the Latin verses which I have translated, says plainly that the
beginning of poetry was the same, with a small variety, in both
countries, and that the mother of it in all nations was devotion.
But what is yet more wonderful, that most learned critic takes
notice also, in his illustrations on the First Epistle of the Second
Book, that as the poetry of the Romans and that of the Grecians had
the same beginning at feasts and thanksgiving (as it has been
observed), and the old comedy of the Greeks (which was invective)
and the satire of the Romans (which was of the same nature) were
begun on the very same occasion, so the fortune of both in process
of time was just the same--the old comedy of the Grecians was
forbidden for its too much licence in exposing of particular
persons, and the rude satire of the Romans was also punished by a
law of the Decemviri, as Horace tells us in these words:-


"Libertasque recurrentes accepta per annos
Lusit amabiliter; donec jam saevus apertam
In rabiem verti caepit jocus, et per honestas
Ire domos impune minax: doluere cruento
Dente lacessiti; fuit intactis quoque cura
Conditione super communi: quinetiam lex,
Paenaque lata, malo quae nollet carmine quenquam
Describi: vertere modum, formidine fustis
Ad benedicendum delectandumque redacti."


The law of the Decemviri was this: Siquis occentassit malum carmen,
sive condidissit, quod infamiam faxit, flagitiumve alteri, capital
esto. A strange likeness, and barely possible; but the critics