enrol this person among your retinue, and believe him to be brave and good.
EPISTLE X.
TO ARISTIUS FUSCUS.
He praises a country before a city life, as more agreeable to nature, and more friendly to liberty.
We, who love the country, salute Fuscus that loves the town; in this point alone [being] much unlike, but in other things almost twins, of brotherly sentiments: whatever one denies the other too [denies]; we assent together: like old and constant doves, you keep the nest; I praise the rivulets, the rocks overgrown with moss, and the groves of the delightful country. Do you ask why? I live and reign, as soon as I have quitted those things which you extol to the skies with joyful applause. And, like a priest’s fugitive slave,[1] I reject luscious wafers, I desire plain bread, which is more agreeable now than honied cakes.
If we must live suitably to nature, and a plot of ground is to be first sought to raise a house upon, do you know any place preferable to the blissful country? Is there any spot where the winters are more temperate? where a more agreeable breeze moderates the rage of the Dog-star, and the season of the Lion, when once that furious sign has received the scorching sun? Is there a place where envious care less disturbs our slumbers? Is the grass inferior in smell or beauty to the Libyan pebbles?[2] Is the water, which strives to burst the lead in the streets, purer than that which trembles in
- ↑ The priest's slave, who is tired of living on the delicacies offered to his master's god, runs away from his service, that he may get a little common bread: thus our poet would retreat from the false taste and relish of town pleasures to the simple and natural enjoyments of the country. Ed. Dubl.
- ↑ Than the tesselated or mosaic pavements made of Numidian marble. M. Lepidus was the first who introduced Numidian marble at Rome, for which he was severely censured. Plin. xxxvi. 6. Lapilli, λιθοστρώτα, are the small pieces which were arranged so as to form figures on the pavement, as pebbles, or shells of different colors, are sometimes used at present to form the floor of summer-houses. M'Caul.
