Page:Monsieur Bossu's Treatise of the epick poem - Le Bossu (1695).djvu/317

 mock and deride; yet this Word ought always to be writ in Latin with an (u) or (i) Satura, or Satira, and in English by an (i). Those who have wrote it with a (y) thought with Scaliger, Heinsius, and a great many others, that the Divinities of the Groves, which the Grecians call'd Satyrs, the Romans Fauns, gave their Names to these Pieces; and that of the Word Satyrus they had made Satyra, and that these Satyrs had a great Affinity with the Satyrick Pieces of the Greeks, which is absolutely false, as Casaubon has very well prov'd it, in making it appear, That of the Word Satyrus they could never make Satyra, but Satyrica: And in shewing the Difference betwixt the Satyrick Poems of the Greeks, and the Roman Satyrs. Mr. Spanheim, in his fine Preface to the Caesars, of the Emperour Julian, has added new Reflections to those which this Judicious Critick had advanced; and he has establish'd, with a great deal of Judgment, five or six essential Differences between those two Poems, which you may find in his Book. The Greeks had never any thing that came near this Roman Satyr, but their Silli [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] which were also biting Poems, as they may easily be perceived to be yet, by some Fragments of the Silli of Timon. There was however this Difference, That the Silli of the Greeks were Parodious from one End to the other, which cannot be said of the Roman Satyrs; where, if sometimes you find some Parodia's, you may plainly see that the Poet did not design to affect it, and by consequence the Parodia's do not make the Essence of a Satyr, as they do the Essence of the Silli.

Having explain'd the Nature, Origin, and Progress of Satyr, I'll now say a Word or two of Horace in particular.

There cannot be a more just Idea given of this part of his Works, than in comparing them to the Statues of the Sileni, to which Alcibiades in the Banquet compares Socrates. They were Figures, that without had nothing agreeable or beautiful, but when you took the pains to open them, you found the Figures of all the Gods. In the manner that Horace presents himself to us in his Satyrs, we discover nothing of him at first that deserves our Attachment. He seems to be fitter to amuse Children, than to employ the Thoughts of Men; but when we remove that which hides him from our Eyes, and view him even to the Bottom, we find in him all the Gods together; that is to say, all those Vertues which ought to be the continual Practice of such as seriously endeavour to forsake their Vices.

Hitherto we have been content to see only his out-side; and 'tis a strange thing, that Satyrs, which have been read so long, have been so little understood, or explain'd: They have made a Halt at the out-side, and were wholly busied in giving the Interpretation of Words. They have commented upon him like Grammarians,