"Augustus was not afraid of libels," says that author, "yet he took all care imaginable to have them answered, and then decreed that for the time to come the authors of them should be punished." But Aurelius makes it yet more clear, according to my sense, that this emperor for his own sake durst not permit them:- Fecit id Augustus in speciem, et quasi gratificaretur populo Romano, et primoribus urbis; sed revera ut sibi consuleret: nam habuit in animo comprimere nimiam quorundam procacitatem in loquendo, a qua nec ipse exemptus fuit. Nam suo nomine compescere erat invidiosum, sub alieno facile et utile. Ergo specie legis tractavit, quasi populi Romani majestas infamaretur. This, I think, is a sufficient comment on that passage of Tacitus. I will add only by the way that the whole family of the Caesars and all their relations were included in the law, because the majesty of the Romans in the time of the Empire was wholly in that house: Omnia Caesar erat; they were all accounted sacred who belonged to him. As for Cassius Severus, he was contemporary with Horace, and was the same poet against whom he writes in his epodes under this title, In Cassium Severum, maledicum poctam--perhaps intending to kill two crows, according to our proverb, with one stone, and revenge both himself and his emperor together.
From hence I may reasonably conclude that Augustus, who was not altogether so good as he was wise, had some by-respect in the enacting of this law; for to do anything for nothing was not his maxim. Horace, as he was a courtier, complied with the interest of his master; and, avoiding the lashing of greater crimes, confined himself to the ridiculing of petty vices and common follies, excepting only some reserved cases in his odes and epodes of his own particular quarrels (which either with permission of the magistrate or without it, every man will revenge, though I say not that he should; for prior laesit is a good excuse in the civil law if Christianity had not taught us to forgive). However, he was not the proper man to arraign great vices; at least, if the stories which we hear of him are true--that he practised some which I will not here mention, out of honour to him. It was not for a Clodius to accuse adulterers, especially when Augustus was of that number. So that, though his age was not exempted from the worst of villainies, there was no freedom left to reprehend them by reason of the edict; and our poet was not fit to represent them in an odious character, because himself was dipped in the same actions. Upon this account, without further insisting on the different tempers of Juvenal and Horace, I conclude that the subjects which Horace chose for satire are of a lower nature than those of which Juvenal has written.
Thus I have treated, in a new method, the comparison betwixt Horace, Juvenal, and Persius. Somewhat of their particular manner, belonging to all of them, is yet remaining to be considered.
Persius was grave, and particularly opposed his gravity to lewdness, which was the predominant vice in Nero's court at the time when he published his satires, which was before that emperor fell into the excess of cruelty. Horace was a mild admonisher, a court satirist, fit for the gentle times of Augustus, and more fit for the reasons which I have already given. Juvenal was as proper for his times as they for theirs; his was an age that deserved a more severe chastisement; vices were more gross and open, more flagitious, more encouraged by the example of a tyrant, and more protected by his authority. Therefore, wheresoever Juvenal mentions Nero, he means Domitian, whom he dares not attack in his own person, but scourges him by proxy. Heinsius urges in praise of Horace that, according to the ancient art and law of satire, it should be nearer to comedy than to tragedy; not declaiming against vice, but only laughing at it. Neither Persius nor Juvenal was ignorant of this, for they had both studied Horace. And the thing itself is plainly true. But as they had read Horace, they had likewise read Lucilius, of whom Persius says, Secuit urbem; . . . et genuinum fregit in illis; meaning Mutius and Lupus; and Juvenal also mentions him in these words "Ense velut stricto, quoties Lucilius ardens Infremuit, rubet auditor, cui frigida mens est Criminibus, tacita sulant praecordia culpa."
So that they thought the imitation of Lucilius was more proper to their purpose than that of Horace. "They changed satire," says Holyday, "but they changed it for the better; for the business being to reform great vices, chastisement goes farther than admonition; whereas a perpetual grin, like that of Horace, does rather anger than amend a man."
Thus far that learned critic Barten Holyday, whose interpretation and illustrations of Juvenal are as excellent as the verse of his translation and his English are lame and pitiful; for it is not enough to give us the meaning of a poet (which I acknowledge him to have performed most faithfully) but he must also imitate his genius and his numbers as far as the English will come up to the elegance of the original. In few words, it is only for a poet to translate a poet. Holyday and Stapleton had not enough considered this when they attempted Juvenal; but I forbear reflections: only I beg leave to take notice of this sentence, where Holyday says, "a perpetual grin, like that of Horace, rather angers than amends a man." I cannot give him up the manner of Horace in low satire so easily.
