SATIRE V. Argument. In this excellent Satire, Juvenal takes occasion, under pretence of advising one Trebius to abstain from the table of Virro, a man of rank and fortune, to give a spirited detail of the mortifications to which the poor were subjected by the rich, at those entertainments to which, on account of the political connection subsisting between patrons and clients, it was sometimes thought necessary to invite them. A strain of manly indignation pervades the whole :-nor has it so much exaggeration as some as some of the commentators have perceived in it: since there is scarcely a single trait of insult and indignity here mentioned, which is not to be found animadverted upon, with more or less severity, in the writers of that age. 66 One of Pliny's letters (lib. ii. 6) is expressly on this subject; and as a better illustration of the Satire before us, cannot possibly be desired, I subjoin a pretty long extract from it. Longum est altius repetere, &c. I supped lately with a person with whom I am by no means intimate, who in his own opinion treated us with much splendid frugality; but according to mine, in a sordid, yet expensive manner. Some very elegant dishes were served up to himself and a few more of us; while those which were placed before the rest of the company, were extremely cheap and mean. There were in small bottles, three different sorts of wine; not that the guests might take their choice, but that they might not have an option in their power. The best was for himself and his friends of the first rank; the next for those of a lower order; and the third for his own and his guests' freed-men. One who sat near me took notice of this circumstance, and asked me how I approved of it? Not at all I replied. Pray then, said he, what is your method on such occasions? When I make an invitation, I replied, all are served alike: I invite them with a design to entertain, not to affront them; and those I think worthy of a place at my table, I certainly think worthy of every thing it affords." SATIRE V. TO TREBIUS. v. 1-8. Ir, by reiterated scorn made bold, Thy mind can still its shameless tenor hold, If, for this sordid purpose, thou can'st hear, Cans't brook what sneaking Galba would have spurn'd, VER. 7. Cans't brook what sneaking Galba would have spurn'd, And mean Sarmentus, &c.] Galba. This is probably the person mentioned in the notes to the first Satire, (p. 16,) and who, from the anecdote there recorded, appears not altogether unworthy of the epithet here assigned him. He is frequently noticed by Martial; and appears to have been a kind of necessary fool or jester, on whom every one broke his witticisms with impunity. Sarmentus was a run-a-way slave, who, instead of being sent back to his mistress to be whipt, as he deserved, was taken into the family of a man, who has been usually supposed to have other, and better claims on the gratitude of posterity, than the patronage of a scurrilous buffoon. In his journey to Brundusium, Horace gives an account of a scolding match, T At Cæsar's haughty board dependants both; The belly's fed with little cost: yet grant which he witnessed, between this Sarmentus, and a fellow of the name of Messius. There was not much humour in the dispute, yet Mæcenas, who was also present at it, found it so agreeable to his taste, that he took the former into his train, carried him to Rome, and recommended him to Augustus, with whom (as we learn from Plutarch) he became a kind of favourite. The old scholiast gives a long account of him; from which it appears, that what was so unworthily bestowed by the emperor, was as unworthily spent by his minion; who was again reduced, in the decline of life, to a state of absolute beggary and dependence. VER. 11. The belly's fed, &c. and Spencer, "Discite quam parvo liceat producere vitam Lucan, Iv. 377. "But would men think with how small allowance "Such superfluity they would despise "As with sad care impeach their native joys." Here is the moral of the Satire in three words, and a very fine one it is :-but intemperance, as Cowley says of avarice, has been so pelted with good sayings, that every reader can suggest them to himself. VER. 13. Some vacant bridge, &c.] See Sat. Iv. v. 166. There, in thy wretched stand, thou mayst, my friend, With chattering teeth toil o'er thy wretched treat, For, first, of this be sure: whene'er thy lord At first with sneers, and sarcasms you engage, Then deal round mutual wounds, with mutual rage: |