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The law of the Decemviri was this: Siquis occentassit malum carmen,
sive condidissit, quod infamiam faxit, flagitiumve alteri, capital
esto. A strange likeness, and barely possible; but the critics
being all of the same opinion, it becomes me to be silent and to
submit to better judgments than my own.
But to return to the Grecians, from whose satiric dramas the elder
Scaliger and Heinsius will have the Roman satire to proceed; I am to
take a view of them first, and see if there be any such descent from
them as those authors have pretended.
Thespis, or whoever he were that invented tragedy (for authors
differ), mingled with them a chorus and dances of Satyrs which had
before been used in the celebration of their festivals, and there
they were ever afterwards retained. The character of them was also
kept, which was mirth and wantonness; and this was given, I suppose,
to the folly of the common audience, who soon grow weary of good
sense, and, as we daily see in our own age and country, are apt to
forsake poetry, and still ready to return to buffoonery and farce.
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