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This was the commendation which Persius gave him; where by vitium he
means those little vices which we call follies, the defects of human
understanding, or at most the peccadilloes of life, rather than the
tragical vices to which men are hurried by their unruly passions and
exorbitant desires. But in the word omne, which is universal, he
concludes with me that the divine wit of Horace left nothing
untouched; that he entered into the inmost recesses of nature; found
out the imperfections even of the most wise and grave, as well as of
the common people; discovering even in the great Trebatius (to whom
he addresses the first satire) his hunting after business and
following the court, as well as in the prosecutor Crispinus, his
impertinence and importunity. It is true, he exposes Crispinus
openly as a common nuisance; but he rallies the other, as a friend,
more finely. The exhortations of Persius are confined to noblemen,
and the Stoic philosophy is that alone which he recommends to them;
Juvenal exhorts to particular virtues, as they are opposed to those
vices against which he declaims; but Horace laughs to shame all
follies, and insinuates virtue rather by familiar examples than by
the severity of precepts.
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