composed of several sorts of verses, such as were made by Ennius and
Pacuvius"--more fully expressing the etymology of the word satire
from satura, which we have observed. Here it is manifest that
Diomedes makes a specifical distinction betwixt the satires of
Ennius and those of Lucilius. But this, as we say in English, is
only a distinction without a difference; for the reason of it is
ridiculous and absolutely false. This was that which cozened honest
Casaubon, who, relying on Diomedes, had not sufficiently examined
the origin and nature of those two satires, which were entirely the
same both in the matter and the form; for all that Lucilius
performed beyond his predecessors, Ennius and Pacuvius, was only the
adding of more politeness and more salt, without any change in the
substance of the poem. And though Lucilius put not together in the
same satire several sorts of verses, as Ennius did, yet he composed
several satires of several sorts of verses, and mingled them with
Greek verses: one poem consisted only of hexameters, and another
was entirely of iambics; a third of trochaics; as is visible by the
fragments yet remaining of his works. In short, if the satires of
Lucilius are therefore said to be wholly different from those of
Ennius because he added much more of beauty and polishing to his own
poems than are to be found in those before him, it will follow from
hence that the satires of Horace are wholly different from those of
Lucilius, because Horace has not less surpassed Lucilius in the
elegancy of his writing than Lucilius surpassed Ennius in the turn
and ornament of his. This passage of Diomedes has also drawn Dousa
the son into the same error of Casaubon, which I say, not to expose
the little failings of those judicious men, but only to make it
appear with how much diffidence and caution we are to read their
works when they treat a subject of so much obscurity and so very
ancient as is this of satire.