Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/77

Felt they for Lupus or Metellus, when
Whole floods of satire drenched the wretched men?
He took no count of persons: man by man
He scourged the proudest chiefs of each proud clan,
Nor spared delinquents of a humbler birth,
Kind but to worth and to the friends of worth.
And yet, when Scipio brave and Lælius sage
Stepped down awhile like actors from the stage,
They would unbend with him, and laugh and joke
While his pot boiled, like other simple folk.
Well, rate me at my lowest, far below
Lucilius' rank and talent, yet e'en so
Envy herself shall own that to the end
I lived with men of mark as friend with friend,
And, when she fain on living flesh and bone
Would try her teeth, shall close them on a stone;
That is, if grave Trebatius will concur—
T. I don't quite see; I cannot well demur;
Yet you had best be cautioned, lest you draw
Some mischief down from ignorance of law;
If a man writes ill verses out of spite
'Gainst A or B, the sufferer may indict.
H. Ill verses? ay, I grant you: but suppose
Cæsar should think them good (and Cæsar knows);
Suppose the man you bark at has a name
For every vice, while yours is free from blame.
T. O, then a laugh will cut the matter short:
The case breaks down, defendant leaves the court.