s and knows better than myself what I can do. I
said a great deal, indeed, in order that I might come off excused: but I
was afraid, lest I should be suspected to pretend my interest was less
than it is, to be a dissembler of my own power, and ready to serve
myself alone. So, avoiding the reproach of a greater fault, I have put
in for the prize of town-bred confidence. If then you approve of modesty
being superseded at the pressing entreaties of a friend, enrol this
person among your retinue, and believe him to be brave and good.

EPISTLE X.

TO ARISTIUS FUSCUS.

_He praises a country before a city life, as more agreeable to nature,
and more friendly to liberty_.

We, who love the country, salute Fuscus that loves the town; in this
point alone [being] much unlike, but in other things almost twins, of
brotherly sentiments: whatever one denies the other too [denies]; we
assent together: like old and constant doves, you keep the nest; I
praise the rivulets, the rocks overgrown with moss, and the groves of
the delightful country. Do you ask why? I live and reign, as soon as I
have quitted those things which you extol to the skies with joyful
applause. And, like a priest's, fugitive slave I reject luscious wafers,
I desire plain bread, which is more agreeable now than honied cakes.

If we must live suitably to nature, and a plot of ground is to be first
sought to raise a house upon, do you know any place preferable to the
blissful country? Is there any spot where the winters are more
temperate? where a more agreeable breeze moderates the rage of the
Dog-star, and the season of the Lion, when once that furious sign has
received the scorching sun? Is there a place where envious care less
disturbs our slumbers? Is the grass inferior in smell or beauty to the
Libyan pebbles? Is the water, which strives to burst the lead in the
streets, purer than that which trembles in murmurs down its sloping
channel? Why, trees are nursed along the variegated columns [of the
city]; and that house is commended, which has a prospect of distant
fields. You may drive out nature with a fork, yet still she will return,
and, insensibly victorious, will break through [men's] improper
disgusts.

Not he who is unable to compare the fleeces that drink up the dye of
Aquinum with the Sidonian purple, will receive a more certain damage
and nearer to his marrow, than he who shall not be able to distinguish
false from true. He who has been overjo