CHAPTER III.

BIOGRAPHY OF PERSIUS—HIS SCHOOLBOY DAYS—HIS FRIENDS—HIS PURITY AND MODESTY—HIS DEFECTS AS A SATIRIST—SUBJECTS OF HIS SATIRES—OBSCURITY OF HIS STYLE—COMPARED WITH HORACE—BIOGRAPHY OF JUVENAL—CORRUPTION OF ROMAN MORALS—CRITICAL OBSERVATIONS OF THE SATIRES—THEIR HISTORICAL VALUE—STYLE OF JUVENAL—HE WAS THE LAST OF ROMAN SATIRISTS.

AULUS PERSIUS FLACCUS (BORN A. D. 34.)

Roman satire subsequently to Horace is represented by Aulus Persius Flaccus and Decimus Junius Juvenalis. Persius was a member of an equestrian family, and was born, according to the Eusebian Chronicle, A. D. 34, at Volaterræ in Etruria. He was related to the best families in Italy, and numbered amongst his kindred Arria, the noble-minded wife of Pætus. His father died when he was six years old, and his mother, Fulvia Sisenna, married a second time a Roman knight named Fusius. In a few years she was again a widow. Persius received his elementary education at his native town; but at twelve years of age he was brought to Rome, and went through the usual course of grammar and rhetoric, under Remmius Palæmon[1049] and Virginius Flavus.[1050] The former of these was, like so many men of letters, a freedman, and the son of a slave. He was, according to Suetonius,[1051] a man of profligate morals, but gifted with great fluency of speech, and a prodigious memory. He was rather a versifier than a poet, and, like so many modern Italians, possessed the talent of improvising. He was prosperous as a schoolmaster, considering the very small pittance which the members of that profession usually earned, for his school brought him in forty sestertia per annum (about 325_l._[1052]) Virginius Flavus is only known as the author of a treatise on Rhetoric.

Persius himself gives[1053] an amusing picture of his schoolboy idleness, his love of play, and his tricks to escape the hated declamation which, in Roman schools, formed a weekly exercise:[1054]—

Sæpe oculos, memini, tangebam parvus olivo, Grandia si nollem morituri verba Catonis Discere non sano multum laudanda magistro, Quæ pater adductis sudans audiret amicis. Jure; etenim id summum, quid dexter senio ferret, Scire erat in voto; damnosa canicula quantum Raderet; angustæ collo non fallier orcæ; Neu quis callidior buxum torquere flagello.

Oft, I remember yet, my sight to spoil, Oft, when a boy, I bleared my eyes with oil: What time I wished my studies to decline, Nor make great Cato’s dying speeches mine; Speeches my master to the skies had raised, Poor pedagogue! unknowing what he praised; And which my sire, suspense ’twixt hope and fear, With venial pride, had brought his friends to hear.

For then, alas! ’twas my supreme delight To study chances, and compute aright What sum the lucky dice would yield in play, And what the fatal aces sweep away; Anxious no rival candidate for fame Should hit the long-necked jar with nicer aim; Nor, while the whirling top beguiled the eye, With happier skill the sounding scourge apply. _Gifford._

At sixteen, Persius attached himself to the Stoic philosopher Annæus Cornutus, by whom he was imbued with the stern philosophical principles which occupy so prominent a place in his Satires. The friendship which he formed thus early in life continued until the day of his death. The young Lucan was also one of his intimate associates, whose philosophical and poetical tastes were similar to his own, and who had a profound admiration for his writings. He was acquainted with Seneca, but had no very great regard either for him or his works. Cæsius Bassus, to whom he addressed his sixth Satire, was also one of his intimates.[1055] It redounds greatly to his honour that he enjoyed the friendship of Pætus Thrasea, one of the noblest examples of Roman virtue.[1056] Persius died prematurely of a disease in the stomach, at the age of twenty-eight. He left a large fortune to his mother and sister; and his library, consisting of seven hundred volumes, together with a considerable pecuniary legacy, to his beloved tutor, Cornutus. The philosopher, however, disinterestedly gave up the money to the sister of his deceased friend.

Pure in mind and chaste in life, Persius was free from the corrupt taint of an immoral age. He exhibited all the self-denial, the control of the passions, and the stern uncompromising principles of the philosophy which he admired, but not its hypocrisy. Stoicism was not, in his case, as in that of so many others, a cloak for vice and profligacy.

Although Lucretius was, to a certain extent, his model, he does not attack vice with the biting severity of the old satirist. He rather adopts the caustic irony of the old Greek comedy, as more in accordance with that style of attack which he himself terms—

petulanti splene cachinno.[1057]

Nor do we find in his writings the fiery ardour, the enthusiastic indignation, which burn in the verses of Juvenal; but this resulted from the tenderness of his heart and the gentleness of his disposition, and not from any disqualification for the duties of a moral instructor, such as weak moral principle, or irresolute timidity.

Although he must have been conscious that the dangerous times during which his short life was passed rendered caution necessary, still it is far more probable that his purity of mind and kindliness of heart disinclined him to portray vice in its hideous and loathsome forms, and to indulge in bitterness of invective which prevalent enormities of his times deserved. It may be questioned whether obscenities like those of Juvenal, notwithstanding purity of intention, best promote the interests of virtue. It is to be feared that often the passions are excited and the human heart rendered more corrupt by descriptions of vice, whilst the moral lesson is disregarded.

Persius evidently believed that reserve and silence, or those abominations which make the pure-minded shudder with horror, and call up a blush upon the cheek of innocence, would more safely maintain the dignity and purity of virtue, than the divesting himself of that virgin modesty (_virgineus ille pudor_) which constituted the great charm of his character. His uprightness and love of virtue are shown by the uncompromising severity with which he rebukes sins of not so deep a die; and the heart which was capable of being moulded by his example, and influenced by his purity, would have shrunk from the fearful crimes which defile the pages of Juvenal.

The greatest defect in Persius, as a satirist, is, that the philosophy in which he was educated rendered him too indifferent to the affairs which were going on in the world around him. Politics had little interest for him: he lived within himself a meditative life; wealth and splendour he despised. His contemplative habits led him to criticise, as his favourite subjects, false taste in poetry and empty pretensions to philosophy. His modest and retiring nature found little sympathy with the passions, the tumults, the business, or the pleasures which agitated Rome. He was more a student of the closet than a man of the world. Horace mingled in the society of the profligate; he considered them as fools; and laughed their folly to scorn. Juvenal looked down upon the corruption of the age from an eminence, where, involved in his virtue, he was safe from moral pollution, and punished it like an avenging deity. Persius, pure in heart and passionless by education, whilst he lashes wickedness in the abstract, almost ignores its existence, and modestly shrinks from laying bare the secret pollutions of the human heart, and from probing its vileness to the bottom. The amiability, and above all the disinterestedness, which characterize his Satires, fully account for the popularity which they attained immediately on their publication by Cornutus, and the panegyrics of which he was the subject in later times. “Persius,” writes Quintilian,[1058] “multum et veræ gloriæ, quamvis uno libro meruit.” Many of the early Christian writers thought that his merits fully compensated for the obscurity of his style; and Gifford[1059] observes, “The virtue he recommends he practised in the fullest extent; and, at an age when few have acquired a determinate character, he left behind him an established reputation for genius, learning, and worth.”

The works of Persius are comprised within the compass of six Satires, containing, in all, about 650 lines. And from the expression of Quintilian, already cited, and supported by a passage of Martial, there is reason to suppose that all he wrote is now extant. To his Satires is prefixed a short but spirited introduction in choliambics, _i. e._ lame iambics, in which, for the iambus in the sixth place, there is substituted a spondee.

This proëmium bears but little relation to his work; but he was accustomed to similar irrelevancy in the parabases of the old Attic comedy, which he had studied. In his first Satire he exposes and accounts for the false and immoral taste which affected poetry and forensic eloquence, attacks the coxcombry of public recitation, and parodies the style of contemporary writers, in language which our ignorance of them prevents us from appreciating. In the second, which is a congratulatory address to his dear friend Macrinus on his birthday, he imbodies the subject-matter of the second Alcibiades of Plato;[1060] a dialogue which Juvenal also had in view in the composition of his tenth Satire. In this poem, the degrading ideas which men have formed respecting the Deity, the consequent selfishness and even impiety of their prayers, are followed by sentiments on the true nature of prayer, which even a Christian can read with admiration:—

Quin damus id superis, de magna quod dare lance Non possit magni Messalæ lippa propago; Compositum jus fasque animo sanctosque recessus Mentis et incoctum generoso pectus honesto: Hæc cedo, ut admoveam templis, et farre litabo.[1061]

No, let me bring the immortals what the race Of great Messala, now depraved and base, On their huge charger cannot,—bring a mind Where legal and where moral sense are joined With the pure essence; holy thoughts that dwell In the soul’s most retired and sacred cell; A bosom dyed in honour’s noblest grain— Deep-dyed;—with these let me approach the fane, And Heaven will hear the humble prayer I make, Though all my offering be a barley-cake.

In the third, he endeavours to shame the ingenuous youth out of an idle aversion to the pursuit of wisdom, and contrasts the enjoyments of a well-regulated mind with ignorance and sensuality: the picture which he draws of the fate of the sensualist is very powerful:—

Turgidus hic epulis atque albo ventre lavatur, Gutture sulfureas lente exhalante mephites; Sed tremor inter vina subit, calidumque trientem Excutit e manibus; dentes crepuere retecti; Uncta cadunt laxis tunc pulmentaria labris. Hinc tuba, candelæ; tandemque beatulus, alto Compositus lecto, crassisque lutatus amomis, In portam rigidos calces extendit; at illum Hesterni capite induto subiere Quirites.[1062]

Now to the bath, full gorged with luscious fare, See the pale wretch his bloated carcass bear; While from his lungs, that faintly play by fits, His gasping throat sulphureous steam emits! Cold shiverings seize him, as for wine he calls, His grasp betrays him, and the goblet falls! From his loose teeth the lip, convulsed, withdraws, And the rich cates drop through his listless jaws. Then trumpets, torches come, in solemn state; And my fine youth, so confident of late, Stretched on a splendid bier and essenced o’er, Lies, a stiff corpse, heels foremost at the door; Romans of yesterday, with covered head, Shoulder him to the pyre, and—all is said. _Gifford._

One more quotation must be made from this noble Satire, which is alluded to by St. Augustine,[1063] and in which Persius enunciates the sublime truth, that the most fearful punishment which can befall the profligate is the consciousness of what they have lost in rejecting virtue:—

Magne pater divûm, sævos punire tyrannos Haud alia ratione velis, quum dira libido Moverit ingenium ferventi tincta veneno; Virtutem videant intabescantque relicta![1064]

Dread sire of gods! when lust’s envenomed stings Stir the fierce natures of tyrannic kings— When storms of rage within their bosoms roll, And call in thunder for thy just control— O, then relax the bolt, suspend the blow, And thus, and thus alone, thy vengeance show. In all her charms, set Virtue in their eye, And let them see their loss, despair, and—die. _Gifford._

In the fourth Satire, Nero is represented in the character of Alcibiades; and Plato’s first Dialogue, which bears the name of the Athenian Libertine, furnished the foundation and many of the sentiments.

The fifth is the most elaborate of all the poet’s works. It is addressed to Cornutus, and is in the form of a dialogue between the philosopher and his pupil. The style is more finished than usual, and more adorned with the graces of poetry; his amiable nature beams forth in all the warmth of a grateful heart; and although he does not display any original philosophical research, he exhibits great learning, and an accurate acquaintance with the Stoic philosophy.

If the fifth Satire is the most elaborate, the sixth is, without doubt, the most delightful of the works of Persius. It is addressed to his dear friend Cæsius Bassus, and overflows with kindness of heart. The poet speaks of the duties of contentment, and of ministering to the distresses of others; the hatefulness of envy; the meanness of avarice, beneath whatever disguise it may be veiled; his own determination to use and not abuse his fortune; whilst there may be traced through the whole a foreboding, yet a cheerful one, that his weary course will soon be run, and that his heir will soon succeed to his possessions.[1065]

Such was the character of Persius as mirrored in his little volume. The gloomy sullenness of Stoicism was not able to destroy the natural amiability and placid cheerfulness of his temper. Its darkness affected his style, but not his disposition. The fault which has been universally found with the style of Persius, is difficulty and obscurity. This would be the natural consequence of his Stoical education. The Stoics were proverbially obscure and dark in their teaching; and Persius, who had not imbibed all the profoundness of their philosophy, had still caught their language and their manner of expression, and whilst he was infected by their faults he acquired also their picturesqueness and liveliness of illustration. Nor does it appear that his style was considered obscure enough by his contemporaries to interfere with its popularity. It is probable that his obscurity is not absolute, but only relative to the knowledge of the language possessed in modern times. His was the conversational Latin of the days in which he lived; and as a great change had taken place from the Latin of Cicero and Livy to that of Tacitus and Seneca, doubtless the conversational Latin of Horace, and even of Juvenal, would differ from that of Persius. If this be the case, the Satires of Persius constitute the only example of this Latin, and we have no other by a comparison of which we can explain and illustrate his modes of expression. Whatever, therefore, is unusual becomes at once a source of difficulty and obscurity.[1066] The short description which Persius represents his preceptor as giving of his style, supports this assertion:—

Verba togæ sequeris junctura callidus acri Ac teres modico, pallentes radere mores Doctus et ingenuo culpam defigere ludo.[1067]

Confined to common life, thy numbers flow, And neither soar too high, nor sink too low; There strength and ease in graceful union meet, Though polished, subtle, and though poignant, sweet; Yet powerful to abash the front of crime, And crimson error’s cheek with sportive rhyme. _Gifford._

As the _toga_ had, since the time of Augustus, been only worn by the higher orders, whilst the common people were content with the _tunica_, it is clear that the words _verba togæ_ signify the language of polished society. One cause, therefore, of the difficulty of the style of Persius may be our want of familiarity with the conversational Latin used in his time by the superior classes. Excessive subtlety may have been mistaken for refinement; and an affectation of philosophy, and an enigmatical style, may cause obscurity to us which was quite intelligible to his contemporaries.

It is evident that Persius had carefully studied, and was quite well acquainted with, the Satires of Horace; but the influence which Horace produced upon his mind went no further than to impress upon his memory certain phrases which he reproduced in a more perplexed form, more in unison with the fashionable Latin of his day. The expression of Horace—

—— naso suspendis _adunco_ Ignotos,[1068]

becomes, in the Satires of Persius—

_Excusso_ populum suspendere naso.[1069]

Si vis me flere, dolendum est Primum ipse tibi ——,[1070]

becomes, when paraphrased by his imitator—

Plorabit qui me volet incurvasse querela.[1071]

The simplicity of Horace in the words—

Totus teres atque rotundus Externi ne quid valeat per læve morari,[1072]

is exchanged for the more involved phrase—

Ut per læve severos Effundat junctura ungues.[1073]

He adopts Horace’s wish,[1074] preserving every idea in the passage—

—— O si Sub rastro crepet argenti mihi seria dextro Herculæ.[1075]

Horace’s acquirements in geometry—

Scilicet ut possem curvo dignoscere rectum,[1076]

are thus awkwardly rendered—

—— rectum discernis, ubi inter Curva subit.[1077]

And, not to multiply examples which, whilst they show that Persius was an admirer of Horace, prove that what was pure, natural inspiration in the latter, required effort in the former. The idea of Horace—

Clamant periisse _pudorem_ Cuncti pene patres,[1078]

is exchanged by Persius for the forced metaphor——

Exclamet Melicerta perisse _Frontem_ de rebus.[1079]

Rhetorical affectation infected all the literature of this age; we can scarcely, therefore, be surprised to find that it is one of the characteristics of the Satires of Persius. The age of public recitation had already begun, of which Juvenal speaks some years later. When in one place he describes the ardour and enthusiasm which pervaded Rome, on the announcement of a new work by a popular author[1080]—

Curritur ad vocem jucundam et carmen amicæ Thebaidos lætam fecit cum Statius urbem Promisitque diem!

When Statius fixed a morning to recite His Thebaid to the town with what delight They flocked to him!

In another,[1081] like Horace, he complains of the annoyance of these recitations; and in a third,[1082] he considers it one of the causes which rendered the most desolate and solitary country-place preferable to Rome.

The style of writing, therefore, suitable to this practice, was a declamatory one, as the practice itself was in accordance with the oratorical tastes of the Roman people.

JUVENAL.

Decimus Junius Juvenalis, according to the few lines of biography generally attributed to Suetonius, was the son, or the adopted son, of a wealthy freedman. He amused himself with rhetoric and declamation until middle life; but having, on one occasion, written a short satire upon Paris, the pantomime, he was tempted to apply himself to this species of writing. After some time he recited his piece with such success to a large audience, that he inserted it in one of his later compositions.[1083] He thus exposed himself to the enmity of the court, because his lines were supposed figuratively to apply to an actor who was a court favourite, and he was exiled to Egypt, under pretence of being appointed to the command of a cohort. There in a short time he died of grief at the age of eighty.

The time of his birth is unknown, but he must have flourished in the reign of Domitian, towards the close of the first century after Christ; and it is generally assumed that he was either born, or resided, at the Volscian town which subsequently gave birth to the eminent schoolman, Thomas Aquinas.[1084] Thus the greater portion of the life of Juvenal was passed during a period of political horror and misery. The short reign of Vespasian was doubtless a blessing to Rome, but it was only a brief temporary respite: the dark period of the last ten Cæsars saw the utter moral degradation of the people, and the bloodiest tyranny and oppression on the part of their rulers. If, which is most probable, he lived to see the reigns of Nerva, Trajan, and Hadrian, the spirits of the noble-minded satirist must have revived at seeing again a promise of national glory and prosperity. In the period gone by, rich as it was in material for his pen, it was fatally perilous to give utterance to his burning indignation; but an opportunity, not to be lost, was then offered when emperors ruled, who were distinguished for ability and virtue, when justice and the laws were constitutionally administered, and the empire, wisely governed, enjoyed security and tranquillity.

The picture of Roman manners, as painted by the glowing pencil of Juvenal, is truly appalling. The fabric of society was in ruins. The popular religion was rejected with scorn, and its place was not occupied even by the creed of natural religion. Nothing remained but the empty pomp, pageant and ceremonial. The administration of the state was a mass of corruption: freedmen and foreigners, full of artful cunning, but destitute of principle, had the ear of the sovereign, and filled their coffers with bribes and confiscation. The grave and decent reserve which was characteristic of every Roman, in olden times, was thrown off even by the higher classes; and emperors took a public part in scenes of folly and profligacy, and exposed themselves as charioteers, as dancers, and as actors. Nothing was respected but wealth—nothing provoked contempt but poverty.[1085] A vote was only valued for its worth in money; that people, whose power was once absolute, would now sell their souls for bread and the Circensian games.

Players and dancers had all honours and offices at their disposal. The city swarmed with informers who made the rich their prey: every man feared even his most intimate friend. To be noble, virtuous, innocent, was no protection: the only bond of friendship was to be an accomplice in crime. Philosophy was a cheat, and moral teaching an hypocrisy. The moralists “preached like Curii, but lived like bacchanals.”[1086] The very teacher would do his best to corrupt his pupil: the guardian would defraud his ward. Luxury and extravagance brought men to ruin, which they sought to repair by flattering the childless, legacy-hunting, and gambling; and even patricians would cringe for a morsel of bread. The higher classes were selfish and cruel, grinding and insolent to their inferiors and dependants.[1087] Gluttony was so disgusting that six thousand sesterces (50_l._) would be given for a mullet; and the glutton would artificially relieve his stomach of its load, in order to prepare for another meal.[1088] Crimes which cannot be named were common: men, for the worst of purposes, endeavoured to make themselves look like women; and even an emperor personated a female, and was given in marriage to one of his Greek favourites.[1089] The streets of Rome were as dangerous as the Pomptine marshes or the Italian forests, from constant robbery, assault, and assassination.

The morals of the female sex were as depraved as those of men: ladies of noble and royal blood would have lovers in their pay, and when they had lost the attraction of personal charms, would supply their place by the temptation of gold. One empress publicly celebrated her nuptials with an adulterer in the absence of her lord; another gratified her wantonness by prostitution. Even those who were not so profligate aped the manners and habits of men, and would even meet in mock combat; and there was no public amusement so immoral or so cruel as not to be disgraced by the presence of the female sex. Licentiousness led to murder; and poisoning by women was as common as it was in France and Italy in the sixteenth century.[1090]

Times like these would even have shocked the urbane and gentle Horace. Had he then lived, he would probably have thought such vice beyond ridicule, and his tone might have approached more nearly to the thundering indignation of Juvenal. “Society in the age of Horace was becoming corrupt; in that of Juvenal it was in a state of putrefaction.”[1091]

In this period of moral dearth the fountains of genius and literature were dried up. The orator dared not impeach the corrupt politician, or defend the victim of tyranny, when every one thought the best way to secure his own safety was by trampling on the fallen favourite, now Cæsar’s enemy.[1092] The historian dared not utter his real sentiments. Poetry grew cold without the genial, fostering encouragement of noble and affectionate hearts. There was criticism, grammar, declamation, panegyric and verse-writing, but not oratory, history, or poetry. Juvenal, though himself not free from the declamatory affectation of the day, attacked the false literary taste of his contemporaries as unsparingly as he did their depraved morality. From Sejanus to Cluvienus he allowed no one to escape.

But noble as Juvenal’s hatred of vice must be allowed to be, and fearless as are his denunciations, we look in vain throughout his poetry for indications of an amiable and kind-hearted disposition. He was not one to recall the lost and erring to a love of virtue, or to inspire a pure and enthusiastic taste for literature. His prejudices were violent; he could see nothing good in a Greek or a freedman: he hated the new aristocracy with as bitter a hatred as Sallust. As a critic he is ill-natured; as a moralist he is stern and misanthrophic. Mark, for example, the gloomy bitterness with which he speaks of old age,[1093] and contrast it with the bright side of the picture, as drawn by the gentle Cicero in his incomparable treatise.

Deficient, however, as he was in the softer affections, his sixteen Satires exhibit an enlightened, truthful, and comprehensive view of Roman manners, and of the inevitable result of such corruption. Those whose moral taste was utterly destroyed would read and listen without profit, but they could not but tremble: his words are truth. The conclusion of the thirteenth Satire is almost Christian. It is unnecessary to quote from an author who is in every scholar’s memory: it would even occupy too much space to make a fair selection from so many fine passages. The eleventh Satire is the most pleasing, and most partaking of the playfulness of Horace. The seventh displays the greatest versatility and the richest fund of anecdote. The twelfth is the most amiable. The description of the origin of civil society in the conclusion of the fifteenth is full of sound sense and just sentiments; whilst the way in which he speaks of the insane bigotry of the Egyptians, exhibits his power of combining pleasantry with dignity. But the two finest Satires are those[1094] which our own Johnson has thought worthy of imitation: one of which (the tenth) Bishop Burnet, in his Pastoral Charge, recommended to his clergy; and the noblest passage in them is that which describes the fall of the infamous Sejanus.[1095] Few men could be so well adapted to transfer the spirit of Juvenal into English as Dr. Johnson. He had the same rude, plain-spoken, uncompromising hatred of vice; and, though not unamiable, did his best to conceal what amiability he possessed under a forbidding exterior. He was not without gayety and sprightliness; but he concealed it under that stateliness and declamatory grandeur which he attributes to Juvenal.

The historical value of Juvenal’s Satires must not be forgotten. Tacitus lived in the same perilous times as he did; and when they had come to an end, and it was not unsafe to speak, he wrote their public history. Juvenal illustrates that history by displaying the social inner life of the Romans.[1096] Their works are parallel, and each forms a commentary upon the other. When such were the lives of individuals, one cannot wonder at the fate of the nation.

The style of Juvenal is, generally speaking, the reflex of his mind: his views were strong and clear: his style is vigorous and lucid also. His morals were pure in the midst of a debased age: his language shines forth in classic elegance in the midst of specimens of declining and degenerate taste. His style is declamatory, but it is not artificially rhetorical. He could not restrain himself from following the example of Lucilius: he could not dam up the torrent of his vehement and natural eloquence. Whether his subject is noble or disgusting, his word-painting is perfect: we feel his sublimity—we shudder at his fidelity. The nature of the subject causes his language to be frequently gross and offensive; but his object always is to lay bare the deformity of vice, and to render it loathsome. He never indulges in indecency, in order to pander to a corrupt taste or to gratify a prurient imagination. For this reason his pages are less dangerous than those of more elegant and less indecent writers, who throw a veil over indelicacy, whilst they leave those qualities which blind the moral vision and inflame the passions. It must be remembered, also, that neither the dress, manners, nor conversation of ancient Rome were so decent and modest as those of modern times; and, therefore, Roman taste would not be so shocked by plain speaking as would be the case in an age of greater social refinement. Juvenal closes the list of Roman satirists, properly speaking: the satirical spirit animates the piquant epigrams of his friend Martial; but their purpose is not moral or didactic: they sting the individual, and render him an object of scorn and disgust, but they do not hold up vice itself to ridicule and detestation.