find them at large in the dissertation of the learned Rigaltius to
Thuanus. As for Persius, I have given the reasons why I think him
inferior to both of them; yet I have one thing to add on that
subject.

Barten Holyday, who translated both Juvenal and Persius, has made
this distinction betwixt them, which is no less true than witty--
that in Persius, the difficulty is to find a meaning; in Juvenal, to
choose a meaning; so crabbed is Persius, and so copious is Juvenal;
so much the understanding is employed in one, and so much the
judgment in the other; so difficult is it to find any sense in the
former, and the best sense of the latter.

If, on the other side, any one suppose I have commended Horace below
his merit, when I have allowed him but the second place, I desire
him to consider if Juvenal (a man of excellent natural endowments,
besides the advantages of diligence and study, and coming after him
and building upon his foundations) might not probably, with all
these helps, surpass him; and whether it be any dishonour to Horace
to be thus surpassed, since no art or science is at once begun and
perfected but that it must pass first through many hands and even
through several ages. If Lucilius could add to Ennius and Horace to
Lucilius, why, without any diminution to the fame of Horace, might
not Juvenal give the last perfection to that work? Or rather, what
disreputation is it to Horace that Juvenal excels in the tragical
satire, as Horace does in the comical? I have read over attentively
both Heinsius and Dacier in their commendations of Horace, but I can
find no more in either of them for the preference of him to Juvenal
than the instructive part (the part of wisdom, and not that of
pleasure), which therefore is here allowed him, notwithstanding what