Juvenal’s Satires. a. The Council Meeting, b. The Fate of Scholars, c. The Vanity of Human Wishes

Illustrations to Mores hominum, The Manners of Men, described in sixteen satyrs by Juvenal, translated by Sir Robert Stapylton. In plate ‘a’ the Roman Emperor and eleven of his advisors are seated around a table on which rests a huge speckled fish. On the left a negro takes a large fish surreptitiously from a kneeling servant. Plate ‘b’ is arranged as six scenes arranged in pairs on the compromises and trials of scholars. The compartment on the top right (1) shows two men in a Roman square, the man on the left pays a poet (crowned with a laurel wreath) for his Tragedia which falls out of a cloth at their feet. (2) on the top left shows a elderly, togate, bearded man leaning against a tree, a despairing expression on his face, holding a scroll inscribed Historia. On the middle left (3) shows a copyist sitting at a writing desk, while an assistant brings him another scroll. On the shelf behind are books, two of which are labelled Responsa and Prudentu. In the middle right compartment (4) a group of men place moneybags in a sedan chair, while on the bottom right (5) & (6) pupils bow to a man descending the steps of a pulpit, while another leans on the edge of the pulpit labelled Rhetorica. On the bottom left (7) schoolboys belabour a teacher who holds up his arms to defend himself, while clutching a book inscribed Grammatica. Plate ‘c’ men and women kneeling in a semi circular building before statues of the gods, while in background the conspirators of the Ides of March assassinate Caesar. In the foreground a black servant offers an old man a cup, while concealing a frog behind his back. Jan Dankaerts, brother of the landscape painter Hendrik, friend of Charles II and the diarist Samuel Pepys for who he executed some work. Pennington 433, 436, 439. I/II.