of town, 
 Accept my welcome, leave it, and come down; 
 Hurried and hustled by that ceaseless swarm, 
 Learn that my quiet has its special charm : 
 Perhaps you '11 find, like me, how keen 's the zest, 
 How fresh the flavour is, of perfect rest. 
 All human creatures like it ; surfeit can 
 Affect the heavy-bodied alderman ; 
 Such folks as these, I hear, have sometimes ceased 
 To hanker after their perennial feast. 
 Would change Clicquot for English malt and hops, 
 And barter turtle soup for mutton chops. 
 
 C
 
 l8 HORACE, EP. I. V. 
 
 I don't disparage well-cooked food ; the wise 
 Know what and when to relish, what despise. 
 Buckland, whose wit and wisdom were at one, 
 The cheery father of a cheerier son, 
 Put the case thus : ' That man 's a Sybarite 
 ' Who can't eat bread and cheese with appetite ; 
 ' But he who scorns a dinner that 's well drest 
 ' Is but a squalid savage at the best ^.' 
 
 If you can sit, then, at my homely board ^, 
 And eat and drink what I can well afford, 
 Dispense awhile with Francatelli's art. 
 Dine on good mutton and on apple tart ; 
 If, for the nonce, such simple food will please — 
 Here, let me say, I always choose my cheese, 
 Roquefort, or Gruyere, Stilton, Parmesan, 
 I strive to get the very best I can ; 
 Your London dinners seldom give you such 
 As man should see, or smell, or taste, or touch ^ ; — 
 If, I repeat, you eat what 's good and plain, 
 Come here next Friday, 4 r.M. 's the train. 
 I Ve told you what you 'II cat, and how you 'II dine ; 
 I take some pride in keeping wholesome wine — 
 
 * This is a story told of the late Dean of Westminster. His son is well 
 known as a cheerful and lively writer on Natural History. 
 
 - Si potes Archiacis conviva recumbere Icctis, etc. 
 
 ' The reproach is well founded, and the fact is an indication of the perti- 
 nacity with which certain barlarisms endure.
 
 HORACE, EP. I. V. 19 
 
 Fair port and sherry, and some sound Lafitte, 
 
 Its age the year of Gladstone's Oxford seat "^ ; 
 
 If such contents you, then the thing is done, 
 
 If not, you'll imitate Dean Waddington ^. 
 
 This Churchman took his wine with so much zest 
 
 That he would act the host, although the guest. 
 
 ' I '11 come,' he used to write, ' if you '11 take in 
 
 ' A dozen bottles from my oldest bin. 
 
 ' Custom is nature with me. Yours is good, 
 
 ' I doubt it not ; I 'd drink it if I could. 
 
 ' Excuse an old man's harmless prejudice, 
 
 ■ I cannot sleep vuiless I sleep on this.' 
 
 The man was modest also in his way. 
 
 ' I 'm Dean of Durham,' he would often say, 
 
 ' A lucky soldier in the Church's ranks. 
 
 ' I never pray, I only offer thanks.' 
 
 If you don't suffer from so nice a goi\t 
 Put up with what my means can offer you. 
 A cheerful fire is burning in the grate. 
 The maids have rubbed the chairs and cleaned the 
 
 plate ^. 
 Quit the dull game of party for a space '^, 
 Its watchwords, claptrap, chatter, and grimace. 
 
 * Vina bibes iterum Tauro diffusa, etc. 
 
 * Si melius quid habes, arcesse vel imperium fer. 
 
 * Jamdudum splendet focus, et tibi munda supellex. 
 ' Mitte leves spes, et certamina, etc. 
 
 C 2
 
 20 HORACE, EP. I. V. 
 
 Let Disraeli ventilate his shams, 
 
 And gull his dupes by hollow epigrams, 
 
 Gibe at all candour, act his studied part, 
 
 And mock his friends and foes with equal art ; 
 
 Let Gladstone sentence upon sentence string, 
 
 Pile words on words, on periods periods fling, 
 
 And, highest skill which human power can reach. 
 
 Convey no meaning in a three-hours' speech ; 
 
 Let Pakington imply that he could fill 
 
 Each public office with consummate skill ; 
 
 Let Fortescue expound how this is done 
 
 By occupying place on place with none ; 
 
 Let Cardwell, like the girl in fairy lore, 
 
 Shed out a stream of sawdust on the floor ; 
 
 Let colonels make a guess at what he states, 
 
 And loudly scream for larger estimates ; 
 
 Let Lowe each human creature's anger stir, 
 
 From match girls to Professor Sylvester ; 
 
 Let Hunt display, in his conspicuous case^ 
 
 How little brains are needed for the place ; 
 
 Let Forster vaunt, and find that what he says 
 
 Wins praise from priests, and wins no other praise; 
 
 Let Bruce's blunders this one art disclose, 
 
 * Mr. Ward Hunt— since this was written, First Lord of the Admiralty — 
 has fairly proved his incapacity for office. Much of the above, written in 
 1872, was prophetic of February 1874.
 
 HORACE, EP. I. V. 21 
 
 How to turn trusty friends to angry foes : 
 
 Let Harcourt plead, with overwhelming zeal, 
 
 For what he strives to think, but cannot feel ; 
 
 Let Ayrton rule the parks, and still dispense 
 
 With tact and taste and even common sense, 
 
 Till Glyn detects that Gladstone's stanchest hack 
 
 Has all the will to welcome Manners back ; 
 
 Let wise Grant-Duff, in accents sharp and clear, 
 
 Cry, 'All ye statesmen, all ye nations, hear!' 
 
 Let Cochrane find where mares have made their nest; 
 
 Let Bentinck prophesy, and Osborne jest ; 
 
 Let Hardy help the clergy at their need, 
 
 And Collins back the Athanasian Creed ; 
 
 Let Newdegate inveigh against the Pope, 
 
 Let Miall wrangle with the sprightly Hope ; 
 
 Let Coleridge utter honeyed words, while he 
 
 Drops sharper venom than the angriest bee ; 
 
 Let Fawcett scorn and Smith defend the Peers, 
 
 And Charley use his natural noise and ears'* — 
 
 But why recall the horrors you endure, 
 
 Except it be to make your coming sure? 
 
 Although the month is our uncertain May, 
 Sometimes the season grants a balmy day. 
 
 '•" ]\Ir. Charley is one of the members for Salford. His absurdities are 
 not perhaps as well known as ihey deserve.
 
 22 .HORACE, EP. I. V. 
 
 I well remember once, when Bright came down^° 
 
 (He used to visit me, and liked the town), 
 
 How with calm pleasure he surveyed the scene, 
 
 The crumbling stones, the groves of freshest green, 
 
 The ancient walls with ivy overhung, 
 
 (Man's work grows old, but Nature's ever young). 
 
 Well, on to Christ Church Quod our wanderings tend, 
 
 I meet a canon, introduce my friend. 
 
 Then said our Churchman, 'Til go get the key; 
 
 ' Perhaps you'd like to view the library.' 
 
 We enter ; find it musty, quiet, cool, 
 
 Hung round with pictures of each foreign school, 
 
 While, through an open door, upon the grass, 
 
 We see a troop of laughing children pass. 
 
 The trees were crowded with the flowers of spring, 
 
 Bright watched the group, and heard the thrushes sing; 
 
 Then turned and said: 'Till now I never knew 
 
 'Why 'twas Reform had no delights for you.' 
 
 'Tis the Queen's birthday; show your loyalty ^^ 
 By quitting work and coming down to me. 
 Let Dilke declaim, let Odger prove his scorn; 
 The easiest shoe is always longest worn. 
 
 '0 Tlic story told nbove happened some years ago. The Canon was the 
 present Bishop of Chester. The garden into which the librarj' windows 
 looked was the Dean's, and the children were his. 
 
 " Cras nato Caesare festus 
 
 Dat veniam somnumque dies.
 
 HORACE, EP. I. V. 23 
 
 12 
 
 Virgil, my friend, has made the matter plain 
 
 ' Tug at the golden bough, and tug in vain ; 
 
 'As long as life is in it, it will be, 
 
 ' As in a vice, held by the parent tree ; 
 
 ' But if the trunk from which it sprang and grew 
 
 ' Withholds the sap to which its life is due, 
 
 ' Rent by a tap, a touch, a breath, a sign, 
 
 ' It drops with ease and goes to — Proserpine.' 
 
 Some change, no doubt, is good ; this granted, then 
 
 Your change should be a day with idle men. 
 
 Idle — for each conceives his neighbour's lot 
 
 An easy one to bear, and his own not. 
 
 At times I find it a supreme delight 
 
 To chat and gossip through a summer night. 
 
 What is the sense in which that caitiff lives 
 
 Who dares not use the joys which Nature gives? 
 
 How oft the care a stingy father takes 
 
 Affords his sons the means of turning rakes ! 
 
 The miser, after all his thrift, may find 
 
 Sam Warren sitting — heavens! — upon his mind^^ 
 
 We'll dine and talk and sip our claret, man; 
 
 Hang the Alliance and its water-can ! 
 
 'tj 
 
 '^ The reference is to Virgil's Aeneid, Book vi. 136. 
 
 " Mr. Samuel Warren, once known as a novelist, was or is a Commis- 
 sioner in Lunacy. His management of the Wyndham case will be remem- 
 bered.
 
 24 HORACE, EP. I. V. 
 
 Lawson ^s the best of creatures ; must I think 
 He's always wise in what he hkes to drink? 
 A cheerful glass will make the timid stout ^*, 
 Will make the bashful man speak boldly out, 
 Give form to hope, lift up the weight of care, 
 And let the blockhead gain an easy air. 
 Wine makes the stammering tongue grow eloquent. 
 And grants to straitened poverty content — 
 Some kinds of wine at least, I fancy, m.ay. 
 I well remember Cobden used to say 
 That when our ancestors sipped claret, hock, 
 Champagne, and Burgundy, et gciitis hoc, 
 They sang the praises of the wine they drank. 
 But when they took to port their spirits sank ; 
 Port made men Tories, muzzy, stupid, slow. 
 With neither heads to think nor feet to go. 
 
 Thus Inglis, erst the Church's faithful son, 
 Stanch as a pointer, and as dull as one. 
 Dined early upon Sundays, always sent 
 His servants out to church (I hope they went), 
 Opened a magnum with the greatest care, 
 Opened a volume at the Evening Prayer, 
 
 ^* Horace goes further than I do. 
 
 Quid lion ebrietas designat, etc.
 
 HORACE, EP. I. V. 25 
 
 Read it all through, no doubt in reverent sort, 
 And always finished off his 'twenty' port. 
 
 Well, then, you come. The guests that you may find 
 Will be, I hope, congenial to your mind ; 
 Talk as you like to us, what we might tell 
 All special correspondents know as well. 
 The papers always buy what 's fresh and new- 
 Buy lies, perhaps, but try to buy what's true; 
 Clerks sell the office at the tariff rate^^, 
 And what they cannot sell of that they prate. 
 
 Your company at dinner with a few. 
 Some three besides ourselves, or only two. 
 
 First W , full of learning and esprit^ 
 
 A subtle wit, a living library. 
 
 Whose memory can a myriad facts disclose, 
 
 Whose head can reason upon what it knows ; 
 
 And N , the man of endless arguments, 
 
 Who lards his talk with pieces of good sense, 
 Who feigns the cynic, but is ever kind, 
 Who has a heart, although he has a mind ; 
 
 And C , of genial speech and ready ear. 
 
 Who always says what 's worth one's while to hear, 
 
 " It appears, or at least it is said, that the newspapers get information 
 of an important kind fiom the government clerks.
 
 IG 
 
 26 HORACE, EP. I. V. 
 
 Will come, unless a host of ladies claims 
 His courteous leisure for their pretty aims. 
 'Tis best to have no more, I think, but still 
 We'll make a lion of you if you will. 
 I hate a crowd ; my reason soon is told : 
 It makes the table hot, the dinner cold. 
 Advise me then, quit business while you can", 
 And shirk your deputations like a man. 
 
 16 Locus est et pluribus umbris 
 
 Sed nimis arcta premunt. 
 1' Et rebus omissis 
 
 Atria servantem postico falle clienlem.
 
 HORACE. 
 
 Epistles : I. X. 
 
 [In a poetical letter to his friend Fu>cu=, Horace compares the merits of 
 a country with that of a towii life, to the advantage of the former.} 
 
 To H. R., Esq. 
 
 You fancy life in London, but my taste 
 
 Abhors its mud, its smoke, its noise, its haste ; 
 
 In this we differ ; otherwise we should 
 
 Find in ourselves a perfect brotherhood. 
 
 Like twins in face, in height, in figure, just 
 
 The same things please us, and the same disgust. 
 
 For much as two old pigeons bow and coo \ 
 
 Whate'er you think I think and utter too. 
 
 Yet while you keep your nest beneath the caves, 
 
 I love the streams, the lanes, the grass, the leaves ; 
 
 ' Anniiimus pariter veliili notique columbi. 
 Tu nidum servas, etc.
 
 28 HORACE^ EP. I. X. 
 
 I haunt the gardens, on the turf recline ; 
 
 'Tis the vacation, and the place is mine. 
 
 A host of songsters fills our summer air ; 
 
 With you, a sparrow chirping in the square 
 
 Is the best specimen that London gives 
 
 Of that fair scene where Nature freely lives. 
 
 Learn, though your nose is used to London smells, 
 
 We grow the flowers which Covent Garden sells. 
 
 Which of us, tell me plainly, better thrives.^ 
 
 I canter gaily through the Wytham drives ^, 
 
 Look from some height athwart the boundless plain, 
 
 Scent the sweet bean and view the growing grain, 
 
 While you are labouring through the crowded street ; 
 
 Who tries it, knows its mud and knows its heat ; 
 
 The mud which closely clings where'er it sticks, 
 
 The heat poured forth by weary miles of bricks. 
 
 Enough — the Town which you so dearly prize, 
 
 And talk of as a second paradise, 
 
 To me is like a prison or a grave, 
 
 Where man must be a hermit or a slave. 
 
 I leave it, and I live a very king ^ ; 
 
 I lounge, I sit, I whistle, and I sing. 
 
 * Wytham is Lord Abingdon's park, and is peculiar for the length of its 
 turf rides or drives. 
 
 ^ Vivo et regno, simul isla reliqui.
 
 HORACE, EP. I. X. 29 
 
 Your bustle wearies me, your pleasures cloy ; 
 I'm tired of wedding cake, like Gunter"s boy*. 
 
 Women, as Chesterfield long since avowed. 
 Love to be jammed and hustled in a crowd, 
 But I detest it. I delight in space ; 
 A mob 's a mob, whatever be its place. 
 A man, whose name I do not care to tell 
 (Jones, Brown, or Robinson will do as well), 
 Grown rich in trade, must needs at last aspire 
 To buy a country seat and act the squire. 
 Became a magistrate, to sessions went, 
 And talked of poachers, foxes, crops, and rent ; 
 Denounced the malt-tax, took to Church, learnt whist. 
 Allowed his daughter to turn Ritualist, 
 Came out a Tory of the deepest blue. 
 Though once a Radical and Baptist too — 
 Conformed, in short, in every point, and then 
 Was welcomed by the country gentlemen. 
 His wife too, anxious to essay the sphere 
 Of rank and birth and fashion, said : ' My dear, 
 ' We '11 give a ball at Almack's. Write and say 
 ' We want the rooms. What } When ? Six weeks to-day.' 
 
 * Utque sacerdotis fiigitiviis liba, reciiso; 
 Pane egeo. jam mellitis potiore placentis. 
 It maybe anticipated that Mr. Gunter's servants are surfeited of wedding 
 cake.
 
 30 HORACE, Er. I. X. 
 
 'Whom can we ask— we do not know a soul?' 
 
 ' Leave that to me, and I '11 arrange the whole. 
 
 'We know the Duchess; I'll consult her Grace, 
 
 ' She "11 issue all the cards, and fill the place.' 
 
 The Duchess graciously invited all 
 
 Her friends, and her's alone, to Jones's ball ; 
 
 The numerous guests arrive, her Grace receives 
 
 With all the ease of birth and strawberry leaves ; 
 
 The Joneses, who at length discerned their doom. 
 
 Remained— the only strangers in the room. 
 
 The crowd grows thicker, and the luckless host 
 
 Makes to the door, and leans against its post, 
 
 Buried in thought ; he cursed himself, his wife, 
 
 Society, and fashionable life. 
 
 When a familiar voice salutes his ear : 
 
 'What? Jones? Why, who the devil asked jyou here^?' 
 
 We live, my friend, in a commercial age, 
 
 A duke sells game, a duchess patronage. 
 
 Men gather money with such reckless haste, 
 That, while they save, they don't see what they waste ; 
 For, after each has given his steadiest pains. 
 His losses far outnumber all his gains. 
 All kindly sympathies of human life 
 Are trodden out amid the restless strife; 
 
 * The story in ihc text is a fact.
 
 HORACE, Er. I. X. 31 
 
 What sense has that man of the nobler joys 
 
 Whose heart is full of dirt, whose head of noise? 
 
 Whose mind is bent so wholly upon pelf 
 
 That he disdains what is not like himself? 
 
 Who thinks his dross the grandest thing on earth, 
 
 And by his money only measures worth ; 
 
 Who always fancies that the meanest vice, 
 
 The loftiest virtue, has a market price ; 
 
 Who 's truthful, since he knows there 's loss in doubt ; 
 
 Who 's honest, only since he 's not found out ? 
 
 Now let him save, scrape, labour to the end, 
 
 Forfeit peace, wisdom, honour, own no friend, 
 
 Bury his heart inside his gathered store ; 
 
 (He gains this only, and he gains no more:) 
 
 One sentence tells the substance of his claims — 
 
 One sentence represents his highest aims : 
 
 ' There 's twopence-halfpenny turns up his nose, 
 
 ' And scorns the wealth which twopence-farthing shows.' 
 
 Suppose you were to follow nature's voice ^, 
 Suppose no habit did pervert your choice, 
 How, if you had resolved to settle down, 
 Could you do better than select this town ? 
 Half rural, and half urban, it supplies 
 All that life needs, and so with London vies. 
 
 * Vivere naturae si convon'cntei opoitet, etc.
 
 32 HORACE, EP. I. X. 
 
 Its park and gardens are, believe me, just 
 
 As is a village, free from smoke and dust. 
 
 Here it is possible, in sleepy nooks, 
 
 To pore or nod o'er endless rows of books ; 
 
 Here, as I glance through many an ancient page, 
 
 And con the learning of a bygone age, 
 
 I marvel, as these fossil thoughts I note. 
 
 That folks were found to read what others wrote. 
 
 Is London cheerier in November's rime, 
 Or is it healthier in the summer time, 
 When every man who is not six foot five 
 (If Tyndall 's right) breathes air that's all alive '^? 
 Close to the ceaseless rumble of the street. 
 Your sleep is sound perhaps, but is it sweet ? 
 The bright and fragrant turf where Nature smiles 
 Is ten times pleasanter than Minton's tiles. 
 The fresh drawn water, sparkling from my well, 
 Is better far to sight, to taste, to smell, 
 Than what you get from Chelsea water-works ^ 
 Where sewage festers and where poison lurks ; 
 Which eats the lead, and fruitful of disease, 
 Gives you the colic, and your doctor fees. 
 
 ' Mr. Tyndall has drawn an awful picture "f the ' organisms ' which float 
 about in the London air, within five feet of the ground. 
 8 I'uiior in vicis nqua tcndit rumpere plumbum, 
 Quam quae per prunum trepidat cum murmure rivum?
 
 HORACE, EP. I. X. 33 
 
 You Londoners still show how much you prize 
 1 he rustic life, which you, forsooth, despise ; 
 In every part of Town the proof is seen : 
 Look at the stunted flowers of Bethnal Green, 
 The little greenhouses of tinted glass. 
 The tiny plots of cherished City grass. 
 Your rents are far beyond my modest mark, 
 They're doubled, if the house commands the Park. 
 Thrust Nature out, ay, drive her far away^, 
 Back she returns, and slily holds her sway ; 
 Fashion may thwart her will, but, should she please, 
 She bursts the strongest barriers at her ease. 
 
 The thoughtless victim of a tradesman's sham ^", 
 Who knows not Mechlin lace from Nottingham ; 
 The gull, who hoaxed by Yorkshire copers, buys 
 A hack that roars, and jibs, and rears, and shies ; 
 The fool, whom florid circulars incline 
 To risk his savings in an Emma mine ; 
 Who backs turf favourites to a huge amount, 
 Or plays ecarte with a Polish count : 
 Not one of these provokes a surer fate, 
 None buys experience at a dearer rate, 
 
 ' Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret, 
 
 Et mala perrumpct furtim fastiilia victrix. 
 *" Non, qui Sidonio, etc. 
 
 D
 
 34 HORACE, EP. I. X. 
 
 Than he who says he does what others do, 
 
 But can't tell what is false and what is true. 
 
 If, adding much to what you had before 
 
 Good fortune spoils you, bad will spoil you more ; 
 
 Allow your happiness on wealth to hinge, 
 
 You '11 find the loss of wealth the sharpest twinge ; 
 
 You have enough ; be happy as you are, 
 
 For greater riches mean but greater care ; 
 
 Beneath a modest roof, content will gain 
 
 What kings and courtiers seek, and seek in vain " ; 
 
 Use what you have for what is just and fit, 
 
 Then yours belongs to you, not you to it. 
 
 Sent to a distant land in early youth 
 Brown made his way by honour, thrift, and truth : 
 Ten years he worked and saved, then satisfied, 
 Back to his native land our merchant hied : 
 A man of worth as well as wealth, he souglit 
 How he might wisely use the cash he'd brought ; 
 He clearly saw his fortune could be graced 
 Only by prudence, candour, judgment, taste. 
 Assumed no airs, indulged in no pretence, 
 Guided his words, his acts, by common sense, 
 ^laintaincd his self-respect, though glad to please, 
 Seemed not to aim, but won his aims with ease, 
 
 •I licet sub paujere tecto 
 
 Kc'ges et legum vita praecurrere aniicos.
 
 HORACE. EP. I. X. 35 
 
 And proved that he had learned the highest tact 
 
 When no one feared, and no one dared detract, 
 
 (I don't say hate, for some men are so nice 
 
 That they can't bear a man without a vice). 
 
 Well, such a hater, with a well-bred sneer 
 
 (He took good care that all the room should hear), 
 
 Said, ' Dawdle asked me, Brown, if I could tell 
 
 'What are your shield, your arms, your motto:' well: 
 
 Brown winced, grew red, looked puzzled for a while, 
 
 Then answered gaily with a pleasant smile : 
 
 ' My shield is Or, sir, and the arms I bear 
 
 ^ Three mushrooms rampant; motto, Here zue are^'-.' 
 
 You know the story of the Stag and Horse, 
 And how, by dint of his superior force 
 (His horns enabling him to stand at bay), 
 The Stag contrived to drive the Horse away, 
 Usurped the common pasture as his own. 
 In clover lived and reigned, and reigned alone; 
 And how, despairing of a better plan. 
 The baffled Horse implored the help of I\Ian, 
 Lent all his strength to aid his patron's wit. 
 Endured the saddle, rider, spur, and bit. 
 Triumphed — and victor in a righteous cause, 
 For ever bears the bit between his jaws. 
 
 '^ This also is a fact. 
 D 2
 
 3^ HORACE, EP. I. X. 
 
 Thus he who, dreading poverty, consents 
 
 To barter freedom for the Three per Cents, 
 
 And seeks, poor devil, how to scrape and save, 
 
 Still bears a master, and still lives a slave, 
 
 Because, forsooth, his spirit can't endure 
 
 To hear that Smith is rich while he is poor. 
 
 Men's fortunes are like boots, this pair when worn 
 Is found too tight, and gives the man a corn ; 
 Put on a pair that 's bigger than is meet, 
 You sprain your ankle or you gall your feet. 
 
 Live, R , then, contented with your lot, 
 
 And if you ever find that I am not, 
 
 Should you discern at any time that I 
 
 Angle for favour, flatter, fawn, or lie. 
 
 Quit work for which an honest market pays, 
 
 And seek more fortune by dishonest ways, 
 
 Censure me roundly, warn your erring friend, 
 
 Spare no reproach and fear not to offend ^'K 
 
 What each man has, what each can earn and hoard, 
 
 As he employs it, is his slave or lord, 
 
 The man who deals in pigs, if they 're alive, 
 
 Finds it saves time to carry, not to drive. 
 
 Would you were here ! I sit and write to you. 
 
 Hard by the wall, inside a tower, at New '\ 
 
 '^ Nee me dimities incasUgntum, ubi plina 
 
 Cogcre quam salis est ac non cessare videlior. 
 " Haec tibi dictalam post faiium pulre Vacunae, etc.
 
 HORACE. 
 
 Satires : II. i. 
 
 [In the original satire Horace consults a legal friend as to the criticism 
 passed on his productions, and the risks he incurs in their publication. 
 A dialogue thereupon ensues.] 
 
 A Dialogue. 
 
 R. Some think my satire 's fiercer than is right ^, 
 Blame it as rash, and charge my words with spite ; 
 Bid me reflect that every creature feels, 
 And though its ears be long can use its heels ; 
 Inform me that the age will not endure 
 The thrust which hits because its aim is sure ; 
 And that it takes the very worst offence 
 When what it hears conveys no doubtful sense : 
 While others speak of it as vapid rhyme ^, 
 The feeble echo of a bygone time. 
 
 * Sunt quibus in satira videor nimis acer, et ultra 
 Legem tend ere opus. 
 
 '■' Sine nervis altera, quidquid 
 
 Composui. pars esse putat ; similesque meonun 
 Miile die versus deduci posse. Trebati, etc.
 
 3«S HORACE, SAT. II. I. 
 
 ' This kind of verse,' such friendly critics say, 
 
 ' Was all the fashion once, and had its day ; 
 
 ' Pope, Dryden, Johnson, Churchill, wrote it well ; 
 
 ' Were polished, strong, sonorous, forcible : 
 
 ' Such stuff as this reminds one of a mill, 
 
 ' Which spun its yarn last year, and spins it still. 
 
 ' With Walker's aid, a thousand verses might, 
 
 ' Of such a kind, be ground 'twixt noon and night.' 
 
 Now, tell me, P , what must I do? 
 
 Advise. 
 
 P. Give over writing. 
 
 R. What! do you 
 
 Bid me abandon verse ? 
 
 P. Of course. 
 
 R. 'Twere best, 
 
 Assuredly, but I should get no rest. 
 I cannot sleep unless whate^'er I think 
 Is midwived by the aid of pen and ink. 
 
 P. Not sleep ? A thousand methods may be found 
 By which to make your slumber deep and sound. 
 Read Bain's Emotions, Hegel's mistiest rant ; 
 Wordsworth's Excursion. Swedenborg, or Kant ; 
 Listen to sermons, speeches, bumble-bees ; 
 Like Gladstone, labour hard at felling trees •'- ; 
 
 ' Mr. Gladstone is reported to l.e an exi)crt lumberer, and to be able to 
 cut down a tree in a shorter time than many w orknien.
 
 HORACE, SAT. 11. I. 39 
 
 Work a bicycle, join the Alpine club, 
 
 Ride a high-stepping horse, or row a tub ; 
 
 Dine late, drink copious draughts of mellow port': 
 
 These remedies and others of the sort 
 
 Will all your thoughts in deep oblivion drench, 
 
 And make you snore like Tories on their bench. 
 
 But if, by frenz}^ overmastered quite, 
 
 This itch, this passion, forces you to write, 
 
 Then, like the Laureate, try your hand at praise, 
 
 Extol the deeds of Arthur's golden days'', 
 
 Turn baseless legends into sounding verse, 
 
 Tickle the public's ears — and fill your purse ; 
 
 Rail at the mob, and welcome, if you will, 
 
 But hint that chivalry is living still ; 
 
 Address, with pious reverence, as did he, 
 
 ' The silent father of our kings to be ^.' 
 
 K. Truest of friends, I wish I had the skill ; 
 The power is wanting, though I feel the will. 
 Not every man can venture on the theme 
 Or versify what Mallory"^ could dream. 
 Or write of ' splintering spears,' and ' hard mail hewn,' 
 Of fields with ' brands ' and ' hollow helmets ' strewn. 
 
 * Irrigiuimque mero sub noctem corpus habento. 
 
 * aude Caesaris iiivicii I'es dicere. 
 
 * A line pirated from Mr. Tennyson. 
 
 ' The author of the Arthurian legend. The words in commas are from 
 Mr. Tennyson's poems.
 
 40 HORACE, SAT. II. I. 
 
 'Shield breakings,' 'samite/ and 'black-hooded' dames, 
 And ' thundersmoke,' and ' wings of gold,' and ' flames.' 
 Or bring knight-errantry to life anew — 
 The thing which Don Cervantes overthrew. 
 
 P. Seek then a modern subject for your lays, 
 And let the world resound with Gladstone's praise **; 
 Extol the tact and taste his colleagues show, 
 From courteous Ayrton up to gentle Lowe, 
 How wise, how just, how winning are the men. 
 Here is unequalled matter for your pen. 
 The task is easy, if the writer tries ; 
 Dryden could flatter, Pope could eulogise. 
 
 R. Wheneer the chance occurs I will not faiP. 
 Just now, I fear, the topic's rather stale. 
 This maxim 's true : That man alone succeeds 
 Who never speaks until his audience heeds. 
 The public must be taken at the nick ; 
 Coax it unwisely, and the beast will kick ^". 
 
 P. But this is better than in stinging verse ^^ 
 To make your victim smart, and earn his curse. 
 To rouse the wrath of sycophants, to brave 
 The deadly malice of the branded knave. 
 
 " This was written in 1S73. 
 
 9 Haud mihi deero 
 
 Quum res ipsa feret. 
 '* Cui male si palpcre, recalcitrat undique tutus. 
 " Quanto rcclius hoc quara tristi laedere veisu, etc.
 
 HORACE, SAT. II. I. 4 1 
 
 Satire 's a dangerous weapon, man, to touch ; 
 
 They who employ it use it overmuch. 
 
 Pick up a bar of iron all a-glow, 
 
 You burn your fingers while you scorch your foe. 
 
 Nay, those you have not singed foresee their fate^', 
 
 And recompense your power with cordial hate. 
 
 R. What shall I do? Does not a reverend seer 
 Gather good profit from a boundless fear? 
 If he is harmless, why am I attacked ? 
 The sane are not more spiteful than the cracked. 
 This man delights in foxes, that in game ^": 
 Of fifty men, no two are just the same. 
 Whatever be the numbers of mankind, 
 So many different characters you "11 find. 
 I imitate (with whom I cannot cope) 
 The polished couplet of the sprightly Pope'*. 
 A better man than either you or I, 
 He wrote as if his books were sitting by. 
 As if the thoughts which issued from his mind 
 Safe in their trusty hands were his to find ; 
 VVhate'er betided, verse was still the source 
 Whence flowed his wit, its polish and its force. 
 
 '^ Nam sibi qiiisque timet, quamquam est intactus, et oJit. 
 • Castor gaudet equis, ovo piognatus eodem 
 
 Pugnis, quot capitum, etc. 
 » Me pedibus delectat claudere verba 
 
 Lucili ritu noblrum melioris utroque, etc.
 
 42 HORACE. SAT. II. I. 
 
 Thus the whole life and spirit of his age 
 Show like a picture in his vivid page. 
 This man I follow always, but I strive ^^ 
 To wantonly attack no thing alive ; 
 My rapier can be sheathed. Why draw it out 
 While neither knave nor blockhead prowls about.'' 
 Tet rust devour its edge and dim its sheen, 
 I shall not quit my ease to make it keen. 
 But if a man provoke me, understand 
 He'd better clutch ten hornets in his hand: 
 I give him warning, for the Town shall know, 
 How I can use it when I find a foe. 
 
 P. Attorneys still exist who speculate"" 
 On costs for libel ; this may be your fate ; 
 Another rogue, who finds his withers wrung, 
 May vent the secret poison of his tongue ; 
 The critics of some publisher's review 
 May take revenge for what they know is true ; 
 In ambush lurk, from ambush slyly spring. 
 Puff like an adder, like an adder sting. 
 You may be over-confident ; the wise 
 Shrewdly avoid the creatures they despise. 
 
 " Seel hie stilus hand pelct ultro 
 
 Qucmqiiam aiiiinaiiteni. etc. 
 *• Cervius iralus leijes min'tatur et uir.ani, etc.
 
 HORACE, SAT. II. I. 43 
 
 R. Aye, Nature, Darwin tells us, moulds the face, 
 And forms each gesture which denotes the race^'. 
 When danger threatens, violence is near ; 
 All seek, he says, to frighten those they fear. 
 He must be right, I fancy ; if you doubt, 
 Look at the facts which bear the maxim out. 
 Wolves show their teeth, and bulls decline their licads, 
 The fearful skunk persistent perfume sheds : 
 W^hy, if an instinct did not guide their acts 
 And make them keenly sensitive to facts? 
 So Palmer ^^, when he murdered friend and wife, 
 Avoided clumsy bludgeon, tell-tale knife, 
 (A wolf will never raise his heels to smite, 
 A bull will never bark, or grin, or bite,) 
 Acted a sedulous, a loving part, 
 And poisoned each of them with perfect art ^\ 
 Not to be tedious, if a calm old age 
 Expects me, and a lengthened pilgrimage. 
 Or death should suddenly, before my sight, 
 Rise, the black phantom of life's shortened light, 
 Rich, poor, in England, or, if Fate command, 
 The venturous settler in some foreign land — ■ 
 
 '■^ The theory promulgated in one of l\Ir. Darwin's later works. 
 '* Palmer, the Rugeley poisoner of iS5''i. Tlie villain in Horace poisoned 
 his mother. 
 
 '° Ne longum faciam, seu me tranquilla, etc.
 
 44 HORACE, SAT. II. I. 
 
 Whatever shapes my life or guides its course, 
 Write on I will, and write I must, perforce. 
 
 P. Young man, I warn you ; think what you provoke. 
 A mighty statesman never makes a joke-'". 
 And won't forgive one ; if you 're over-bold, 
 You '11 have to live, believe me, in the cold. 
 The Tory hates and wrongs what he suspects. 
 The Whig complete subservience expects. 
 Think for yourself ; the one will persecute. 
 The other say, he does not follow suit. 
 Decorous dullness is the thing that pays ; 
 This earns the pudding, wit earns only praise. 
 
 R. Why, Pope and Dryden, when they first began 
 To write in this wise on the modern man, 
 To strip the knave who traded in disguise. 
 And show him as he is to all men's eyes. 
 To pluck the visor off in which he went, 
 Ambitious, cringing, mean and insolent, 
 Found no dislike among the wise and just, 
 For fools alone meet genius with distrust. 
 Were they offended when the scorching verse 
 Of Dryden clung to Shaftesbury-^ like a curse? 
 
 20 O puer, ut sis 
 
 Vitalis, metuo, et majorum nc qiiis amicus 
 l'"iigorc tc feiiat. 
 
 *' The character of Shaftesbury in Absalom and Achitopheb
 
 HORACE, SAT. II. I. 45 
 
 Or when the blase Hervey ^■- got his due, 
 And Pope portrayed him in his natural hue. 
 Did Mordaunt or did St. John^'^ blame his rage, 
 The bravest and the shrewdest of the age? 
 They galled the proudest when the case was strong, 
 They scourged the nation when 'twas in the wrong. 
 Their aims were honest, public were their ends, 
 Allies to virtue only, and her friends. 
 
 But when the task was done, and well- won ease -^ 
 Led them to gossip under Chiswick's trees, 
 When Twickenham harboured many an honoured guest 
 And simple food maintained its natural zest, 
 How sportive were the friends, how quick the wit, 
 How genial was the mirth which welcomed it ! 
 How the fresh flavour of their free discourse 
 Heightened the charm of life, and gave it force? 
 
 If Pope has passed away, the facts survive. 
 The subjects of his satire are alive. 
 Chartres and Gibber are the types of men, 
 A little pains may find them out again. 
 
 " Lord Hervey, the Lord Fanny and Sporus of Pope's satire. 
 
 " Lords Peterborough and Bolingbroke. Lord Peterborough died in 
 1735. Lord Bolingbroke was attainted in 17 15, and restored to his estates, 
 but not to his honours, in 1725, and died in 1751. They were Pope's inti- 
 mate friends. 
 
 Num Laelius, et qui 
 
 Duxit ab oppressa meritum Carthagine nomeu, 
 Ingenio offensi, etc. 
 " Quia ubi se a vulgo, etc.
 
 46 HORACE, SAT. II. I. 
 
 So, as the human species has increased, 
 The race of dunces has not wholly ceased ; 
 Grub Street -^ has lost its authors, but a band 
 Of folks like them has settled in the Strand ; 
 Lintot and Curll -*' have vanished long ago, 
 But their successors flourish in the Row. 
 
 Nor Gumming -" nor Teiresias can deny 
 The truth of this unvarying prophecy : 
 The theme for satire never can be stale, 
 The crop of knaves and fools will never fail, 
 As long as greed and ignorance are rife, 
 And diamonds blaze upon a broker's wife. 
 
 Enough ; the little wit I call my own, 
 No matter whether natural, borrowed, grown, 
 Was nurtured on the wholesomest of food. 
 The constant converse of the wise and good. 
 Whatever it may lack in verve and force 
 No man alive can vilify its source. 
 Malice is shrewd, at least before it bites ; 
 'Tis a poor cur to him who turns and tights. 
 I hope you don't dissent. 
 
 * Grub Street was the residence of the minor poets and pamphleteers of 
 Pope's clay. Its present name is Milton Street. 
 
 '•« Publishers in Pope's time. The latter was frequently lampooned by 
 the Poet. 
 
 ■-' Dr. Gumming is a well-known interpreter of prophecy.
 
 HORACE, SAT. II. I. 47 
 
 P. I don't deftness ; 
 
 The warning's general, and it is not mine. 
 The danger, as I think, is mighty clear : 
 The law is very just, but very dear. 
 You overstep it ; well, the case is tried, 
 And Hawkins ^^ prosecutes. The fact's denied, 
 The jury's stupid. 
 
 R. If I justify 
 
 And Cockburn 's -^"^ on the bench. 
 
 P- I don't deny 
 
 If such a wise and righteous judge were there, 
 (You recollect Rcgina vers2is Eyre}) 
 In such a case perhaps your cur might fail. 
 And use his shambling legs to hide his tail. 
 
 -* Equidem nihil hinc diffindere possum, etc. 
 
 '8 An eminent coimsel, who exhibited remarkable ability in theTichbome 
 case. 
 
 ^ The abilities and integrity of Chief Justice Cockburn are conspicuous 
 even among many judges who possess the same characteristics. The allusion 
 in the text is to his charge to the jury in the case of Governor Eyie.
 
 J U V E N A L. 
 
 Satire I. 
 
 What ! must I always hear ^ and not reply, 
 
 Must read the comment with the news I buy? 
 
 Must I be tutored day, week, month, and year, 
 
 By Levy, Johnson, Yates, or Labouchere ^ ? 
 
 Or when with ready, flippant, furtive pen 
 
 The ]Vo7'l(P instructs its women and its men, 
 
 Must I be patient with the tale it tells. 
 
 And gulp the fictions which it shreds and sells? 
 
 Must I be silent, when a friendly puff 
 
 Finds loftiest genius in the sorriest stuff? 
 
 Or must I, if I judge of fact or deed, 
 
 Abjure the Pope, and make the Tivics my creed? 
 
 Shall I endure, nor find out my redress, 
 
 The stilted nonsense of the London press"*? 
 
 ' Semper ego auditor laiUum, etc. 
 ^ Editors or proprietors of London papers. 
 
 ^ This is a newspaper which has a column of piquant cuttings. It is said 
 by its proprietors to be ' a journal for men and women.' 
 * impune diem consumserit ingcns 
 
 Telephus '(
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. I. 49 
 
 (Year after year the noisy mischief grows, 
 
 From dawn to dark its penny trumpet blows, 
 
 Scolds, threatens, flatters, hides or strains the facts. 
 
 Boldly defames, or secretly detracts ; 
 
 And screaming out the passion of the hour 
 
 Deafens one's ears with fifty-donkey power.) 
 
 Shall I not visit with my angriest rhymes 
 
 The sharper and the bully of the times ^, 
 
 Wade daily through the columns that he prints, 
 
 The lies he utters, and the lies he hints, 
 
 Nor warn, with all the skill I can employ, 
 
 The silly dotterel from the smug decoy? 
 
 Full well I know ^, before I cut the leaves, 
 What he asserts, and what a mob believes ; 
 I can predict the purpose he intends, 
 And how he handles facts to serve his ends ; 
 I can foresee what 'tis he means to state, 
 His reasons guess, his talk anticipate, 
 Forecast the slang with which his style is strung*^, 
 And how his pen maltreats the English tongue. 
 I know how far he dreads, how far he dares, 
 To aid the ups and downs of stocks and shares ; 
 
 ^ The reference is to papers published for Stock Exchange purposes.- 
 ® Nota magis nulU domus sua, etc. 
 
 ^ We owe many new words and many corruptions of the language to the 
 newspapers. 
 
 E
 
 5© JUVENAL, SAT. I. 
 
 How 'tis his clients may succeed or fail, 
 
 Ensure a fortune, or achieve a jail ; 
 
 How, Jason-like, the man whose schemes are bold^ 
 
 May filch by sleight the modern fleece of gold ; 
 
 And why his victim, eager to attack, 
 
 Would lay an ashen cudgel^ on his back. 
 
 To make the worse appear the better cause, 
 And by this art to win a mob's applause ; 
 To stir the factious passion of the hour ; 
 To cheat men's reason, and to call it power; 
 To mock an honest effort in its youth, 
 And boisterously accept triumphant truth, — 
 This is the craft, which often not in vain, 
 The secret journalist attempts to gain, 
 Whether he haunt the tavern or the club. 
 Be Walter's henchman or Kenealy's scrub '°. 
 But worse than all, the bore I know and dread, 
 Who talks the leaders which he just has read, 
 Bolts what his sophists argue or relate. 
 And makes his morning drench his evening prate. 
 
 • Quid agant venti, quas torqucat umbras 
 Aeacus, unde alius fuiiivae devehat aurum 
 Pclliculae. 
 
 * QuaiUas jaculttur Aloryclius ornos. 
 
 '" The higlicst and lowest form of journalism. Exspectes eadem a 
 summo minimoque poeta.
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. I. 5 1 
 
 Time was when I believed the secret pen^^ 
 Could be a weapon fit for honest men ; 
 Time was when I imagined that the press 
 Had a true mission, and could ban or bless ; 
 When I had pictured editorial might 
 As living justice with the gift of sight ; 
 I thought that I too might perform the feat 
 Of uttering wisdom in a daily sheet, 
 Protect the interests of the British race, 
 Advise ^^ a minister to quit his place, 
 Praise the true patriot, undertake the task 
 Of making knavery tremble and unmask ; 
 Engaged in such a noble, generous toil 
 I thought I might my ream of paper spoil. 
 Heavens ! what a blockhead was I to suppose 
 These people care to cherish aims like those. 
 Or doubt their object, write they what they may, 
 Is, what's the means to make the paper pay. 
 
 If you have leisure to discover why ^^ 
 These objects I essay, these paths I try. 
 Through which the mighty chiefs of satire dashed 
 And cowed the wretches whom they sought and lashed ; 
 
 " Et nos ergo manum, etc. 
 
 ^ Consilium dedimus Sullae piivatus ut altum 
 
 Dormiret. 
 ^ Cur tamen hoc libeat, etc. 
 
 E 2
 
 5^ JUVENAL, SAT. I. 
 
 Through which Lucilius ^*, hke a river, flung ; 
 Where Horace mocked the creatures whom he stung ; 
 And loftiest Juvenal, stern, fierce, and great, 
 Scourged most in anger, and scourged least in hate ; 
 Where cautious Hall and Donne, where Marvell bold 
 Taught Pope the art to hint, and sneer, and scold ; 
 Where Oldham, Dryden, Churchill, Byron plied 
 Their whips on brazen face and stubborn hide, 
 And wonder why a quiet man should turn ^^ 
 His strength to satire, — listen and you'll learn. 
 
 When priests profess a creed which they despise, 
 And think one cannot pierce through their disguise ; 
 When sycophants, to catch the public ear, 
 Pretend a loyalty at which they sneer ; 
 When prosperous harlots, with unchallenged sway, 
 Dictate the fashions which the pure obey ; 
 When Darnley'" arrogates a feudal claim, 
 And all his tenants glory in their shame ; 
 When statesmen, knowing what is just and true, 
 Yield to the clamour of a drunken crew ; 
 When every other man, who sells or buys. 
 Acts on the rule that traffic thrives by lies ; 
 
 '* Auruncae alumnus. 
 
 " Si vacat, et placidi rationem admillitis, criam. 
 
 ** A nol)leman who has lately been lecturing his tenants; and worse, who 
 finds his tenants all that he could wish.
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. I. "53 
 
 When one can watch the solemn, scheming prig, 
 
 Whose candid counsels mask a secret rie. 
 
 And hear him warn men from the traps he baits, 
 
 But slily buy what he depreciates ^"^ ; 
 
 And when Ward Hunt, with all his head and hand, 
 
 Controls the navy of one's native land ; — 
 
 Among such samples of the modern man 
 
 Who will not utter satire if he can^^? 
 
 Who is so quit of feeling, void of sense ^^, 
 So stolid, as to harbour no offence. 
 If close to Albert's monument, a Jew 
 Erects his mansion, and obscures the view; 
 If a turf spider, with his meshes set, 
 Draws noble after noble to the net^°; 
 If reckless scribblers can invent, and pen 
 Their wanton libels upon honest men ; 
 If prosperous traders rival in expense 
 The splendid lords of ancient opulence ; 
 If brokers' wives are arbiters of taste. 
 And swelter in their jewels or their paste ; 
 
 " Scelus esse factum loqiumlur : faciuntque. An adage of Tacitus which 
 is as true as ever, and may be verified from many of the London papers. 
 " Difficile est Satiiam non scril^ere. 
 '* quis iniquae 
 
 Tarn patiens urbis, tarn stolidus. 
 "" cito rapturus de nobilitate comesa 
 
 Quod superest.
 
 54 JUVENAL, SAT. I. 
 
 If German, Greek, and Hebrew, bent on spoil, 
 
 Hustle the Briton from his native soil ; 
 
 If, in their homage to the nobly born, 
 
 Critics can praise the jingling rhyme of Lorne-^; 
 
 If wealthy knaves can claim and get the right 
 
 To wash their dirty linen out of sight, 
 
 And social custom will condone their crimes, — 
 
 Who cannot write a satire on the times ? 
 
 With facts and men like these before one's face 
 
 These types and teachers of the English race. 
 
 Who can conceive a heart which must not burn. 
 
 Who can conceive a foot which would not spurn? 
 
 Who can restrain his anger when he sees -^ 
 England infested by such things as these? 
 There, watched and followed by a thousand eyes 
 The hero of a hundred swindles lies ; 
 He means, emboldened by his long success, 
 To bribe a vestry, or to buy the press. 
 And hopes, encouraged by their hired applause, 
 To rob a nation, and then make its laws. 
 And here, another portent of the times 
 Is sheltered by the greatness of his crimes ; 
 
 ^^ A poem by a noble lord, which has lately been reviewed in a most 
 gushing manner by several London paj'-ers. Since this has been done, 
 certain schoolmasters have indulged themselves in tlie foetla adulatio of 
 giving the book as a prize to their boys. 
 
 ^^ Quid rcferam, quanta siccum jecur ardeat ira.
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. I. 55 
 
 Because his baffled victims dare not choose 
 To tell the tricks ^^ which he knew how to use. 
 He may be infamous, but they were rash ; 
 He takes an alias and secures the cash, 
 Retires from public notice, and enjoys 
 His spoils, and secretly perhaps, the noise ; 
 While those he fleeced in angry tones complain, 
 That he who trusts in law, may trust in vain. 
 
 Was Chartres worse than Collie, Craggs than Fisk? 
 Are modern bubbles free from fraud and risk ? 
 Do they, who send you circulars, intend 
 To act the candid, honest, truthful friend ? 
 Is there much room to doubt what they design, 
 Who puff Canadian oil and Emma mine? 
 Where huge advertisements invite one's gaze, 
 D' ye guess what tis ' the city leader ' says ? 
 And is it not far better to display 
 The culprit and his meaning to the day 
 Than prate of fictions, and demurely curse 
 One's generation in subjective verse ; 
 Or with a moral hell before one's eyes, 
 Depict instead an earthly paradise ? 
 
 Again, if England will commit a cause, 
 Which she should cherish, to such eager claws 
 
 *^ This is said to be the case with certain recent swindles.
 
 ^6 JUVENAL, SAT. I. 
 
 As none who, watching o'er a private right, 
 
 Would trust a single instant out of sight ; 
 
 Or stupidly assigns the highest worth, 
 
 In those whom she employs, to wealth and birth ; 
 
 If she admits the claims they make at once, 
 
 And cannot think a duke can be a dunce ; 
 
 Commits her schools to those whose aim and mark 
 
 Is, how to keep the people in the dark ; 
 
 If Derby, true to instinct, seeks to save 
 
 The harassed interest which steals the slave. 
 
 Or if she sees her 'First Lord'-^ fairly pledged 
 
 To make her fleet the phantom he alleged, 
 
 Allows the man to work his foolish will. 
 
 Knows what he muddles, and is patient still ; 
 
 If she consigns her army^-^ to the hands 
 
 Of those who plunge, and squander home and lands. 
 
 If, daily tutored by her social gods. 
 
 She trusts the prophets, and debates the odds, 
 
 And, when her minions cast away all shame. 
 
 Smiles, and permits the indulgence which they claim,— 
 
 Shall not the satirist-*"' his matter meet 
 
 In any company, in every street. 
 
 « Mr. Ward Hunt. 
 
 25 curam sperare cohortis 
 
 Qui bona donavit praesepibus. 
 '^ Nonne licet medio, etc.
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. I. 57 
 
 And not be forced in bitterness to say- 
 Wrong must be done that right may have its way? 
 And I, a lover of the common weal, 
 Not venture on the hatred which I feel? 
 
 Room for the mighty master of finance ! 
 Give way ! and let his equipage advance ! — 
 It is not Gladstone, who contrives to blend 
 The ever fresh distrust of foe and friend, 
 And by a native art, or studied skill. 
 Wins hatred, whether he does well or ill ; — 
 Noj 'tis a widely different sort of man. 
 Who gauges fools, and plies the powers he can, 
 Who hints at gains of fabulous amounts, 
 Perplexes facts, and mystifies accounts, 
 With eager avarice sets men's hearts aglow 
 And wins their cash and wonder at a blow. 
 
 Room for the matron ! who with nicest art 
 Appraises every prize in fashion's mart, 
 Knows how to dress her daughters down for sale, 
 And trap the owner of a vast entail ; 
 Though he be impotent, mad, vicious, old, 
 Such frailties may be whispered, never told ; 
 If they be gilded by a huge estate. 
 Envy condones the vices of the great ;
 
 $8 JUVENAL, SAT. I. 
 
 The rich and noble need not harbour fears, 
 
 Their own relations always try the peers ; 
 
 And, while the grateful Englishman accords 
 
 His thanks to God for England's House of Lords, 
 
 And while these lords to their own selves are true, 
 
 Canaille! the dock is only meant for you. 
 
 Would you succeed where other people fail ^^ ? 
 Commit a crime that 's worthy of a jail. 
 Would you be welcomed by the world's applause? 
 The readiest road is, to transgress the laws. 
 From willing dupes a plenteous fortune carve ; 
 The man who lives by honesty will starve ^^. 
 
 Look through the genuine annals of the lords. 
 And learn the boon which prosperous vice affords. 
 The prudent Marlborough saved his earliest gain 
 Out of the fulsome lust of Castlemaine ; 
 By dirty byeways followed after fame, 
 And rose to greatness by his sister's shame. 
 The Stuart haram bred that ducal gang 
 Which crushed the race from which the mischief sprang. 
 A harlot's hire procured it jewels, plate, 
 Exalted title, pension, cash, estate ; 
 
 ^ Audc aliciuid brevibus Gyaiis et carccrc dignum, etc. 
 "^^ Piobitas laudalur, el alget.
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. I. 59 
 
 And all the court, except a decent few. 
 Joined the mad rout of Comus and his crew. 
 Osborne took bribes on all sides, far and near. 
 Buncombe did more, but each was made a peer. 
 Pshaw ! why recall the records of the race, 
 Enough is stated to support my case, 
 If nature failed me, wrath would force the verse, 
 Which Lome and I write, — I perhaps the worse 
 
 2t) 
 
 Since Grammont ^-, half in earnest, half in sport, 
 Sketched the wild revel of King Charles's court. 
 And limned the godless, sordid, brazen crew, 
 Who made Whitehall at once a hell and stew, 
 Down to the scandals of a later age, 
 Which England reads in virtuous Greville's "^^ page; 
 Since Parliament became a venal tribe 
 Since Louis gave, and Sidney clutched the bribe, 
 Down to the time when, as the world relates, 
 M. P. directors freely serve as baits ; 
 Since Manley ^^, in too many a luscious tale, 
 Put up her plainest ^^ nudities for sale ; 
 
 ** Si natura negat, facit indignatio versum 
 
 Qualemcunque potest, quales ego, vel Cluvienus. 
 '" Ex quo Deucalion, etc. 
 
 " Mr. Greville's revelations and regrets are equally instructive. 
 ** A female novelist of the Revolution. 
 ^' Maribus nudas ostendit Pyrrha puellas.
 
 6o JUVENAL, SAT. I. 
 
 Down to the prurient fictions of to-day, 
 
 Which women tell, and find the teUing pay ; 
 
 Since the lewd epilogues which Drj'den wrote, 
 
 And which he meant that women's tongues should quote, 
 
 Till this our epoch, when the poet trills 
 
 Delirious memories of subjective thrills : 
 
 Whatever men may do, wish, hate, love, act^*, 
 
 Like, talk, becomes for what I write a fact. 
 
 When was a greater crop of open vice ^^ ? 
 When was the love of greed more plain, less nice? 
 When did the gambler play a larger stake ? 
 More safely win, or more serenely break ? 
 When did the pious churchman, in his pew, 
 Devise more tricks, more subtle, or more new. 
 And when, forsooth, than in these later days, 
 Did God get franker, Mammon fonder praise ? 
 
 Three fourths of these whom Tattersall protects 
 Adore the Establishment and scorn the sects ; 
 Nine tenths of those who pander to the great 
 Support the glorious bond of Church and State; 
 While the smug parson listens to their cries, 
 And finds his safety in these swart allies. 
 
 '* Quidquid agnnt homines votum, tinior ira, voluptas, 
 
 Gaudia, discuisus, nostri est farrago libelli. 
 " Et quando uberior vitionim copia, etc.
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. I. 6 1 
 
 Who is it builds the grandest mansion now"''? 
 To whom do supple tradesmen cringe and bow? 
 Who is it makes the biggest mob his dupe ? 
 Who gulps the largest mess of turtle soup? 
 Who is it keeps most voters in his pay ? 
 Who through corruption wings his upward way, 
 And knows by dirty arts that he can get 
 Through lower office to the cabinet ? 
 Who is it manages the party press ? — 
 The very cads in Palace Yard can guess. 
 
 He does not waste his bribes, his agent notes 
 The crowd which has, the crowd which has not votes ; 
 Pays those who ask upon the former roll, 
 And wishes he could gratify the whole ; 
 Reckons the true supporters, has the sense 
 To scare the claimant on a false pretence, 
 And like the fabled lynx, he sees besides 
 All that the mystery of the ballot hides. 
 
 Give, Dizzy, give, before your hand is forced, 
 A place to honest, candid, Mister Gorst ; 
 He means, it seems, if what he says is true, 
 To make you place him, and his voters too. 
 
 Z6 
 
 Quis totidem eiexit villas, etc.
 
 62 JUVENAL, SAT. I. 
 
 Give, Dizzy, give in time, a little heed 
 To what is said by honest farmer Read -^^ ; 
 He means, it seems, if what he says is true, 
 To make you right him, and the country too. 
 
 No, there are stronger claimants to the fore 
 Than Gorst and Read, than — more than twenty score. 
 May not a brewer or a prince of gin 
 Hustle his betters out, and jostle in ; 
 And, as his rivals storm, when pushed aside, 
 Argue the matter thus, with proper pride : — 
 'Can birth and breeding give a higher claim? 
 ' Money 's a fact, all else is but a name. 
 'Five hundred bars^^ within no narrow bounds 
 ' Earn every year my fifty thousand pounds. 
 ' Besides, this age all old distinctions drops, 
 ' The sons of nobles deign to serve in shops ^°, 
 'What is there that my income can't afford? 
 'Am I not wealthier than many a lord?' 
 
 '* Mr. Read is member for Norfolk, and has left the Government because 
 he is not satisfied with their management of the cattle quarantine. Mr. Read 
 is a public man, of whom the farmers may well be proud, on the ground of 
 his moderation, his good sense, his manliness, and his integrity. 
 
 39 quinque tabernae 
 
 Quadringenta parant. 
 Juvenal's fictitious hero was more successful than mine. 
 
 <* custodit in agro 
 
 Conductas Corvinus oves {or opes).
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. I. 63 
 
 Wisdom and virtue ! be not over rash ; 
 
 You court defeat when you contend with cash. 
 
 As yet no tall cathedral upward soars ^\ 
 To that Great Mammon which the world adores ; 
 As yet the form of public worship's due 
 To what is righteous, honest, loving, true ; 
 As yet we think it decent to decry 
 The man who thrives upon a lifelong lie ; 
 Though wealth gains honours none the less divine, 
 And holds in most men's hearts a secret shrine. 
 
 If Juvenal predicted as he wrote, — 
 ' There is no vice for future time to note ^^. 
 ' The crimes and follies of our social state 
 ' Posterity perhaps may emulate ; 
 ' For though men strive and struggle to do ill, 
 ' Add to the sum they cannot, if they will ' : 
 Does any one believe that what we do, 
 Though it be vile and monstrous, can be new, 
 Unless it be what Plimsoll may detect. 
 Though far beyond what Plimsoll dares suspect*^? 
 
 ^' Quandoquidem inter nos, etc. 
 
 *^ Nil erit ulterius quod nostris moribus addat 
 
 Posteritas, etc. 
 *^ A late occurrence at Bremerhaven has perhaps fulfilled this pre- 
 diction.
 
 64 JUVENAL, SAT. I. 
 
 Shake every reef out on your spreading sail, 
 Occasion aids you, catch and use the gale^*. 
 
 Aye, if my wit were equal to the task. 
 My answer would prevent what all might ask. 
 Where is the plain ^^, straightforward, honest rhyme 
 With which Pope lashed the culprits of his time? 
 Where is the knife which, sped by Dryden's art. 
 Pierced Shaftesbury's callous hide and stony heart ? 
 Where is the scourge, whose well directed aim 
 Brought to that brazen brow one blush of shame ? 
 To those great masters must I bow and yield 
 Since meaner subjects occupy the field. 
 
 What does it matter'*^, do I what I may, 
 That Mister Charley'*'' pardons what I say? 
 
 Offend the Tigellinus of the times'*^ 
 And treason is a trifle to your crimes ; 
 No matter that your aims are innocent, 
 He will detect or hint your dark intent ; 
 
 ** uteie vclis, 
 
 Totos pande sinus. 
 *5 unde ilia piiorum 
 
 Simplicitas, etc. 
 " Quid refert dictis ignoscat Mucius, an non? 
 *' Mr. Charley is member for Salford. He has a certain distinction. 
 ** Pone Tigellinum, etc. Tigellinus was an upstart in Rome. He pro- 
 bably manipidated the acla diurna.
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. I. 6^ 
 
 Be wise as Cobden, eloquent as Bright, 
 You 11 be the victim of his ceaseless spite ; 
 While living, he'll pervert what you have said, 
 And blacken, if he can, your name when dead. 
 
 What ! must I hold my tongue, or drop my pen, 
 Because I cross the path of prosperous men? 
 By paper wings these patriots mount on high, 
 Exhort or scorn us from their social sky ; 
 Like Jove, shake all the world with half a wink. 
 Hurl down their thunderbolts of printers' ink. 
 And, just to show the greatness of their power, 
 Turn every drop of human nature sour; 
 Or must I seek their favour in this sort? — 
 ' Give what I say your audience and support, 
 ' To what you write the thinking world inclines — ■ 
 ' Do me the favour to insert these lines.' 
 Can men write thus, whom honesty could raise 
 Beyond such censure, and above such praise ? 
 Or like Don Quixote, need one spur one's horse 
 Against a windmill's sails, a windmill's force? 
 
 There's no offence in scolding Bute or North, 
 Pitt, Eldon, Fox, nay even George the Fourth ; 
 No one 's affronted if you choose to paint 
 Cromwell a rogue, the second Charles a saint.
 
 66 JUVENAL, SAT. I. 
 
 A playwright ventures to traduce the dead, 
 Who cares to challenge what the fellow's said? 
 But if your satire *^ touches those who live, 
 You may receive worse measure than you give ; 
 Shame sets the conscious hearer's face aglow 
 At what he knows himself and thinks you know ; 
 No human passion, when the facts are clear, 
 Equals the malice of a bad man's fear. 
 Think therefore cautiously on what you state ■^", 
 Before you grapple with the things you hate, 
 Once in the strife, 'tis all too late a day, 
 To flinch, or even wish )'ourself away. 
 
 But if this theme be dangerous and vast, 
 And I can only criticise the past, 
 ril deal with those who lie within the walls 
 Of Peter's crowded abbey, and St. Paul's ^\ 
 
 *^ Ense velut stricto, etc. 
 •''* Tecum prius ergo voluta, etc. 
 " Experiar, quid concedatur in illos, 
 
 Quorum Flaminia ttgitur cinis, atque Latina.
 
 JUVENAL 
 
 Satire III. 
 
 [In his third Satire. Juvenal gives an account of the motives which induced 
 his friend Umbritius to finally quit Rome and take up his abode in a 
 distant country place. Of course the feelings which influenced the 
 Roman were in great measure derived from the peculiar characteristics 
 of Roman society. But there probably always will be, as there certainly 
 now are felt, grievances similar to those of Umbritius. The speaker is 
 argi7, and may seem occasionally unjust, but he must be dramatic] 
 
 Time passes, and my friends are all too few ^; 
 
 The old depart, I hardly welcome new. 
 
 New friends, compared with those I gained in youth, 
 
 Feel like a dentist's artificial tooth : 
 
 Necessity alone can make you bear 
 
 What is not you, but only what you wear. 
 
 Awkward and strange, you try the thing awhile, 
 
 You hope, and say, ' Well, use may reconcile ! ' 
 
 Or, finding that your natures cannot blend. 
 
 You throw the tooth away and cut the friend, 
 
 ^ Quamvis digressu veteris confusus amici. 
 F 2
 
 68 JUVENAL, SAT. III. 
 
 Thus, wliile I mourn that I am now bereft 
 Of one among the best whom time had left, 
 I cannot blame his going ^, though he choose 
 To take what I can ill afford to lose, 
 And quitting England, seek and find his rest, 
 Within the fruitful desert of the West. 
 There grows the future ; here the past supplies 
 One long excuse for wrongs and shams and lies ; 
 The future of our race, where labour can 
 Garner its fruits, and pays no toll to man ; 
 Where honest toil makes nations opulent. 
 Where want 's unknown, and plenty breeds content ; 
 Where each man 's candid, because no man fears ; 
 Where each is gentle, because all are peers ; 
 Where general self-respect leaves no pretence 
 For either high or low-bred insolence ; 
 Where no two nations fret away their life. 
 Either in sullen truce, or bitter strife ; 
 Nor, one in name, but watchful foes at heart, 
 Still dwell together, but still dwell apart ; 
 Nor to the glory of the Church and State 
 Is this one trained to fear and that to hate ; 
 Nor read the golden rule of conduct so : 
 'Trust none you know not, and trust none you know,* 
 
 * LauJo tanien vacuis quod sedein figcre Cumis, etc.
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. III. 69 
 
 What ! thread Cheapside, and hurry through the 
 Strand ? 
 I 'd sooner try the fogs of Newfoundland. 
 What! pace Pall Mall or loiter in the Park"? 
 I 'd sooner live in Scilly or in Sark. 
 What is more lonely than those thronging streets, 
 Where no one knows a single face he meets.'' 
 Those seething crowds of men, who press and press, 
 Those eager mobs, that human wilderness? 
 The City has its proper perils too : 
 Its Hansom cabs kill more than brigands do. 
 Its annual list of slaughtered victims might 
 Set up a hero, if they fell in fight. 
 Such are its drawbacks : what does Babel grant 
 To him who will not have it, or who can't? 
 Its dreary round of pleasures is not graced 
 Either by heart, or sense, or wit, or taste. 
 What! see its sights? I prithee tell me, which .^ 
 Art is the housemaid of the vulgar rich. 
 Painters by hundreds vigorously toil, 
 W^aste tons of paint, and miles of canvas spoil, 
 While .critic Agnew^ bids some lucky Smith 
 Buy up the laboured commonplace of Frith. 
 
 ^ Ego vel Prochytam praepono Sul iirae. 
 
 * Mr. Agnew is an eminent picture dealer. He is not named with any 
 purpose of satire. It is well that the S;iiilhs have such an adviser and 
 some genuine artists so useful and conscientious a patron.
 
 70 JUVENAL, SAT. III. 
 
 Or scenes from nature — nature of that sort 
 Where men make deserts for a selfish sport : 
 Pictures of moors, of horses, dogs, and deer. 
 The pastime of the merchant and the peer. 
 
 But since the sharpest contrast which he sees 
 Gives a keen zest to all his wealth and ease, 
 Dives hangs up, to prove his taste and name, 
 A painted Lazarus in a gilded frame. 
 So the hulk Dutchm.an, swoln by gain and gin, 
 Pictured without him what he loved within. 
 And smacked his heavy lips, as he surveyed 
 The dirty drunkards whom Ostade portrayed. 
 Pictures forsooth ! Nine out of every ten 
 Are dressy girls, or pursy aldermen. 
 So with the rest : they suit to-day's John Bull, 
 Whose skull is empty, and whose pocket 's full ; 
 The Bull of swollen paunch and bullet head, 
 Not him who 's foully housed and meanly fed. 
 
 Enough ; to Liverpool, v^-ith heavy heart ^, 
 I travel down to see my friend depart ; 
 Once more perhaps to gossip on the past. 
 And take a fresh farewell, perhaps the last. 
 I find him ready, his portmanteaus packed, 
 Corded, directed, waterproofed, and stacked. 
 
 ^ Sed dum lota domus, etc.
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. III. /I 
 
 Off to the docks we go, and thence aboard 
 To see his cabin, see his luggage stored. 
 
 Two centuries ago, the Mersey's flood ^ 
 Rolled to the sea a stream of natural mud ; 
 Beside its banks the noisy sea-fowl screamed, 
 On what is now a town the shepherd dreamed, 
 Or, like the poets' shepherd, waked the muse — 
 But now the place is all alive with Jews ^ ; 
 The active Israelite, from Jacob's days. 
 Has always studied every trick that pays ; 
 A ready reckoner and an office stool, 
 A ledger, a commission, and a fool, 
 Are all the stock in trade a Hebrew needs 
 To win the wealth with which the Gentile bleeds. 
 Hail ! conquering race ! 'Tis we who pay the cost 
 Of all those grinders which your grandsires lost. 
 For statesmen murder thousands at their will, 
 While you purvey the funds to pay the bill. 
 Purvey, forsooth ! You lend what 's not your own, 
 And pouch a pretty premium on the loan. 
 
 We cross to Birkenhead and view the place, 
 The mushroom source of England's last disgrace, 
 
 * Hie ubi nocturnae, etc. 
 
 ' Nunc sacri fontis nemus, et dclubra locantur 
 Judaeis, etc.
 
 72 JUVENAL, SAT. III. 
 
 The lofty chimneys and the building yard 
 
 Which won both wealth and eminence to Laird ^. 
 
 Better, far better, that the town had been 
 
 Still left a desert, and still robed in green, 
 
 Than that a sordid tradesman's petty aims 
 
 Matched foolish taunts with still more foolish claims. 
 
 Or gave importance to his mean affairs, 
 
 And made two nations quarrel o'er his wares. 
 
 Crossing the river through the lines of smoke, 
 My friend, whose forte is silence, silence broke ^: 
 
 ' Since honest labour finds no recompense 
 ' In this old world of jobbing and pretence; 
 ' Since I can neither puff nor advertise, 
 ' Nor know the trick of telling specious lies ; 
 ' Since I have no connection with reviews ^°, 
 ' And lack the skill to toady or abuse ; 
 
 ' Mr. Laird was the builder of the Alabama. This shipbuilder said in 
 the House of Commons, that he would rather build twenty Alabamas than 
 set class against class, as he assumed Mr. Bright had done. The man, 
 however, thought nothing of setting nation against nation. 
 
 " Hie tunc Umbritius, quando arlibus, inquit, honestis 
 Nullus in urbe locus. 
 
 '" It is understood that there is, perhaps it is inevita})le that there should 
 be, a good deal of mutual com]ilimeiit on the part of such reviewers aswiite 
 books, or have friends w ho write them. The world has lately witr.essed an 
 extravagant illustration of this contingency.
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. III. "J^ 
 
 ' Since, as the critic of my dearest friend, 
 
 ' Rather than flatter him, I would offend ; 
 
 ' Since I have always called a knave his name, 
 
 ' And roused the hate of those who feel no shame ; 
 
 ' Cared for no braggart of the daily press, 
 
 * Heir to his father's ill-deserved success, 
 
 ' Whose pedigree and fortunes are disclosed 
 
 * If a few syllables are just transposed — 
 ' (A lucky printers devil was the one : 
 
 ' The devil's printer is the luckier son — ) 
 
 ' And since the scanty pittance which is mine 
 
 * Feels day by day a slow but sure decline, 
 ' Is less this morning than 'twas yesterda}^ 
 
 ' And wastes a little by each hour's delay ; 
 
 ' Since, with the folly of an honest mind, 
 
 ' I fancied gratitude not wholly blind ; 
 
 ' Since I believed the promises I heard, 
 
 ' And gave some credence to a statesman's word, 
 
 ' Nor learnt the wisdom of these later days, 
 
 ' That foes are fed on pudding, friends on praise ; — 
 
 ' Schooled but not soured by all that I have learned, 
 
 ' Rich in the wide experience I have earned, 
 
 ' That distant land I seek, since fortune fails, 
 
 'Where once Columbus furled his tattered sails". 
 
 proponimus illuc 
 Ire, faticatas ubi Daedalus exuit alas.
 
 74 JUVENAL, SAT. III. 
 
 'While time has only flecked my head with snovv^^, 
 
 ' But leaves me hands to work and feet to go, 
 
 ' While I may reckon still that fate may give 
 
 ' A few more years to labour in, and live, 
 
 ' Ere age has forced my weakened frame to bow, 
 
 ' And lean upon the staff I brandish now, 
 
 ' I leave my fatherland ; the mean and base " 
 
 ' May buy my homestead, and usurp my place ; 
 
 ' That I relinquish freely to but why 
 
 ' Gibbet the knaves you know as well as I ? 
 
 ' Let them remain and flourish, w"ho delight 
 
 ' To prove that white is black and black is white ; 
 
 ' Who, trained to trade on meanness from their youth, 
 
 ' Fawn to the power which crushes down the truth ; 
 
 ' Hire themselves out to snarl and growl and bark, 
 
 ' And mangle reputations in the dark. 
 
 ' Let those remain and thrive whom greed will bring 
 
 ' For a percentage to do anything ; 
 
 ' Who like the candid Greek (I think his name 
 
 ' Was Xenos ^^), feel no qualms, and show no shame ; 
 
 '^ Dum nova canities, dum prima, et recta senectus. 
 
 13 Vivaiil Arloiius istic 
 
 Et Catulus. 
 I have not attempted, as Juvenal did. to name persons. 
 
 " Some years since a great broker, I think of this name, laid down 
 a general rule as lo business on commission. Still more startling avowals 
 were made by the Chairman of the Stock Exchange upon Mr. Lowe's com- 
 mittee. Pel haps the facts cannot be helped.
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. III. 75 
 
 ' Who, if a good commission come their way, 
 
 ' Will do the dirtiest work, and earn its pay ; 
 
 'Would take a bribe to hide a banker's fraud, 
 
 ' And if they found a buyer, sell their God ; 
 
 * Win trader's profit on a nation's toil, 
 
 ' Contract for churches, or contract for soil, 
 
 ' Sell dead men's bones to mix with turnip seed, 
 
 'Or hire a children's gang to farmer Read^''; 
 
 ' Will start a floating cofifin on the seas 
 
 ' And drown your sailors as a fox drowns fleas ^^, 
 
 ' Insure a sham, and should it serve their turn 
 
 ' To get their sordid gain, will sink or burn ; 
 
 ' And thus should win, whatever else they can, 
 
 ' The heartiest scorn which man can feel for man. 
 
 17 
 
 ' Such trades as these pick up the cent, per cent, 
 ' And push their followers into Parliament. 
 
 *^ Mr. Read is merely taken as a type of the farmer. The scandals of 
 agricultural gangs were before the writer's mind. Even now (1S75) the 
 Agricultural Children's Act is an admitted failure, and the poor pretence 
 for the failure is that the parents want the children's wages ; an excellent 
 topic for Mr. Arch. 
 
 ""' The reference is to Mr. PlimsoU's revelations. The prediction in the 
 next couplet has been verified lately at Bremerhaven. As long as society 
 reverences nothing but wealth there will be a perennial and increasing crop 
 of scoundrelism. 
 
 '" et cur non omnia? cum sint 
 
 Quales ex humili magna ad fastigia rerum 
 
 ExtoUit, quotiens voluit T'ortuna jocari. ,
 
 "^6 JUVENAL, SAT. III. 
 
 ' This honest traffic breeds the modern man, 
 
 ' This grants him all the gifts which Fortune can, 
 
 ' Tickets his person with the cash he 's worth, 
 
 ' And gives him charms of manners, wit, and birth. 
 
 'This made your Hudson's soirees a success ^^, 
 
 ' Bade Wellington approve, and Samuel bless ; 
 
 * Through half the year he spoke the nation's will, 
 
 ' Through all the year he made it serve his till. 
 
 ' By gifts of scrip, by gifts of endless beer, 
 
 ' He won the voter, and he won the peer. 
 
 ' Why quarrel with the way they win their bread r 
 ' Why grieve that Chance exalts the worthless head ? 
 ' Let Fortune jest, and make her favourites great, 
 ' Advance her blacklegs to a Duke's estate : 
 ' When Pope was living, England knew not how 
 ' To bear one Chartres " ; there 's a legion now. 
 
 'What place is left for me? I cannot lie'-*^, 
 ' Fawn on the knave, or honesty decry. 
 
 " Hudson was a great railway speculator. He was treated with great 
 consideration by the upper classes — while he was rich. He afterwards fell 
 into poverty, and it is creditable to the English character that many who 
 never flattered him when he was wealthy, assisted to put him above want 
 when he was poor. 
 
 '" Chartres was a great rogue in Pope's days See Pope's Third Epistle 
 (to Lord Bathurst) and Arbuthnot's epitaph on him. 
 
 '" Quid Romae faciam? mentiri nescio : libium 
 Si malus est, nequeo laudare et poscere.
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. III. ^^ 
 
 ' If noble authors publish vapid stuff 
 
 ' I cannot offer a judicious puff — 
 
 ' Praise Derby's Homer, bless the good Argyle, 
 
 ' Extol one's scholarship and t'other's style ; 
 
 ' I can't invade the realm with paper ships ^\ 
 
 ' I can't interpret the Apocalypse ; 
 
 ' I cannot wield the scientific pen 
 
 ' And prove men monkeys, or prove monkeys men, 
 
 ' Flatter the pride of birth's ancestral years 
 
 ' Which Darwin tracks to apes, and Burke to peers. 
 
 ' I cannot rap for spirits, conjure, preach, 
 
 ' Purvey new fashions, and new morals teach ; 
 
 ' I can't write novels of the modern sort, 
 
 ' Or cull my stories from Penzance's court ^^ ; 
 
 ' (Small matter ; lady novelists alone 
 
 ' Debauch the male sex, and depict their own ;) 
 
 ' I can't invent a bond, or cook accounts, 
 
 ' Or fail in business and for huge amounts ; 
 
 ' I can't be useful, for I can't be smart, 
 
 ' I've too much honour and too little art. 
 
 ' Your market price, to those who buy and sell ^'^ 
 ' Is what you know of them, not what you tell. 
 
 ^' Popular works. The Battle of Dorking, Dame Europa's School, etc. 
 ''^ The assistance which the Divorce Court has given to lady novelists in 
 the constmction of their plots is sufficiently no'orious. 
 ^' Quis nunc diligitur. nisi consciiis. et cui fervens 
 Aestuat occuUis animus sempeique tacer.dis? etc.
 
 yS JUVENAL, SAT. III. 
 
 ' Still hold your tongue, but always use your eyes, 
 
 ' The rich man 's forced to reckon with his spies ; 
 
 ' See and be silent, watch, and don't be nice ; 
 
 ' No honest secret ever had a price. 
 
 ' I do not tender hints like these to you, 
 
 ' For if your heart is sound, your tongue is true ; 
 
 ' Not all the gold Australia can afford, 
 
 ' Not all the wealth which makes a brand-new lord, 
 
 ' Not all the cash which Bismarck may expect, 
 
 ' Not all that Sumner claimed as indirect, 
 
 ' Would make you keep, against your natural rest, 
 
 ' A dirty secret in an anxious breast. 
 
 'What are the means for growing rich and great'-"? 
 ' Who are the men whom honest people hate ? 
 ' Who are the folks that slyly win their place 
 ' By constant pushing in this eager race ? 
 ' Who will compose, perforce, in future years 
 ' Your country gentleman, your house of peers ? 
 ' Why, as I hasten from my native shore 
 ' Shall I not name the facts which I deplore, 
 ' Or tell the reason why a growing band 
 ' Of English hearts abjure their fatherland ? 
 ' One talks of Jews. I would not harm a Jew, 
 ' Or rob him of a tittle that 's his due — 
 
 " Quae nunc divitibus gens acceptissima nostris, etc.
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. III. 79 
 
 ' Ticket his faith and fashions, and still less 
 
 ' Grudge him one right which you and I possess ; 
 
 ' Still I might welcome others in his place, 
 
 ' Prefer the Saxon to the Syrian race, 
 
 ' And gladly see him back in Palestine 
 
 ' With milk and honey — so it be not mine. 
 
 ' Yet these are few to speak of, in the hosts 
 ' Of human sewage flung upon our coasts. 
 ' The better emigrant seeks distant lands, 
 ' The lower type is thrown upon our hands. 
 ' The Liffey to the Mersey joins its flood ; 
 ' The Thames is festering, rank, with German mud ; 
 'The* busy Frenchman and the scheming Greek 
 ' Seek England's shores, and with good reason seek ; 
 ' Include each form of traffic in their range, 
 ' And make a Babel upon each Exchange, 
 ' They owe no duty to the land they drain, 
 ' They see no home where they collect their gain. 
 ' They 're keen, because they 've nothing else to do ; 
 ' They 're shrewd, since nothing else distracts their view. 
 ' Thus the trained hawk his quarry best descries, 
 ' Who wears, when idle, blinkers on his eyes. 
 ' Where'er you turn, the foreigner you meet ; 
 ' A German band howls out in every street.
 
 8o JUVENAL, SAT. III. 
 
 'Hither they come in swarms which never cease; 
 
 ' Now win their spoils by war and now by peace. 
 
 ' That street whose graceful curves and lines denote 
 
 ' The Regent's figure in the Regent's coat, 
 
 ' With foreign shops invites the passer by 
 
 'While foreign harlots in the Circus ply^^, 
 
 ' The venal nymphs, who mighty paniers wear, 
 
 ' And mightier pyramids of yellow hair. 
 
 ' Thy damsels, England, one and all confess 
 
 ' The demi-monde's consummate taste in dress. 
 
 'These are the simpler arts, and these alone, 
 
 ' Which virtue, youth, and beauty make their own. 
 
 ' For w^hen the natural charm begins to fail, 
 
 ' A Rachel beautifies a Borradaile "®. 
 
 'Hither from Hambro, Frankfort, Riga, KieP^, 
 ' From Smyrna, Scio, Athens, thousands steal ; 
 ' From Cork, from Galway, Dublin, or Belfast, 
 ' Eastward or westward, here they stop at last ; 
 ' Half London is a foreign colony, 
 ' Half Liverpool is now, or soon will be ; 
 ' Each country under heaven transports its hordes, 
 ' Our servants now, and presently our lords ; 
 
 '' ad Circum jussas piostare pucllas. 
 
 ^'' Madame Rachel was a beautifier, and Mrs. Borradaile was a silly old 
 woman who thouglil that she mij^ht be a victory of Madame Rachel's art. 
 The operators came to gi icf Rusticus ilie tuns, etc. 
 
 '' II ic alta Sicyonc, asl hie Amydone relicta. etc.
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. III. 8 1 
 
 ' This one is versatile, and that is bold, 
 
 ' Each with his native brass wins British gold : 
 
 'Your Schneider's talk all parallel defies, 
 
 'More dark than Hegel, more than Breitmann wise. 
 
 ' Who are these strangers, what do they profess ? 
 ' No bushel hides the light which they possess. 
 ' What do they bring to this benighted land ? 
 ' What do they not, say rather, understand ? 
 ' Whatever art and science may be known, 
 ' They vow they know it, and they know alone. 
 ' Give them a chance, and trust them for the rest, 
 ' They '11 hold their own, and hold it with the best. 
 'If heaven were worth their pains, or did it pay-^, 
 ' Through heaven itself these men would force their way. 
 ' But what 's more germane to their highest aims, 
 ' Some back-stairs influence puffs and puffs their claims. 
 
 ' This is the crew I fly from ^^. Shall I see 
 ' Hybrids like these take precedence of me ? 
 ' Shall these adventurers thrive, and take our place, 
 ' These men of guttural names and dubious race ? — 
 ' Who six years since, before they made a noise, 
 ' Came here with Hambro sherry, hemp, and toys. 
 
 '* Graeculus esuriens, in coelum jusseris, ibit. 
 ^ Horum ego non fugiam conchylia? etc. 
 
 G
 
 82 JUVENAL, SAT. III. 
 
 ' Is it no matter that such stocks as ours 
 
 ' Have been the source of all this country's powers, 
 
 ' Have laid the broad foundations of the state, 
 
 'Built up the nation and made England great? 
 
 'That now, like vultures scenting out a prey, 
 
 ' These supple tradesmen hustle us away — 
 
 'Give them their way, in every English place 
 
 ' The rarest sight will be an English face ; 
 
 ' Give them their way, and then the ocean o'er 
 
 ' Self-banished, he will seek another shore. 
 
 ' Where for some time, until there 's cream to skim, 
 
 ' These keen-eyed cormorants will not follow him. 
 
 ' We quit our country, yielding to their claims, 
 ' And thev take all. av, even take our names. 
 ' Manasseh, Cohen, Levi, Israel, soon 
 ' Are Massey, Lewis, Raleigh, and Colquhoun. 
 ' But when his tongue the adopted Saxon plies, 
 'The voice of Jacob breaks the thin disguise, 
 ' And by its nasal snuffle, to our view, 
 ' Betrays the patriarch and unmasks the Jew. 
 
 ' Think you that such as these would sacrifice 
 ' One single penny of the market price ? 
 'Would, if the land which makes them rich and great, 
 ' Ran any risk, a single farthing bate }
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. III. S^ 
 
 ' Would, if it staked upon some desperate strife 
 ' All well-earned wealth, and every worthy life, 
 ' Fail to exact the profit that they might, 
 ' Or fancy wholesale knavery not their right ? 
 ' Learn, from the story of unhappy France, 
 ' The nation's agony 's the tradesman's chance. 
 ' Although the storm is high, the sky is dark, 
 ' Gambetta "" strives to save the shattered bark ; 
 ' Hope seems to smile upon his desperate feats, 
 ' He fails, because he 's forced to trade with cheats. 
 ' The people gives its blood, its cash, its toil, 
 ' While sharp contractors carry off the spoil. 
 
 ' Patriots, I know, are very dubious men, 
 ' Not one is honest out of every ten. 
 ' The cry is easy, and one cannot tell 
 ' Whether its crier means to buy or sell ; 
 ' To make some profit from the stuff he says, 
 ' And help some folly, if he sees it pays. 
 ' So smashers, for their proper ends, may join 
 ' To aid the Mint in issuing current coin ; 
 ' And, if no practised eye the fraud detects, 
 ' May furnish Tomline ^^ more than he expects. 
 
 ^ Gambetta, a statesman of the highest genius, courage, and prudence, is 
 the man who has really saved France from revolution, and restored it to 
 its place among nations. 
 
 "1 Mr. Tomline is a gentleman who entertained, perhaps still entertains, 
 very eccentric -vdews on the currency. 
 
 G 2
 
 84 JUVENAL, SAT. III. 
 
 ' But they who never let one generous thought 
 
 ' Enter the workshop where their wealth is wrought ; 
 
 'Who never occupy their heart and brain 
 
 'With any higher end than sordid gain — 
 
 ' Enough of this, since time would not suffice 
 
 ' To illustrate the mongrel and his vice. 
 
 ' I cannot linger here, where wealth alone 
 'Asserts, assumes all merit as its own. 
 'Where willing lackeys, though the case is clear, 
 ' Condemn the poor man, but condone the peer. 
 ' What ! dare convict my lord of any fault ? 
 ' Beleravia shudders at the rude assault. 
 ' What ! dare to put a noble in the dock ? 
 ' Could those who own a Peerage stand the shock ? 
 ' What ! let a scandal on his fame be seen ? 
 'Nay, rather find his lordship any screen. 
 'Did not the people's William once record*^ 
 'That every true-born Briton loves a lord? 
 ' Call him to justice ? Be content, be still, 
 'And thank your stars he does not write your will^''. 
 
 ' I cannot linger here, my heart grows faint 
 'At hopeless sorrow's all-unnoticed plaint. 
 
 82 A name given by the Daily Telegraph to Mr. Gladstone. 
 35 See the case of Handcock v. Delacour.
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. III. S^ 
 
 ' I hear the moanings of a helpless throng — 
 
 ' Who dares to grapple with the boundless wrong ? 
 
 ' Or if he dares, what prospect can he see 
 
 ' Of doing right and aiding misery ? 
 
 ' 'Tis madness with those customs to contend, 
 
 ' Which law allows and sycophants defend. 
 
 ' 'Tis not that herds of hireling scribblers ply 
 
 ' That kind of sneer which best maintains a lie ; 
 
 ' They write to order, and their master pays, 
 
 ' I scorned their censure, and I loathed their praise ; 
 
 ' I did not envy them ; my lowlier lot 
 
 ' Was to know what is true, and prove it not. 
 
 ' Like Paul, I sought to do so, and I must — 
 
 ' How prove it, in this region of distrust ? 
 
 ' Where selfish knaves may aid, aye, win their end 
 
 ' Because men know not how to find their friend, 
 
 ' What ? would he teach them ? Keep them in the dark, 
 
 ' And then no skill avails to hit the mark. 
 
 'What? Will they hear? A leader then at once — 
 
 ' Pervert his words, and prove him knave and dunce ; 
 
 ' The process is effective, safe, and plain — 
 
 'Write smartly, and the man will talk in vain^*. 
 
 ^* This passage is intended to comment on the arts by which the partisan 
 and Stock Exchange press deals with independent politicians. It need be 
 applied to no paper in particular, for unluckily the genus is over wide. 
 Exactly the same objection was made to tlie partisan press by Lord Pal- 
 merston in 1849, and by Prince Bismarck in 1S76.
 
 86 JUVENAL, SAT. III. 
 
 ' Ere long the better strain of English blood 
 ' Will hurry westwards, in a rapid flood ; 
 ' As yet it clings to each familiar place, 
 ' Nor likes to quit the cradle of the race ; 
 
 * Ere long t'will shake off hopes and shake off fears, 
 'And leave its home to traders and to peers. 
 'And then it may be found, when all too late, 
 
 ' That men, not rents and profit, make a state. 
 
 'The tide of those who thither take their course 
 
 * Is sometimes moved by will, sometimes by force. 
 ' Nor think the former is the modern rule, 
 
 ' The latter savours of the feudal school. 
 
 ' Eight centuries have passed since wanton might 
 
 ' Laid waste a county for a king's delight ; 
 
 'The curse still cleaves to either William's name, 
 
 ' Because they drove out men, to bring in game. 
 
 'What has been told of them, of these is true^^, 
 
 ' Who cleared, in gentle phrase, one country through ; 
 
 ' Banished a nation from its old abode, 
 
 ' Its rights, its memories harshly overrode. 
 
 " The clearings of Northern Scotland were accompanied by circumstances 
 of great harshness and cruelty. Legal quibbles had given the heads of the 
 clans full rights of property in the soil, and the landlords used these rights 
 mercilessly. See for example M<^ Leod's Sutherlandshire Clearances.
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. III. 8/ 
 
 ' Debarred from robbing others, desperate grown, 
 'The Highland chieftain stooped to rob his own; 
 ' Drove out his kinsfolk for his proper greed, 
 ' Contrived a desert, and defends the deed. 
 ' And why ? Of yore, far from their native soil 
 ' Chieftain and clansmen hurried to the spoil ; 
 'The head to plan the raid, the arm to fight, 
 ' Were useful in those days of dubious right ; 
 ' But now the chieftain wins far greater gains 
 'Without their presence, and without their pains. 
 ' Thus they who did his bidding in that day 
 ' Are, in these happier times, much best away ; 
 ' Since they're no use, let solitude regain, 
 ' On fell and loch and hill, her ancient reign. 
 'A herd of deer bears now a higher worth 
 'Than all the Highlandmen who fought at Perth. 
 ' They were, if tales are true, a gallant race, 
 'But grown superfluous, game deserves their place. 
 ' Persuaded, but not harried, as of old 
 'The weary Saxon gladly gives his gold, 
 ' Pays down a mighty rent, nor thinks it dear 
 'To act the Crusoe once or twice a year. 
 ' On one condition is the money paid, 
 ' Game must be there, and solitude be made. 
 ' Agreed — the men are banished to the West, 
 'And the rich sportsman buys his lonely rest.
 
 88 JUVENAL, SAT. III. 
 
 ' The clustered hamlet and the house of prayer, 
 'Are roofless, wasted, ruined, bleak, and bare^", 
 ' Where children played, beside the rustling stream, 
 ' The raven croaks his wail, the owlets scream ; 
 ' Where maidens gathered by the forest lake 
 
 * The cunning fox creeps slowly through the brake. 
 ' High o'er the graves the grass is rank and deep, 
 
 ' And there the red deer may in quiet sleep ; 
 ' A thousand clansmen gathered in the glen, 
 ' The hill-side now can hardly muster ten ; 
 ' Ten, did I say .^ Let not a soul come near ; 
 ' Let nothing meet the eye, or rouse the ear ; 
 ' Silence alone can fill the sportsman's bag, 
 ' The sight of man affrights the lordly stag. 
 
 ' Think you the victims of these bargains glance 
 ' With kindly eyes across the blue expanse ? 
 ' Exiled, and settled in a distant spot, 
 ' Think you they dwell with meekness on their lot ? 
 ' Or bless the power which forces them to roam 
 ' Far from their fathers' graves, their fathers' home ? 
 ' They may forgive the chief, whom law alone 
 
 * Permits to make another man's his own ; 
 
 ' Will they forgive the country and the laws, 
 ' Which press so hardly on the peasant's cause ? 
 
 ^^ Any person who has travelled over Scotland north of the Tay can 
 bear witness to this result.
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. III. 89 
 
 ' Or look on you who stay, except with hate, 
 
 'Who hve the wiUing vassals of the great? 
 
 ' Nations collect their view from public facts, 
 
 'And judge a people by its rulers' acts: 
 
 'You think the better, but you choose the worse, 
 
 ' Your statesmen blunder, and you bear the curse. 
 
 ' Don't be misguided by the platitude 
 ' Of kinship, common race, and brotherhood — 
 ' The men who use it, know that this and that 
 ' Are but the froth of after-dinner chat. 
 ' But would you know, if kindred nations hate, 
 ' What is the force which keeps them separate ? 
 ' Look to the facts which rent the two apart, 
 ' 'Tis there the sting is, there the lasting smart ; 
 ' No hate is like the love which wrong has changed, 
 ' No anger like the wrath of friends estranged. 
 
 ' Perhaps you say — " What ! fly from duty's call ? 
 ' " If wrongs are wrought, do battle with them all. 
 ' " No honest courage ever is misplaced, 
 ' " No generous effort is an utter waste ; 
 ' " Pause for a while, delay your threatened flight, 
 ' ' " And hope that fortune may defend the right. 
 ' " That man will always deal the heaviest blows 
 ' " Who never counts the number of his foes ;
 
 90 JUVENAL, SAT. III. 
 
 ' " Who, whether they be many or be few, 
 
 ' " Considers only if his aim be true ; 
 
 '"Knows that his shaft, if it be duly sped, 
 
 ' " Will smite each brazen face, each bullet head ; 
 
 ' " Who treats all knaves, who treats all fools alike, 
 
 ' " And only watches where he best may strike ; 
 
 ' " The man who ventures, is the man to win ; 
 
 ' " The way to victory is to begin ; 
 
 ' " The brave, the bold, the rash alone succeed 
 
 '"And many followers gather to the lead." 
 
 ' I know it — but 'tis hard to reckon where 
 ' Hope yields to doubt, and doubt to blank despair ; 
 ' I know that hope is strong, and doubt is weak, 
 ' Is slow to move, and slower still to speak. 
 ' And, as a bankrupt fancies that he thrives, 
 ' That men are desperate, ere despair arrives. 
 ' It may be that my heart has grown too sad 
 'To gather back the hopes which once it had, 
 ' And that I err in thinking you have reached 
 ' Close to that state of which the prophet preached ; 
 ' That prophet, who declared, with mournful tongue, 
 ' The woes which o'er his blinded country hung, 
 'Who poured his tale into unwilling ears, 
 ' Who roused its anger, did not wake its fears —
 
 JUVENAL, SAT, III. Ql 
 
 '"What strength can save that people, if it would, 
 * " Which calls good, evil ; and calls evil, good ? " 
 
 ' You say that conquest follows him who tries ; 
 ' But whither can I turn for my allies ? 
 ' Few are the men who know, or have the skill 
 'To do the work, far fewer have the will — 
 ' If one such generous thought has crossed their mind, 
 ' If they have dreamed of succouring mankind, 
 ' Think of the bribes which tempt them to betray, 
 'Think of the threats which frighten them away, 
 ' Think of the petulance of those they aid, 
 ' Think them suspicious, doubtful, slow, afraid, 
 ' Now roused to hope, now crouching in the dust, 
 ' Wayward as children, but without their trust. 
 ' Look at the downcast glance of all the race, 
 ' The little light which glimmers in their face, 
 ' Enslaved for ages to a master's hand 
 ' These landless hinds, what can they understand ? 
 
 ■' Ah ! I forget, they comprehend at least 
 ' The generous prizes of the farmer's feast "'^. 
 ' Where high o'er all, the Knight of Bucks declaims, 
 ' Extols his friends to heaven, his foes defames, 
 ' Hints at the dangers which beset the realm, 
 ' Hints that his partisans should grasp the helm ; 
 
 ^ This nonsensical custom is now abandoned, I believe.
 
 92 JUVENAL, SAT. III. 
 
 ' Hints that in him the buhvark may be seen 
 
 ' Of Church and cottage, property and Queen ; 
 
 ' While his bhiff audience, on his words intent, 
 
 ' Applauds his terrors, grunts its gruff assent, 
 
 ' Empties the glass, sends the decanters round, 
 
 ' And sees the hoary peasant take his pound ; 
 
 ' The grand reward of years in labour spent, 
 
 ' To stunted serfdom doled by bloated rent ; 
 
 ' The lifelong service which has earned the dole 
 
 ' Has worked his body out and crushed his soul. 
 
 ' Oh ! if old Egypt's dream were sober truth, 
 
 ' If the dead man renewed his birth and youth, 
 
 ' If priests still taught that beings transmigrate, 
 
 ' Change not themselves, but only change their state ; 
 
 ' If, in that second life, each past offence 
 
 ' Should find its doom, each wrong its recompense, 
 
 ' The peasant well might pray, " I do not ask 
 
 ' " That other men may work my weary task, 
 
 '"I bear no malice, but — just heaven, be kind! 
 
 ' " Make me the farmer's horse, and not his hind ^**." 
 
 ' But you may say — the nation has a voice, 
 ' Your House of Commons is the people's choice ; 
 
 '' Since this was written, owing in great degree to the efforts of Mr. Arch 
 and his associates, the condition of the agricultural labourer has been con- 
 siderably improved.
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. III. 93 
 
 ' If wrong is done, this House can set it right, 
 
 'If mischief's brewing, 'tis before their sight. 
 
 ' Are there not statesmen who will undertake 
 
 ' To save the nation for the nation's sake ? 
 
 ' Has not the Times disclosed, and proved it too, 
 
 ' How little they receive, how much they do ; 
 
 ' How little of the cash which you disburse, 
 
 'Flows from the Treasury to the Member's purse? — 
 
 ' How cheap the process is which gives you law.'' 
 
 ' In such a senate, who can find a flaw ? 
 
 ' Committees, through the day, absorb their time ; 
 
 'All night they sit "in colloquy sublime." 
 
 ' Avoid the gallery, and think you see, 
 
 ' A guardian angel, not a sharp M.P. 
 
 ' Take comfort, live in peace, be not afraid, 
 
 ' Great Britain's safe amid the great unpaid. 
 
 ' Unluckily a little closer sight 
 ' Brings out a very different view to light ; 
 ' Men may be salaried in many ways, 
 ' And taxes are not all the nation pays. 
 ' This senate, which you laud as wise and pure, 
 ' Keeps to one policy, hard, fast, and sure ; 
 ' Upon the people lays its heavy hand, 
 ' Protects the landlord, and protects his land —
 
 94 JUVENAL, SAT. III. 
 
 'The landlord's pleasures and the landlord's gains, 
 ' These are the objects which secure their pains. 
 ' This is the public good, and this the right, 
 'For which these patriots battle, night by night; 
 ' Touch one abuse, and then on either side 
 ' The House is crammed, each seat is occupied, 
 ' Each thickset squire prepares for the defence, 
 ' The walls resound with lumbering eloquence, — 
 ' Till in this mob the voice of reason 's hushed, 
 ' Inquiry 's stifled, and reform is crushed. 
 
 ' The House is sitting on a railway bill ; 
 'The forty thieves are there ^^ the lobbies fill, 
 ' Lynx-eyed and bland, the great director speaks : 
 ' " The public good alone " (he says) he seeks ; 
 ' Cool business men prolong the sharp debate, 
 ' Selected facts, selected figures state, 
 ' And prove, with practised shrewdness, that the plan 
 ' Can do no earthly good to mortal man, 
 ' While its promoters argue that it would, 
 ' At little cost, confer the greatest good. 
 'Think you that when they strive to get their Acts, 
 ' Motives like these are stanch and sober facts ? 
 ' Think you they argue for the nation's ends ? 
 'Their only thought is— larger dividends. 
 
 '^ The sobriquet by which the railway party goes in the House of 
 Commons.
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. III. 95 
 
 ' He who would win its ear, its passions rouse 
 ' Learns to address the pockets of the House. 
 
 ' Again, should things of high import demand 
 ' Its careful scrutiny, its vigorous hand, 
 ' Should England's duty to the Indian race ^^ 
 ' (India, at once our glory and disgrace) 
 ' Require its close attention, task its powers, 
 ' Exact a fragment of its business hours, 
 ' Pray that its parties lay upon the shelf 
 'Just for a little time, all thoughts of self; 
 ' Vain is the summons, useless is the prayer, 
 ' The House grows languid, and its benches bare, 
 ' The members yawn, and sleep ; or wake, and shout, 
 ' Till the kind whip allows them to count out. 
 ' Or should the scattered sons of England's name 
 ' Within whose future lies her boast — and shame, 
 ' Tell her that what they seek, and long have sought 
 ' Is — how to knit the cord that 's strongly wrought, 
 ' Bid her discard, and prove that she is wise, 
 ' The bond which chafes, and find the bond which ties, 
 ' Puzzled and weary at the strange request 
 ' Your statesmen mutter ; that which is, is best. 
 ' Postpone the question with a courteous scoff, 
 ' And for the present put the future off. 
 
 *" The management of Indian affairs lias greatly improved of Lite years. 
 But there is a very languid interest in Indian finance.
 
 96 JUVENAL, SAT. III. 
 
 'For things like these the House will never care, 
 'Unless it wishes to condone an Eyre*'. 
 ' How can a nation e'er be good and great 
 'Which always slumbers on a life estate? 
 
 ' Those senators, whose patriot purity 
 ' The Times comments on, but I fail to see, 
 ' Seek to exclude, and do not vainly seek, 
 ' The men who know the truth, and dare to speak ; 
 ' Force all to enter by a golden gate ; 
 ' Force all to buy the right to legislate. 
 ' As long as wealth alone can win the seat, 
 ' They fear no danger, counsel no retreat, 
 ' Enact, for their own gain, the Nation's laws, 
 'And, through the people, wreck the people's cause. 
 ' This is an age of commerce, we are told, 
 ' A seat that 's bought, believe me, will be sold. 
 ' 'Tis an investment, and the money spent 
 ' May bring, in annual interest, cent, per cent. 
 
 ' Divide and rule, — so said the ancient sage, 
 ' Maintain the Parties, says the present age. 
 
 " Governor Eyre, whose friends say that he saved Jamaica : whose critics, 
 that he got rid of the chief of the opposition to his government by hanging 
 him illegally, and then procuring a bill of indemnity from the colonial 
 legislature.
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. III. 97 
 
 ' Keep up the see-saw, give each side a chance, 
 
 ' The game is nothing but a country dance '^'■^, 
 
 ' Russell and Cavendish now lead the throng, 
 
 ' Then Lennox comes, comes Hamilton along ; 
 
 ' The circle always ends where it begins, 
 
 ' The Outs are always waiting on the Ins. 
 
 ' So, when the drover, resting for the night, 
 
 ' Fears lest his beasts may wander out of sight, 
 
 ' He tries the plan, and never finds it fail, 
 
 ' Of tying pairs together, head and tail, 
 
 ' Where, if the parts are only firmly bound, 
 
 ' Onward or backward struggles twist them round. 
 
 ' Stirred by the clamour of fictitious zeal, 
 ' The public fancies that the change is real. 
 ' Misled by watchwords, claptrap, names, and cries, 
 ' It can't detect the truth in the disguise ; 
 ' Gulled by the clever actor, who declares 
 ' That he will save it from a rival's snares, 
 ' It does not see that party quarrels mean 
 ' Unbroken friendliness — behind the scene ; 
 ' Or that these hustings foes are friends at home, 
 ' And laugh, as augurs did, in classic Rome *^ 
 
 *' This is the substance of Lord Hartington's advice to the Liberal party 
 at present (1875). The satire was written in 1873. 
 
 *^ Classic, because a type for modern practice. Cicero wondered that 
 augurs did not laugh when they met each other. 
 
 H
 
 98 JUVENAL, SAT. III. 
 
 ' Who when they met, the gainful fraud confessed 
 ' And made their public craft a private jest. 
 ' I might find many proofs, but what 's the need ? 
 ' The facts are patent, he who runs may read. 
 
 ' Dim as their jargon is, they make this clear : 
 ' That though they won't do right, they yield to fear, 
 ' If you are patient, wrong will never cease. 
 ' D'ye want a remedy — then break the peace. 
 ' What made them leave their henchmen in the lurch, 
 ' Their ancient garrison, the Irish Church } 
 ' What made them grant the claim of tenant right ? 
 ' Did justice change their sentiments, or fright ? 
 ' Beales and his followers took the Park by storm, — 
 ' The broken railings hurried on Reform ^*. 
 ' 111 fares that State whose Government consents 
 ' To move, — but only after violence. 
 ' Do they deserve the nation's will to wield 
 ' Who meanly bluster and who meanly yield ? 
 ' Who, while 'tis safe, are resolute and bold, 
 * But, forced to face a fact, can only scold ? 
 
 ' Your wandering orator, your Odger, Arch *^, 
 ' Are but the buckram leaders in the march. 
 
 " Mr. Beales was president of the Reform League. When the poh'ce, 
 under government orders (proved to have been illegall. tried to stop meet- 
 ings in the Parks, the crowd broke down the raihngs (July 23, 1S66). 
 
 ** Mr. Odger has long been an active partisan among the working classes. 
 Mr. Arch had just begun to be conspicuous when these lines were wnttcn.
 
 JUVENAI-, SAT. III. 99 
 
 ' The man who goads the will, and fires the blood, 
 
 ' Collects the torrent, and provokes the flood, 
 
 ' Is he who threatens, sulks, rejects, defies, 
 
 'Till grudging prudence gives what pride denies. 
 
 ' He is a demagogue, who folds his hands 
 
 ' Till clamour forces all that it demands ; 
 
 'He is a demagogue, who says, "The change, 
 
 ' " Though right, is not within the present's range ^V' 
 
 ' Admits the justice of some urgent claim, 
 
 ' But will not aid it till it suits his game ; 
 
 ' Who still declines to feel the people's pulse 
 
 ' Till wrath may rouse or discontent convulse ; 
 
 ' Or seeks to compromise, and so delay 
 
 ' The present struggle to some future day — 
 
 ' A compromise — the thing is understood 
 
 ' To mean that two plain wrongs make one plain good. 
 
 'What is a statesman? He who can impart 
 ' The honest counsel of an honest heart ; 
 'Who never strives to trick out what he says 
 ' By empty rhetoric and unmeaning phrase ; 
 ' Whom no man scorns, because the words he speaks, 
 ' Straight to the purpose, prove what 'tis he seeks ; 
 
 ** This unfortunate doctrine, that public questions are not to be con- 
 templated by Government until they are within the range of ' practical 
 politics,' was, more unhappily, formulated by Mr. Gladstone. It will be 
 obvious that such a view of the situation irritates equally those who desire, 
 and those who resist a change, because it suggests or threatens agitation. 
 
 H 2
 
 100 JUVENAL, SAT. III. 
 
 'Who need not doubt, because he never fears 
 ' The sharpest eyes, nor heeds the siUiest ears ; 
 'Who cares to make the nation opulent, 
 'To make it free, to make it more — content. 
 ' This man you ought to honour, this to trust, 
 ' And when I say you ought, I mean, you must. 
 
 ' Must — for this fact is now made manifest : 
 ' In the great race, that nation keeps abreast 
 ' Whose people know their country is their own, 
 ' Where wealth is general, misery hardly known ; 
 'Where those who have the land are those who till- 
 ' No trembling tenants to another's will ; 
 ' Where, rooted to the soil, the people grows, 
 ' And as one man, sees friends as well as foes ; 
 ' Where men may live upon their fatherland, 
 * Live in one mind, live with one heart and hand, 
 ' And see in those who quit their native place 
 ' The bounteous harvest of a fruitful race : 
 ' Where men are ready, resolute and brave, 
 ' As men will be who have their own to save ; 
 ' Whom idle dreams of glory cannot make 
 ' The witless gamblers of a single stake, 
 ' On whom, if fortune frowns, the cross is theirs, 
 But if she smiles, the crown another wears.
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. III. 10 1 
 
 'You sweep your soldiers up by other ways, 
 
 ' You crimp your hirelings from your waifs and strays. 
 
 ' Your great men fear, and with no little sense, 
 
 ' To trust the nation with its own defence. 
 
 ' Does what I say need proof, and should I show 
 ' That what I state is fact and must be so ? 
 ' If in some bitter feud, some ancient strife, 
 ' The nation 's forced to risk its very life, 
 ' It need not fear the perils it may run 
 ' If the whole people 's armed ; its force is one : 
 ' But armed and one it cannot be until 
 ' A common justice moves a common will, 
 ' Till each man knows and sees that when he fights 
 'The battle's brunt will vindicate his rights. 
 ' The hireling sells his blood, the freeman gives ; 
 ' That is a tool, but this both thinks and lives. 
 
 ' Maddened by wrong, by fear made desperate, 
 ' Remembering centuries of smothered hate, 
 ' Goaded by terror, terror which suspects 
 ' A thousandfold the danger it detects, 
 'Which, ever brooding, fancies that it spies 
 ' The prowling traitor in the friend's disguise ; 
 ' Hurried along, as by a torrent's flood, 
 ' France bathed her freedom in her children's blood.
 
 102 JUVENAL, SAT. III. 
 
 ' But in her agony, when Brunswick spoke, 
 
 ' And bade her wear anew the broken yoke, 
 
 ' Take back the rulers which she once had spurned- 
 
 ' Then with one fire the nation's spirit burned, 
 
 ' And the new lords of France, her serfs before, 
 
 ' Resistless conquerors now, sped Europe o'er, 
 
 ' Till an ignoble master bought their swords 
 
 ' And changed these freedmen into brigand hordes, 
 
 ' Made that a spectre which at first began 
 
 ' To lift the dawning light of hope to man ; 
 
 ' Made that a terror where our fathers saw 
 
 ' The coming reign of right and equal law, 
 
 ' And on the gulled, besotted nation brought 
 
 ' The mischief which his mad ambition wrought. 
 
 * When vanquished upon Jena's fatal field 
 ' Prussia was forced her very self to yield ; 
 ' When serf and king and noble were enslaved ; 
 ' What roused the nation's life, the nation saved ? 
 ' 'Twas not the memory of Frederic's drill, 
 ' 'Twas not the heroine queen's undaunted will, 
 ' 'Twas not the monarch and his right divine ; 
 'Two men restored her, Hardenberg and Stein, 
 ' Armed with a deathless courage every hand 
 ' And made each home a fortress of the land.
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. III. IO3 
 
 'Lord of a thousand tribes, a realm whose span 
 ' Ranges in length from Prussia to Japan, 
 'And from the Euxine to the Arctic main, 
 ' Includes the frozen sea and boundless plain, 
 ' Prince of a church, whose mission 's to debase 
 ' The heart, the life, the spirit of the race ; 
 ' A prince, before whose glance men quailed in dread, 
 ' And the proud noble bent the cowering head ; 
 ' Whose power was girdled round by helpless awe, 
 ' Whose wish was absolute, whose will was law ; 
 ' A prince whose iron mood and reaching hand 
 ' Few men dared counsel, no man dared withstand ; 
 'Whose million soldiers, watching for his nod, 
 ' Dreamed when they served him, that they worshipped 
 
 'God; 
 ' Whose giant frame, whose patient, vigorous mind, 
 ' Gave warrant for his place among mankind ; 
 ' Who always reckoned life at little cost, 
 ' And knew no mercy when his will was crossed ; 
 ' Who ruled unnumbered slaves, and ruling, knew 
 ' That every slave was loyal, faithful, true ; 
 ' This man was thought resistless ; to his power 
 ' The stricken nations learnt to cringe and cower ; 
 'And yet the sword which, waiting his command, 
 ' Forged by his craft, and wielded by his hand, 
 ' Gleamed like a meteor through the Eastern sky, 
 ' Which seemed so distant, and was felt so nigh,
 
 104 JUVENAL, SAT. III. 
 
 ' Alike a terror to his friend and foe, 
 * Brittle as ice, was shattered at a blow. 
 
 ' Thus could I show, did time permit to speak, 
 ' Why Austria fought, and why her arm was weak ; 
 
 * Thus, why the meaner Bonaparte fell, 
 
 ' And wrecked the realm which trusted him too well. 
 
 ' But this at least experience has discerned, 
 
 ' This truth established, and this lesson learned : — 
 
 ' That game of war which despots undertake 
 
 ' Wagers their all upon a single stake ; 
 
 ' If they must battle, like should fight with like ; 
 
 ' With freemen they may bluster, never strike. 
 
 'And next, that soldier's stanch, and he alone 
 
 ' Who fights in order to protect his own. 
 
 ' A man may kill a bee upon the wing, 
 
 ' A thousand bees, and never feel a sting, 
 
 ' But let him thrust his hand into the hive, 
 
 ' And he may find the swarm is — all alive. 
 
 * You know, no doubt, what party 'tis secures 
 ' The store of honey in that hive of yours, 
 
 ' Who drone, who work, and, most important thing, 
 ' That they who own no honey, have no sting. 
 ' And, may be, find, before it be too late, 
 
 * What makes a nation, and what mars a state.
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. III. IO5 
 
 ' If as you ponder on the ills you see, 
 ' The grip of greed, the wrath of misery ; 
 ' If as you count the force on either side, 
 ' The rage which frets against the hand of pride, 
 ' And as you watch the mischief, it may seem 
 ' Your Church can heal it ; scout the idle dream. 
 ' Time was when they who preached could rouse the soul, 
 ' And make the tide of misery backward roll ; 
 ' Time was when men were dough, and words were leaven, 
 ' And when the voice appeared to come from heaven ; 
 ' When his strange message the bold preacher brought, 
 ' And staked his life upon the truth he taught ; 
 ' When, meditating on his sacred page, 
 ' He woke the slumbering spirit of his age ; 
 ' When, seeking anxious hearts and greedy ears, 
 ' He stirred their anger or dispelled their fears ; 
 ' Telling his moving tale to every sense, 
 ' The tale of sorrow, wrong, and recompense — 
 ' Of how God's arm was bared to ease their grief, 
 ' Of how His spirit aided their relief, 
 ' Of how the enemy must turn and fly 
 ' Before the strong right hand and kindled eye ; 
 ' Of how men fought for God in ancient days, 
 ' And having won their battle, sang his praise ; 
 ' Or, if their sorrows found no mortal friend, 
 ' God's self would give them vengeance in the end —
 
 I06 JUVENAL, SAT. III. 
 
 ' Preachers like these have, in life's darkest hour, 
 
 ' Given men new hopes, and made their church a power. 
 
 ' What is the union of your Church and State ? 
 ' Your priests are mostly lackeys of the great. 
 ' Your bishop is a prince, a lord, a peer, 
 ' A man of several thousand pounds a year, 
 ' Whom kindly Providence permits to hive 
 ' A copious family, and make it thrive. 
 ' Chosen to fill his see on no pretence 
 ' Of courage, foresight, learning, eloquence " ; 
 ' A schoolmaster, an ignorant cadet, 
 'A priest with kinsfolk near the cabinet, 
 'A pompous don, of kindly, stupid face, 
 'These, Paul and Peter! occupy your place. 
 ' There, though we miss the groaning voice of Trench, 
 'One Irish howl still issues from the bench. 
 
 'To the dry bones of dogma can they give 
 ' The prophet's power. Be clothed with flesh and live ? 
 ' Can they perform the work which has been done, 
 ' Revive the nation's faith, and make it one ? 
 ' Can they do that which Knox and Melville did, 
 ' And make the people follow as they bid ; 
 
 « Perhaps this is mended to some extent lately. But Bishop Words- 
 worth is doing his best to prove the reverse of Pope's statement— 
 ' A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn.'
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. III. 10/ 
 
 ' Lay down a polity, enact its laws, 
 
 ' And win all hearts to struggle for that cause ? 
 
 ' Of course not ; and they know it. Scarce a word 
 
 ' For justice, right, and truth is ever heard 
 
 ' From that Right Reverend Bench, on whose soft perch 
 
 ' Roosts the fine linen of the English Church. 
 
 ' They know it ; grateful Ellicott displays 
 
 ' The saintly gifts for which the nation pays, 
 
 ' When, raising up his apostolic hand, 
 
 ' He spoke in scorn of those who own no land, 
 
 ' Blessed the good food, consigned the poor to God, 
 
 'And mindful of the child, spared not the rod ; 
 
 ' Bade the bluff farmers try the good old rule, 
 
 ' And duck their critics in the nearest pool •** ; — - 
 
 ' Those evil men, who seek to cut the knot 
 
 ' Which ties the peasant to his wretched lot : 
 
 ' Such speeches, if that peasant ever sees, 
 
 ' How must he bless that prelate, on his knees, 
 
 ' And thank the destiny which lets him live 
 
 'Where farmers hear the advice that bishops give. 
 
 *' Perhaps Bishop Ellicott's advice to the farmers as to the manner in 
 which the advocates of increased wages to the farm labourer should be 
 treated by the farmers, is the most singular utterance ever made by a 
 prelate from the days of Cyril to our own. The Bishop has since spoken 
 of it as a jest. Well, practical jokes, it may be supposed, are jokes still, but 
 every person of sense forms the same opinion as to their brutality and 
 offensiveness.
 
 I08 JUVENAL, SAT. III. 
 
 ' Within those walls, inside whose sombre shade 
 ' The best and meanest of your dead are laid ; 
 ' Where good and bad are crowded in one spot, 
 'Where marble lies, and man believes it not*^; 
 ' Whence Cromwell, once a king in all but name, 
 ' Buried in pomp, was tossed away in shame : 
 ' In Oxford, where if wisdom be the dress, 
 ' With which man clothes his native nakedness, 
 ' Bare as their savage sires, but not ashamed, 
 ' Successive bigots have in turn declaimed •'" : 
 ' In the prim kirk, where all that meets the view 
 ' Is the vast pulpit and primeval pew : 
 ' Chanting an eclogue for a homily 
 ' Dean Stanley pipes of peace and amity -''^ ; 
 ' Ignores all creeds, demands but one assent, 
 ' Maintains no tenet but the Establishment ; 
 ' Welcomes each zealot with a gracious smile — 
 ' Pusey, Colcnso, Bennett, Voysey, Ryle '^ ; 
 
 *' The irreconcilable difference between monumental virtues and their 
 substantive reality has been, and will be, the theme of the satirist. 
 
 '" This is historical, not a ciitici'^m of the present time. Oxford sermons 
 are generally very dull, but seldom truculent. 
 
 '' This passage and the following verses do not intend to cast a 
 moment's doubt on Dean Stanley's sincerity. Still less do they censure the 
 genuine liberality and charity of the Dean's mind and heart. They merely 
 refer to the theory, which no doubt he honestly entertains, that the exist- 
 ence of the Establishment is a guarantee against sectarian bigotry. 
 
 '^ Leaders of ' theological ' schools.
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. III. IO9 
 
 ' Bids them avoid each others' throats, and be 
 
 ' That work of art, " a happy family " ; 
 
 ' Bids them rehnquish all sectarian rage, 
 
 ' Endure each other, but adore the cage ; 
 
 ' Bids them no longer snap and snarl and bark. 
 
 ' But make the English Church like Noah's ark ; 
 
 ' Where all were safe, and where the patriarch stored 
 
 ' Good food and plenty for the beasts on board, 
 
 ' Clean and unclean, gave every one his dole, 
 
 ' And kept them strong and sound and sleek and whole. 
 
 ' " Think as you please — the deluge is outside ; 
 
 ' " Let others battle with the roaring tide. 
 
 ' " Your business only is, to save your skin, 
 
 ' " And your best policy, to keep within. 
 
 '"What though the craft be crazy.? She may last, 
 
 ' " Have every stitch of sail in by the mast ; 
 
 ' " Don't rouse the notice of the angry storm 
 
 ' " By any rag of dogma, creed, or form ; 
 
 '"Of charity and comprehension preach. 
 
 '"Your aim must be to win and not to teach; 
 
 ' " By art, by music, seek to gain assent, 
 
 '"Be learned, vague, descriptive, eloquent. 
 
 '"Some men, as Rainey is, are over nice^^. 
 
 ' " Our motto runs — For peace at any price. 
 
 *^ Dr. Rainey, a Scotch divine, attacked Dr. Stanley's comprehension 
 theories in certain vigorous pamphlets soon after the Dean had uttered his 
 opinions in the pulpits of the Scotch Establishment.
 
 no JUVENAL, SAT. III. 
 
 ' " A church as broad as this is should and can 
 ' " Win to its interest every prudent man ; 
 '"And if some grumbhng cynic should be near 
 '"Who asks, Ctii bono? whisper in his ear, 
 ' " 'Tis a police, which at the worst will keep 
 ' " Some people quiet, and will do it cheap." 
 
 ' So pipes your Stanley, but he pipes in vain. 
 ' Another sings in quite a different strain ; 
 ' Here mumbling out his histrionic mass, 
 ' His rival chants, here " ass intones to ass ^"^ " ; 
 ' Sets up, wdth folly which is half sublime, • 
 ' The withered fetish of a bygone time ; 
 ' States that the priest alone can loose or lock 
 ' Who proves his pedigree from Peter's stock ; 
 ' Curses without remorse, or stint, or doubt, 
 ' All who don't make the thousand quarterings out ; 
 ' And fancying Paradise a strict entail, 
 ' Grants hope to those whose lineage does not fail ; 
 ' Of course asserts that he can ban and bless, 
 ' Give, or withhold, eternal happiness. 
 * I grant him pious, charitable, chaste, 
 ' Were he a woman I might grant him taste ; 
 ' But that this worship of the past should give 
 ' One worthy aim for which to work or live ; 
 
 " The Dunciad, Book ii. line 253.
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. III. 1 1 1 
 
 ' Or fancy seek that empire to renew 
 
 ' Which the strong Saxon smote and overthrew ^^ ; 
 
 ' That gewgaws such as these should ever be 
 
 ' Anything but a refuge from ennui ; 
 
 ' That monks can save the world, or ever could, 
 
 ' That anchorites and fakirs do you good, — 
 
 ' Is to bring Buddha back before your gaze. 
 
 ' Men do not eat the lotus in our days. 
 
 ' Since then your State, your Senate, and your Laws 
 ' Harass the poor man and the poor man's cause, 
 ' And since no tyranny provokes more hate, 
 ' None makes the coming strife more desperate, 
 ' Than that which grinds the weak but aids the strong, 
 ' And through the forms of right does constant wrong : 
 'Since the priest plies, and with successful pains, 
 ' His proper craft of rivetting the chains, 
 ' Abandons that of which his Master spoke, 
 ' Looses no band, breaks no oppressor's yoke, 
 ' Nor, preaching justice, mercy, duty, right, 
 ' Makes the deaf hear, and gives the blind their sight ; 
 ' Since that which ought to raise the soul of man 
 ' Strives to enslave and crush it, if it can ; 
 
 " Luther. But I believe that the modern Ritualist considers the Saxon 
 to have been an heresiarch.
 
 112 JUVENAL, SAT. III. 
 
 ' Since neither Church nor State afford you aid, 
 
 '(The Head is empty, and the Heart's afraid); 
 
 ' Since they who could do something, did they please, 
 
 ' Live for the day which gives them wealth and ease ; 
 
 ' Since politicians box the compass round, 
 
 ' And all professions have a hollow sound ; 
 
 ' Since princes choose a pigeon for their aim ^^, 
 
 ' Or, at the best, attend a drive of game ; 
 
 ' Since in this noise, and heat, and din, and crush, 
 
 ' Henley anticipates " an ugly rush •^^" 
 
 ' Perhaps it may be thought you could discern 
 
 ' One other means by which to serve your turn, 
 
 'And while these natural forces all confess 
 
 'Are grown too weak, too sordid, try the Press. 
 
 ' If you believe that voice is talking still 
 ' Out of an honest heart and fervid will, 
 ' As when men spoke their thought, and when their word 
 ' Sounded like thunder, and the people heard ; 
 ' If you conceive that in these latter days 
 'There burns one flicker of that ancient blaze, 
 ' When like a beacon on each lofty height 
 'Each nobler spirit caught and gave the light ^^ ; 
 
 '« The Hurlingham Club, sometimes called the Tournament of Doves. 
 But the Prince has since, so the papers say, killed a pig. 
 
 " Mr. Henley, the bluff and straightforward Tory member for Oxford- 
 shire, prognosticated ' an ugly rush ' some years ago. 
 
 <** Perhaps one notable exctpUon which can be made to this censure is
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. III. II3 
 
 ' If you imagine that the hackney's pen 
 
 ' Can win its wages, and win also men, 
 
 ' Or that these sightless leaders of the blind 
 
 ' Can keep the trust, or gain it, of mankind, 
 
 ' Dismiss the fancy, scout the idle dream, 
 
 * And learn that things exist not as they seem. 
 
 ' I grant that even at the present hour, 
 
 ' The faded echo vaunts its former power ; 
 
 ' But just as trembling savages adore 
 
 ' The fetish worshipped by your sires of yore, 
 
 ' So though your fourth estate affects to rule, 
 
 ' Its bluster only serves to scare the fool, 
 
 ' Distrust the moral that it fain would tell : 
 ' It does not write to teach — it writes to sell. 
 ' Who cares to meditate upon the news 
 'Of brisk Bohemians in the pay of Jews? 
 ' Or look, except in horror, at the rate 
 ' With which these creatures crawl upon the great ? 
 
 the unanimity with which the respectable part of the press has attacked the 
 slavery circulars of the Foreign Office. Alas ! some years ago I was forced 
 
 to write 
 
 ' Distrust all titles, names, traditions, looks. 
 See! Piinch grows Tory under Shirley Brookes.* 
 
 Mr. Brookes, however, was ready enough to acknowledge himself in the 
 wrong. He had the goodness to send me, before it was published, his 
 noble palinode on President Lincoln. 
 
 I
 
 1 14 JUVENAL, SAT. III. 
 
 *Let Derby learn a solemn speech by heart 
 
 ' (The only use to which he puts the part)^^ 
 
 ' Quote commonplaces with a sullen look, 
 
 'And talk a good boy's w'ell-ruled copy-book; 
 
 ' " How wise ! how deep ! how true! " your papers say : 
 
 ' " Behold the statesman of the future day ! 
 
 ' " Here let us all our differences sink, 
 
 ' " Accept the teacher — catch the missing link. 
 
 ' " Here Whig and Tory prudently combine, 
 
 ' " Freedom and order deftly intertwine." 
 
 'Trust me, a nation's teachers never stoop 
 'To act the sycophant, to catch the dupe; 
 ' Nor would they, if they held their vaunted power, 
 ' Retail the gossip of the passing hour ; 
 ' Nor in a sea of soft sensation splash, 
 ' Nor vend a racing prophet's slangy trash, 
 ' Nor scribble Cockney talk of fells and streams, 
 ' Nor dribble science, and its airy dreams, 
 ' Nor twaddle on the marriage of a peer, 
 ' Nor meet stern anger with a clever sneer, 
 ' Nor always wait upon ' the upper ten,' 
 ' Nor write ' as gentlemen for gentlemen,' 
 
 89 I acknowledge to having had in my mind the excellent eiDigrain of 
 Samuel Rogers : — 
 
 •Ward has no heart, folks say, but I deny it. 
 He has a heart, and gets his speeches by it.'
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. Ill, H^ 
 
 ' Nor chatter to a city of the dead, 
 'And never touch one heart, or teach one head. 
 ' Give me a man that loves, a man that hates, 
 'And I may think he means the thing he states; 
 ' What leisure or what patience serves to heed 
 'The idle chat which languid quidnuncs read? 
 
 ' In this, the dullest epoch of your race, 
 ' Letters have occupied the lowest place. 
 ' Your publishers aver : — No book is bought 
 ' Which tasks attention, or which wakens thought ; 
 ' Sense is a drug, learning is voted slow, 
 ' For novels are the staple of the Row. 
 ' Here Lytton has made villainy sublime, 
 ' Aye, and demanded sympathy for crime ; 
 ' Here Trollope drawls interminable lives, 
 ' Of country parsons and of bishops' wives ; 
 ' Here Disraeli lavished, in Lothair, 
 ' Aladdin's wealth upon his wedded pair. 
 ' These are the men that write ; your modest verse, 
 ' Can only say the women are far worse ; 
 ' Who find one theme a never failing source, 
 ' Of plot, of scene, of passion, of discourse ; 
 ' Whose candid, artless characters display, 
 ' Why they were frail, and why they went astray ; 
 
 I 2
 
 Il6 JUVENAL, SAT. III. 
 
 ' And by their open tale of fervid truth, 
 ' Assist the morals of your British youth — 
 ' Upon these nudities, quick, sharp, and true, 
 ' Lay on thy knout, thou Saturday Review '^^ ! 
 
 ' Like knotted whipcord in an age of silk, 
 
 * Like aquafortis in an age of milk ; 
 
 ' Still may it deftly ply its proper art, 
 ' Aim at the sore, or cauterise the part ; 
 
 * Nor let its critics, resting from the fight, 
 
 ' Like Homer's heroes, cease to smash and smite, 
 'Withhold their vitriol from the general crew, 
 ' And squirt their golden syrup on the few ; 
 ' Nor, like reviewers in the good old days, 
 
 * Distribute reciprocities of praise ; 
 
 ' Nor, scarcely sheltered by a paper screen, 
 
 ' Should blustering Freeman butter blundering Grcen'^^ 
 
 ' Your poets, teachers of mankind before, 
 ' Through idle ears voluptuous ditties pour, 
 
 ^ The Saturday Review has done no little service in exposing the 
 tendencies of many modern novels. 
 
 «i Mr. Green's Short History of the Eng'.ish People is a work the real 
 merits of which are disfigured, if not destroyed by the amazing number of 
 errors in fact whicli tlie volume conlnins. The extraordinary laudations 
 which have been bestowed upon the work by writers of history is either 
 proof that they are very incompetent to j;ive an opinion, or is an additional 
 illustration ol the wurthlessness of testimonials, particularly those of authors 
 to a reviewer.
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. III. I17 
 
 ' The muse of Tennyson, sublime, supreme, 
 
 ' Upstarting from a sea of clotted cream, 
 
 ' In polished verse drones out the lengthened song 
 
 ' Of Arthur's table and its maundering throng ; 
 
 'And, just to prove that goddesses grow old, 
 
 ' Is one third prophetess, and two thirds scold. 
 
 ' While the slab fountain from which Swinburne's rose*^^, 
 
 ' Is wholly different to one's eyes — and nose. 
 
 ' Arnold's Castalia, swelling to its brim, 
 
 ' Could scarce afford a minnow room to swim 
 
 ' So thin its stream is, and so slight its force, 
 
 ' Clear though its waters be, and pure its source. 
 
 ' The Paradise which Morris loves to paint 
 
 ' Confirms the sinner, and allures the saint. 
 
 ' What need to try your patience, waste your time, 
 
 ' With the small fry which babble on in rhyme ? 
 
 ' Browning I might admire, if I could guess 
 
 'The meaning of the words he sends to press; 
 
 ' I read it forwards, and am never sure ; 
 
 ' But backwards, 'tis a little less obscure. 
 
 'Well, poets are but painted butterflies; 
 ' Each pretty creature flits its day, and dies. 
 ' Some last a little longer, and are set, 
 ' Glistering and gilded, in a cabinet ; 
 
 ** Mr. Swinburne's later poetry is an improvement, in the particular 
 referred to, on the old.
 
 Il8 JUVENAL, SAT. III. 
 
 'Where, sleeping beauties of a bygone age, 
 'The dunce who owns them rarely cuts a page. 
 
 'What shall I say of those who write or prate 
 ' Of social science and your social state, 
 'Who draw dark pictures of the ills they see, 
 ' And talk the cant of cheap philanthropy ; 
 ' Who rave about the griefs which men endure, 
 ' But never venture to disclose the cure ; 
 ' Who never touch the vices of your laws, 
 ' Who never probe the sore, nor show its cause ; 
 ' Who either do not know, or will not see, 
 ' Since mischief works, the mischief's remedy ; 
 ' Who tell the world the thing it sadly knows, 
 ' Its ceaseless sorrows and its helpless throes ; 
 ' Who deal in sentiment, but never seek 
 * How to chastise the spoiler, aid the weak ? 
 ' The Priest and Levite look, and turn aside, 
 ' The scorn they feel they do not care to hide ; 
 ' The poor Samaritan does all he can, 
 ' Stoops to assist and heal the wounded man — 
 ' Those creatures whine a dirge, and scold apace, 
 'And tell the story of the mournful case; 
 'But touch and tend him, and their fingers soil? 
 ' No ; better save their twopence, wine and oil.
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. III. II9 
 
 ' What earthly benefit do they afford 
 To Gnix's baby, and to Bantam's lord, 
 ' Who never strive to place before your view 
 ' Why Ginx's baby is, and Bantam too ? 
 
 * Can Science help the wrong and hate of life ? 
 ' Counsel their cure, or still their ceaseless strife ? 
 'What is its work? Does patient virtue owe 
 
 ' Her thanks to what is neither friend nor foe ? 
 
 * To that self-righteous epicure of facts 
 
 ' Which loves not, hates not, thwarts not, nor attracts ? 
 
 * Or can the scalpel and the microscope 
 'Quell human wrath or waken human hope, 
 ' Win glad assent, evoke a living cause 
 
 ' From cold negations, or from colder laws, 
 ' Which, by reflected light, the warmth impart 
 'That Salisbury ^^ feels — and pardons in his heart. 
 
 * Of this be sure, if, dwelling side by side, 
 
 ' Two races live, one swoln with wealth and pride, 
 
 ' Tossing itself in idle, careless guise ; 
 
 ' The other watching all with angry eyes, 
 
 ' Impatient at the life its toil sustains, 
 
 ' And counting up its neighbours easy gains ; 
 
 *' Lord Salisbury appears to dislike his fellow creatures and admire 
 Physical Science with equal fervour.
 
 120 JUVENAL, SAT. III. 
 
 ' Then scheming wildly for some perfect plan 
 ' On which to build a brotherhood of man ; • 
 * And groping slowly for the needful skill, 
 ' With nothing for its end, except the will ; 
 ' In such a case, believe me, danger lurks, 
 ' And if it be a mischief, mischief works. 
 
 ' But since the teachers in whose words you trust 
 ' Know nothing of what lies beneath the crust, 
 ' Like Bacon or Montaigne, III tell in rhyme 
 ' The hidden wisdom of an ancient time. 
 
 ' On Enna's plains the child of Ceres walked, 
 ' Picked up the flowers, and danced, and sang, and talked; 
 ' Her smart attendants, like your modern press, 
 ' Told of Olympus, scandal, fashion, dress ; 
 ' How many foxes Artemis had killed, 
 ' How big a bag had Sir Actaeon filled ; 
 ' How Phaethon had plunged, and come to grief, 
 'And Hermes was, from whim alone, a thief; 
 ' How Plutus had just bought a handsome place, 
 ' And Venus had incurred some fresh disgrace ; 
 ' How sweet the idylls were which Phoebus wrote, 
 ' And Neptune's yacht ! the prettiest afloat ; 
 ' And how Miss Pallas, with some other frights, 
 'Was always lecturing on woman's rights;
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. III. 121 
 
 'And how Prometheus too, had taken pahis 
 
 ' To educate the peasant's muddy brains, 
 
 ' Stirred him to put himself on his defence, 
 
 ' And thus dispute his lord's omnipotence ; 
 
 ' And how two augurs, nominees of Zeus, 
 
 ' Poured on the meddling wretch their best abuse ; 
 
 'And how the vultures of the Olympian cause 
 
 ' Tore at him, day and night, with beak and claws ; 
 
 'What was the price of Vulcan's iron then, 
 
 ' "W'^hat coals per ton, and what he paid his men ; 
 
 'What in the prospect of the Titans' wars 
 
 ' Might satisfy the vested rights of Mars, 
 
 ' Make him exchange into the home brigade, 
 
 ' And quit his place for those who know the trade ; 
 
 ' And not to run that ancient peerage through, 
 
 'What 'twas they thought, and what they hked to do'^'^ 
 
 ' Wlien all were careless, suddenly there came 
 
 ' The grimmest gentleman whom tongue can name, 
 
 ' Routed the pretty conclave then and there, 
 
 'And sent the landed interest — you know where. 
 
 ' Much have I said, but more remains behind ; 
 ' Aye, further matters of a weightier kind ; 
 
 ' The gathered sorrows of an angry heart 
 
 ' But hark ! the bell is ringing, we must part. 
 
 *^ I must leave my reader to guess antitypes for these gods and goddesses.
 
 122 JUVENAL, SAT. III. 
 
 ' Farewell ! remember me ; and should you care ®^ 
 ' To cross, and seek me in my distant lair, 
 ' I'll meet you, if you wish, half way at least ^^ 
 ' Where the full west receives the hungry east. 
 ' 'Twill not be long, I hope, before you use 
 ' One western settler's welcome, and his news.' 
 
 " Sed mihi commota jamdudum mulio virga 
 
 Innuit : ergo vale memor nostri. 
 ^' satirariim ego ni pudet illas 
 
 Adjutor gelidos veniam caligatus in agros.
 
 JUVENAL. 
 
 Satire XIII. 
 
 [In the original satire Juvenal offers various topics of consolation to a 
 friend who had been swindled by one in whom he had placed confidence. 
 The modem parallel to this incident is to be found in the loans, com- 
 panies, and similar undertakings promoted by the clever and accepted by 
 the unwary. The complaints of the sufferer to whom this satire is 
 addressed arise from his having been the victim to one of these projects.] 
 
 To W. W., Esq. 
 
 The man who, striving for some evil aim ^, 
 Know.'? what ensues if others seek the same, 
 And that his crime, if once detected, must 
 Turn confidence to hatred or distrust, 
 However large the stake which he may win, 
 Must loathe the self which urged him to the sin, 
 Must judge the deed, and having judged it, say 
 What justice would, if justice had its way ; 
 
 * Exemplo quodcunque malo committitur, ipsi 
 Displicet auctori.
 
 124 JUVENAL, SAT. XIII. 
 
 This penalty his conscience will exact, 
 
 Through generous Brett give sentence on the fact 2. 
 What do you think, my friend, must be our sense '^ 
 
 About this fraud upon your confidence, 
 
 This swindle, shrouded by such cunning lies, 
 
 As might delude the caution of the wise? 
 
 Well, it is this — the loss which you deplore 
 
 Takes, after all, a portion from your store; 
 
 You are not ruined, and your grief is not 
 
 So very different from the common lot. 
 
 Each one's experience could not fail to trace, 
 
 With little trouble, such another case ; 
 
 All sorrow should be bounded by the laws 
 
 Of man's discretion, and its proper cause; 
 
 You will be never able to endure 
 
 The little ills which fortitude can cure, 
 
 If you are furious at the cheat who reft 
 
 One thousand from the thousands which are left. 
 
 A sixtieth winter sees you stout and hale^ 
 
 And are you startled by a thrice-told tale? 
 
 Does the long lesson of experience give 
 
 No better rule by which to learn and live? 
 
 2 improba quamvis 
 
 Gratia fallaci Praetoris vicerit urna. 
 Mr. Justice Brett is known for his severity and— his leniency. 
 2 Quid senlire putes, etc. 
 * stupet hacc qui jam post terga reliquit 
 
 Scxaginta annos.
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. XIII. 12 
 
 You know, of course, the adage of the sage, 
 'Wisdom can wholly vanquish fortune's rage\' 
 Who are the happy? They who have the skill 
 To bear with patience every human ill, 
 And, taught by what they suffer, to refrain 
 From putting on themselves a needless pain. 
 
 Is there a day so calm, so bright, so cool, 
 As not to gender many a knave and fodl ; 
 Does Bow Street ever fail in cheat or thief? 
 Do Sleigh and Lewis ever lack a brief? 
 Or, at the Mansion House does my Lord Mayor 
 Find that his function is an easy chair? 
 Are bulls and bears a fiction and a phrase, 
 Survivals of the frauds of former days ? 
 Is the great art of swindling raw, or ripe? 
 Is Collie an exception or a type ? 
 A century since, and in the good old days, 
 When modest wealth was gained in honest ways, 
 The genius which disdained to work and save, 
 Turned sweater, forger, footpad — blundering knave ; 
 And when a few short years of crime were past, 
 Grim Tyburn finished off the fool at last. 
 At present wits like these need never range 
 Beyond the practice of the Stock Exchange, 
 
 ' Victrix fortunae sapientia. 
 
 J
 
 126 JUVENAL, SAT. XIII. 
 
 Create sham shares, next bull, then bear the whole, 
 And safely earn the wealth their fathers stole. 
 The older method was a trifle coarse, 
 This is an art, in better form than force, 
 The progress of mankind is manifest, 
 Take one example, and affirm the rest. 
 
 Two centuries ago it was believed "^ 
 That every Campbell, as the Scotch say, reived, 
 (Another verb would fairly seive my rhyme, 
 Perhaps was freely used in former time,) 
 And ere Sir Walter Scott disguised the facts, 
 Often received the guerdon of his acts ; 
 A change ensues in manners, not in m^an, 
 Maccallummohr bethinks him of a plan, 
 And sends a scion from his native rocks 
 Not for the Saxon's cattle, but his stocks. 
 
 Are virtue, then, and honesty so rare ? 
 Are all pretensions nothing but a snare? 
 Does trade devclope, by some natural law, 
 The Brunswick forehead and the Hapsburg jaw, 
 The cautious gait, half humble and half sly, 
 The open bluster and the furtive eye, 
 
 ^ No better proof can be given of the attractions which the Stock 
 Exchange affords than this incident, learned from the papers. We shall 
 perhaps next hear of a Scotch Duke launching a younger son as a Dominie.
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. XIII. 1 27 
 
 The mind that moulds the face, and makes it keen, 
 Till all the knave is in the features seen ? 
 
 I know a man whose look — pray do not start — ^ 
 Denotes an honest, truthful, kindly heart. 
 Who is not over-cautious, over-rash, 
 Who does not think the end of life is cash, 
 Who does not brag before the poor and weak, 
 Who is not over-proud, or over-meek, 
 Who makes God's public law his private rule. 
 But does not use his creed to trap a fool, 
 Who wisely gives, and what he gives conceals, 
 But does not strive to hide the warmth he feels, 
 And yet is wealthy. Wishing then to know 
 How for so strange a man such riches grow. 
 Point blank I asked him if he could explain 
 What were the genuine sources of his gain; 
 His answer was, — ' By always taking care 
 'That all the goods I say I sell are there,' — 
 Could any terms of censure have conveyed 
 A bitterer satire upon common trade? 
 
 The gold and silver of the earliest age, 
 The brass and iron of a later stage, 
 Were obvious symbols, chosen to express 
 The downward course of moral rottenness, 
 
 * This is a fact. I do not feel at liberty to give the name. Rari quippe 
 boni, etc.
 
 128 JUVENAL, SAT. XIII. 
 
 The modern chemist's potent art subHmes 
 A baser metal to denote our times^. 
 
 We helpless people call on Lowe and James ^"j 
 And being cheated, seek the swindler's names. 
 Call down the heaviest judgments on the thieves^^ 
 Who rob 'us of our cash by makebelieves, 
 And raise a clamorous cry, as loud and long 
 As ever issues from Kenealy's throng, 
 When that great jurist, poet, statesman glows 
 With ]\Iagna Charta and his Tichborne's woes. 
 
 Is the shrewd sense you used to boast of, past''- ? 
 Must you revert to bib and pap at last? 
 Have you forgot how keen the pleasure is 
 Which the rogue feels who makes your earnings his? 
 Have you forgot how laughable you seem, 
 When your untutored honour makes you dream 
 That bond or oath, religion, or the laws 
 Will clip one corner from such people's claws? 
 
 ' Nona aetas agitur, pejoraque saecu'a ferri 
 
 Temporibus. 
 '" The principal members of the Commission appointed to enquire into 
 foreign loans. 
 
 *' Nos hominum Diviimque fidem clamore ciemus 
 
 Quanto Faesidium laudat, etc. 
 " die senior bulla dignissime, nescis 
 
 Quas habcat veneres aliena pecunia?
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. XIII. 1 29 
 
 With them, the truths which weaker scoundrels fear. 
 Serve as the baits to bring their victims near ; 
 The parson, altar, ritual, common prayer. 
 Assist their ends as trap, decoy, or snare : 
 If you would save my words, and see it all. 
 Con the career of pious John Dean PauP''. 
 
 There was a time when piety was truth, 
 (The safest date to take is Barnard's youth,) 
 Ere habit learnt such smartness to applaud. 
 Or law made bankruptcy a cloak for fraud ; 
 Ere the sharp trader laid aside his mete, 
 To air his profits in a country seat ; 
 Ere Europe's revenue was Rothschild's care, 
 Or Walter's Thunderer quoted stock or share ; 
 Ere rigs were known, or sham accounts were cooked. 
 And profits never made were calmly booked ; 
 Ere gulls would trust the fruit of livelong toil 
 To the large future of Canadian oil ; 
 Ere boys were sent, sweet types of innocence, 
 To mask the schemes of shrewder, clearer sense, 
 
 " A notorious banker who was detected some twenty years ago in appro- 
 priating the securities of his customers on a very large scale. He had been 
 very eminent in ' the religious world,' and was particularly active in de- 
 nouncing the Tractarians. Shrewd men suspected his zeal, and withdrew 
 their balances in lime. 
 
 K
 
 130 JUVENAL, SAT. XIII. 
 
 And prove how thoroughly a Yankee sees 
 More through a millstone than our best IM.P.'s^'* ; 
 Ere smart purveyors gathered, near and far, 
 Their red-haired vestals to the station bar ; 
 Ere the swart puddler, thirsty from his forge, 
 Poured gin instead of porter down his gorge, — 
 A careful study might detect a trace 
 Of its old honour in the English race. 
 
 England was not, in those remoter years. 
 Crowded by such a crushing weight of peers ^^ ; 
 These social constellations too, of yore, 
 Bred fewer snobs to wonder and adore; 
 The Burke or Lodge of that day poised with ease 
 A lighter load of dubious pedigrees ; 
 Rich men had not yet claimed it as their due 
 To make a desert for a day's battue ; 
 Had better manners, less of vain pretence, 
 Or the coarse brag of purseproud insolence; 
 While thrift and honesty combined to fix 
 A narrow limit for the tradesmen's tricks. 
 
 Hogarth's contrasted 'prentices explain 
 What was the old-world road of honest gain, 
 
 " The Canadian oil scheme will be fresh in the memory of my readers. 
 
 15 nee turba deorum 
 
 Talis ut est hodie, etc. 
 Every one knows how reverentially the average Englishman treats the 
 peerage, and what excellent rca-on he has for his polytheism.
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. XIII. I31 
 
 * 
 
 And what was the career which, duly past, 
 Involved a certain gallows at the last, 
 How the good youth achieved the civic chair 
 And cap of maintenance, as London's mayor ; 
 While westwards, as the City laureate sung, 
 Tom Idle donned the nightcap and was hung. 
 Far luckier is the modern gambler's lot. 
 Though he is still attracted to the spot, 
 When, by some occult sympathy of blood, 
 He settles in Tyburnia's neighbourhood ^^ 
 
 If you find one whom avarice never blinds ^^, 
 Yet neither fear, nor kith, nor friendship binds, 
 But simply keeps good faith, and says what's true, 
 And always renders every man his due, 
 Because his nature will not let him stoop 
 To cozen, cheat, or circumvent a dupe, 
 Don't tell the facts of your discovery, where 
 The news would merely call up shrug or stare, 
 But bless the chance which brings before your eyes 
 The choicest, rarest gift which life supplies ; 
 
 " The site of the famous gallows at Tybnm, which had been dedicated 
 to the last offices of justice since (we are told) the reign of Edward the 
 Third, is now occupied by mansions reputed to be inhabited by very eminent 
 members of the moneyed classes. 
 
 1' Nunc, si depositum non inficie'ur amicus, etc. 
 
 K 2
 
 132 JUVENAL, SAT. XIll. 
 
 1 
 
 Or, if you must disclose the wonder, tell 
 That you have seen a genuine miracle. 
 
 Brokers and jobbers, as I hear you say ^'\ 
 Have filched the thousand pounds you paid away. 
 What if your venture had been twice as much } 
 What if the loss of fortune had been such 
 As they endured, who suffered, in the end, 
 The penalty of trusting Overend? 
 Wliat if, as some did, you'd insured your life 
 And lost the whole you scraped for child or wife. 
 Found that, as many a helpless victim sees, 
 •Your premiums vanished in promoters' fees, 
 And learnt how notably financing pays 
 When it is furthered by the law's delays ^^? 
 
 What is the oath, or pledge, or promise, which 
 Checks one who is resolved on being rich ? 
 One single peril makes him pause or doubt — 
 That is, the risk that man may find him out ; 
 If he be sure his secret is his own, 
 He meets the charge with virtue's loftiest tone, 
 
 ** Intercepta decern quereris sestertia fraude, etc. 
 Juvenal's friend had not lost so much money as mine has. 
 
 " The company known as Overend and Gurney failed on May lO, 1866. 
 Its fall ruined thousands who had trusted lo the good faith of those who 
 promoted the company. The revelations which have latterly been made as 
 to the conduct of life insurance companies, are among the most scandalous 
 of modern times.
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. XIII. 133 
 
 Blandly asserts the honour of his acts, 
 
 And then appeals to what he calls the facts. 
 
 Some men believe that chance or nature's laws-** 
 Interpret or connect effect and cause, 
 That an invariant sequence governs all. 
 That human actions are phenomenal. 
 That He who some men love, and many dread, 
 Is now a fiction, worn out, baseless, dead. 
 But may be still, by keeping certain rules, 
 A cloak for sharpers, and a check for fools, 
 And therefore, nothing loth, will kiss the book 
 With calm assurance, and a virtuous look. 
 
 Others believe that, at some future time -^, 
 Its proper doom will follow upon crime. 
 Admit that God still works by Providence, 
 Judges each deed, chastises each offence ; 
 And yet will balance, when temptation's near, 
 The gains they clutch at, and the risks they fear, 
 And thus conclude — ' The ills I may endure 
 'Wealth can compensate, palliate, or cure, 
 ' Let me be blind, if I can only hold 
 'The stake I played for, and can keep my gold.' 
 
 '" Sunt in foitunre casibus qui omnia ponant 
 
 Et nuUo credunt mundum rectoie moveri, etc. 
 '^ Hie piUat esse dtos, et pejerat, et ita secum, ttc.
 
 134 JUVENAL, SAT. XIII. 
 
 And yet are ill-earned riches worth the price, 
 
 Which the cowed conscience can extort from vice? 
 
 Is it a fair exchange ? I do not doubt 
 
 They would accept the whilome Derby's gout--, 
 
 Plus a small cantle of his rents or lands, 
 
 Plus a fair balance in the banker's hands. 
 
 And trust their carcases, from foot to skull, 
 
 To aloes, colchicum, and Doctor Gull. 
 
 Nor need one wonder. What 's the use of fame -^, 
 
 If learning, honour, virtue, deck your name, 
 
 But nothing else of solid worth accord 
 
 To match the metier of a booby lord"*, 
 
 And the poor talents which are all your pride 
 
 Purvey the banquet of the Barmecide? 
 
 'The wrath of God is sure, more surely slow-^— 
 'Why should I then expect the earliest blow? 
 ' If all the sinners suffer, when w^ill He 
 'Inflict the judgment of my sin on me? 
 
 22 pauper locupletem optare podagram 
 
 Non dubitet Ladas, si non eget Anticyra, nee 
 Archigene. 
 The late Lord Derby was said to have been a martyr to gout 
 ■'•* Quid enim vtlocis gloria palmae 
 
 Praestat, at esuriens Pisaeae ramus oliv.ie? 
 '* 'Shades, that to Bacon could retreat afford 
 
 ISecome the portion of a booby Lord.' Vope. 
 ''^ Ui bit magi. a, tamen certe lenta ira Deorum est.
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. XIII. 135 
 
 ' Perchance a charity will save my soul 
 ' A little gift perhaps protect the whole.' 
 
 A Scot who knew his crimes, and felt their weight, 
 Balanced his dealings, and forecast his fate, 
 Asked a good parson, if salvation's work 
 Could be made safe by giving to the kirk ; 
 And jjot this answer : — ' It is hard to buy 
 'The boon you ask, but well worth while to try.' 
 But if like acts in different issues fix, 
 One leads to office, t'other oakum picks. 
 The only cause which makes those issues two 
 Is what that dying sinner thought he knew. 
 
 This is the process by which fraud contrives 
 To ply the practice upon which it thrives, 
 To lull the conscience, and to calm the fear. 
 When the dark doom of wrong seems gathering near. 
 Now, if you claim his affidavit, he 
 Hurries to make it gladly, eagerly. 
 Nay, by attorney he will bid you swear, 
 And watch your anger with a jaunty air, 
 (A shameless forehead forms his best defence, 
 Brass may become the mask of innocence,) 
 And plays as well as any actor can-'^ 
 The Surface drawn by witty Sheridan. 
 
 26 rninuim agit ille, 
 
 Uibani qualem fugilivus scurra Catulli.
 
 136 JUVENAL, SAT. XIII. 
 
 As you protest your own undoubted right, 
 Loud as 0"Gorman on an Irish night'-''. 
 Loud as a serjeant-major at his drill, 
 And as two fish-wives, bent on battle, shrill, 
 Thus you exclaim — ' Is justice deaf and blind? 
 ' To honour cruel, but to roguery kind ? 
 ' Are scarlet, ermine, wig, a splendid hoax ? 
 ' Are they a trap to ruin simple folks ? 
 ' For shams like these why does the nation pay 
 'The judges' salary every quarter day? 
 ' Will it endure this senseless pomp again, 
 'The sheriff's gorgeous coach, and javelin men? 
 ' It were a shorter stage a lighter loss, 
 'To take all cases straight to Mr. Cross— ^^' 
 Till you incur, by scolding in this sort 
 The modern peril of contempt of court. 
 
 You, to whom dogmas are indifferent^'', 
 Accept and use my counsel as 'tis meant. 
 You who interpret characters by deeds. 
 And scorn the clamour of discordant creeds, 
 
 !" Tu miser exclamas, ut Stentora vincere possis, etc. 
 
 28 Mr. Cross, the present Home Secretary. This officer of state performs 
 the functions of a court of appeal in ciiminal cases. The next couplet 
 refers to the latitude with which judges stem disposed to interpret contempt 
 
 of court. 
 
 » Juvenal expresses his indifference to the tenets of the Stoics, Cynics, 
 and Epicureans, the three great parties in Paganism.
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. XIII. 137 
 
 To whom the churches, Broad, and Low, and High, 
 
 Serve but as names to ticket blockheads by, 
 
 Who scoff at forms, and never would expect 
 
 That vestures mark or constitute a sect. 
 
 Nor, if some noisy zealot only preach, 
 
 Think that he proves his right and power to teach. 
 
 There is no need for Gull's or Paget's skill "° 
 To purge or to excise your special ill ; 
 Your case is simple, and of this be sure, 
 A parish doctor could effect your cure. 
 
 If there be nought which man would more detest 
 Than what you suffer, well then, beat your breast. 
 Like a hired mourner, even slap your face, 
 And in so sad, so terrible a case, 
 Pull down your blinds, exhibit your belief. 
 Attire your servants in the garb of grief, 
 And prove, in losing cash, you're more distrest 
 Than by the death of those you love the best. 
 He whom a sorrow, such as yours, constrains '^ 
 To utter lam-entations, never feigns. 
 
 '" Curentur dubii medicis majoribus aegri. 
 Gull and Paget are severally an eminent physician and an eminent surgeon. 
 ^' nemo dolorem 
 
 Fingit in hoc casu .... 
 Ploratur lacrymis amissa pccunia veris.
 
 138 JUVENAL, SAT. XIII. 
 
 The sounds of woe, I grant, which meet our ears, 
 Are far more genuine than some people's tears ; 
 The plaints of men, when swindled of their due, 
 Are, beyond question, quite sincere and true. 
 
 But if your case is found in every street, 
 If it occurs to half the men you meet ; 
 If frauds are grown so nice, so rife, so rank, 
 That knaves can cheat a lawyer or a bank ; 
 Can simulate the signs of honest trade, 
 Till caution is, by its own sleights, bewrayed ; 
 Do you conceive, dear creature, that your right ^^ 
 Is, to be shielded from the common plight? 
 Are you to be the swan, and we the geese? 
 Will he who plunders us, — you never fleece? 
 The wrongs you suffer are a trifling load. 
 Don't let your passions swell till they explode, 
 Look through the calendar of greater crimes, 
 The scandals of our nature and our times, 
 Read the police and law reports, survey 
 The mass of vice, which crops up, day by day. 
 The hordes of wretches, gathered by the pains 
 Of those who serve your Erasers and your Maynes^^ 
 
 32 Tene, o delicias ! extra comnninia censes 
 Ponendum? quia tu gallinae filius albae 
 Nos vilcs puUi, nati iiifelicibus ovis? 
 
 33 The commandants of the city and metropolitan police. In Juvenal's 
 days Gallicus wai the custos urbis.
 
 JUVEXAI,, SAT. XIII. 139 
 
 The endless warfare which these creatures wage 
 Against mankind, through childhood, manhood, age, 
 And the vast herd which angered law enthrals 
 In the grim circuit of your prison walls. 
 The secrets of one household may disclose 
 The sum of human wrongs, and human woes ; 
 And should you learn how other people live 
 Your grief will get a speedy sedative ; 
 The time and pains are worthy of your care — "* 
 And after that, be wretched if you dare. 
 
 Who cares to wonder, when a Frenchman brags '^ 
 Of the grand race, the Briton of his bags ? 
 Stares at the Teuton's glasses, feigns surprise 
 When listening to a travelled Yankee's lies.'* 
 Who ever thought a Greek spoke truth, or knew 
 Of one day's manual labour from a Jew.? 
 Who ever feels astonished when he hears 
 That Spaniards are together by the ears? — 
 The reason lies in this, that every race 
 Has the same impulse, habit, temper, face. 
 
 The Bosnian sees the produce of his work ^^ 
 Thieved by the rapine of the savage Turk ; 
 
 -* Paucos consume dies, et 
 
 Dicere te miserum, postquam illic veneris, aude. 
 ^ Quis tumidum guUur miratur Alpibus .... 
 
 Caeiula quis stupuit Germani lumina. 
 ^ Juvenal refers in his text to the cranes and the pigmies. Nothing but
 
 140 JUVENAL, SAT. XIII. 
 
 Desperate at last, the victim stands at bay, 
 And seeks to drive the brigand from his prey ; 
 For, why should such as he is dread the grave, 
 Who wears the livelong livery of the slave ? 
 Yet after all, the issue of the strife 
 May add a further misery to his life. 
 With us, all Turks, from Sultan down to Sheik, 
 Would don the convict's livery in a week ; 
 But habit makes us view with careless eyes 
 The ruler's crimes, and hear the subjects' cries, 
 Nor care to rescue, by one good home- thrust, 
 A wretched people from a baboon's lust. 
 
 Shall perjury, then, be but a slight offence ^'^, 
 And shall a knave deride your innocence? 
 
 Conceive him loaded by the felon's chain. 
 And, in a burst of passion, lynched and slain : 
 Your loss is still a loss, your money 's gone. 
 And could his carcase for his crime atone? 
 Vengeance is pleasanter than life, you say — 
 It is to fools, when under passion's sway. 
 
 the ambition of kings and statesmen could have permitted the continuance 
 of the most detestable government in existence on the fairest part of the 
 world, — that part too which, though consecrated by numberless religious 
 and literary memories, has been turned into a desert by the Tuik. 
 '' Nulla ne perjuri capitis fraudisquc nciandae 
 Poena eril ? etc.
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. XIII. 141 
 
 Dunces, whose very vitals are on fire, 
 
 When trumpery fancies rouse or stir their ire. 
 
 By wisdom fortified, the truly great 
 
 Yield themselves more to pity than to hate, 
 
 And, fully conscious of what none can take, 
 
 Never retaliate for vengeance' sake. 
 
 The wisdom which instructs us in the right. 
 
 Clears off the mists which cramp or dim our sight. 
 
 And one by one uproots, with happy art, 
 
 The natural frailties of the human heart. 
 
 Revenge delights the mean and little mind, 
 
 Is keenest with the paltriest of mankind. 
 
 Yet do not think the culprit can control 
 The anxious terrors which beset his soul. 
 Escape the torturing scourge which conscience plies. 
 Albeit it reach no ears, and meet no eyes. 
 He has a judge, and hear that judge he must "^, 
 As wise as Cockburn, and as Cockburn just, 
 Must always bear the witness in his breast. 
 Which, night and day, will never be at rest. 
 
 " Poena autem vehemens, et multo saevior illis 
 Quas et Caeditius gravis invenit et Rhadamanthus, 
 Node dieque suum ge--lare in j-ectore testem. 
 
 Every honest Englishman is proud of the Lord Chief Justice^ of his abilities 
 
 and his integrity.
 
 142 JUVENAL, SAT. XIIT. 
 
 The Spartan heard this message from the seer — ^^ 
 ' God's doom is certain, and his judgment 's near, 
 'To any one who thinks that he may dare 
 ' Betray a trust committed to his care, 
 'Who, by no fear of retribution stung, 
 'Would hold his plunder by a perjured tongue, 
 'Who asks if God will counsel or condone 
 ' A fraud, and make a sinner's crime his own ? ' 
 Scared by the threat, the would-be thief restored 
 (Not drawn by honour) his unlawful hoard, 
 But in his person proved what had been told — 
 No scion of that Spartan's house grew old, 
 For the whole stock, ere a few years were past. 
 Had strangely perished, and himself the last. 
 
 The wish to do a wrong must needs exact 
 The punishment that's proper to the act, 
 And get its due. What if the culprit sins*" 
 And perpetrates the crime his heart begins. 
 Look at him then — a ceaseless load of care, 
 A sense of surfeit at the daintiest fare, 
 A forced and joyless meal, a weary life, 
 A testy tongue to friend, and child, and wife, 
 Are some among the issues which proceed 
 From the deep consciousness of fraud and greed. 
 
 2^ Juvenal borrowed this story from Herodotus, vi. 86. 
 *" Cedo, si conata pciegit, ttc,
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. XIII. I43 
 
 Wine which makes honest people glad or gay, 
 Is gulped with effort, or is thrust away ; 
 Give him Lafitte, it does not smooth his frown ^^, 
 Clos Vougeot 's vinegar before it 's down. 
 
 If wearied nature for a time effect -'■* 
 The sleep which grudging conscience would reject, 
 The while he tosses, restless, on his bed, 
 The. direst visions fill his throbbing head ; 
 He fancies that he hurries in his walk. 
 And others pry, and stop, and point, and talk ; 
 He starts convulsively, for in his dreams 
 The dread which fills him, nearer, closer seems ; 
 A touch, a breath, a sound, a step, a sigh, 
 Suggests a grim detective standing by : 
 And worst of all, before his bloodshot eyes 
 You, whom he wronged, appear in awful guise, 
 You seem to tell, with fierce, unpitying air, 
 The tale which means his ruin and despair ; 
 And as his wretched body chills and glows, 
 He mutters what he hopes no other knows. 
 
 ** Albani veteris pretiosa senectus 
 
 Displicet, ostendas melius densissima rus^a 
 Cogitur in frontem, velut acri ducta Falerno. 
 Albano is still famous for its wine, but the art of making it must be lost, 
 for the chief attraction to the modern Iialian is the notice oi vino ni.ovo. 
 *- Nocte brevem si forte indulsit cura soporem, etc.
 
 T44 JUVENAL, SAT. XIII. 
 
 These are the men who shudder and grow pale 
 When fraud is tracked, and all its doublings fail. 
 The first faint whisper of detected crime 
 Recalls their doings — person, place, and time ; 
 The bolt which shattered others, threatens all, 
 The fire, which others seared, on them may fall ; 
 Slow, sure, strong, subtle, ever in advance, 
 The bloodhound justice ceases to be chance : 
 The tempest passes, but it leaves the dread 
 Of the new storm which gathers overhead : 
 One look of doubt, one symptom of distrust 
 Pierces their vitals with a deadly thrust ; 
 And poisoned by the soul it touches, darts, 
 With tenfold venom through their guilty hearts. 
 
 If, striving to refresh their withered fame, 
 They seek to win anew an honest name. 
 Who can there be, to whom 'tis no disgrace 
 To help their credit, or to take their place. 
 Or prove that confidence can still belong 
 To him who cannot measure right and wrong? 
 
 Crime ever gathers conscience in the rear, 
 Unlawful deeds engender boundless fear ; 
 And o'er the guilty soul the panic steals, 
 Since all the frightful doom it fears, it feels.
 
 JUVENAL, SAT. XIII. I45 
 
 Yet the coarse nature, tutored by deceit, 
 Reverts to that which urged it on to cheat ; 
 Forces itself to what it first essayed, 
 Becomes more callous, less and less afraid — 
 Who purposes a limit to his sins, 
 Or ceases at the place where he begins? 
 That forehead, scoured from every sign of shame, 
 Can never change, must ever be the same — 
 Where is the man, when plunder is abroad, 
 Who rests contented with a single fraud ? 
 
 Some rule forgotten, or some rule allowed, 
 Lately made havoc of a merry crowd. 
 Those who escaped, of course, were all astir 
 To help, as best they could, each sufferer. 
 Two persons only took a different view, 
 The one, a jobber, to the station flew, 
 And telegraphed to London — ' At the nick 
 ' Sell, sell Great Westerns largely, and be quick.' 
 The other, bent on less extensive gain, 
 Began to pick the pockets of the slain ^^. 
 
 Depend on it, his time will come at last ; 
 The law will catch our friend, and grip him fast; 
 A jail receive him as its proper prey, 
 And clothe him in its chocolate and grey. 
 
 *^ This fact occurred at the Sliipton accident, Dec. 24, 1S74. 
 
 L
 
 146 JUVENAL, SAT. XIII. 
 
 Spike Island, Portland quarries, are the fate 
 
 Of such as are too criminally great; 
 
 Or Dartmoor's gloom his gay career may stop — 
 
 Perhaps his final issue is the drop ; 
 
 While you, perusing the police report, 
 
 Will comment on his doom in some such sort — 
 
 'There comes a season when these sharpers find, 
 
 ' That Providence is neither deaf nor blind ^^.' 
 
 " Nee surdum nee Teiiesiam quenquam esse Deorum.
 
 LUC I LI us. 
 
 [Lucilius was probably the inventor of satire, a kind of literature which 
 was indigenous to Rome. His writings have been lost, though numerous 
 fragments of them lemain. The longest of these fragments, that which 
 is translated almost literally below, is preserved by Lactantius, a Christian 
 philosopher, and forms a picture of what was conceived to be the rule of 
 life with a man of honour in Republican Rome.] 
 
 ' Whatever be his nurture, fortunes, birth, 
 
 ' The wise man reckons all things at their worth. 
 
 ' No present error can his view distract, 
 
 ' Or make him think a falsehood is a fact. 
 
 ' Wisdom defines what is, in every case, 
 
 'Good, evil, just, dishonest, noble, base; 
 
 'Wisdom assigns fit bounds to every aim, 
 
 ' Grants every due, interprets every claim ; 
 
 ' Assigns to wealth its proper place and weight, 
 
 ' But values honour at her highest rate ; 
 
 ' At prosperous knaves directs her keer.est blows, 
 
 ' Because her instincts thrust her on her foes ; 
 
 ' Maintains the cause of virtue, truth, and right, 
 
 ' Yields to no menace, entertains no fright ; 
 
 L 2
 
 148 LUCILIUS. 
 
 ' Unflinchingly receives, assists, defends, 
 
 ' All whom she reckons her allies and friends, 
 
 'Who reason thus: The public good demands 
 
 ' The labour of our heads, our hearts, our hands. 
 
 ' This debt must first be paid, however vast ; 
 
 ' Our home comes next, ourselves the third and last.' 
 
 Thus, when the great Republic still confessed 
 Her public duties were her nearest, best ; 
 Ere simple honest faith was set at naught, 
 Or priests despised the doctrines which they taught^; 
 Ere the foul fictions of a party name 
 Encouraged selfishness and banished shame ; 
 Ere knaves dared advertise each fraudful deed ; 
 Ere men abandoned honour, worshipped greed ; 
 Ere sordid nobles made the State their prey, 
 And bribed the mob they purposed to betray ; 
 Ere rapine rushed a conquered world to share, 
 And murderous faction ushered in despair ; 
 Ere civil strife provoked each stubborn will. 
 And hate, and lust, and malice had their fill ; 
 Till, wearied with their griefs, men sought the cure 
 In the stern peace which despots can make sure — 
 
 * Cicero, who lived two generations after Lucilius, wonders whether two 
 augurs could meet each other without laughing. The Roman augurs were 
 among the chief officials of the state religion in Rome.
 
 LUCILIUS. 149 
 
 The friend of Scipio, satirist and sage 2, 
 Portrayed the sturdy wisdom of his age. 
 
 Of what avail is all the glittering hoard 
 Which skill has fashioned and which thrift has stored — 
 The varied treasures and the golden spoil 
 Which vanquished nature yields to stubborn toil ; 
 The still increasing force, the ready plan, 
 Which patient science grants to busy man ; 
 The ceaseless hurry of the crowded mart, 
 The gathered trophies of commercial art ; 
 The prize which luck can gain and virtue can't, 
 Which shrewd men challenge, — and their clients grant 
 If, after all, the lesson of to-day 
 Conveys no meaning, rouses no dismay; 
 If the blind passion of the time defies 
 That solemn warning which the past supplies ; 
 If shame has vanished from the nation's face, 
 And England chuckles over her disgrace ; 
 And vestries, for the boon of Leicester Square, 
 Vie with the flatteries of a Chester Mayor ^? 
 
 The downward progress of a State's decay 
 Are not, I grant, the issue of a day. 
 
 ^ We learn from Horace, Sat. ii. i. 75, that Lucilius was the friend of 
 Africanus and Laelius. 
 
 =* The Mayor of Chester's address to tlie Duke of Westminster on the 
 occasion of his being put into the Dukage is alluded to.
 
 150 LUCILIUS. 
 
 'Tis only custom which can reconcile 
 
 The heart to all that 's sordid, mean, and vile. 
 
 No man is in a moment rendered base — 
 
 It takes some time to bronze the plastic face : 
 
 The puckered lines which gather o'er the jowl, 
 
 The thin, sharp lips, the quick, suspicious scowl, 
 
 The coarse, hard look which tells the withered heart, 
 
 Are, beyond doubt, consummate works of art. 
 
 The quickest fancy cannot, if she strive. 
 
 Conceive the creatures whom one sees alive ; 
 
 Or in them, by the force of memory, find 
 
 One faded vestige of an honest mind. 
 
 The sight 's enough, what need to hear them speak ; 
 
 Facts that are patent no one wants to seek. 
 
 Such are the men who guide the yielding mob, 
 
 Whose life's a He, whose genius is a job. 
 
 'Tis said the simple fiend, in time of old. 
 Chaffered with those who let themselves be sold ; 
 Studied the way to wheedle and cajole. 
 And, by post obits, caught the sinful soul ; 
 Offered his price, and, when the day came round, 
 Wiser than Shylock, got his lawful pound. 
 The bribe 's superfluous now. What need to pay 
 For what its owner freely gives away.?
 
 LUCILIUS. 151 
 
 The demon merely hints : You must be tired ; 
 Enjoy the wealth your labour has acquired ; 
 Cease from your toil. The trusting victim tries ; 
 Wearies of rest, grows peevish, wastes, and dies ; 
 Relieves the world of one superfluous weight, 
 And pays two debts — to justice and to fate. 
 
 If you would learn the danger which we run, 
 Study the process by which wealth is won ; 
 Reflect how vast 's the pile of tricks and lies 
 Which fortune claims before she yields the prize ; 
 How honest labour scrapes its scanty due. 
 But knavery wins a plum upon a conp. 
 Mark how the gambler boldly lays his stake. 
 And stands to win his cent, per cent, or break. 
 The risk is little, if he merely stoops 
 To gauge the pockets of his willing dupes 
 By puffing up the swindle at the first, 
 And timely selling ere the bubble burst. 
 
 From Hambro's stock exchange the schemer hies*, 
 Skilled in mean arts, and stocked with specious lies ; 
 Hurries to London, there to play his game; 
 Puts in a mask his patriarchal name ; 
 Launches at first his humbler, weaker kites, 
 Next imps their wings for wider, bolder flights ; 
 
 * A general portrait.
 
 152 LUCILIUS. 
 
 Then, having well matured his shrewd designs, 
 
 Invites the fools who speculate in mines, 
 
 And kindly proffers, to the general view — 
 
 His precious ore, a solid mountain through ! 
 
 As though 'twere likely that the knave would spare 
 
 His proper spoil to let another share. 
 
 Of course the trap, well baited and well set, 
 
 Draws widow, parson, lawyer, to his net. 
 
 He bulls the stock, he strains his credit, buys. 
 
 Till he can grasp and clutch the glittering prize ; 
 
 Sells, bears the market, shrewdly turns the scale, 
 
 Bubbles the gulls who trusted to his tale. 
 
 And having won his thousandfold per cent. 
 
 Resolves to venture upon Parliament. 
 
 'Tis harder work for swindlers to succeed, 
 Than to procure the whitewash which they need ; 
 Some venturous brokers perish, some survive. 
 Some get transported, others haply thrive, 
 But those who thrive and last can win their aim 
 If they are patient at the cautious game. 
 Thus— build a church, a people's park bestow, 
 Sustain all interests, be they high or low, 
 (What matter if they have no true defence 
 In common justice and in common sense?)
 
 LUCILIUS. 153 
 
 Defend the nation's Bible and its beer, 
 
 Regret excess, but say that freedom's dear, 
 
 Quote the good bishops, Wordsworth and Magee^, 
 
 Who hold that temperance is tyranny ; 
 
 Maintain the sanctity of Church and State, 
 
 Our pure religion, our unselfish great. 
 
 Uphold the Services, and be averse 
 
 To the mean thrift which saves the nation's purse ; 
 
 Give cautiously — your agent can describe 
 
 What is corruption, what a legal bribe — 
 
 Throw dirt about, in hopes that some may stick, 
 
 Or hire the pens of those who know the trick. 
 
 Drench the poor sots who freely sell their votes. 
 
 Pour the hot poison down their gaping throats ; 
 
 And then the flood may bring you in to shore 
 
 And land you safely on St. Stephen's floor, 
 
 Where, though you won your seat by every lie 
 
 Which fraud can coin, ambition justify. 
 
 The House is forced all comers to admit. 
 
 And vouches for their honour — while they sit. 
 
 Upon those walls, which England well bestows, 
 That she may scan the faces of her foes 
 
 ' Of these two prelates, the latter will be long recollected for his 
 famous Irishism, that he would rather have men free than sober ; the former 
 for his amazing power of affronting people by acts of sacerdotal silliness.
 
 154 LUCILIUS. 
 
 And shun the sharpers who would dig her grave 
 The venal artist hangs the thriving knave. 
 Stout, florid, see the great director stand, 
 In either pocket thrusting either hand, 
 Rattling the cash he 's won with quiet glee. 
 The thing is good, as lifelike as can be, 
 The hands — 'tis there the painter's hardly just — 
 Should be in other people's pockets thrust. 
 
 Unless men want to cheat, or want to learn 
 How to make others' folly serve their turn 
 (And therefore, as if training for a race. 
 Practise the fluent tongue, the fraudful face) 
 They rarely play their game without a stake, 
 Or ply the art of lies for lying's sake. 
 The adept knows this adage from his youth — • 
 'No falsehood equals superficial truth.' 
 Thus, if he lends himself to any cry 
 He either means to sell, or means to buy, 
 And judges t/ia^ the question of the hour 
 Which best may serve his pocket or his power. 
 
 What are the causes, then, which give their scope 
 To arts like these, which lend them strength and hope? 
 Whence is it that such people thrive, and, when 
 They're rich and prosperous, jostle honest men?
 
 LUCILIUS. 155 
 
 Flaunt their vile gains before the people's eyes, 
 
 Invite attention to their shameful rise ? 
 
 Unless this rule is true, at any rate — 
 
 Success condones the fraud which makes it great. 
 
 The things which feed on carrion roam by night, 
 Avoid the tell-tale day, the prying light, 
 Gather in packs to batten on the feast. 
 Beast herding still with sympathetic beast ; 
 But, by the darkness aided and disguised. 
 They fly in sudden panic when surprised ; 
 So, while the bad man always seeks his own, 
 He dares be bold before the bad alone ; 
 Let him but be detected at his prey, 
 He strives instinctively to steal away, 
 Yields to the scorn he feels to be his due. 
 And slinks with hasty terror out of view. 
 
 And yet if trusting to his ill-won gold 
 He meets his fellow men, serenely bold. 
 If he can venture to be sleek and bland. 
 Affect the open heart, the generous hand ; 
 If he dare angle for men's thoughtless votes 
 Or catch the plaudits of their fickle throats, 
 •'TIS that he knows they envy what they hate 
 And worship what they ought to execrate.
 
 156 LUCILIUS. 
 
 As savages a gentle god disdain, 
 
 But crouch to one who sends them loss and pain. 
 
 Found out at last, but after many a fraud, 
 One genius of this species went abroad, 
 Fled to New York across the kindly main, 
 On other dupes to try his craft again. 
 Soon wearied out his hosts, exposed his game, 
 Exhausted all his powers, and missed his aim, 
 Left without one resource, one card to play, 
 He strove to gloze his early faults away, 
 And, thinking nothing's proved but what's confessed, 
 He added one more baseness to the rest, 
 Discoursed on Yankee tricks and cracked his jokes 
 On Fisk and Vallandigham, Tweed and Stokes'', 
 Declared that all his friends both lied and thieved, 
 That he was innocent, cajoled, deceived ; 
 And thus, to make his villanies complete, 
 Slandered the people whom he failed to cheat. 
 
 'Tis not the knave alone who plays and wins, 
 Some even make their market by their sins. 
 
 Assail the superstitions of the crowd 
 And look for anger, truculent and loud, 
 The hate which deals in calumnies and cries, 
 Now scolds, now sneers, now sneaks, but always lies. 
 ^ Eminent New York financiers.
 
 LUCILIUS. 157 
 
 But should you flatter what no good man fears, 
 
 You need not shun men's eyes, nor dread men's ears ; 
 
 If you conform, they've nothing to desire ; 
 
 Faith without works is all that they require, 
 
 Be orthodox, and nothing 's a disgrace. 
 
 D'ye doubt it? I can prove it by a case. 
 
 Sir Helluo, gallant, prodigal, and gay'^, 
 Broke half the ten commandments every day ; 
 When rallied on his practices he 'd laugh, 
 Grin his regrets, and break the other half. 
 Diced, drabbed, drank brandy, wooed an early gout, 
 Cheated at cards, was, worse than all, found out. 
 Disgraced his name, ran through a fair estate, 
 Grew bloated, owl-eyed, sottish, desperate. 
 Bore, stamped on all the features of his face, 
 Lusts which inflame and vices which debase, 
 And yet when t'other day the league began 
 Of parson, drunkard, peer, and publican. 
 His merits are extolled by every tongue. 
 By droning preacher and by staggering bung ; 
 He is the patron of the good old cause 
 Of church and crown, religion and the laws. 
 Stirred by such teachers, crapulous and blue, 
 'Hurrah for Helluo!' shouts the noisy crew; 
 
 ' This is again a general portrait.
 
 158 LUCILIUS. 
 
 ' Behold the poor man's friend, the people's choice, 
 ' His are our votes, his is our will and voice. 
 ' Hurrah for Helluo ! Hasten to the polls 
 'AH pious churchmen and all thirsty souls!' 
 Thus knaves and sots a legislator make, 
 Out of a brainless, heartless, battered rake. 
 
 Good Dr. Watts, who wrote, ere Keble sung, 
 The strains which lived on childhood's prattling tongue, 
 Asserts that nature makes dog, lion, bear. 
 Bark, bite, growl, fight, express their loves, and pair; 
 No Darwin then asserted or defined 
 How beings mould and propagate their kind, 
 How nature gives a universal tilth, 
 And breeds her germs in cleanliness and filth. 
 
 Nature was once a goddess, nowadays, 
 Like other institutions, she 's a phrase. 
 In such a sense she pardons or endures 
 Some follies, others obviates or cures ; 
 And yet perhaps she may be over-tried : 
 Narcissa found it when her hair she dyed ^ — 
 Not once or twice, a thousand times, 'tis said, 
 She changed the fickle colours of her head ; 
 Varied her tresses with unnumbered hues — 
 Blacks, yellows, reds, all shades but greens and blues — 
 
 * This is a fact : may it prove a warning.
 
 LUCILIUS. 159 
 
 Till, wearied out, and angry at her freaks, 
 Indignant nature all her vengeance wreaks, 
 And leaves Narcissa, reft of every lock. 
 Bald as a new laid egg, a barber's block. 
 
 But though these follies waken our disgust, 
 These knaveries rouse and deepen our distrust. 
 Fools have a value, knaves subserve an end, 
 Teach us to loathe a vice, a right defend. 
 Instruct the judgment, fortify the will. 
 Make virtue wary, and be virtue still ; 
 Supply the strongest weapons of defence. 
 The armour of a cautious innocence ; 
 Grant the unwilling praise which vice allows, 
 When baffled in the practice it avows. 
 And in their jargon may be forced to say — 
 We tried the trick, and did not find it pay. 
 
 A little forethought, therefore, can detect 
 And almost cure the mischief these effect. 
 In lasting harm a deeper reason lies, 
 That reason is — the follies of the wise. 
 
 As in the check of health disease may lurk. 
 But give no symptom of its deadly work ; 
 As men, unconsciously, have often quaffed 
 A tasteless poison in a sparkling draught ;
 
 l60 LUCILIUS. 
 
 As a bright sun may lure the insect's wing 
 To trust the bitter breath of fickle spring; 
 As the red dawn may mask the coming gale, 
 And tempt to sudden doom the venturous sail ; 
 So the worst troubles which beset mankind, 
 Spring from the blunders of an honest mind. 
 
 There is a statesman, who delights to sport 
 With facts of every kind, and shape, and sort ; 
 Who finds the deepest lore in Homer's strains; 
 Who checks a nation's losses and its gains ; 
 Who grapples with each crotchet that comes out — 
 Tory finance, and atheistic doubt ; 
 Who gladly undertakes the gruesome deed 
 Of sounding Ward Hunt's figures, Strauss's creed ; 
 Who demonstrates, astir with ardent hope, 
 The deeper purpose of a scolding Pope ; 
 Who for that Joseph's coat, the Establishment, 
 Which policy has patched, and zeal has rent, 
 Picks up the shoddy with the tenderest care, 
 Fondly surveys each hole, and spot, and tear ; 
 Extols the stuff with which his hands are full. 
 And mends the seamless coat with asses' wool ^ ; 
 
 * vvov nSicai have been a famous mateiial for mending what cannot be 
 mended since the days of Aristophanes.
 
 LUCILIUS. l6l 
 
 Who honestly endeavours to befriend 
 
 What finds no other wise and honest friend ; 
 
 And gains, as every one but he must know, 
 
 The reputation of a secret foe ; 
 
 Who next assails, with premature alarm, 
 
 What noisy bumpkins think will do no harm ; 
 
 And gains, what all but he might well discern, 
 
 The credit of a scheme to serve his turn ; 
 
 Who seeks with gifts his enemies to gain, 
 
 But treats his friends with coldness and disdain ; 
 
 Who does no kindness when he does no wronsf. 
 
 Who makes love brief, and disappointment long ; 
 
 Who thinks that what is dissonant may be 
 
 Brought by some miracle to harmony ; 
 
 That man may weld scorn, hatred, wrath, and fear, 
 
 In one — the lackey, people, priest, and peer ; 
 
 Who does not know, that what he flirts away, 
 
 Fills foes with glee, fills friends with blank dismay. 
 
 And proves that they who plan, but will not heed, 
 
 May rule awhile, and act, but cannot lead. 
 
 In fiction such a character would seem 
 The strangest paradox, the wildest dream ; 
 In fact, it fills the honest heart with care 
 Lest lingering hope become prolonged despair. 
 
 U
 
 l62 LUCILIUS. 
 
 Who is it wins, when such a man as this, 
 Aims well enough, but manages to miss? 
 Who has the art to welcome the assault, 
 And win his greatness from his rival's fault? 
 Who is it, having carried off the prize, 
 Who proves it better to be shrewd than wise? 
 And puts upon the statesman at his feet. 
 The galling shame of unforeseen defeat? 
 
 The man whose purpose lies within his will 
 Knows that success comes not by chance, but skill ; 
 Sees that the gifts which fortune can bestow 
 May be the aids or traps of friend or foe ; 
 Tutored by patience, waits till he is sure 
 That what he means will make success secure, 
 And having chosen what to him is best, 
 Trusts that his courage will achieve the rest. 
 
 The timely jest which baffles what it strikes, 
 Scoffs at the wisdom which a mob dislikes, 
 Adroitly turns a truth to an offence. 
 And slyly makes a butt of common sense; 
 Succeeds, because the person it assails, 
 Though he be honest, in discretion fails. 
 
 The tact which makes the most of little things. 
 The wit which often mocks, but rarely stings ;
 
 LUCILIUS. l53 
 
 The art which never causes needless pain, 
 But meets unguarded censure with disdain, 
 Which rarely wills to volunteer a blow, 
 Which never lets men see it shirks a foe, 
 Which flirts no opportunity away, 
 Which can be serious, and which can be gay ; 
 The prudence which is never led to feel 
 Untimely earnestness or misplaced zeal ; 
 The cautious policy which gains its ends 
 By never seeming to neglect its friends ; 
 The skill which makes its party feel it must 
 Meet constant faithfulness with constant trust j 
 This is the wisdom which, at least in part. 
 One statesman needs, as parcel of his art. 
 
 If he were only able to discern 
 What is the lesson that lie needs must learn. 
 And having learnt it, wholly cast aside 
 The dreams which friends deplore, and foes deride ; 
 Shake off the dread which makes him stand aghast 
 At the poor phantoms of a powerless past, 
 Which, like the shadows of the dying day, 
 Grow vast, and vaster, as they fade away ; 
 Could turn from dull logomachies to deeds. 
 
 Study a nation's dangers and its needs ; 
 
 U 2
 
 164 LUCILIUS. 
 
 Could catch some little knowledge of the art 
 Which, while it claims the reason, chains the heart; 
 Find what the problem is of social life. 
 Remove the ceaseless impulses of strife ; 
 Lend all his powers to justly arbitrate 
 Between the honest interests of the state ; 
 Check the crude insolence of rank and wealth, 
 And give the people hope, contentment, health, — 
 Soothed by the news, I'd mutter, in my bed, 
 Cassandra Greg may screech of ' Rocks ahead -°.' 
 
 '" Mr. Greg is the author of many alarmist productions on politics and 
 theology.
 
 THE WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 King Solomon. 
 
 King Solomon was seated on his throne — 
 Round him was gathered every living thing, 
 
 For as he reigned, unchallenged and alone, 
 All nature paid her homage to her king. 
 
 He bowed his head upon his staff, and still 
 The crowd stood motionless on either side, 
 
 Waiting to hear the biddings of his will, — 
 Then, as he sat and mused, the monarch died. 
 
 His snow-white beard was gathered on his breast, 
 His head was balanced on his staff, his eyes 
 
 Were shut as if in thought, and no one guessed 
 That death was lurking in a king's disguise.
 
 1 66 THE WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 So on they waited, fettered by their fears, 
 Awed by the memory of a vanished spell, 
 
 Till, from the wasting of unnumbered years, 
 The staff was rotted, and the ruler fell. 
 
 At once the charm was broken, — who can see 
 The lesson which this legend would convey? 
 
 And having learnt it, feel that he is free 
 
 From forms whose ancient life has ebbed away? 
 
 We give a being to the withered past, 
 
 We girdle bygone power with living dread, 
 
 We make the fiction sensible and vast — 
 
 Must the prop rot before the thing is dead? 
 
 The story of Pentheus, and the Election of 1874. 
 
 When all men were heroes, and Homer was youthful, 
 A monarch called Pentheus in Thebes held the rule, 
 
 And, if we may credit what Gladstone thinks truthful, 
 The country was thriving, the king was no fool. 
 
 As ill-luck would have it, one Bacchus, a brewer. 
 With some barmaids and publicans came into view, 
 
 And the monarch was shocked when some incidents, truer 
 Than pleasant, were told of this crapulous crew.
 
 THE WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS. 1 67 
 
 And then when an augur ^ declared he would rather 
 A man should be free, whether sober or not, 
 
 He spurned the advice of his spiritual father, 
 
 And made war against brewer, and pothouse, and sot. 
 
 Beer, Bacchus, and victuallers settled these matters, 
 And supplied an example as startling as plain. 
 
 For the people went mad, and tore Pentheus to tatters. 
 While Bacchus cried, ' Better not try it again.' 
 
 O Gladstone, you study these far-away stories, 
 
 And could you not guess what would happen to you. 
 
 When the parsons and publicans joined with the Tories, 
 And the voters got drunk, and the Parliament blue ? 
 
 The story of Midas, 
 
 King Midas of old, who reigned over the Phrygians, 
 (If all that is told of his faculty 's true,) 
 
 Developed that shrewdest of modern religions 
 
 Which is held by a cross of the Teuton and Jew. 
 
 ' Bishop Magee. In the drama of Euripides, the warning voice is that 
 of the prophet and augur Teiresias.
 
 1 68 THE WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 He dabbled in mines, and vvhate'er he projected 
 Was turned into gold in a trice, but alas ! 
 
 This novice in jobbing was early detected, 
 
 And won, with the cash, the long ears of an ass. 
 
 Our Midases now are the sharpest of Smouches, 
 Continue his art, but are free from his fears ; 
 
 For they skilfully sweep all the gold to their pouches, 
 And leave to the dupes whom they bubble, the ears.
 
 L' Envoi, 
 
 Say, do I tvrite in earnest or in jest ? 
 
 Mock what I scorn, or strike at what I hatef 
 
 Is what I say too early, or too late? 
 When I essayed this combat, was it best 
 To change my ample optdcjice of rest 
 
 For that sJiarp strife which knows nor botmd nor bate. 
 
 Which will not cease, or sleep, or spare, or wait, 
 When the bold challenge lights tipon its quest. 
 
 And stirs the malice whicJi it cannot sate? 
 I know not. This alone I feel and know; — 
 
 That he who sees a truth, and heeds it not. 
 But dreams his day out in a coward sloth, 
 And neither succours friend, nor fights with foe. 
 
 In God and man has neither part nor lot. 
 But duly wins the righteous wrath of both.
 
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