We have nothing remaining of those Varronian satires excepting some
inconsiderable fragments, and those for the most part much
corrupted. The tithes of many of them are indeed preserved, and
they are generally double; from whence, at least, we may understand
how many various subjects were treated by that author. Tully in his
"Academics" introduces Varro himself giving us some light concerning
the scope and design of those works; wherein, after he had shown his
reasons why he did not ex professo write of philosophy, he adds what
follows:- "Notwithstanding," says he, "that those pieces of mine
wherein I have imitated Menippus, though I have not translated him,
are sprinkled with a kind of mirth and gaiety, yet many things are
there inserted which are drawn from the very entrails of philosophy,
and many things severely argued which I have mingled with
pleasantries on purpose that they may more easily go down with the
common sort of unlearned readers." The rest of the sentence is so
lame that we can only make thus much out of it--that in the
composition of his satires he so tempered philology with philosophy
that his work was a mixture of them both. And Tully himself
confirms us in this opinion when a little after he addresses himself
to Varro in these words:- "And you yourself have composed a most
elegant and complete poem; you have begun philosophy in many places;
sufficient to incite us, though too little to instruct us." Thus it
appears that Varro was one of those writers whom they called [Greek
text which cannot be reproduced] (studious of laughter); and that,
as learned as he was, his business was more to divert his reader
than to teach him. And he entitled his own satires Menippean; not
that Menippus had written any satires (for his were either dialogues
or epistles), but that Varro imitated his style, his manner, and his
facetiousness. All that we know further of Menippus and his
writings, which are wholly lost, is that by some he is esteemed, as,