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

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PRINTED FOR THE EDITOR,

AT MR. LEWIS'S, N° 157, SWALLOW-STREET

NEAR PICCADILLY.

M.DCC.LXXXIX,

am.H

1

LENOX LIBRARY

NEW YORK

PREFACE

D

то

JUVENAL.

ECIMUS Junius Juvenal was born at Aqui num, a town of the Volsci, a people of Latium: hence, from the place of his birth, he was called Aquinas. It is not certain whether he was the fon, or fofter-child, of a rich freedman. He had a learned education, and, in the time of Claudius Nero, pleaded causes with great reputation. About his middle age be applied himself to the study of Poetry; and, as he faw a daily increase of vice and folly, he addicted him felf to writing Satire: but, having said something (Sat. vii. 1. 88-92.) which was deemed a reflection on Paris the actor, a minion of Domitian's, he was banished into Ægypt, at * eighty years of age, under pretence of fending him as captain of a company of foldiers. This was looked upon as a fort of humorous punishment for what he had faid, in making Paris the bestower of posts in the army.

However, Domitian dying very foon after, Juvenal returned to Rome, and is faid to have lived there to

* Quanquam Octogenarius.-MARSHALL, in Vit. Juv.

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the times * of Nerva and Trajan. At last, worne out with old age, he expired in a fit of coughing.

He was a man of excellent morals, of an elegant taste and judgment, a fast friend to Virtue, and an irreconcileable enemy to Vice in every shape.

As a writer, his style is unrivalled, in point of elegance and beauty, by any Satirist that we are acquainted with, Horace not excepted. The plainness of his expressions are derived from the honesty and integrity of his own mind : his great aim was" to

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hold, as it were, the mirror up to nature; to shew "Virtue her own feature, Scorn her own image, and "the very age and body of the time his form and "preffure†."-He meant not, therefore, to corrupt the mind, by openly describing the lewd practices of bis countrymen, but to remove every veil, even of language itself, which could foften the features, or hide the full deformity of vice from the observation of his readers, and thus to strike the mind with due abkorrence of what he cenfures. All this is done in fo masterly a way, as to render him well worthy Scaliger's encomium, when he styles him-Omnium Satyricorum facilè Princeps. He was much loved and respected by ‡ Martial. Quintilian speaks of him, Inst. Orat. Lib. x. as the chief of Satirifts. || Ammianus

* Ibique ad Nervæ & Trojani tempora supervixisse dicitur. MARSHALL. Ib.

† Hamlet, Act iii. Scene 2.

Epig. 24. || Hift. Lib. xxviii.

‡ See Mart. Lib. vii.

Marcellinus

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