writ these Satires: and suppose _Alpinus_ was an
imaginary Name, cou'd the Author of the Poem of _Memnon_ be taken for
another? _Horace_, they may say, liv'd under the reign of the most
Polite of all the Emperors; but do we live under a Reign less polite?
and would they have a Prince who has so many Qualities in common with
_Augustus_, either less disgusted than he at bad Books, or more
rigorous towards those who blame them?

Let us next examine _Persius_, who writ in the time of _Nero_: He not
only Raillies the Works of the Poets of his days, but attacks the
Verses of the Emperor himself: For all the World knows, and all the
Court of _Nero_ well knew, that those four lines,

_Torva Mimalloneis_, &c.

which _Persius_ so bitterly ridicules in his first Satire, were
_Nero_'s own Verses; and yet we have no account that _Nero_ (so much a
Tyrant as he was) caus'd _Persius_ to be punish'd; Enemy as he was to
Reason, and fond as every one knows of his own Works, he was gallant
enough to take this Raillery on his Verses, and did not think that the
Emperor on this occasion should assert the Character of the Poet.

_Juvenal_, who flourish'd under _Trajan_, shews a little more respect
towards the great Men of his age; and was contented to sprinkle the
gall of his Satire on those of the precedent reign. But as for the
_Writers_, he never look'd for them further than his own time. At the
very beginning of his Work you find him in a very bad humor against
all his _cotemporary Scriblers_: ask _Juvenal_ what oblig'd him to
take up his Pen? he was weary of hearing the _Theseide_ of _Codrus_,
the _Orestes_ of this man, and the _Telephus_ of that, and all the
Poets (as he elsewhere says) who recited their Verses in the Month of
_August_,

_----&_ Augusto _recitantes Mense Poetas._

So true it is that the right of blaming bad Authors, is an ancient
Right, pass'd into a Custom, among all the Satirists, and allow'd in
all ages.

* * * * *

To come from the Ancients to the Moderns. _Regnier_ who is almost the
only Satirical Poet we have, has in truth been a little more discreet
than the rest; nevertheless he speaks very freely of _Gallet_ the
famous Gamester, who paid his Creditors with _Sept_ and _Quatorze_,
and of the _Sieur de Provins_ who chang'd his long Cloak into a
Doublet, and of _Cousin_ who run from his house for fear of repairing
it, and of _Pierre de Puis_, and many others.

What w