CAUSES OF SATIRE.

"Feel we no gust, e'en in the public square,
To scrawl our tablets full; when, high in air,
Borne on six slavish necks, we see him ride
In open litter, seen on every side;

Lolling, Mæcenas-like, in foppish pride;
Who forged a signature with pliant quill,
And simply interlined a scrap of will,
And pressed a deftly-wetted seal,- to shine
In this smooth case, and in this ease recline?
Can I refrain, nor on my quarry prey,
When that rich matron sails across my way,
Who in Calenum's mellow wine instilled
Toad's juice, and, busy, for her ausband filled?

A new Locusta, willing to impart

To inexperienced wives the poisoning art;

And her fair neighbors teach to bear along

The livid husband's bier, through Rome's loud-babbling throng. Dare something worthy of the dungeon floor,

Or banishment to Gyara's rock-pent shore;

Dare this, or worse, if thou wouldst great become;
For probity is praised, and starves at home.

Gardens, pavilions, citron tables, plate

Of antique fashion and of massive weight;
Goblets embossed with goats; all, all their state
Is owing to their crimes: then who can think,
And let his eyes in midnight slumber sink?
Mere indignation vents, in nature's spite,

Such boggling rhymes as I or Cluvienus write.

Down from the time when storms raised high the deep,

And old Deucalion on the mountain steep

Moored his tossed skiff, and at the tripod knelt;

When stones a breathing warmth, slow-softening, felt;

When did a richer crop of vices wave?

Or when the bag of avarice wider crave?

The gaming fever hotlier burn?- when they

Who haunt the table, for no purses play,

But the strong box is staked: the fight runs high,
While black-leg armor-bearers dice supply;

And are ye not stark mad a plum to lose,

Yet to your shivering slave a cloak refuse?"- Elton.

MAR'TIAL.

BORN 43 A.D.

Mar'cus Vale'rius Martia'lis was a native of Spain, being born at Bilbilis, a town whose very site is now lost. We know nothing of him except from his works, and this is but little. Of his parents he only tells us that they were fools for teaching him to read. He came to Rome in his twenty-second year, the twelfth of Nero's reign. Here he soon became famous as a wit and poet, and enjoyed the patronage of the emperors Titus and Domitian, being raised by the latter to the rank of court poet. Despite his city house and country villa, and his pension as poet laureate, he complains much of poverty, declaring that poets only get compliments for their verses, while every one else grows rich.

After residing fifty-five years in Rome he returned to his native city, where he married a rich Spanish lady called Marcella, with whom he lived in affluence till his death, about 104 A.D. He praises this rich wife, as he had before flattered his imperial patrons, declaring that the climate of her estate is so genial that the olive groves are green in January, and that the roses bloom twice in the year; and that the equal of his wife for sweetness of manners and rarity of genius is not to be found. Yet, despite this flattery, he evidently longs for the Capital, and finds his life a dull one. In fact, Martial everywhere shows that he was of a discontented disposition, longing, when in Rome, for the quiet of Bilbilis, and when in Bilbilis, for the bustle of Rome.

The Epigram, in its modern acceptation, may be almost said to have originated with him, he being the only Roman who achieved fame in this direction. In the Greek sense the epigram is simply an inscription, a short, concise poem in the elegiac metre, neat in its treatment, and without bitterness. Among the Romans epigrams were written by

Catullus, Virgil and Ovid, and some are extant from the pens of Cæsar, Augustus, Mæcenas and Hadrian. To the grace and elegance of the Greek epigram the Roman poets added the sting of satiric bitterness, and an acute observation of human nature. They thus invented both the satire and the epigram in their modern sense; the latter being with them but a condensed satire, all its power and severity being concentrated upon a single point.

Martial's epigrams, which became very popular throughout the Roman empire, are comprised in fourteen books, yet extant. He had a wonderful inventiveness and facility in this species of composition, his works having always received the highest admiration. This, however, is qualified by his grossness, he depicting the profligacy of Rome in the most impure language, and seeming to delight in obscenity.

Yet, though his poems are often spiteful or immoral, they are not all of this character. Many of them are full of a Grecian sweetness and elegance, kind-hearted in tone, and marked occasionally by pleasing descriptions of nature. He combines a ready and varied wit, poetical imagination, and happy and graceful expression, with a strong sensuality.

Martial has never found an adequate translator; his works, indeed, being of a kind very difficult to transmit, with their full power and point, into another language. The great mass of them are best untranslated.

ON THE GIRL EROTION.

"The girl that was to ear and sight
More soft of tone, of skin more white,
Than plumaged swans, that yield in death
The sweetest murmur of their breath:
Smooth as Galesus' soft-fleeced flocks,
Dainty as shells on Lucrine rocks,
As red-sea pearls, bright ivory's glow,
Unsullied lilies, virgin snow;

Whose locks were tipped with ruddy gold,
Like wool that clothes the Bætic fold,

Like braided hair of girls of Rhine,

As tawny field mouse sleek and fine;
Whose vermeil mouth breathed Pæstum's rose,
Or balm fresh honey-combs disclose,
Or amber yielding odor sweet
From the chafing hand's soft heat;
By whom the peacock was not fair,
Nor squirrels pets, nor phoenix rare;
Erotion crumbles in her urn,

Warm from the pile her ashes burn;
Ere yet had closed her sixteenth year
The Fates accurst have spread her bier,
And with her all I doated on,

My loves, my joys, my sports are gone.
Yet Pætus, who like me distrest,
Is fain to beat his mourning breast,
And tear his hair beside a grave,

"So thick your planes and laurels spread,
And cypress groves so rear the head
High in the air; your baths so wide
Expand their streams on every side;
They'd shade and bathe full half the town;
Yet shades and baths are all your own.
Your porch on hundred columns soars;
You tread on alabaster floors;

The race-horse beats your dusty ring;
Fountains, with ever-wasting spring,
Fall on the ear with gliding sound,
And spacious courts are opening round.
'Tis all so grand and so complete,
There is no room to sleep or eat;

How excellently lodged, sir, here,
In this no-lodging you appear!"

TO CECILIANUS.

“Oh times! oh manners!' Tully cried of old;
When Catiline in impious plots grew bold:
When in full arms the son and father stood,
And the sad earth reeked red with civil blood:
Why now-why now, 'oh times! oh manners' cry?
What is it now that shocks thy purity?

No sword now maddens, and no chiefs destroy,

But all is peace, security and joy:

These times, these manners, that so vile are grown,
Prythee, Cæcilian, are they not thy own?"-Elton.

"When near the Lucrine lake, consumed to death,
I draw the sultry air and gasp for breath,
Where streams of sulphur raise a stifling heat,
And through the pores of the warm pumice sweat;
You taste the cooling breeze where, nearer home,
The twentieth pillar marks the mile from Rome.
And now the Sun to the bright Lion turns,
And Baia with redoubled fury burns;
Then, briny seas and tasteful springs, farewell,
Where fountain nymphs confused with naiads dwell,
In winter you may all the world despise,

But now 'tis Tivola that bears the prize."—Addison.

TO A BOASTING CHARACTER.

"Fine lectures Attalus rehearses;

Pleads finely; writes fine tales and verses;
Fine epigrams, fine farces vie

With grammar and astrology;
He finely sings, and dances finely;
Plays tennis; fiddles most divinely;
All finely done and nothing well;
Then, if a man the truth may tell,
This all-accomplished Punchinello
Is a most busy, idle fellow."