Complaint,
which is the condition of Persius, lies not in the
province of poetry.
Ere long the enjoyment of a superior
good would have changed his disgust into regret.
We can
never have much sympathy with the complainer ; for after
searching nature through, we conclude he must be both
plaintiff and defendant too, and so had best come to a
settlement without a hearing.
I know not but it would be truer to say, that the highest
strain of the muse is essentially plaintive. The saint's are
still tears of joy.
But the divinest poem, or the life of a great man, is the
severest satire ; as impersonal as nature herself, and like
the sighs of her winds in the woods, which convey ever a
slight reproof to the hearer. The greater the genius, the
keener the edge of the satire.
Hence have we to do only with the rare and fragmentary
traits, which least belong to Persius, or, rather, are the
properest utterance of his muse ; since that which he says
best at any time is what he can best say at all times. The
Spectators and Ramblers have not failed to cull some
quotable sentences from this garden too, so pleasant is it to meet even the most familiar truths in a new dress, when,
if our neighbor had said it, we should have passed it by as
hackneyed. Out of these six satires, you may perhaps
select some twenty lines, which fit so well as many
thoughts, that they will recur to the scholar almost as
readily as a natural image; though when translated into
familiar language, they lose that insular emphasis, which
fitted them for quotation.
Such lines as the following no
translation can render commonplace.
Contrasting the man
of true religion with those, that, with jealous privacy,
would fain carry on a secret commerce with the gods, he
says,-
"Hand cuivis promptum est, murmurque humilesque
Tollere susurros de templis ; et aperto vivere voto."
To the virtuous man, the universe is the only sanctum
sanctorum, and the penetralia of the temple are the broad
noon of his existence. Why should he betake himself to
a subterranean crypt, as if it were the only holy ground in
all the world he had left unprofaned?
The obedient soul
would only the more discover and familiarize things, and
escape more and more into light and air, as having henceforth
done with secrecy, so that the universe shall not seem
open enough for it. At length, is it neglectful even of
that silence which is consistent with true modesty, but by its
independence of all confidence in its disclosures, makes
that which it imparts so private to the hearer, that it becomes
the care of the whole world that modesty be not
infringed.
To the man who cherishes a secret in his breast, there
is a still greater secret unexplored.
