The State of Rome, Under Nero and Domitian: A Satire.

The State of Rome, Under Nero and Domitian: A Satire. Containing, a List of Nobles, Senators, High Priests, Great Ministers of State, &c. &c. &c. By Messrs. Juvenal and Persius. London: printed for C. Corbett, Bookseller and Publisher, at Addison s-Head in Fleet-Street, 1739. (Price One Shilling.) The volume is paginated as follows: 17, [3] p. The volume collates as follows [A]2 E2. Last leaf is blank. The Volume is in Very good Condition disbound, with generally clean, well margined leaves, some mild general toning, as well as some small creases and fox marks. Each leaf measures 337 x 223 mm. Alexander Pope had a huge influence in the 1730 s on the several imitations of Persius, and how as the 1730 s progress Persius becomes more angry and less stoic. This movement is exemplified in Paul Whitehead s unsigned The State of Rome, under Nero and Domitian: a Satire. Containing, a List of Nobles, Senators, High Priests, Great Ministers of State, &c. &c. &c. (1739). This bitter poem pretends to be written By Messrs. Juvenal and Persius and imitates scattered sections of Persius, Satires 1 and 4, and Juvenal, 1, 3, 7, and 8 whose patchwork of supporting Latin is reproduced at the foot of the page. The amalgamated, fiercely indignant satirist asks, What Ribs of Iron can Gall contain? (p. 4) as he sees the political and consequent literary corruption around him. He thus seeks support from Pope and alludes to his satires as another natural ally in the resistance to a government he thinks so corrupt that No social Virtue meets one Friend at Court: (Pg. 7). Accordingly, in this emotive rhetorical monologue, Messrs. Juvenal and Persius virtually become the angry, elevated Alexander Pope, and proclaim with him, in lines stemming from the Epilogue to the Satires and the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot; "Spread, Satire, spread thy wings, and fearless fly To seize thy Prey, tho lurking ne er so high." (Pg. 5) "Here Sporus live-and once more feel my Rage, Once and again I drag thee on the Stage; Male-Female Thing without one Virtue made, Fit only for the Pathick s loathsome Trade." (Pg. 9). Sporus and the male-female thing refer of course to two of Pope s main enemies; The Dunces ; Lord Hervey and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Walpole s servile Court, his manipulation of George II (Pg. 14) and the nation s degradation appear in uncomplimentary Roman dress. Britain is a land in which an absolute Nero refuses to accept advice (Pg. 16), and which, like an overlarge fish long out of water, sinks and is rotting just below the surface (Pg. 17). Satire here can only play for high stakes. Drawn from: Alexander Pope and the Traditions of Formal Verse Satire, By Howard D. Weinbrot, Princeton University Press, 1962.ESTC: T48587  Foxon, S725.…