No More Learning

_II. --A Satire on Rome_

This sharp indictment is put in the mouth of one Umbricius, who is
represented as leaving his native city in disgust. Rome is no place
for an honourable character, he exclaims.

Here, then, I bid my much-loved home farewell.
Ah, mine no more! There let Arturius dwell,
And Catulus; knaves, who, in truth's despite,
Can white to black transform, and black to white.
Build temples, furnish funerals, auctions hold,
Farm rivers, ports, and scour the drains for gold!
But why, my friend, should _I_ at Rome remain?
_I_ cannot teach my stubborn lips to feign;
Nor when I hear a great man's verses, smile,
And beg a copy, if I think them vile.

The worst feature is the predominance of crafty and cozening Greeks,
who, by their versatility and diplomacy, can oust the Roman.

I cannot rule my spleen and calmly see
A Grecian capital--in Italy!
A flattering, cringing, treacherous artful race,
Of torrent tongue, and never-blushing face;
A Protean tribe, one knows not what to call,
Which shifts to every form, and shines in all:
Grammarian, painter, augur, rhetorician,
Rope-dancer, conjurer, fiddler, and physician,
All trades his own your hungry Greekling counts;
And bid him mount the sky--the sky he mounts!

The insinuating flatteries of these aliens are so masterfully
contrived that the blunt Roman has no chance against such a nation of
actors.

Greece is a theatre where all are players.
For, lo!
their patron smiles--they burst with mirth;
He weeps--they droop, the saddest souls on earth;
He calls for fire--they court the mantle's heat;
"'Tis warm," he cries--the Greeks dissolve in sweat!

Besides, they are dangerously immoral. Their philosophers are
perfidious. These sycophant foreigners can poison a patron against a
poor Roman client. This leads to an outburst against poverty and its
disadvantages.

The question is not put, how far extends
One's piety, but what he yearly spends.
The account is soon cast up: the judges rate
Our credit in the court by our estate.
Add that the rich have still a gibe in store,
And will be monstrous witty on the poor.

This mournful truth is everywhere confessed--
Slow rises worth by property depressed.
At Rome 'tis worse; where house-rent by the year,
And servants' bellies costs so devilish dear.

It is a city where appearance beyond one's means must be kept up;
whereas, in the country one need never spend money even on a toga.
Everything has its price in Rome. To interview a great man, his
pampered lackeys must have a fee.

Then there are risks in a great capital unknown in country towns.
There are tumble-down tenements with the buttresses ready to give;
there are top garrets where you may lose your life in a fire. You
could buy a nice rustic home for the price at which a dingy hovel is
let in Rome.