doctrine of Zeno, and the education of our Persius; and this he
expressed, not only in all his satires, but in the manner of his
life. I will not lessen this commendation of the Stoic philosophy
by giving you an account of some absurdities in their doctrine, and
some perhaps impieties (if we consider them by the standard of
Christian faith). Persius has fallen into none of them, and
therefore is free from those imputations. What he teaches might be
taught from pulpits with more profit to the audience than all the
nice speculations of divinity and controversies concerning faith,
which are more for the profit of the shepherd than for the
edification of the flock. Passion, interest, ambition, and all
their bloody consequences of discord and of war are banished from
this doctrine. Here is nothing proposed but the quiet and
tranquillity of the mind; virtue lodged at home, and afterwards
diffused in her general effects to the improvement and good of
humankind. And therefore I wonder not that the present Bishop of
Salisbury has recommended this our author and the tenth satire of
Juvenal (in his pastoral letter) to the serious perusal and practice
of the divines in his diocese as the best commonplaces for their
sermons, as the storehouses and magazines of moral virtues, from
whence they may draw out, as they have occasion, all manner of
assistance for the accomplishment of a virtuous life, which the
Stoics have assigned for the great end and perfection of mankind.
Herein, then, it is that Persius has excelled both Juvenal and
Horace. He sticks to his own philosophy; he shifts not sides, like
Horace (who is sometimes an Epicurean, sometimes a Stoic, sometimes
an Eclectic, as his present humour leads him), nor declaims, like
Juvenal, against vices more like an orator than a philosopher.
Persius is everywhere the same--true to the dogmas of his master.
What he has learnt, he teaches vehemently; and what he teaches, that