without further insisting on the different tempers of Juvenal and
Horace, I conclude that the subjects which Horace chose for satire
are of a lower nature than those of which Juvenal has written.

Thus I have treated, in a new method, the comparison betwixt Horace,
Juvenal, and Persius. Somewhat of their particular manner,
belonging to all of them, is yet remaining to be considered.
Persius was grave, and particularly opposed his gravity to lewdness,
which was the predominant vice in Nero's court at the time when he
published his satires, which was before that emperor fell into the
excess of cruelty. Horace was a mild admonisher, a court satirist,
fit for the gentle times of Augustus, and more fit for the reasons
which I have already given. Juvenal was as proper for his times as
they for theirs; his was an age that deserved a more severe
chastisement; vices were more gross and open, more flagitious, more
encouraged by the example of a tyrant, and more protected by his
authority. Therefore, wheresoever Juvenal mentions Nero, he means
Domitian, whom he dares not attack in his own person, but scourges
him by proxy. Heinsius urges in praise of Horace that, according to
the ancient art and law of satire, it should be nearer to comedy
than to tragedy; not declaiming against vice, but only laughing at
it. Neither Persius nor Juvenal was ignorant of this, for they had
both studied Horace. And the thing itself is plainly true. But as
they had read Horace, they had likewise read Lucilius, of whom
Persius says, Secuit urbem; . . . et genuinum fregit in illis;
meaning Mutius and Lupus; and Juvenal also mentions him in these
words


"Ense velut stricto, quoties Lucilius ardens