Next day he likes to taste another field, The Alban hills', or else the Setine yield, Whose race and rich succession if you ask.

Age hath decay'd, and sickness of the cask;

Such Thrasea and Helvidius quaff'd, still crown'd,

When Brutus' birth and Cassius', they

renown'd.

Virro himself in solemn bowls is served,
Of amber and disparent beryl kerv'd;
But to thy trust no such cup they commit,
Or, if they do, a spy is fix'd to it,

To tell the stones; whose firm eye never fails

To watch the close walks of thy vulturous nails.

"Give leave," says Virro, and then takes the cup,

The famous jasper in it lifting up
In glorious praises; for 'tis now the guise
Of him and others to transfer such prize
Off from his fingers to his bowls that were
Wont to grace swords, and our young
Trojan peer

That made larbus jealous (since in love Preferr'd past him by Dido) used t' improve

By setting them in fore-front of his sheath. But thy bowl stands an infinite beneath, And bears the Beneventane cobbler's

obathe with Boccharis; an oil whose smell

jainst serpents doth an amulet excel. Next, for my lord, a mullet see served in, ent from the Corsic shore, or of a fin red in Sicilia's Taurominian rocks; lour seas being exhausted, all our flocks

pent and destroy'd, while our luxurious diet

fakes havoc, and our kitchens never quiet

still with unwearied nets, that no truce keep, Ransack the entrails of th' adjoining deep; Nor respite our Etrurian fry to grow. And now our markets their chief purvey

ance owe

To some remote and ditionary coast;
Thence come the dainties that our kitchens

boast;

Such as to buy, the vulture Lenas deigns,
Such as to sell, Aurelia entertains.
In mess with that, behold for Virro lies
A lamprey of an exemplary size,

That for dimension bears the prize from all

Which gulfs Sicilian sent his festival; For while the South contains himself, while he

Lies close, and dries his feathers in his lee, Our greedy pursenets for their gain despise The danger that in mid Charybdis lies.

Now, for his lamprey, thou art glad to
take

An eel, near cousin to a hideous snake,
Or else a freckled Tiberine, bit with frost,
And he the poorest slave of all the coast,
Fed with the torrent of the common sewer,
And swims the town-ditch where 'tis most
impure.

Here would I on himself a word have spent,

So he inclined an ear benevolent.
Nor do we such benevolences crave,
As Seneca his mean acquaintance gave;
Such as good Piso; such as Cotta made
To deal for largess; a familiar trade;
For times have been, that in the world's

Or sure that caponet." When, for all prepared,

Your musty bread pared clean, and no bit shared

Of all those meats of mark, and long'd-for dishes,

Your vain hopes vanish, and y' are mute as fishes.

He's wise that serves thee so; for if thou can Bear all, thou shouldst, and he's no unjust

man

That lays all on thee, even to stoop thy head

To the fool's razor, and be buffeted; Which if thou dost, nor lett'st thy forage fear

Besides to suffer Virro's whipping cheer, With all the sharp sauce that he can extend,

Thou'rt worthy such a feast, and such a friend.