Thus, my lord, I have at length disengaged myself from those antiquities of Greece, and have proved, I hope, from the best critics, that the Roman satire was not borrowed from thence, but of their own manufacture. I am now almost gotten into my depth; at least, by the help of Dacier, I am swimming towards it. Not that I will promise always to follow him, any more than he follows Casaubon; but to keep him in my eye as my best and truest guide; and where I think he may possibly mislead me, there to have recourse to my own lights, as I expect that others should do by me.
Quintilian says in plain words, _Satira quidem tota nostra est_; and Horace had said the same thing before him, speaking of his predecessor in that sort of poetry, _et Græcis intacti carminis auctor_. Nothing can be clearer than the opinion of the poet and the orator (both the best critics of the two best ages of the Roman empire), that satire was wholly of Latin growth, and not transplanted to Rome from Athens. Yet, as I have said, Scaliger the father, according to his custom (that is, insolently enough), contradicts them both, and gives no better reason than the derivation of _satyrus_ from σάθυ, _salacitas_; and so, from the lechery of those fauns, thinks he has sufficiently proved that satire is derived from them: as if wantonness and lubricity were essential to that sort of poem, which ought to be avoided in it. His other allegation, which I have already mentioned, is as pitiful—that the Satyrs carried platters and canisters full of fruit in their hands. If they had entered empty-handed, had they been ever the less Satyrs? Or were the fruits and flowers which they offered anything of kin to satire? or any argument that this poem was originally Grecian? Casaubon judged better, and his opinion is grounded on sure authority: that satire was derived from _satura_, a Roman word which signifies full and abundant, and full also of variety, in which nothing is wanting to its due perfection. It is thus, says Denier, that we say a full colour, when the wool has taken the whole tincture and drunk in as much of the dye as it can receive. According to this derivation, from _setur_ comes _satura_ or _satira_, according to the new spelling, as _optumus_ and _maxumus_ are now spelled _optimus_ and _maximus_. _Satura_, as I have formerly noted, is an adjective, and relates to the word _lanx_, which is understood; and this _lanx_ (in English a “charger” or “large platter”) was yearly filled with all sorts of fruits, which were offered to the gods at their festivals as the _premices_ or first gatherings. These offerings of several sorts thus mingled, it is true, were not unknown to the Grecians, who called them πανκαρπιὸν θυσίαν, a sacrifice of all sorts of fruits; and πανπερμίαν, when they offered all kinds of grain. Virgil has mentioned these sacrifices in his “Georgics”:—