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NEW AND LITERAL

TRANSLATION

OF

JUVENAL AND PERSIUS;

WITH

COPIOUS EXPLANATORY NOTES,

BY WHICH

THESE DIFFICULT SATIRISTS ARE RENDERED EASY
AND FAMILIAR TO THE READER.

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PRINTED BY BRETT SMITH, 46, MARY-STREET.

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1813.

DL

26 FEB 58

KIBRARY

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JUNII JUVENALIS

AQUINATIS

SATIRE.

SATIRA X.

ARGUMENT.

The Post's design in this Satire, which deservedly holds the first rank among all performances of the kind, is to represent the va rious wishes and desires of mankind, and to shew the folly of them. He mentions riches, honours, eloquence, fame for martial achievements, long life, and beauty, and gives instances of OMNIBUS in terris, quæ sunt a Gadibus usque

Auroram et Gangem, pauci dignoscere possunt
Vera bona, atque illis multum diversa, remotâ
Erroris nebulâ: quid enim ratione timemus,
Aut cupimus? quid tam dextro pede concipis, ut te
Conatûs non pœniteat, votique peracti?

Evertêre domos totas optantibus ipsis

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*This Satire has been always admired; bishop Burnet goes so far, as to recommend it (together with Persius) to the serious perusal and practice of the divines in his diocese, as the best common places for their sermons, as the store houses and magazines of moral virtues, from whence they may draw out, as they have occasion, all manner of assistance for the accomplishment of a virtuous life. The tenth Satire (says Crusius in his Lives of the Roman Poets) is inimit. able for the excellence of its morality, and sublime sentiments.

Line. 1. Gades.] An island without the Streights of Gibraltar in the south part of Spain, divided from the continent by a small creek. Now called Cadiz, by corruption Cales.

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2. The East.] Aurora, (quasi aurea hora, from the golden-colour. ed splendour of day-break,) metonym. the East.

-Ganges.] The greatest river in the East, dividing India into two parts.

3-4. Cloud of error.] That veil of darkness and ignorance which is over the human mind, and hides from it, as it were, the faculty of perceiving our real and best interests, as distinguished from those which are deceitful and imaginary.

4. What, with reason, &c.] According to the rules of right and

sober reason.

THE

SATIRES

OF

JUVENAL.

SATIRE X*.

their having proved ruinous to the possessors of them. He concludes, therefore, that we should leave it to the gods to make a choice for us, they knowing what is most for our good. All that we can safely ask, iš, health of body and mind: possessed of these, we have enough to make us happy, and therefore it is not much matter what we want besides.

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True good things, and those greatly different from them, the cloud
Of error removed: for what, with reason do we fear,
Or desire? what do you contrive so prosperously, that you
May not repent of your endeavour, and of your accomplished wish?
The easy gods have overturned whole houses, themselves

5. So prosperously, &c.] Tam dextro pede-on 30 prosperous a footing-with ever such hope and prospect of success, that you may not repent your endeavour (conatus) and pains to accomplish it, and of your desires and wishes being fully completed and answered?votique peracti.

The right and left were ominous-dexter-a-um, therefore, signifies lucky, favourable, fortunate, propitious—as lævus-a-um, unlucky, inconvenient, unseasonable.

Tam dextro pede is equivalent to tam fausto-secundo-prospero pede.

I pede fausto-go on and prosper. HoR. lib. ii. epist. ii. 1. 37. So VIRG. En. viii. 1. 302.

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Et nos et tua dexter adi pede sacra secundo.

Approach us, and thy sacred rites, with thy favourable présence. Pes-lit. a foot, that member of the body on which we stand— sometimes means the foundation of any thing--a plot for building; so, in a moral sense, those conceptions and contrivances of the mind, which are the foundations of human action, on which men build for profit or happiness this seems to be its meaning here. 7. The easy gods, &c.] The gods, by yielding to the prayers

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