Page:Juvenal and Persius by G. G. Ramsay.djvu/411

 then thy wife in a flurry arraying thee as Dictator before the oxen, while the lictor drives home the plough! Bravo, bravo! Mr. Poet! One man pores over the dried-up tome of the Bacchanalian Accius; others dwell lovingly on the warty Antiope of Pacuvius, 'her dolorific heart buttressed up with woes.' When you see blear-eyed sires pouring lessons like these into their children's eai*s, can you ask whence has come this farrago of language into their tongues? or whence came those shameless ditties which put your smooth-faced sprigs of nobility into a tremble of ecstasy on the benches?

"Are you not ashamed to be unable to ward off danger from some hoary head without wishing to hear some trifling word of commendation? 'You are a thief!' says the accused to Pedius: how does Pedius reply? He balances the charges against each other in smooth antitheses, and Is praised for his artistic tropes: 'How fine!' they say. What, Romulus? Do you call that fine? Or are you just losing your virility? Shall I be touched, think you, and pull a penny out of my pocket because a ship-wrecked mariner sings a song? You sing, do you, when you carry on your shoulder a picture of yourself, squatting on a broken plank? No, no . the man who wishes to bend me with his tale of woe must shed true tears—not tears that have been got ready overnight."

F. "But you will admit, anyhow, that grace and polish have been added to the uncouth measures of 325