3

Any one who feels curious to meddle with this old controversy will find a very charming narrative of it in Dryden's Preface to his Juvenal. Casaubon's Treatise2 (which is a luminous and weighty composition) has done its work well; for I believe I may venture to say, that his theory has found general acceptance, and may lay claim to being considered the orthodox one. He shows, that the two kinds of Satire, the Greek and the Roman, were essentially different; that the derivation is not accordant with etymology, nor supported by old grammarians; that the Romans had their Satire long before the Greek influence began; and so forth. And he finds the germ of this famous sort of composition in certain old Italian practices, of which our Horace has given us a sketch,—the railleries of the jolly fellows

thus to Sir Julius Cæsar. "Chancelor of my Excheker, I will have Mr. Casaubon paid before me, my wife, and my barnes." (Ephemerides, p. 942.) "Deus ipsum servet! Amen," adds Ca

saubon.

1 Scott's Dryden, vol. xiii. pp. 37 to 65.

2 De Sat. Poes. &c., Paris, 1605; the same year that his Persius appeared; of which his friend Joseph Scaliger used to say, that "the sauce was worth more than the fish."

* E. Spanheim, whose essay on this subject (preface to his Césars de l'Empereur Julien, Paris, 1683) is commended by Gibbon, calls Casaubon "le savant homme qui a le premier débrouillé cette matière." For more modern confirmations of his view, see Ruperti de Satira Romanorum, in his Juvenal; Corssen's Origines Poesis Romana (especially pp. 147 et seq.); Dillenburger's Horace; and art. Satura in Smith's Dict. Ant.

at the grand old agricultural festivals of remote times.

Now it is not within my present plan to go at any length into a controversy like this. But here is the interest of the matter. We derive our satirical forms from Horace and Juvenal. In all other literary productions the Romans are imitators of the Greeks; but here a certain originality is claimed for them. Here are good reasons for thinking that you have a draught of wine given you with a flavour of the old Italian grape in it. "Greece has modified this"-the Roman arguer might say, "but we had a Satire of our own before the day of her influence. We derive this from days of old, and from the wild, humorous heart of our countrymen at their harvest-homes. Satira does not come from your shaggy-legged, small-horned, ape-faced Satyrs; it comes from our own satura, originally applied adjectively to a vessel full of the first-fruits; and so, by transition, to any mixture; and so, to a mixed intellectual composition, like those in dispute." Well, to me it is beautiful to see how a people sticks to its traditions, and loves its past! I like to think of those early days, when they crowded together, from far and wide, to celebrate their harvest and their vintage; and to recognise solemnly the genius, the supernatural and mystic power, which underlaid the beauty of the country, and the bursting fertility

which loaded the team! Silvanus had his milk; the Genius had his wine and flowers; the banquet followed, and the rude dance; and then came the jest and the raillery, in doggerel and in speech. How astonished would some agricola, noted for a pungent way of treating his neighbours on these occasions, have been, had some superior and prophetic spirit, some supernatural reviewer, touched his shoulder, and said, "Sir, you are a powerful satirist; you unite startling invective with wild humour; your irony is rather coarse; and you should not attack such a respectable man as yonder So-andso; but on the whole"-Yes, he would have stared; but he was an ancestor of the satirist who supped with Scipio Africanus, and of the divine little man of the world who lived in the Sabine farm; and so of hundreds of other votaries of the satura, of whom he little dreamed.

At all events, it appears to me that the Roman humorous character has never been done justice to. We do not rightly feel the humanity of the old Romans, when we think of them only as grim soldierly people, with a peculiar conformation of nose! A stern, iron race they were, to be sure, in their great day, realising this condition, thorough, clear, practical action, within a circle rigidly bounded by religious awe. A Roman was the most practical of men, a soldier, lawgiver, road-maker;-all within

a ring of sacred mystery. I dare say, accordingly, that if one were suddenly transplanted into Rome, such as it was while it retained its character, one would notice, in the expression of the faces in the streets, a distinct something corresponding to our severe ideas.

But now, to my mind, the Roman humour was correspondent in depth with the national character, something on the same scale with its sense of patriotism, and its notions of discipline. I fancy it clumsy, perhaps, but grandly genial, and such as laughter should be, to shake the sides of men who shook the world! Consider the Saturnalia, for instance, and compare them with our Greenwich and the "fun of the fair!"—A huge city and its institutions turned upside down; slaves jeering their masters, in a style to astonish Uncle Tom; blazing revelry, and feasting and drinking, that would kill our aldermen; fun, in fact, proportionate to the seriousness of other times, as nature arranges these matters. Or, consider such a scene as this: Julius Cæsar, in his triumph, rolling along the streets to the Capitol, and the common soldiers following behind, and shouting out satirical doggerel against him! What "unbendings" were

1 Suetonius (Jul. Cæs. c. 49) has preserved a specimen of these compositions. "In the Gallic triumph also," he says, "the soldiers, among the other songs, such as they sing when following the car" -and gives three singular verses. See Corssen, Orig. Poesis Rom. p. 135.

these! what characteristics of what I shall venture to call the jolly element in the Roman people!-a product of the native genius of Italy, like the Fescennine verses, or Atellan plays.

It is unfortunate that we are without any adequate literary expression of this element. So fortune would have it. The old ballad literature of Rome perished entirely. But for my part, I fancy that we get here and there, in several writers, a gleam of the old Roman humour, the essence of which, I take it, was a manly heartiness, and which was as likely to be somewhat coarse and homely as not. In the pages. of Cicero (who was one of the most genial of men, and whose writings overflow with wit and goodnature) we find some remarkable allusions to this quality. In a letter to an accomplished Roman friend, whose humour he praises, he speaks of his jests "as salter than Attic ones,-old Roman and urban ones." He goes on to lament over the extinction of their native facetiæ, now become forgotten in Latium and the city; and in his complimentary way adds, "When I see you, I seem to see the Granii and Lucilii again. I protest that we

1 Epist. ad Diversos, ix. 15, written to Pætus, A. U. c. 708.— "Hilaritas" and "suavitas" were two notable elements in the disposition, personal and literary, of this great man. Stern gentlemen, who think they could have managed the period better than he did, abuse him; men familiar with his writings love his memory.