He raves like one in banishment,

In narrow craggy island pent:

In one poor globe does sweat and squeeze,
Wedg'd in and crampt in little-ease.

But he who human race once scorn'd,
And said high Jove King Philip horn'd,
While manag'd oracles declare

The spark great Ammon's son and heir;
At Babylon, for all his huffing,
Finds ample room in narrow coffin.

Man swells with bombast of inventions,
When stript, death shews his true dimensions.
So do we read wild Xerxes rent

Mount Athos from the continent,
And in a frolic made a shift,
To set it in the sea adrift:

With ships pav'd o'er the Hellespont,
And built a floating bridge upon't :
Drove chariots o'er by this device,
As coaches ran upon the ice.

He led so numberless a rout,

As at one meal drank rivers out.

This tyrant we in story find,

Was us'd to whip and flog the wind;

Their jailor Eolus in prison,

Ne'er forc'd them with so little reason:

Nor could blue Neptune's godhead save him,

But he with fetters must enslave him.

Yet after all these roaring freaks,
Routed and broke he homeward sneaks;
And ferries o'er in fishing-boat
Through shoals of carcases afloat;
His hopes all vanish'd, bilked of all
His gaudy dreams: see pride's just fall.
The frequent subject of our prayers,
Is length of life and many years:
But what incessant plagues and ills,
The gulph of age with mischief fills!
We can pronounce none happy, none,
Till the last sand of life be run.
Marius's long life was th' only reason,
Of exile and Minturnian prison.
Kind fate designing to befriend
Great Pompey, did a fever send,
That should with favourable doom,
Prevent his miseries to come:

But nations for his danger griev'd,

Make public prayers, and he's repriev'd: Fate then that honour'd head did save,

And to insulting Cæsar gave.

Tis the fond mother's constant prayer,
Her children may be passing fair :

The boon they beg with sighs and groans,

Incessantly on marrow-bones.

Yet bright Lucretia's sullen fate,

Shews fair ones are not fortunate.

Virginia's chance may well confute you,
Good luck don't always wait on beauty.

Let not your wills then once repine,
Whate'er the gods for you design.
They better know than human wit,
What does our exigence befit.
Their wise all-seeing eyes discern,
And give what best suits our concern.
We blindly harmful things implore,
Which they refusing, love us more.

Shall men ask nothing then? Be wise,
And listen well to sound advice.
Pray only that in body sound,

A firm and constant mind be found:
A mind no fear of death can daunt,
Nor exile, prison, pains nor want:
That justly reckons death to be
Kind author of our liberty:
Banishing passion from our breast,

Resting content with what's possest:

That ev'ry honest action loves,

And great Alcides' toil approves,

Above the lusts, feasts, and beds of down,

Which did Sardanapalus drown.

This mortals to themselves may give;

Virtue's the happy rule to live.

Chance bears no sway where wisdom rules,

An empty name ador'd by fools.

Folly blind Fortune did create,
A goddess, and to heaven translate.

As I had not room for all the tenth Satire, what is seen here, is rather an abridgement than an entire version. The whole sense of the author, however, is preserved, though several of his examples and illustrations are left out.

Dr. Burnet, bishop of Salisbury, thought this Satire so excellent a thing, that in his famous Pastoral Letter he recommends it, and the Satires of Persius, to the perusal and practice of the divines in his diocese, as the best common places for their sermons; and what may be taught with more profit to the audience, than all the new speculations of divinity, and controversies concerning faith; which are more for the profit of the shepherd, than for the edification of the flock. In the Satires, nothing is proposed but the quiet and tranquillity of the mind. Virtue is lodged at home, as Dryden expresses it, in his fine dedication to the Earl of Dorset ; and diffused to the improvement and good of human kind. Passion, interest, ambition, mystery, fury, and every cruel consequence, are banished from the doctrine of these stoics, and only the moral virtues inculcated, for the perfection of mankind.

But so unreasonable and infatuated are our shepherds, too many of them I mean, that a rational Christian cannot go to church without being skocked at the absurd and impious work of their pulpits. In town and country, almost every Sunday, those bright theologers

are for ever on the glories of trinity in unity, and teaching their poor people that God Almighty came down from heaven to take flesh upon him, and make infinite satisfaction to himself. This is the cream of Christianity, in the account of those teachers. The moral

virtues are nothing, compared to a man or a woman's swallowing the divine mystery of an incarnate God Almighty. Over and over have I heard a thousand of them on this holy topic, sweating and drivelling at each corner of their mouths with eagerness to convert the world to their mysteries. The adorable mystery! says one little priest, in my neighbourhood in Westminster. The more incomprehensible and absurd it appears to human reason, the greater honour you do to heaven in believing it, says another wise man in the country. But tell me, ye excellent divines, tell me in print if you please, if it would not be doing more honour to the law of heaven, to inform the people, that the true Christian profession is, to pray to God our Father for grace, mercy, and peace, through the Lord Jesus Christ; without ever mentioning the Athanasian scheme, or trinity in unity which you know no more of than so many pigs do, because it is a mere invention, and not to be found in the Bible. And in the next place, to tell your flocks in serious and practical address, that their main business is, as the disciples of the holy Jesus, a good life; to strive against sin continually, and be virtuous and useful to the utmost of our power; to imitate the purity and goodness of their great master, the Author of eternal salvation to all them that obey him, and by

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