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Ancient Classics for General Readers 
 
 EDITED BY THE 
 
 REV. W. LUCAS COLLINS, M.A. 
 
 
 HOKACE 
 
CONTENTS OF THE SERIES. 
 
 HOMER : THE ILIAD By the Editor. 
 
 HOMER: THE ODYSSEY, . . By THE SAME. 
 
 HERODOTUS, ... By George C. Swayne, M.A. 
 
 C/ESAR, By Anthony Trollope. 
 
 VIRGIL, By the Editor. 
 
 HORACE, By Theodore Martin. 
 
 jESCHYLUS, By the Right Rev. the Bishop of Colombo. 
 XENOPHON, . . By Sir Alex. Grant, Bart., LL.D. 
 
 CICERO By the Editor. 
 
 SOPHOCLES, ... By Clifton W. Collins, M.A. 
 PLINY By A. Church, M.A., and W. J. Brodribb, M.A. 
 
 EURIPIDES, ... By William Bodham Donne. 
 
 JUVENAL, .... By Edward Walford, M.A. 
 
 ARISTOPHANES By the Editor. 
 
 HESIOD AND THEOGNIS, By the Rev. James Da vies, M.A. 
 PLAUTUS AND TERENCE, ... By the Editor. 
 
 TACITUS By William Bodham Donne. 
 
 LUCIAN By the Editor. 
 
 PLATO By Clifton W. Collins. 
 
 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY, ... By Lord Neaves. 
 LIVY, ........ By the Editor. 
 
 OVID By the Rev. A. Church, M.A. 
 
 CATULLUS, TIBULLUS, & PROPERTIUS, ByJ. Davies, M.A. 
 DEMOSTHENES, . . By the Rev. W. J. Brodribb, M.A. 
 ARISTOTLE, ... By Sir Alex. Grant, Bart., LL.D. 
 
 TIIUCYDIDES By the Editor. 
 
 LUCRETIUS By W. H. Mallock, M.A. 
 
 PINDAR, ... By the Rev. F. D. Morice, M.A. 
 
HORACE 
 
 BY 
 
 THEODORE MARTIN 
 
 '<> 
 
 OP THE 
 
 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 
 

 ^*7fl 
 
KG 
 
 .v 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PA.GR 
 
 I. BIRTH. — EDUCATION. — CAMPAIGN WITH BRUTUS AND 
 
 CASSIUS, 1 
 
 II. RETURNS TO ROME AFTER BATTLE OF PHILIPPI. — 
 
 EARLY POEMS, 17 
 
 III. INTRODUCTION TO MAECENAS. — THE JOURNEY TO 
 
 BRUNDUSIUM, 37 
 
 IV. PUBLICATION OF FIRST BOOK OF SATIRES. — HIS 
 
 FRIENDS. — RECEIVES THE SABINE FARM FROM 
 MAECENAS, 54 
 
 v. life in rome —Horace's bore. — extravagance 
 
 OF THE ROMAN DINNERS, 85 
 
 vi. Horace's love-poetry, 107 
 
 vii. Horace's poems to his friends. — his praises of 
 
 contentment, 135 
 
 mi. prevailing belief in astrology. — Horace's 
 views of a hereafter. — RELATIONS with 
 Maecenas. — belief in the permanence of his 
 own fame, 150 
 
 
i CONTENTS. 
 
 ix. Horace's relations with Augustus. — his love 
 
 of independence, 168 
 
 x. delicacy of Horace's health. — his cheerful- 
 ness.— love OF BOOKS. — HIS PHILOSOPHY PRAC- 
 TICAL.— EPISTLE TO AUGUSTUS.— DEATH, . .189 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 No writer of antiquity has taken a stronger hold upon 
 the modern mind than Horace. The causes of this 
 are manifold, hut three may he especially noted : his ] 
 broad human sympathies, his vigorous common-sense, 
 and his consummate mastery of expression. The mind 
 must he either singularly barren or singularly cold to 
 which Horace does not speak. The scholar, the 
 statesman, the soldier, the man of the world, the 
 town-bred man, the lover of the country, the thought- 
 ful and the careless, he who reads much, and he who 
 reads little, all find in his pages more or less to amuse 
 their fancy, to touch their feelings, to quicken their 
 observation, to nerve their convictions, to put into 
 happy phrase the deductions of their experience 
 His poetical sentiment is not pitched in too high a 
 key for the unimaginative, but it is always so genuine 
 that the most imaginative feel its charm. His wisdom 
 is deeper than it seems, so simple, practical, and direct 
 as it is in its application ; and his moral teaching more 
 spiritual and penetrating than is apparent on a super- 
 ficial study. He does not fall into the common error 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 of didactic writers, of laying upon life more than it 
 will bear ; but he insists that it shall at least bear the 
 fruits of integrity, truth, honour, justice, self-denial, 
 and brotherly charity. Over and above the mere 
 literary charm of his works, too — and herein, perhaps, 
 lies no small part of the secret of his popularity — the 
 warm heart and thoroughly urbane nature of the man 
 are felt instinctively by his readers, and draw them to 
 him as to a friend. 
 
 Hence it is that we find he has been a manual with 
 men the most diverse in their natures, culture, and 
 pursuits. Dante ranks him next after Homer. Mon- 
 taigne, as might be expected, knows him by heart. 
 Fenelon and Bossuet never weary of quoting him. 
 La Fontaine polishes his own exquisite style upon his 
 model ; and Voltaire calls him " the best of preachers." 
 Hooker escapes with him to the fields to seek oblivion 
 of a hard life, made harder by a shrewish spouse. 
 Lord Chesterfield tells us, " When I talked my best I 
 quoted Horace." To Boileau and to Wordsworth he 
 is equally dear. Condorcet dies in his dungeon with 
 Horace open by his side ; and in Gibbon's militia 
 days, " on every march," he says, " in every journey, 
 Horace was always in my pocket, and often in my 
 hand. 1 ' And as it has been, so it is. In many a 
 pocket, where this might be least expected, lies a well- 
 thumbed Horace; and in many a devout Christian 
 In art the maxims of the gentle, genial pagan find a 
 place near the higher teachings of a greater master. 
 
 Where so much of a writer's charm lies, as with 
 Horace, in exquisite aptness of language, and in a 
 
PRE FA CE. ix 
 
 style perfect for fulness of suggestion combined with 
 brevity and grace, the task of indicating his charac- 
 teristics in translation demands the most liberal allow- 
 ance from the reader. In this volume the writer has 
 gladly availed himself, where he might, of the privi- 
 lege liberally accorded to him to use the admirable 
 translations of the late Mr Conington, which are dis- 
 tinguished in all cases by the addition of his initial. 
 The other translations are the writer's own. For 
 these it would be superfluous to claim indulgence. 
 This is sure to be granted by those who know their 
 Horace well. With those who do not, these transla- 
 tions will not be wholly useless, if they serve to pique 
 them into cultivating an acquaintance with the ori- 
 ginal sufficiently close to justify them in turning critica 
 of their defects. 
 
QUINTUS HOItATITJS FLACCUS. 
 
 SORN, A.U.C. 689, B.C. 65. DIED, A.U.O. 746, B.C. 8. 
 
s^ 
 
 JIVBR5.IT7, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 BIRTH. — EDUCATION. — CAMPAIGN WITH BRUTUS AND CASS1U8. 
 
 Like the two greatest lyrists of modern times, Burns 
 and Beranger, Horace sprang from the ranks of the 
 people. His father had been a slave, and he was him- 
 self cradled among " the huts where poor men lie." 
 Like these great lyrists, too, Horace was proud of his 
 origin. After he had become the intimate associate of 
 the first men in Rome — nay, the bosom friend of the 
 generals and statesmen who ruled the world — he was 
 at pains on more occasions than one to call attention 
 to the fact of his humble birth, and to let it be known 
 that, had he to begin life anew, he was so far from de- 
 siring a better ancestry that he would, like Andrew 
 Marvell, have made " his destiny his choice." Nor is 
 this done with the pretentious affectation of the par- 
 venu, eager to bring under notice the contrast between 
 what he is and what he has been, and to insinuate his 
 personal deserts, while pretending to disclaim them. 
 Horace has no such false humility. He was proud, 
 and he makes no secret that he was so, of the name he 
 Viad made, — proud of it for himself and for the class 
 a. c. vol. vi. A 
 
2 uURACE. 
 
 from whion he had sprung. Eut it was his practice, 
 as well as his settled creed, to rate at little the acci- 
 dents of "birth and fortune. A stronger and higher 
 feeling, however, more probably dictated the avowal,— 
 gratitude to that slave-born father whose character 
 and careful training had stamped an abiding influence 
 upon the life and genius of his son. Neither might he 
 have been unwilling in this way quietly to protest 
 against the worship of rank and wealth which he saw 
 everywhere around him, and which was demoralising 
 society in Rome. The favourite of the Emperor, the 
 companion of Maecenas, did not himself forget, neither 
 would he let others forget, that he was a freedman's 
 son ; and in his own way was glad to declare, as Beranger 
 did of himself at the height of his fame, 
 
 " Je suis vilain, et tres vilain." 
 
 The Eoman poets of the pre- Augustan and Augustan 
 periods, unlike Horace, were all well born. Catullus 
 and Calvus, his great predecessors in lyric poetry, were 
 men of old and noble family Virgil, born five years 
 >re Horace, was the son of a Eoman citizen of good 
 property. Tibullus, Propertius, and Ovid, who Mere 
 respectively six, fourteen, and twenty years his juniors, 
 were all of equesl rian rank. Horace's father was a freed- 
 man of the town of Venusia, the modern Yen osa. It is 
 supposed that he had been apublicus servus, or slave of 
 the community, and took his distinctive name from the 
 Horatian tribe, to which the community belonged. He 
 had saved a moderate competency in the vocation of 
 coactor, a nam.- applied both to the collectors of public 
 
HIS FATHER. 3 
 
 revenue and of money at sales by public auction. To 
 which of these classes he belonged is uncertain — most 
 probably to the latter ; and in those days of frequent con- 
 fiscations, when property was constantly changing hands, 
 the profits of his calling, at best a poor one, may have 
 been unusually large. With the fruits of his industry 
 he had purchased a small farm near Yenusia, upon 
 the banks of the Aufidus, the modern Ofanto, on 
 the confines of Lucania and Apulia. Here, on the 
 8th of December, e.c. 65, the poet was born ; and 
 this picturesque region of mountain, forest, and river, 
 " meet nurse of a poetic child," impressed itself in- 
 delibly on his memory, and imbued him with the love 
 of nature, especially in her rugged aspect, which re- 
 mained with him through life. He appears to have 
 left the locality in early life, and never to have re- 
 visited it ; but when he has occasion to describe its 
 features (Odes, III. 4), he does this with a sharpness 
 and truth of touch, which show how closely he had 
 even then begun to observe. Acherontia, perched nest- 
 like among the rocks, the Bantine thickets, the fat 
 meadows of low-lying Forenturn, which his boyish 
 eye had noted, att€?t to tin's hour the vivid ac- 
 curacy of his description. The passage in question 
 records an interesting incident in the poet's childhood. 
 Escaping from his nurse, he has rambled away from the 
 little cottage on the slopes of Mount Yultur, whither 
 he had probably been taken from the sultry Yenusia to 
 pass his villeggiatura during the heat of summer, and 
 is found asleep, covered with fresh myrtle and laurel 
 leaves, in which the wood-pigeons have swathed him. 
 
4 HORACE. 
 
 " When from my nurse erewhile, on Vultures steep, 
 I stray'd beyond the bound 
 Of our small homestead's ground, 
 Was I, fatigued with play, beneath a heap 
 Of fresh leaves sleeping found, — 
 
 " Strewn by the storied doves ; and wonder fell 
 On all, their nest who keep 
 On Acherontia's steep, 
 Or in Forentum's low rich pastures dwell, 
 Or Bantine woodlands deep, 
 
 " That safe from bears and adders in such place 
 I lay, and slumbering smiled, 
 O'erstrewn with myrtle wild, 
 And laurel, by the god's peculiar grace 
 No craven-hearted child." 
 
 The incident thus recorded is not necessarily dis- 
 credited by the circumstance of its being closely akin 
 to what is told by iElian of Pindar, that a swarm of. 
 bees settled upon his lips, and fed him with honey, 
 when he was left exposed upon the highway. It pro- 
 bably had some foundation in fact, whatever may be 
 thought of the implied augury of the special favour of 
 the gods which is said to have been drawn from it at 
 the time. In any case, the picture of the strayed cliild, 
 sleeping unconscious of its danger, with its hands full 
 of wild-flowers, is pleasant to contemplate. 
 
 In his father's house, and in those of the Apulian 
 peasantry around him, Horace became familiar with 
 the simple virtues of the poor, their industry and in- 
 dependence, their integrity, chastity, and self-denial, 
 which he loved to contrast in after years with the 
 
AN ONLY CHILD. 5 
 
 luxury and vice of imperial Rome. His mother he 
 would seem to have lost early. No mention of hei 
 occurs, directly or indirectly, throughout his poems ; 
 and remarkable as Horace is for the warmth of his 
 affections, this could scarcely have happened had she 
 not died when he was very young. He appears also 
 to have been an only child. This doubtless drew him 
 closer to his father, and the want of the early influ- 
 ences of mother or sister may serve to explain why 
 one misses in his poetry something of that gracious ten- 
 derness towards womanhood, which, looking to the sweet 
 and loving disposition of the man, one might otherwise 
 have expected to find in it. That he was no common 
 boy we may be very sure, even if this were not mani- 
 fest from the fact that his father resolved to give him 
 a higher education than was to be obtained under a 
 provincial schoolmaster. With this view, although 
 little able to afford the expense, he took his son, when 
 about twelve years old, to Rome, and gave him the 
 best education the capital could supply. ~No money 
 was spared to enable him to keep his position among 
 his fellow-scholars of the higher ranks. He was Avaited 
 on by several slaves, as though he were the heir to a 
 considerable fortune. At the same time, however, he 
 was not allowed either to feel any shame for his own 
 order, or to aspire to a position which his patrimony 
 was unable to maintain. His father taught him to 
 look forward to some situation akin to that in which 
 his own modest competency had been acquired ; and 
 to feel that, in any sphere, culture, self-respect, and 
 prudent self - control must command influence, and 
 
6 HORACE. 
 
 afford the best guarantee for happiness. In reading 
 this part of Horace's story, as he tells it himself, one 
 is reminded of Burns's early lines about his father and 
 
 himself : — ■ 
 
 " My father was a farmer upon the Carrick border, 
 And carefully lie bred me up in decency and order. 
 He bade me act a manly part, though I had ne'er a farthing, 
 For without an honest manly heart no man was worth 
 regarding." 
 
 The parallel might be still further pursued. " My 
 father," says Gilbert Burns, " was for some time almost 
 the only companion we had. He conversed familiarly 
 on all subjects with us as if we had beer, men, and 
 was at great pains, while we accompanied nim in the 
 labours of the farm, to lead the conversation to such 
 subjects as might tend to increase our knowledge, or 
 confirm us in virtuous habits." How closely this re- 
 sembles the method adopted with Horace by his father 
 will be seen hereafter.* 
 
 Horace's literary master at Rome was Orbilius 
 Pupillus, a grammarian, who had carried into his 
 school his martinet habits as an old soldier; and who, 
 thanks to Horace, has become a name (plagos-us Orbi 
 liu.% Orbilius of the birch) eagerly applied by many 
 a suffering urchin to modern pedagogues who have re- 
 sorted to the same material means of inculcating the 
 
 * Compare it, too, with what Horace reports of 
 
 " Ofellus the hind, 
 Tlmugli no scholar, a sage of exceptional kind," 
 
 in the Second Satire of the Second Book, froro lino 114 to the 
 end. 
 
AT SCHOOL AT ROME. 7 
 
 beauties of the classics. By this Bushy of the period 
 Horace was grounded in Greek, and made familiar, too 
 familiar for his liking, with Ennius, Msevius, Pacuvius, 
 Attius, Livius Andronicus, and other early Latin 
 writers, whose unpruned vigour was distasteful to one 
 who had already begun to appreciate the purer and 
 not less vigorous style of Homer and other Greek 
 authors. Horace's father took care that he should 
 acquire all the accomplishments of a Roman gentleman, 
 in which music and rhetoric were, as a matter of 
 course, included. But, what was of still more im- 
 portance during this critical period of the future 
 poet's first introduction to the seductions of the 
 capital, he enjoyed the advantages of his father's per- 
 sonal superintendence and of a careful moral training. 
 His father went with him to all his classes, and, being 
 himself a man of shrewd observation and natural 
 humour, he gave the boy's studies a practical bearing 
 by directing his attention to the follies and vices of 
 the luxurious and dissolute society around him, show- 
 ing him how incompatible they were with the dictates 
 of reason and common-sense, and how disastrous in 
 their. consequences to the good name and happiness of 
 those who yielded to their seductions. The method he 
 pursued is thus described by Horace (Satires, I. 4) : — 
 
 " Should then my humorous vein run wild, some latitude 
 
 allow. 
 I learned the habit from the best of fathers, who employed 
 Rome living type to stamp the vice he wished me to avoid 
 Thus temperate and frugal when exhorting me to be, 
 A.nd with the competence content which he had stored for 
 
 me, 
 
8 HORA CE. 
 
 1 Look, boy ! ' he'd say, ' at Albius' son — observe his sorry 
 
 plight ! 
 And Barrus, that poor beggar there ! Say, are not these a 
 
 sight, 
 To warn a man from squandering his patrimonial means V 
 When counselling me to keep from vile amours with com- 
 mon queans ; 
 * Sectanus, ape him not ! ' he'd say ; or, urging to for- 
 swear 
 Intrigue with matrons, when I might taste lawful joys 
 
 elsewhere ; 
 ' Trebonius' fame is blurred since he was in the manner 
 
 caught. 
 The reasons why this should be shunned, and why that 
 
 should be sought, 
 The sages will explain ; enough for me, if I uphold 
 The faith and morals handed down from our good sires of 
 
 old, 
 And, while you need a guardian, keep your life pure and 
 
 your name. 
 When years have hardened, as they will, your judgment 
 
 and your frame, 
 You'll swim without a float ! ' And so, with talk like this, 
 
 he won 
 And moulded me, while yet a boy. Was something to be 
 
 done, 
 Hard it might be — ' For this,' he'd say, ' good warrant you 
 
 can quote ' — 
 And then as model pointed to some public man of note. 
 Or was there something to be shunned, then he would 
 
 urge, ' Can you 
 One moment doubt that acts like these are base and futile 
 
 too, 
 Which have to him and him such dire disgrace and trouble 
 
 bred?' 
 And as a neighbour's death appals the sick, and, by th« 
 
 dread 
 
UTS FATHER. 9 
 
 Of dying, foi f upon their lusts restraint, 
 
 So tender minds i I from vices by the taint 
 
 They see them bring ^ames ; 'tis thus that I 
 
 from those 
 Am all exempt, which bring with them a train of shamea 
 
 and woes." 
 
 Nor did Horace only inherit from iiis father, as he 
 here says, the kindly humour and practical good sense 
 which, distinguish his satirical and didactic writings, 
 and that manly independence which, he preserved 
 through, the temptations of a difficult career. Many 
 of " the rugged maxims hewn from life " with which 
 his works abound are manifestly but echoes of what 
 the poet had heard from his father's lips. Like his 
 own Ofellus, and the elders of the race — not, let us hope, 
 altogether bygone — of peasant-farmers in Scotland, des- 
 cribed by Wordsworth as " Religious men, who give to 
 God and men their dues," — the Apulian freedman had a 
 fund of homely wisdom at command, not gathered from 
 books, but instinct with the freshness and force of 
 direct observation and personal conviction. The fol- 
 lowing exquisite tribute by Horace to his worth is 
 conclusive evidence how often and how deeply he had 
 occasion to be grateful, not only for the affectionate 
 care of this admirable father, but also for the bias and 
 strength which that father's character had given to his 
 own. It has a further interest, as occurring in a poem 
 addressed to Maecenas, a man of ancient family and 
 vast wealth, in the early days of that acquaintance 
 with the poet which was afterwards to ripen into a 
 lifelong friendship. 
 
10 HORACE. 
 
 "Yet if some trivial faults, and these but few, 
 My nature, else not much amiss, imbue 
 (Just as you wish away, yet scarcely blame, 
 A mole or two upon a comely frame), 
 If no man may arraign me of tbe vice 
 Of lewdness, meanness, nor of avarice ; 
 If pure and innocent I live, and dear 
 To those I love (self-praise is venial here), 
 All this I owe my father, who, though poor, 
 Lord of some few lean acres, and no more, 
 Was loath to send me to the village school, 
 Whereto the sons of men of mark and rule, — 
 Centurions, and the like, — were wont to swarm, 
 With slate and satchel on sinister arm, 
 And the poor dole of scanty pence to pay 
 The starveling teacher on the quarter-day ; 
 But boldly took me, when a boy, to Rome, 
 There to be taught all arts that grace the home 
 Of knight and senator. To see my dress, 
 And slaves attending, you'd have thought, no less 
 Than patrimonial fortunes old and great 
 Had furnished forth the charges of my state. 
 When with my tutors, he would still be by, 
 Nor ever let me wander from his eye ; 
 And, in a word, he kept me chaste (and this 
 Is virtue's crown) from all that was amiss, 
 Nor such in act alone, but in repute, 
 Till even scandal's tattling voice was mute. 
 No dread had he that men might taunt or jeer, 
 Should I, some future day, as auctioneer, 
 Or, like himself, as tax-collector, seek 
 With petty fees my humble means to eke. 
 Nor should I then have murmured. Now I know, 
 More earnest thanks, and loftier praise I owe. 
 Reason must fail me, ere I cease to own 
 With pride, that I have such a father known ; 
 
HIS FATHER. II 
 
 Nor shall I stoop my "birth to vindicate,—. 
 
 By charging, like the herd, the wrong on Fate, 
 
 That I was not of noble lineage sprung : 
 
 Far other creed inspires my heart and tongue. 
 
 For now should Nature bid all living men 
 
 Eetrace their years, and live them o'er again, 
 
 Each culling, as his inclination bent, 
 
 His parents for himself, with mine content, 
 
 I would not choose whom men endow as great 
 
 With the insignia and seats of state ; 
 
 And, though I seemed insane to vulgar eyes, 
 
 Thou wouldst perchance esteem me truly wise, 
 
 In thus refusing to assume the care 
 
 Of irksome state I was unused to bear." 
 
 The education, of which Horace's father had laid 
 :he foundation at Rome, would not have been com- 
 plete without a course of study at Athens, then the 
 capital of literature and philosophy, as Rome was of 
 political power. Thither Horace went somewhere 
 between the age of 17 and 20.. "At Rome," he says 
 (Epistles, II. ii. 23), 
 
 " I had my schooling, and was taught 
 Achilles' wrath, and all the woes it brought ; 
 At classic Athens, where I went ere long, 
 I learned to draw the line 'twixt right and wrong, 
 And search for truth, if so she might be seen, 
 In Academic groves of blissful green." (C.) 
 
 At Athens he found many young men of the lead- 
 ing Roman families — Bibulus, Messalla, Corvinus, the 
 younger Cicero, and others — engaged in the same pur- 
 suits with himself, and he contracted among them 
 many enduring friendships. In the political lull 
 winch ensued between the battle of Pharsalia (c.c. 
 
12 HOR 4 CE. 
 
 48) and the death of Julius Caesar (b.c. 44), he was 
 enabled to devote himself without interruption to 
 the studies which had drawn him to that home of 
 literature and the arts. But these were destined before 
 long to be rudely broken. The tidings of that start- 
 ling event had been hailed with delight by the youth- 
 ful spirits, some of whom saw in the downfall of the 
 great Dictator the dawn of a new era of liberty, while 
 others hoped from it the return to power of the 
 aristocratic party to which they belonged. In this 
 mood Brutus found them when he arrived in Athens 
 along with Cassius, on their way to take command of 
 the Eastern provinces which had been assigned to 
 them by the Senate. Cassius hurried on to his post 
 in Syria, but Brutus lingered behind, ostensibly ab- 
 sorbed in the philosophical studies of the schools, 
 but at the same time recruiting a staff of officers for 
 his army from among the young Romans of wealth 
 and family whom it was important he should attach 
 to his party, and who were all eagerness to make his 
 cause their own. Horace, infected by the general 
 enthusiasm, joined his standard; and, though then only 
 twenty-two, without experience, and with no special 
 aptitude, physical or mental, for a military life, he was 
 intrusted by Brutus with the command of a legion. 
 There is no reason to suppose that he owed a command 
 of such importance to any dearth of men of good 
 family qualified to act as officers. It is, therefore, 
 only reasonable to conclude, that even at this early 
 period he was recognised in the brilliant society 
 around him as a man of mark ; and that Brutus, before 
 
A MILITARY TRIBUNE. 13 
 
 selecting him, had thoroughly satisfied himself that 
 he possessed qualities which justified so great a devia- 
 tion from ordinary rales, as the commission of so re- 
 sponsible a charge to a freedman's son. That Horace 
 crave his commander satisfaction we know from him- 
 self. Tne line (Epistles, I. xx. 23), " Me primis urbis 
 belli placuisse domique, 
 
 
 41 At home, as in the field, I made my way, 
 And kept it, with the first men of the da) 7 ," — 
 
 can he read in no other sense. But while Horace had, 
 beyond all doubt, made himself a strong party of 
 friends who could appreciate his genius and attractive 
 qualities, his appointment as military tribune excited 
 jealousy among some of his brother officers, who con- 
 sidered that the command of a Roman legion should 
 have been reserved fur men of nobler blood — a 
 jealousy at which he said, with his usual modesty, 
 many years afterwards (Satires, I. vi. 45), lie had no 
 reason either to be surprised or to complain. 
 
 In B.C. 43, Brutus, with his army, passed from 
 Macedonia to join Cassius in Asia Minor, and Horace 
 took his part in their subsequent active and brilliant 
 campaign there. Of this we get some slight inci- 
 dental glimpses in his works. Thus, for example 
 (Odes, II. 7), we find him reminding his comrade, 
 Pompeius Varus, how 
 
 " Full oft they sped the lingering day 
 Quaffing bright wine, as in our tents we lay, 
 With Syrian spikenard on our glistening hair." 
 
14 HORACE. 
 
 The Syrian spikenard, Malobathrum Syricum, fixes 
 the locality. Again, in the epistle to his friend Bulla- 
 tius (Epistles, I. 11), who is making a tour in Asia, 
 Horace speaks of several places as if from vivid recol- 
 lection. In his usual dramatic manner, he makes 
 Bullatius answer his inquiries as to how he likes the 
 places he has seen : — 
 
 " You know what Le 7 >edos is like; so hare, 
 With Gabii or Fidense 'twould compare ; 
 Yet there, methinks, I would accept my lot, 
 My friends forgetting, by my friends forgot, 
 Stand on the cliff at distance, and survey 
 The stormy sea-god's wild Titanic play." (C.) 
 
 Horace himself had manifestly watched the angry 
 surges from the cliffs of Lebedos. But a more interest- 
 ing record of the Asiatic campaign, inasmuch as it is 
 probably the earliest specimen of Horace's writing 
 which we have, occurs in the Seventh Satire of the 
 First Book. Persius, a rich trader of Clazomene, has 
 a lawsuit with Bupilius, one of Brutus' s officers, who 
 went by the nickname of " King." Brutus, in his 
 character of quaestor, has to decide the dispute, which 
 in the hands of the principals degenerates, as disjmtes 
 so conducted generally do, into a personal squabble. 
 Persius leads off' with some oriental flattery of the 
 general and his suite. Brutus is " Asia's sun," and 
 they the "propitious stars," all but Rupilius, who 
 was 
 
 "That pest, 
 The Dog, whom 1 asbandmen detest." 
 
HIS FIRST SATIRE. 15 
 
 Rupilius, an old hand at slang, replies with a volley 
 
 of rough sarcasms, " such as among the vineyards fly," 
 
 and 
 
 " Would make the passer-by 
 Shout filthy names, but shouting fly" — ■ 
 
 a description of vintage slang which is as true to-day 
 as it was then. The conclusion is curious, as a pun- 
 ning allusion to the hereditary fame of Brutus as a 
 puller -down of kings, which it must have required 
 some courage to publish, when Augustus was omnipo- 
 tent in Rome. 
 
 " But Grecian Persius, after he 
 Had been besprinkled plenteously 
 With gall Italic, cries, ' By all 
 The gods above, on thee I call, 
 Oh Brutus, thou of old renown, 
 For putting kings completely down, 
 To save us ! Wherefore do vou not 
 
 * 
 
 Despatch this King here on the spot ? 
 One of the tasks is this, believe, 
 Which you are destined to achieve ! '" 
 
 This is just such a squib as a young fellow might 
 be expected to dash off for the amusement of his 
 brother officers, while the incident which led to it 
 was yet fresh in their minds. Slight as it is, one 
 feels sure its preservation by so severe a critic of his 
 own writings as Horace was due to some charm of 
 association, or possibly to the fact that in it he had 
 made his first essay in satire. 
 
 The defeat of Brutus at Philippi (b.c. 42) brought 
 Horace's military career to a close. Even before this 
 
16 HORACE. 
 
 decisive event, his dream of the re-establishment of 
 liberty and the old Roman constitution had probably 
 begun to fade away, under his actual experience of the 
 true aims and motives of the mass of those whom 
 Brutus and Cassius had hitherto been leading to vic- 
 tory, and satiating with plunder. Young aristocrats, 
 who sneered at the freedman's son, were not likely to 
 found any system of liberty worthy of the name, or to 
 use success for nobler purposes than those of selfish 
 ambition. Fighting was not Horace's vocation, and 
 with the death of Brutus and those nobler spirits, who 
 fell at Philippi rather than survive their hopes of free- 
 dom, his motive for fighting was at an end. To pro- 
 long a contest which its leaders had surrendered in 
 despair was hopeless. He did not, therefore, like 
 Pompeius Varus and others of his friends, join the 
 party which, for a time, protracted the struggle under 
 the younger Pompey. But, like his great leader, he 
 had fought for a principle ; nor could he have regarded 
 otherwise than with horror the men who had over- 
 thrown Brutus, reeking as thev were with the blood of 
 a thousand proscriptions, and reckless as they had 
 shown themselves of every civil right and social obli- 
 gation. As little, therefore, was he inclined to follow 
 the example of others of his distinguished friends and 
 rompanions in arms, such as Valerius Messalla and 
 iElius Lamius, who not merely made their peace with 
 (Vntony and Octavius, but cemented it by taking ser- 
 vice in their army. 
 
CHAPTER IL 
 
 * RF1TTRNS TO ROME AFTER BATTLE OF PHILIPPI. — 
 
 EARLY POEMS. 
 
 Availing himself of the amnesty proclaimed by the 
 conquerors, Horace found his way back to Rome. His 
 father was dead ; how long before is not known. If 
 the little property at Venusium had remained unsold, 
 it was of course confiscated. When the lands of men, 
 like Virgil, who had taken no active part in the 
 political conflicts of the day, were being seized to 
 satisfy the rapacity of a mercenary soldiery, Horace's 
 paternal acres were not likely to escape. In Rome 
 he found himself penniless. How to live was the 
 question ; and, fortunately for literature, " chill pen- 
 ury " did not repress, but, on the contrary, stimulated 
 his " noble rage." 
 
 "Bated in spirit, and with pinions clipped, 
 Of all the means my father left me stripped, 
 Want stared me in the face, so then and there 
 I took to scribbling verse in sheer despair." 
 
 Despoiled of his means, and smarting with defeat, 
 Horace was just in the state of mind to strike vigor- 
 a. c. vol. vi. B 
 
18 HORACE. 
 
 ously at men and manners which he did not like. 
 Young, ardent, constitutionally hot in temper, eager to 
 assert, amid the general chaos of morals public and 
 private, the higher principles of the philosophic schools 
 from which he had so recently come, irritated by the 
 thousand mortifications to which a man of cultivated 
 tastes and keenly alive to beauty is exposed in a 
 luxurious city, where the prizes he values most are 
 carried off, yet scarcely valued, by the wealthy vulgar, 
 he was especially open to the besetting temptation of 
 clever young men to write satire, and to write it in a 
 merciless spirit. As he says of himself (Odes, I. 15), 
 
 " In youth's pleasant spring-time, 
 The shafts of my passion at random I flung, 
 And, dashing headlong into petulant rhyme, 
 
 I recked neither where nor how fiercely I stung." 
 
 Youth is always intolerant, and it is so easy to be se- 
 vere; so seductive to say brilliant things, whether they 
 be true or not. But there came a day, and it came 
 soon, when Horace saw that triumphs gained in this 
 way were of little value, and when he was anxious 
 that his friends should join with him in consigning 
 his smart and scurril lines (celeres et criminosos Iambos) 
 to oblivion. The amende for some early lampoon 
 Avhich he makes in the Ode just quoted, though osten 
 sibly addressed to a lady who had been its victim, 
 was probably intended to cover a wider field. 
 
 Personal satire is always popular, but the fame it 
 begets is bought dearly at the cost of lifelong enmities 
 and many after -regrets. That Horace in his early 
 
DIATRIBE OX MEN AS. 19 
 
 writings was personal and abusive is very clear, both 
 from his own language and from a few of the poems 
 of this class and period which survive. Some of 
 these have no value, except as showing how badly even 
 Horace could write, and how sedulously the better 
 feeling and better taste of his riper years led him to 
 avoid that most worthless form of satire which attacks 
 where rejoinder is hapossible, and irritates the temper 
 but cannot possibly amend the heart. In others, the 
 lash is applied with no less justice than vigour, as in 
 the following invective, the fourth of the Epodes : — 
 
 " Such hate as nature meant to be 
 'Twixt lamb and wolf I feel for thee, 
 Whose hide by Spanisli scourge is tanned, 
 And leers still bear the fetter's brand ! 
 Though of your gold you strut so vain, 
 Wealth cannot change the knave in grain. 
 How ! see you not, when striding down 
 The Via Sacra* in your gown 
 Good six ells wide, the passers there 
 Turn on you with indignant stare 1 
 'This wretch,' such gibes your ear invade, 
 * By the Triumvirs' f scourges flayed, 
 Till even the crier shirked his toil, 
 Some thousand acres ploughs of soil 
 Falernian, and with his nags 
 Wears out the Appian highway's flags ; 
 Nay, on the foremost seats, despite 
 Of Otho, sits and apes the knight. 
 
 * The Sacred Way, leading to the Capitol, a favourite lounge 
 t When a slave was being scourged, under the orders of tbn 
 
 Triumviri Capitales, a public crier stood by, and proclaimed ttw 
 
 nature of his crime. 
 
^0 HORACE. 
 
 What boots it to despatch a fleet 
 So large, so heavy, so complete, 
 Against a gang of rascal knaves, 
 Thieves, corsairs, "buccaneers, and slaves, 
 If villain of such vulgar breed 
 Is in the foremost rank to lead ? '" 
 
 Modern critics may differ as to whom this bitter 
 invective was aimed at, but there could have been 
 no doubt on that subject in Borne at the time. And 
 if, "as there is every reason to conclude, it was levelled 
 at Sextus Menas, the lines, when first shown about 
 among Horace's friends, must have told with great 
 effect, and they were likely to be remembered long 
 after the infamous career of this double-dyed traitor 
 had come to a close. Menas was a freedman of 
 Pompey the Great, and a trusted officer of his son 
 Sextus.* He had recently (b.c. 38) carried over with, 
 him to Augustus a portion of Pompey's fleet which 
 was under his command, and betrayed into his hands 
 the islands of Corsica and Sardinia. For this act of 
 treachery he was loaded- with wealth and honours ; 
 and when Augustus, next year, fitted out a naval ex- 
 pedition against Sextus Pompeius, Menas received a 
 command. It was probably lucky for Horace that 
 this swaggering upstart, who was not likely to be 
 scrupulous as to his means of revenge, went over the 
 very next year to his former master, whom he again 
 abandoned within a year to sell himself once more 
 
 * Shakespeare lias introduced him in "Antony and Cleopatra," 
 along with Menecrates and Varrius, as " friends to Sextus 
 Pompeius." 
 
THE SIXTEENTH EPODE. 21 
 
 to Augustus. That astute politician put it out of his 
 power to play further tricks with the fleet, by giving 
 him a command in Pannonia, where he was killed, 
 B.C. 36, at the siege of Siscia, the modern Sissek. 
 
 Though Horace was probably best known in Rome 
 in these early days as a writer of lampoons and satirical 
 poems, in which the bitterness of his models Archilo- 
 chus and Lucilius was aimed at, not very successfully — 
 for bitterness and personal rancour were not natural to 
 the man — he showed in other concessions signs of 
 the true poetic spirit, which afterwards found expres- 
 sion in the consummate grace and finish of his Odes. 
 To this class belongs the following poem (Epode 16), 
 which, from internal evidence, appears to have been 
 written B.C. 40, when the state of Italy, convulsed by 
 civil war, was well calculated to fdl him with despair. 
 Horace had frequent occasion between this period 
 and the battle of Actium, when the defeat and death 
 of Antony closed the long struggle for supremacy be- 
 tween him and Octavius, to appeal to his country- 
 men against the waste of the best blood of Italy in 
 civil fray, which might have been better spent in 
 subduing a foreign foe, and spreading the lustre of the 
 Roman arms. But if we are to suppose this poem 
 written when the tidings of the bloody incidents of 
 the Perusian campaign had arrived in Pome, — the 
 reduction of the town of Perusia by famine, and the 
 massacre of from two to three hundred prisoners, al- 
 most all of equestrian or senatorial rank, — we can 
 well understand the feeling under which the poem is 
 written. 
 
22 HORACE. 
 
 To the Roman People. 
 
 Another age in civil wars will soon be spent and worn, 
 And by her native strength our Rome be wrecked and over- 
 borne, 
 That Rome, the Marsians could not crush, who border on 
 
 our lands, 
 Nor the shock of threatening Porsena with his Etruscan 
 
 bands, 
 Nor Capua's strength that rivalled ours, nor Spartacus the 
 
 stern, 
 Nor the faithless Allobrogian, who still for change cloth 
 
 yearn. 
 Ay, what Germania's blue-eyed youth quelled not with 
 
 ruthless sword, 
 Nor Hannibal by our great sires detested and abhorred, 
 We shall destroy with impious hands imbrued in brother's 
 
 gore, 
 And wild beasts of the wood shall range our native land 
 
 once more. 
 A foreign foe, alas ! shall tread The City's ashes down, 
 And his horse's ringing hoofs shall smite her places of 
 
 renown, 
 And the bones of great Quirinus, now religiously enshrined 
 Shall be flung by sacrilegious hands to the sunshine and the 
 
 wind. 
 And if ye all from ills so dire ask how yourselves to free, 
 Or such at least as would not hold your lives unworthily, 
 No better counsel can I urge, than that which erst inspired 
 The stout Phocaeans when from their doomed city they re- 
 tired, 
 Their fields, their household gods, their shrines surrender- 
 ing as a prey 
 To the wild boar and the ravening wolf ; * so we, in our 
 dismay, 
 
 * Tim. story of the Phocieans is told by Herodotus (Ch. 165). 
 
THE HAPPY ISLES. 23 
 
 Where'er our wandering steps may chance to carry us should 
 
 go, 
 Or wheresoe'er across the seas the fitful winds may blow. 
 
 How think ye then 1 If better course none offer, why should 
 
 we 
 Not seize the happy auspices, and boldly put to sea ? 
 But let us swear this oath ; — " Whene'er, if e'er shall come 
 
 the time, 
 Rocks upwards from the deep shall float, return shall not 
 
 be crime ; 
 Nor we be loath to back our sails, the ports of home to seek, 
 When the waters of the Po shall lave Matinum's rifted peak. 
 Or skyey Apenninus down into the sea be rolled, 
 Or wild unnatural desires such monstrous revel hold, 
 That in the stag's endearments the tigress shall delight, 
 And the turtle-dove adulterate with the falcon and the 
 
 kite, 
 That unsuspicious herds no more shall tawny lions fear, 
 And the he-goat, smoothly sleek of skin, through the briny 
 
 deep career ! " 
 This having sworn, and what beside may our returning stay, 
 Straight let us all, this City's doomed inhabitants, away, 
 Or those that rise above the herd, the few of nobler soul ; 
 The craven and the hopeless here on their ill-starred beds 
 
 may loll. 
 Y"e who can feel and act like men, this woman's wail give 
 
 o'er, 
 And fly to regions far away beyond the Etruscan shore ' 
 
 When their city was attacked by Harpagus, they retired in a 
 body to make way for the Persians, who took possession of it. 
 They subsequently returned, and put to the sword the Persian 
 garrison which had been left in it by Harpagus. " Afterwards, 
 when this was accomplished, they pronounced terrible impreca- 
 tions on any who should desert the fleet ; besides this, they sunk 
 a mass of molten iron, and swore that they would never return 
 to Phocsea until it should appear again." 
 
24 - HORACE. 
 
 The circling ocean waits us ; then away, where nature 
 
 smiles, 
 To those fair lands, those blissful lands, the rich and happy 
 
 Isles ! 
 Where Ceres year by year crowns all the untilled land with 
 
 sheaves, 
 And the vine with purple clusters droops, unpruned of all 
 
 her leaves ; 
 Where the olive buds and burgeons, to its promise ne'er 
 
 untrue, 
 And the russet fig adorns the tree, that graffshoot never 
 
 knew ; 
 Where honey from the hollow oaks doth ooze, and crystal 
 
 rills 
 Come dancing down with tinkling feet from the sky-divid- 
 ing hills ; 
 There to the pails the she-goats come, without a master's 
 
 word, 
 And home with udders brimming broad returns the friendly 
 
 herd. 
 There round the fold no surly bear its midnight prowl doth 
 
 make, 
 Nor teems the rank and heaving soil with the adder and the 
 
 snake ; 
 There no contagion smites the flocks, nor blight of any star 
 With fury of remorseless heat the sweltering herds doth 
 
 mar. 
 Nor this the only bliss that waits us there, where drenching 
 
 rains 
 By watery Eurus swept along ne'er devastate the plains, 
 Nor are the swelling seeds burnt up within the thirsty clods, 
 So kindly blends the seasons there the King of all the Gods. 
 That shore the Argonautic bark's stout rowers never gained, 
 Nor the wily she of Colchis with step unchaste profaned ; 
 The sails of Sidon's galleys ne'er were wafted to that strand, 
 Nor ever rested on its slopes Ulysses' toilworn band : 
 
THE HAPPY ISLES. 25 
 
 For Jupiter, when he with brass the Golden Age alloyed, 
 That blissful region set apart by the good to be enjoyed ; 
 With brass and then with iron he the ages seared, but ye, 
 Good men and true, to that bright home arise and follow 
 me! 
 
 This poem, Lord Lytton has truly said, "has the 
 character of youth in its defects and its beauties. The 
 redundance of its descriptive passages is in marked 
 contrast to the terseness of description which Horace 
 studies in his Odes ; and there is something declama- 
 tory in its general tone which is at variance with the 
 simpler utterance of lyrical art. On the other hand, 
 it has all the warmth of genuine passion, and in 
 sheer vigour of composition Horace has rarely excelled 
 it." 
 
 The idea of the Happy Isles, referred to in the 
 poem, was a familiar one with the Greek poets. They 
 became in time confounded with the Elysian fields, in 
 which the spirits of the departed good and great en- 
 joyed perpetual rest. It is as such that Ulysses men- 
 tions them in Tennyson's noble monologue : — 
 
 u It may be that the gulfs shall wash us down, 
 It may be we shall reach the Happy Isles, 
 And see the great Achilles, whom we knew." 
 
 These islands were supposed to be in the far west, and 
 were probably the poetical amplification of some voy- 
 ager's account of the Canaries or of Madeira. There 
 has always been a region beyond the boundaries of 
 civilisation to which the poet's fancy has turned for 
 ideal happiness and peace. The difference between 
 
26 HORACE. 
 
 ancient and modern is, that material comforts, as in this 
 epode, enter laigely into the dream of the ancient, 
 while independence, beauty, and grandeur are the chief 
 elements in the modern picture : — 
 
 " Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy 
 
 skies, 
 Breadth of Tropic shade and palms in cluster, knots of 
 
 Paradise. 
 Never comes the trader, never floats an European flag, 
 Slides the bird o'er lustrous woodland, droops the trailer 
 
 from the crag ; 
 Droops the heavy-blossomed bower, hangs the heavy-fruited 
 
 tree. 
 Summer Isles of Eden lying in dark-purple spheres of sea.' 
 
 To the same class of Horace's early poems, though pro- 
 bably a few years later in date, belongs the following 
 eulogium of a country life and its innocent enjoyments 
 (Epode 2), the leading idea of which was embodied 
 by Pope in the familiar lines, wonderful for finish as 
 the production of a bo Tr of eleven, beginning 
 
 "Happy the man whose wish and care 
 A few paternal acres bound." 
 
 With characteristic irony Horace puts his fancies into 
 the mouth of Alphius, a miserly money-lender. ]So 
 one yearns so keenly for the country and its imagined 
 peace as the overworked city man, when his pulse is 
 low and his spirits weary with had air and the reaction 
 of over-excitement ; no one, as a rile, is more apt to 
 tire of the homely and uneventful life which the country 
 oilers, or to find that, for him at least, its quietude 
 
ALPHIUS. 27 
 
 does not bring peace. It is not, therefore, at all out 
 of keeping, although critics have taken exception to 
 the poem on this ground, that Horace makes Alphius 
 rhapsodise on the charms of a rural life, and having 
 tried them, creep hack within the year to his money- 
 bags and his ten per cent. It was, besides, a favour- 
 ite doctrine with him, which he is constantly enforc- 
 ing in his later works, that everybody envies his 
 neighbour's pursuits — until he tries them. 
 
 Alphius. 
 
 Happy the man, in busy schemes unskilled, 
 "Who, living simply, like our sires of old, 
 
 Tills the few acres, which his father tilled, 
 Vexed by no thoughts of usury or gold ; 
 
 The shrilling clarion ne'er his slumber mars, 
 Nor quails he at the howl of angry seas ; 
 
 He shuns the forum, with its wordy jars, 
 Nor at a great man's door consents to freeze. 
 
 The tender vine-shoots, budding into life, 
 He with the stately poplar-tree doth wed, 
 
 Lopping the fruitless branches with his knife, 
 And grafting shoots of promise in their stead ; 
 
 Or in some valley, up among the hills, 
 
 Watches his wandering herds of lowing kine, 
 
 Or fragrant jars with liquid honey fills, 
 Or shears his silly sheep in sunny shine ; 
 
 Or when Autumnus o'er the smiling land 
 Lifts up his head with rosy apples crowned, 
 
 Joyful he plucks the pears, which erst his hand 
 
 Graffed on the stem they're weighing to the ground ; 
 
28 HORACE. 
 
 Plucks grapes in nol>le clusters purple-dyed, 
 A gift for thee, Priapus, and for thee, 
 
 Father Sylvanus, where thou dost preside, 
 Warding his bounds beneath thy sacred tree. 
 
 Now he may stretch his careless limbs to rest, 
 Where some old ilex spreads its sacred root; 
 
 Now in the sunshine lie, as likes him best, 
 On grassy turf of close elastic woof. 
 
 And streams the while glide on with murmurs low, 
 And birds are singing 'mong the thickets deep, 
 
 And fountains babble, sparkling as they flow, 
 And with their noise invite to gentle sleep. 
 
 But when grim winter comes, and o'er his grounds 
 Scatters its biting snows with angry roar, 
 
 He takes the field, and with a cry of hounds 
 Hunts down into the toils the foaming boar ; 
 
 Or seeks the thrush, poor starveling, to ensnare, 
 In filmy net with bait delusive stored, 
 
 Entraps the travelled crane, and timorous hare, 
 Hare dainties these to glad his frugal board. 
 
 Who amid joys like these would not forget 
 The pangs which love to all its victims bears, 
 
 The fever of the brain, the ceaseless fret, 
 
 And all the heart's lamentings and despairs ? 
 
 But if a chaste and blooming wife, beside, 
 
 The cheerful home with sweet young blossoms fillSj 
 
 Like some stout Sabine, or the sunburnt bride 
 Of the lithe peasant of the Apulian hills 
 
 Who piles the hearth with logs well dried and old 
 Against the coming of her wearied lord, 
 
 And, when at eve the cattle seek the fold, 
 Drains their full udders of the milky hoard ; 
 
HIS PEASANTS DRAWN FROM NATURE. 29 
 
 And bringing forth from her well-tended store 
 
 A jar of wine, the vintage of the year, 
 Spreads an unpurchased feast, — oh then, not more 
 
 Could choicest Lucrine oysters give me cheer, 
 
 Or the rich turbot, or the dainty char, 
 
 If ever to our bays the winter's blast 
 Should drive them in its fury from afar ; 
 
 Nor were to me a welcomer repast 
 
 The Afric hen or the Ionic snipe, 
 
 Than olives newly gathered from the tree, 
 
 That hangs abroad its clusters rich and ripe, 
 Or sorrel, that doth love the pleasant lea, 
 
 Or mallows wholesome for the body's need, 
 Or lamb foredoomed upon some festal day 
 
 In offering to the guardian gods to bleed, 
 
 Or kidling which the wolf hath marked for prey. 
 
 What joy, amidst such feasts, to see the sheep, 
 Full of the pasture, hurrying homewards come ; 
 
 To see the wearied oxen, as they creep, 
 
 Dragging the upturned ploughshare slowly home ! 
 
 Or, ranged around the bright and blazing hearth, 
 To see the hinds, a house's surest wealth, 
 
 Beguile the evening with their simple mirth, 
 And all the cheerfulness of rosy health ! 
 
 Thus spake the miser Alphius ; and, bent 
 
 Upon a country life, called in amain 
 The money he at usury had lent ; — 
 
 But ere the month was out, 'twas lent again. 
 
 In this charming sketch of the peasant's life it is 
 &asy to see that Horace is drawing from nature, like 
 Burns in his more elaborate picture of the " Cottar's 
 
 ! 
 
30 HORACE. 
 
 Saturday Night." Horace had obviously watched closely 
 the ways of the peasantry round his Apulian home, as 
 he did at a later date those of the Sabine country, and 
 to this we owe many of the most delightful passages 
 in his works. He omits no opportunity of contrasting 
 their purity of morals, and the austere self-denial of 
 their life, with the luxurious habits and reckless vice of 
 the city life of Rome. Thus, in one of the finest of his 
 Odes (Book III. G), after painting with a few masterly 
 strokes what the matrons and the fast young ladies of 
 the imperial city had become, it was not from such as 
 these, he continues, that the noble youth sprang " who 
 dved the seas with Carthaginian gore, overthrew Pvr- 
 rhus and great Antiochus and direful Hannibal," con- 
 cluding in words which contrast by their suggestive 
 terseness at the same time that they suggest comparison 
 with the elaborated fulness of the epode just quoted : — 
 
 " But they, of rustic warriors wight 
 The manly offspring, learned to smite 
 
 The soil with Sabine spade, 
 And faggots they had cut, to bear 
 Home from the forest, whensoe'er 
 
 An austere mother hade ; 
 
 "What time the sun began to change 
 The shadows through the mountain range, 
 
 And took the yoke away 
 From the o'erwearied oxen, and 
 His parting car proclaimed at hand 
 
 The kindliest hour of day." 
 
 Another of Horace's juvenile poems, unique in sub- 
 ject and in treatment (Epode 5), gives evidence of a 
 
THE WITCHES' ORGY. 31 
 
 picturesque power of the highest kind, stimulating the 
 imagination, and swaying it with the feelings of pity and 
 terror in a way to make us regret that lie wrote no others 
 in a similar vein. We rind ourselves at midnight in the 
 gardens of the sorceress Canidia, whither a buy of good 
 family — his rank heing clearly indicated by the refer- 
 ence to his purple totja and bulla — has been carried oif 
 from his home. His terrified exclamations, with which 
 the poem opens, as Canidia and her three assistants 
 surround him, glaring on him, with looks significant of 
 their deadly purpose, through lurid flames fed with 
 the usual ghastly ingredients of a witch's fire, carry 
 us at once into the horrors of the scene. While one 
 of the hags sprinkles her hell-drops through the ad- 
 joining house, another is casting up earth from a pit, 
 in which the boy is presently imbedded to the chin, 
 and killed by a frightful process of slow torture, in 
 order that a love philtre of irresistible power may be 
 concocted from his liver and spleen. The time, the 
 place, the actors are brought before us with singular 
 dramatic power. Canidia's burst of wonder and rage 
 that the spells she deemed all-powerful have been coun- 
 teracted by some sorceress of skill superior to her own, 
 gives great reality to the scene ; and the curses of the 
 dying boy, launched with tragic vigour, and closing with 
 a touch of beautiful pathos, bring it to an effective close. 
 The speculations as to who and what Canidia was, 
 in which scholars have run riot, are conspicuous for 
 absurdity, even among the wild and ridiculous conjec- 
 tures as to the personages named by Horace in which 
 the commentators have indulged. That some well- 
 
32 HORACE. 
 
 known person was the original of Canidia is extremely 
 probable, for professors of witchcraft abounded at the 
 time, combining very frequently, like their modern suc- 
 cessors, the arts of Medea with the attributes of Dame 
 Quickly. What more natural than for a young poet 
 to work up an effective picture out of the abundant 
 su<"A , stions which the current stories of such creatures 
 ami their doings presented to his hand 1 The popular 
 belief in their power, the picturesque conditions under 
 which their spells were wrought, the wild passions in 
 which lay the secret of their hold upon the credulity 
 of their victims, offered to the Roman poet, just as 
 they did to our own Elizabethan dramatists, a combina- 
 tion of materials most favourable for poetic treatment. 
 But that Horace had, as many of his critics contend, a 
 feeling of personal vanity, the pique of a discarded 
 lover, to avenge, is an assumption wholly without war- 
 rant. He was the last man, at any time or under any 
 circumstances, to have had any relations of a personal 
 nature with a woman of Canidia's class. However 
 inclined he may have been to use her and her prac- 
 tices for poetic purposes, he manifestly not only saw 
 through the absurdity of her pretensions, but laughed 
 at her miserable impotence, and meant that others 
 should do the same. It seems to be impossible to 
 read the 8th of his First Book of his Satires, and not 
 come to this conclusion. That satire consists of the 
 monologue of a garden god, set up in the garden which 
 Maecenas had begun to lay out on the Esquiline Hill. 
 This spot had until recently been the burial-ground of 
 the Roman poor, a quarter noisome by day, and the 
 
CANIDJA ON THE ESQUILINE. 33 
 
 haunt of thieves and beasts of prey by night. On this 
 obscene spot, littered with skulls and dead men's bones, 
 Canidia and her accomplice Sagana are again introduced, 
 digging a pit with their nails, into which they pour 
 the blood of a coal-black ewe, which they had pre- 
 viously torn limb-meal, 
 
 " So to evoke the shade and soul 
 Of dead men, and from these to wring 
 Responses to their questioning." 
 
 They have with them two effigies, one of wax and 
 the other of wool — the latter the larger of the two, 
 and overbearing the other, which cowers before it, 
 
 " Like one that stands 
 Beseeching in the hangman's hands. 
 On Hecate one, Tisiphone 
 The other calls ; and you might see 
 Serpents and hell-hounds thread the dark, 
 Whilst, these vile orgies not to mark, 
 The moon, all bloody red of hue, 
 Behind the massive tombs withdrew." 
 
 The hags pursue their incantations ; higher and higher 
 flames their ghastly fire, and the grizzled wolves and 
 spotted snakes slink in terror to their holes, as the 
 shrieks and muttered spells of the beldams make the 
 moon-forsaken night more hideous. But after piling 
 up his horrors with the most elaborate skill, as if in 
 the view of some terrible climax, the poet makes them 
 collapse into utter farce. Disgusted by their intrusion 
 on his privacy, the Priapus adopts a simple but ex- 
 ceedingly vulgar expedient to alarm these appalling 
 hags. In an instant they fall into the most abject 
 a. o. vol. vi. 
 
34 HORACE. 
 
 terror, suspend their incantations, and, tucking up their 
 skirts, make off for the more comfortable quarters of 
 the city as fast as their trembling limbs can carry 
 them — Canidia, the great enchantress, dropping her 
 false teeth, and her attendant Sagana partiug company 
 with her wig, by the way : — 
 
 "While you 
 With laughter long and loud might view 
 Their herbs, and charmed adders wound 
 In mystic coils, bestrew the ground." 
 
 And yet grave scholars gravely ask us to believe 
 that Canidia was an old mistress of the poet's ! These 
 poems evidently made a success, and Horace returned 
 to the theme in his 17th Epode. Here he writes as 
 toough he had been put under a spell by Canidia, in 
 revenge for his former calumnies about her. 
 
 " My youth has fled, my rosy hue 
 Turned to a wan and livid blue ; 
 Blanched by thy mixtures is my hair ; 
 No respite have I from despair. 
 The days and nights, they wax and wane, 
 Yet bring me no release from pain ; 
 Nor can I ease, howe'er I gasp, 
 The spasm, which holds me in its grasp." 
 
 Here we have all the well-known symptoms of a 
 man under a malign magical influence. In this ex- 
 tremity Horace affects to recant all the mischief he has 
 formerly spoken of the enchantress. Let her name what 
 penance he will, he is ready to perform it. If a hun- 
 dred steers will appease her wrath, they are hers ; or 
 if she prefers to be sung of as the chaste and good, and 
 
CAN1DIA AND HORACE. 35 
 
 to range above the spheres as a golden star, his lyre is 
 at her service. Her parentage is as unexceptionable as 
 her life is pure, but while ostentatiously disclaiming his 
 libels, the poet takes care to insinuate them anew, by 
 apostrophising her in conclusion, thus : — 
 
 " Thou who dost ne'er in haglike wont 
 Among the tombs of paupers hunt 
 For ashes newly laid in ground, 
 Love-charms and philtres to compound, 
 Thy heart is gentle, pure thy hands." 
 
 Of course, Canidia is not mollified by such a recan- 
 tation as this. The man who, 
 
 " Branding her name with ill renown, 
 Made her the talk of all the town," 
 
 is not so lightly to be forgiven. 
 
 " You'd have a speedy doom ? But no, 
 It shall be lingering, sharp, and slow." 
 
 The pangs of Tantalus, of Prometheus, or of Sisyphus 
 are but the types of what his shall be. Let him try to 
 hang, drown, stab himself — his efforts will be vain : — 
 
 " Then comes my hour of triumph, then 
 I'll goad you till you writhe again ; 
 Then shall you curse the evil hour 
 You made a mockery of my power." 
 
 She then triumphantly reasserts the powers to which 
 she lavs claim. What! I, she exclaims, who can waste 
 life as the waxen image of my victim melts before my 
 magic fire* — T, who can bring down the moon from her 
 
 * Thus Hecate in Middleton's " Witch " assures to the Duchess 
 of Glo'ster " a sudden and subtle death" to her victim :— 
 
36 110 RACK. 
 
 sphere, evoke the dead from their ashes, and turn the 
 affections by my philtres, — 
 
 " Shall I my potent art bemoan 
 As impotent 'gainst thee alone ? " 
 
 Surely all this is as purely the work of imagination 
 as Middleton's " Witch," or the Hags in " Macbeth," 
 or in Goethe's ' Faust.' Horace used Canidia as a 
 byword for all that was hateful in the creatures of her 
 craft, filthy as they were in their lives and odious in 
 their persons. His literary and other friends were as 
 familiar with her name in this sense as we are with 
 those of Squeers and Micawber, as types of a class ; 
 and. the joke was well understood when, many years 
 after, in the 8th of his Second Book of Satires, he 
 said that Nasidienus's dinner-party broke up without 
 their eating a morsel of the dishes after a certain point, 
 — " As if a pestilential blast from Canidia's throat, 
 more venomous than that of African vipers, had swept 
 across them." 
 
 " His picture made in wax, and gently molten 
 By a blue fire, kindled with dead men's eyes, 
 Will waste him by degrees." — 
 
 An old delusion. "VVe find it in Theocritus, where a girl, for- 
 saken by her lover, resorts to the same desperate restorative 
 (Idylls ii. 28)— 
 
 "As this image of wax I melt here by aidance demonic, 
 Myndian Delphis shall so melt with love's passion anon." 
 
 Again Ovid (Heroides vi. 91) makes Hypsipyle say of Medea : 
 
 "The absent she binds with her spells, and figures of wax she 
 devises, 
 And in their agonised spleen fine-pointed needles she thrusts." 
 
CHAPTER IIL 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO MAECENAS. — THE JOURNEY TO BRUNDUSfUM. 
 
 Horace had not "been lon^ in Rome, after his return 
 from Greece, before he had made himself a name. 
 With what he got from the booksellers, or possibly by 
 the help of friends, he had purchased a patent place in 
 the Quaestor's department, a sort of clerkship of the 
 Treasury, which he continued to hold for many years, 
 if not indeed to the close of his life. The duties were 
 light, but they demanded, and at all events had, his 
 occasional attention, even after he was otherwise pro- 
 vided for. Being his own — bought by his own 
 money — it may have gratified his love of indepen- 
 dence to feel that, if the w r orst came to the worst, 
 he had his official salary to fall back upon. Among 
 his friends, men of letters are at this time, as might 
 have been expected, found to be most conspicu- 
 ous. Virgil, who had recently been despoiled, like 
 himself, of his paternal property, took occasion to bring 
 his name before Maecenas, the confidential adviser and 
 minister of Octavius, in whom he had himself found a 
 helpful friend. This was followed up by the commen- 
 
38 HOll ACE. 
 
 dation of Varius, already celebrated as a writer of Epic 
 poetry, and whose tragedy of " Thyestes," if we are to 
 trust Quiutilian, was not unworthy to rank with the 
 best tragedies of Greece. Maecenas may not at first 
 have been too well disposed towards a follower of the 
 republican party, who had not been sparing of his 
 satire against many of the supporters and favourites of 
 Octavius. He sent for Horace, however (b^o__39}, 
 and any prejudice on this score, if prejudice there was, 
 was ultimately got over. Maecenas took time to form his 
 estimate of the man, and it was not till nine months 
 after their first interview that he sent for Horace again. 
 "When he did so, however, it was to ask him to con- 
 sider himself for the future among the number of his 
 friends. This part of Horace's story is told with ad- 
 mirable brevity and good feeling in the Satire from 
 which we have already quoted, addressed to Maecenas 
 (B. I. Sat. G) a few years afterwards. 
 
 " Lucky I will not call myself, as though 
 Thy friendship I to mere good fortune owe. 
 No chance it was secured me thy regards, 
 But Virgil first, that best of men and bards, 
 And then kind Varius mentioned what I was. 
 Before you brought, with many a faltering pause, 
 Dropping some i'ew brief words (for bashfulness 
 Bobbed me of utterance) I did not profess 
 That I was sprung of lineage old and great, 
 Or used to canter round my own estate 
 On Satureian barb, but what and who 
 I was as plainly told. As usual, you 
 Brief answer make me. I retire, and then, 
 Some nine months after, summoning me again, 
 
MAECENAS. 39 
 
 You bid me 'mongst your friends assume a place : 
 And proud I feel that thus I won your grace, 
 Not by an ancestry long known to fume, 
 But by my life, and heart devoid of blame." 
 
 The name of Maecenas is from this time inseparably 
 associated with that of Horace. From what little is 
 authentically known of him, this much may be gathered ; 
 He was a man of great general accomplishment, well 
 versed in the literature both, of Greece and Rome, de- 
 voted to literature and the society of men of letters, a 
 lover of the fine arts and of natural history, a connois- 
 seur of gems and precious stones, fond of living in a 
 grand style, and of surrounding himself with people 
 who amused him, without being always very particular 
 as to who or what thev were. For the indulgence of 
 all these tastes, his great wealth was more than suffi- 
 cient. He reclaimed the Esquiline hill from being the 
 public nuisance we have already described, laid it out 
 in gardens, and in the midst of these built himself a 
 sumptuous palace, where the Church of Santa Maria 
 Ma^giore now stands, from which he commanded a 
 superb view of the country looking towards Tivoli. 
 To this palace, salubrious from its spacious size and the 
 elevation of its site, Augustus, when ill, had himself 
 carried from his own modest mansion ; and -from its 
 lofty belvedere tower Nero is said to have enjoyed the 
 spectacle of Borne in flames beneath him. "Voluptuary 
 and dilettante as Maecenas was, he was nevertheless, 
 like most men of a sombre and melancholy tempera- 
 ment, capable of great exertions ; and he veiled under a 
 cold exterior and reserved manners a habit ot acute 
 
40 HORACE. 
 
 observation, a kind heart, and, in matters of public 
 concern, a resolute wilL This latent energy of char- 
 acter, supported as it "was by a subtle knowledge of 
 mankind and a statesmanlike breadth of view, contri- 
 buted in no small degree to the ultimate triumph of 
 Octavius Ca2sar over his rivals, and to the successful 
 establishment of the empire in his hands. "When the 
 news of Julius Caesar's assassination reached the young 
 Octavius, then only nineteen, in Apollonia, it has been 
 said that Maecenas was in attendance upon him as his 
 governor or tutor. Be this so or not, as soon as 
 Octavius appears in the political arena as his uncle's 
 avenger, Maecenas is found by his side. In several 
 most important negotiations he acted as his representa- 
 tive. Thus (b.c. 40), the year before Horace was in- 
 troduced to him, he, along with Cocceius Nerva, nego- 
 tiated with Antony the peace of Brundusium, which 
 resulted in Antony's ill-starred marriage with Caesar's 
 sister Octavia. Two years later he was again associated 
 with Cocceius in a similar task, on which occasion 
 Horace and Virgil accompanied him to Brundusium. 
 He appears to have commanded in various expeditions, 
 both naval and military, but it was at Rome and in 
 Council that his services were chiefly sought ; and he 
 acted as one of the chief advisers of Augustus down to 
 about five years before his death, when, either from ill 
 health or some other unknown cause, he abandoned 
 political life. More than once he was charged by 
 Augustus with the administration of the civil affairs 
 of Italy during his own absence, intrusted with his 
 seal, and empowered to open all his letters addressed 
 
MAECENAS. 41 
 
 to the Senate, and, if necessary, to alter their con- 
 tents, so as to adapt them to the condition of affairs 
 at home. His aim, like that of Vipsanius Agrippa, 
 who was in himself the Nelson and Wellington of 
 the age, seems to have been to build up a united 
 and flourishing empire in the person of Augustus. 
 Whether from temperament or policy, or both, he set his 
 face against the system of cruelty and extermination 
 which disgraced the triumvirate. When Octavius was 
 one day condemning man after man to death, Maecenas, 
 after a vain attempt to reach him on the tribunal, 
 where he sat surrounded by a dense crowd, wrote upon 
 his tablets, Surge tandem, Carnifex ! — " Butcher, break 
 off!" and flung them across the crowd into the lap of 
 Caesar, who felt the rebuke, and immediately quitted 
 the judgment-seat. His policy was that of conciliation ; 
 and while bent on the establishment of a monarchy, 
 from what we must fairly assume to have been a pat- 
 riotic conviction that this form of government could 
 alone meet the exigencies of the time, he endeavoured 
 to combine this with a due regard to individual liberty, 
 and a free expression of individual opinion. 
 
 At the time of Horace's introduction to him, Mae- 
 cenas was probably at his best, in the full vigour of his 
 intellect, and alive with the generous emotions which 
 must have animated a man bent as he was on securing 
 tranquillity for the state, and healing the strife of fac- 
 tions, which were threatening it with ruin. His chief 
 relaxation from the fatigues of public life was, to all 
 appearance, found in the society of men of letters, and, 
 judging by what Horace says (Satires, I. 9), the vie 
 
42 HORACE. 
 
 intime of his social circle must have been charming, 
 To be admitted within it was a privilege eagerly 
 coveted, and with good reason, for not only was this 
 in itself a stamp of distinction, but his parties were 
 well kuown as the pleasantest in Eome : — 
 
 " No house more free from all that's base, 
 In none cabals more out of place. 
 It hurts me not, if others be 
 More rich, or better read than me ; 
 Each has his place." 
 
 Like many of his contemporaries, who were eminent 
 in political life, Maecenas devoted himself to active 
 literary work — for he wrote much, and on a variety of 
 topics. His taste in literature was, however, better 
 than his execution. His style was diffuse, affected, 
 and obscure ; but Seneca, who tells us this, and gives 
 some examples which justify the criticism, tells us 
 at the same time that his genius was massive and 
 masculine (grande et virile), and that he would have 
 been eminent for eloquence, if fortune had not spoiled 
 him. However vicious his own style may have been, 
 the man who encouraged three such writers as Virgil, 
 Propertius, and Horace, not to mention others of 
 great repute, whose works have perished, was clearly a 
 sound judge of a good style in others. 
 
 As years went on, and the cares of public life grew 
 less onerous, habits of self-indulgence appear to have 
 grown upon Maecenas. It will probably be well, how- 
 ever, to accept with some reserve what has been said 
 against him on this head. Then, as now, men of rank 
 
MjECEXAS. 43 
 
 and power were the victims of calumnious gossips and 
 slanderous pamphleteers. His health became precari- 
 ous. Incessant sleeplessness spoke of an overtasked 
 brain and shattered nerves. Life was full of pain ; 
 etill he clung to it with a craven-like tenacity. So, 
 at least, Seneca asserts, quoting in support of his state- 
 ment some very bad verses by Maecenas, which may 
 be thus translated : — 
 
 " Lame in feet, and lame in fingers, 
 Crooked in back, with every tooth 
 Rattling in my head, yet, 'sooth, 
 
 I'm content, so life but lingers. 
 
 Gnaw my withers, rack my bones, 
 
 Life, mere life, for all atones." 
 
 In one view these lines ma}' - certainly be construed to 
 import the same sentiment as the speech of the miser- 
 able Claudio in " Measure for Measure," — 
 
 w The weariest and most loathed worldly life 
 That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment 
 Can lay on nature, is a paradise 
 To what we fear of death." 
 
 But, on the other hand, they may quite as fairly be 
 regarded as merely giving expression to the tenet of 
 the Epicurean philosophy, that however much we may 
 suffer from physical pain or inconvenience, it is still 
 possible to be happy. " We know what we are ; we 
 know not what we may be !" 
 
 Not the least misfortune of Maecenas was his marriage 
 to a woman whom he could neither live with nor with- 
 out — separating irom and returning to her so often, that, 
 
44 HORACE. 
 
 according to Seneca, he was a thousand times married, 
 yet never bad but one wife. Friends he had many, 
 loyal and devoted friends, on whose society and sym 
 pathy he leant more and more as the years wore on* 
 He rarely stirred from Rome, loving its smoke, its 
 thronged and noisy streets, its whirl of human pas- 
 sions, as Johnson loved Fleet Street, or " the sweet 
 shady side of Pall Mall," better than all the verdure 
 of Tivoli, or the soft airs and exquisite scenery of Baise 
 He liked to read of these things, however; and may 
 have found as keen a pleasure in the scenery of the 
 ' Georgics,' or in Horace's little landscape-pictures, as 
 most men could have extracted from the scenes which 
 they describe. 
 
 Such was the man, ushered into wdiose nresence, 
 Horace, the reckless lampooner and satirist, found 
 himself embarrassed, and at a loss for words. Horace 
 was not of the MacSycophant class, who cannot "keep 
 their back straight in the presence of a great man : " 
 nor do we think he had much of the nervous appre- 
 hensiveness of the poetic temperament. Why, then, 
 should he have felt thus abashed 1 Partly, it may 
 have been, from natural diffidence at encountering 
 a man to gain whose goodwill was a matter of no 
 small importance, but whose goodwill, he also knew 
 by report, was not easily won ; and partly, to find 
 himself face to face with one so conspicuously identi- 
 fied with the cause against which he had fought, and 
 the men whom he had hitherto had every reason to 
 detest. 
 
 Once admitted by Maecenas to the inner circle of 
 
GOES WITH MAECENAS TO BRUNDUSIUM. 45 
 
 his friends, Horace made liis way there rapidly. Thus 
 we find him, a few months afterwards, in the spring 
 of B.C. 37, going to Brundusium with Maecenas, who 
 had been despatched thither on a mission of great 
 public importance (Satires, I. G). The first term of 
 the triumvirate of Antony, Octavius, and Lepidus 
 had expired at the close of the previous year. No 
 fresh arrangement had been made, and Antony, alarmed 
 at the growing power of Octavius in Italy, had ap- 
 peared off Brundusium with a fleet of 300 sail and a 
 strong body of troops. The Brundusians — on a hint, 
 probably, from Octavius — forbade his landing, and 
 he had to go on to Tarentum, where terms were 
 ultimately arranged for a renewal of the triumvirate. 
 The moment was a critical one, for an open rupture 
 between Octavius and Antony was imminent, which 
 might w r ell have proved disastrous to the former, had 
 Antony joined his fleet to that of the younger Pom- 
 pey, which, without his aid, had already proved more 
 than a match for the naval force of Octavius. 
 
 To judge by Horace's narrative, all the friends who 
 accompanied Maecenas on this occasion, except his co- 
 adjutor, Cocceius JServa, who had three years before 
 been engaged with him on a similar mission to Brun- 
 dusium, were men wdiose thoughts were given more to 
 literature than to politics. Horace starts from Borne 
 with Heliodorus, a celebrated rhetorician, and they 
 make their way very leisurely to Anxur (Terracina), 
 where they are overtaken by Maecenas. 
 
 "Twas fixed that we should meet with dear 
 Maecenas and Cocceius here, 
 
46 HORACE. 
 
 Who were upon a mission bound, 
 
 Of consequence the most profound ; 
 
 For who so skilled the feuds to close 
 
 Of those, once friends, who now were foes ? " 
 
 This is the only allusion throughout the poem to tr.e 
 object of the journey. The previous day, Horace had 
 been baulked of his dinner, the water being so bad. 
 and his stomach so delicate, that he chose to fast rather 
 than run the risk of making himself ill with it. And 
 now at Terracina he found his eyes, which were weak, 
 so troublesome, that he had to dose them well with 
 a black wash. These are the first indications we get 
 of habitual delicacy of health, which, if not due 
 altogether to the fatigues and exposure of his cam- 
 paign with Brutus, had probably been increased by 
 them. 
 
 u Meanwhile beloved Maecenas came, 
 Cocceius too, and brought with them 
 Fonteius Capito, a man 
 Endowed with every grace that can 
 A perfect gentleman attend, 
 And Antony's especial friend." 
 
 They push on next day to Formise, and are amused 
 at Fundi (Fondi) on the way by the consequential 
 airs of the prefect of the place. It would seem as if 
 \he peacock nature must break out the moment a man 
 becomes a prefect or a mayor. 
 
 " There having rested for the night, 
 With inexpressible delight 
 We hail the dawn,, — for we that day 
 At Sinuessa, on our way 
 
THE BRUNDUSIAN JOURNEY. 47 
 
 "With Plotius,* Virgil, Varius too, 
 Have an appointed rendezvous ; 
 Souls all, than whom the earth ne'er saw 
 More noble, more exempt from flaw, 
 Nor are there any on its round 
 To whom I am more firmly hound. 
 Oh ! what embracings, and what mirth ! 
 Nothing, no, nothing, on this earth, 
 "Whilst I have reason, shall I e'er 
 With a true genial friend compare ! " 
 
 Next day they reach Capua, where, so soon as thei* 
 mules are unpacked, away 
 
 " Maecenas hies, at ball to play ; 
 To sleep myself and Virgil go, 
 For tennis-practice is, we know, 
 Injurious, quite beyond all question, 
 Both to weak eyes and weak digestion." 
 
 With these and suchlike details Horace carries us 
 pleasantly on with his party to Brundusium. They 
 were manifestly in no hurry, for they took fourteen 
 days, according to Gibbon's careful estimate, to travel 
 378 Eoman miles. That they might have got over the 
 ground much faster, if necessary, is certain from what 
 is known of other journeys. Caesar posted 100 miles 
 a-day. Tiberius travelled 200 miles in twenty-four 
 hours, when he was hastening to close the eyes of 
 his brother Drusus ; and Statins (Sylv. 14, Carm. 
 3) talks of a man leaving Rome in the morning, and 
 being at Baioe or Puteoli, 127 miles off, before night. 
 
 * Plotius Tucca, himself a poet, and associated by Virgil with 
 Varius in editing the /Eneid after the poet's death. 
 
50 BORA CE. 
 
 The cursed gnats were so provoking, 
 The bull-frogs set up such a croaking. 
 A bargeman, too, a drunken lout, 
 And passenger, sang turn about, 
 In tones remarkable for strength, 
 Their absent sweethearts, till at length 
 The passenger began to doze, 
 When up the stalwart bargeman rose, 
 His fastenings from the stone unwound, 
 And left the mule to graze around ; 
 Then down upon his back he lay, 
 And snored in a terrific way." 
 
 Neither is the following allusion to the Jews and 
 their creed without its value, especially wdien followed, 
 as it is, by Horace's avowal, almost in the words of Lu- 
 cretius (B. VI. 56), of what was then his own. Later 
 in life he came to a very different conclusion. When 
 the travellers reach Egnatia, their ridicule is excited 
 by being shown or told, it is not very clear which, 
 of incense kindled in the temple there miraculously 
 without the application of fire. 
 
 " This may your circumcised Jew 
 Believe, but never I. For true 
 I hold it that the Deities 
 Enjoy themselves in careless ease ; * 
 Nor think, when Nature, spurning Law, 
 Does something which inspires our awe, 
 'Tis sent by the offended gods 
 Direct from their august abodes." 
 
 * So Tennyson, in his " Lotus- Eaters : " — 
 
 " Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind, 
 In the hollow Lotus-land to live and lie reclined 
 On the hills like gods together, careless of mankind." 
 See the whole of the passage. 
 
EIS INTIMACY WITH MAECENAS. 51 
 
 Had Horace known anything of natural science, he 
 might not have gone so far to seek for the explanation 
 of the seeming miracle. 
 
 Gibbon speaks contemptuously of many of the in 
 cidents recorded in this poem, asking, " How could a 
 man of taste reflect on them the day after 1 ?" But the 
 poem has much more than a merely literary interest ; 
 thanks to such passages as these, and to the charming 
 tribute by Horace to his friends previously cited. 
 
 Kothing can better illustrate the footing of easy 
 friendship on which he soon came to stand with 
 Maecenas than the following poem, which must have 
 been written before the year B.C. 32 ; for in that yea- 
 Terentia became the mistress of the great palace 01 
 the Esquiline, and the allusion in the last verse L 
 much too familiar to have been intended for her. 
 Horace, whose delicacy of stomach w T as probably noto- 
 rious, had apparently been the victim of a practical 
 joke — a species of rough fun to which the Romans ot 
 the upper classes appear to have been particularly 
 prone. It is difficult otherwise to understand how he 
 could have stumbled at Maecenas's table on a dish so 
 overdosed with garlic as that which provoked this 
 humorous protest. From what we know of the 
 abominations of an ordinary Roman banquet, the vege- 
 table stew in this instance must have reached a climax 
 of unusual atrocity. 
 
 " If his old father's throat any impious sinner 
 Has cut with unnatural hand to the bone, 
 Give him garlic, more noxious than hemlock, at dinner. 
 Ye gods ! the strong stomachs that reapers must own ' 
 
52 1I0RA CE. 
 
 " With what poison is this that my vitals are heated ? 
 By viper's blood— oertes, it cannot be less — 
 Stewed into the potherbs ; can I have been cheated ? 
 Or Canidia, did she cook the villanous mess 1 
 
 'When Medea was struck by the handsome sea-rover, 
 
 "Who in beauty outshone all his Argonaut band, 
 This mixture she took to lard Jason all over, 
 
 And so tamed the lire-breathing bulls to his hand. 
 
 " With this her fell presents she dyed and infected, 
 On his innocent leman avenging the slight 
 Of her terrible beauty, forsaken, neglected, 
 
 And then on her car, dragon-wafted, took flight. 
 
 "Never star on Apulia, the thirsty and arid, 
 Exhaled a more baleful or pestilent dew, 
 And the gift, which invincible Hercules carried, 
 
 Burned not to his bones more remorselessly through. 
 
 " Should you e'er long again for such relish as this is, 
 Devoutly I'll pray, wag Maecenas, I vow, 
 With her hand that your mistress arrest all your kisses, 
 And lie as far off as the couch will allow." 
 
 It is startling to our notions to find so direct a 
 reference as that in the last verse to the " rehniin^ 
 favourite " of Maecenas ; but what are we to think 
 of the following lines, which point unequivocally to 
 Maecenas's wife, in the following Ode addressed to her 
 husband (Odes, II. 12)? 
 
 " Would you, friend, for Phrygia's hoarded gold, 
 Or all that Achaemenes' self possesses, 
 Or e'en for what Araby's coffers hold, 
 Barter one lock of her clustering tresses, 
 
HIS INTIMACY WITH MAECENAS. 53 
 
 While she stoops her throat to your burning kiss, 
 Or, fondly cruel, the bliss denies you, 
 
 She would have you snatch, or will, snatching this 
 Herself, with a sweeter thrill surprise you 1 " 
 
 If Maecenas allowed his friends to write of his wifo 
 in this strain, it is scarcely to be wondered at if that 
 coquettish and capricious lady gave, as she did, " that 
 worthy man good grounds for uneasiness." 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PUBLICATION OF FIRST BOOK OF SATIRES. — HIS FRIENDS.-- 
 RECEIVES THE SABINE FARM FROM MAECENAS. 
 
 In B.C. 34, Horace published the First Book of his 
 Satires, and placed in front of. it one specially 
 addressed to Maecenas — a course which he adopted in 
 each successive section of his poems, apparently to 
 mark his sense of obligation to him as the most hon- 
 oured of his friends. The name Satires does not 
 truly indicate- the name of this series. They are 
 rather didactic poems, couched in a more or less 
 dramatic form, and carried on in an easy conversational 
 tone, without for the most part any definite purpose, 
 often diverging into such collateral topics as suggest 
 themselves by the way, with all the ease and buoyancy 
 of agreeable talk, and getting back or not, as it may 
 happen, into the main line of idea with which they 
 set out. Some of them are conceived in a vein of 
 fine irony throughout. Others, like "The Journey to 
 Brundusium," are mere narratives, relieved by humor- 
 ous illustrations. ]>ut we do not find in them the 
 epigrammatic force, the sternness of moral rebuke, or 
 the scathing spirit of sarcasm, which are commonly 
 
BOW BE WROTE SATIRE. 55 
 
 associated with the idea of satire. Literary display 
 appears never to be aimed at. The plainest phrases, 
 the homeliest illustrations, the most everyday topics — 
 if they come in the way — are made use of for the pur- 
 pose of insinuating or enforcing some useful truth. 
 Point and epigram are the last things thought of; 
 and therefore it is that Pope's translations, admirable 
 as in themselves they are, fail to give an idea of the 
 lightness of touch, the shifting lights and shades, the 
 carelessness alternating with force, the artless natural 
 manner, which distinguish these charming essays. 
 " The terseness of Horace's language in his Satires," 
 it has been well said, " is that of a proverb, neat 
 because homely • while the terseness of Pope is that 
 of an epigram, which will only become homely in 
 time, because it is neat." 
 
 In writing these Satires, which he calls merely 
 rhythmical prose, Horace disclaims for himself the 
 title of poet ; and at this time it would appear as if 
 he had not even conceived the idea of " modulating 
 JEolic song to the Italian lyre," on which he sub- 
 sequently rested his hopes of posthumous fame. 
 The very words of his disclaimer, however, show 
 how well he appreciated the poet's gifts (Satires, I. 
 4):- 
 
 " First from the roll I strike myself of those I poets 
 
 call, 
 For merely to compose in verse is not the all-in-all : 
 Nor if a man shall write, like me, things nigh to prose 
 
 akin, 
 Sh ill he, however well he write, the name of poet win ? 
 
56 IIORA CE. 
 
 To genius, to the man whose soul is touched with fire 
 
 divine, 
 Whose voice speaks like a trumpet-note, that honoured 
 
 name assign. 
 'Tis not enough that you compose your 
 
 verse 
 In diction irreproachable, pure, scholarly, and terse, 
 Which, dislocate its cadence, by anybody may 
 Be spoken like the language of the father in the play. 
 Divest those things which now I write, and Lucilius wrote 
 
 of yore, 
 Of certain measured cadences, by setting that before 
 Which was behind, and that before which I had placed 
 
 behind, 
 Yet by no alchemy will you in the residuum find 
 The members still apparent of the dislocated bard," — 
 
 a result which he contends would not ensue, however 
 much you might disarrange the language of a passage 
 of true poetry, such as one he quotes from Ennius, 
 the poetic charm of which, by the way, is not very 
 apparent. Schooled, however, as he had been, in the 
 pure literature of Greece, Horace aimed at a concise- 
 ness and purity of style which had been hitherto 
 unknown in Roman satire, and studied, not unsuccess- 
 fully, to give to his own work, by great and w r ell- 
 disguised elaboration of finish, the concentrated 
 force and picturesque precision which are large 
 elements in all genuine poetry. His own practice, 
 as we see from its results, is given in the following 
 lines, and a better description of how didactic or 
 satiric poetry should \m writtou could s^axcelj be 
 desired (Satires, I. 10). 
 
CALVUS AND CATULLUS. 57 
 
 u 'Tis not enough, a poet's fame to make, 
 That you with bursts of mirth your audience shake j 
 And yet to this, as all experience shows, 
 No small amount of skill and talent goes. 
 Your style must be concise, that what you say 
 May flow on clear and smooth, nor lose its way, 
 Stumbling and halting through a chaos drear 
 Of cumbrous words, that load the weary ear ; 
 And you must pass from grave to gay, — now, like 
 The rhetorician, vehemently strike, 
 Now, like the poet, deal a lighter hit 
 With easy playfulness and polished wit, — 
 Veil the stern vigour of a soul rot ust, 
 And flash your fancies, while like death you thrust ; 
 For men are more impervious, as a rule, 
 To slashing censure than to ridicule. 
 Here lay the merit of those writers, who 
 In the Old Comedy our fathers drew ; 
 Here should we struggle in their steps to tread 
 Whom fop Hermogenes has never read, 
 Nor that mere ape of his, who all day long 
 Makes Calvus and Catullus all his song." 
 
 The concluding hit at Hermogenes Tigellius and 
 his double is very characteristic of Horace's manner. 
 When he has worked up his description of a vice to be 
 avoided or a virtue to be pursued, he generally drives 
 home his lesson by the mention of some well-known 
 person's name, thus importing into his literary prac- 
 tice the method taken by his father, as we have seen, 
 to impress his ethical teachings upon himself in his 
 youth. The allusion to Calvus and Catullus, the only one 
 anywhere made to these poets by Horace, is curious; but 
 it would be wrong to infer from it, that Horace meant to 
 disparage these fine poets. Calvus had a great r^puta- 
 
58 HORACE. 
 
 tion both as an orator and poet. But, except some 
 insignificant fragments, nothing of what he wrote is 
 left. How Catullus wrote we do, however, know ; and 
 although it is conceivable that Horace had no great 
 sympathy with some of his love verses, which were 
 probably of too sentimental a strain for his taste, we 
 may be sure that he admired the brilliant genius as 
 well as the fine workmanship of many of his other 
 poems. At all events, he had too much good sense to 
 launch a sneer at so great a poet recently dead, which 
 would not only have been in the worst taste, but 
 might justly have been ascribed to jealousy. When 
 he talks, therefore, of a pair of fribbles who can sing 
 nothing but Calvus and Catullus, it is, as Macleane has 
 said in his note on the passage, " as if a man were to 
 say of a modern English coxcomb, that he could sing 
 Moore's ballads from beginning to end, but could 
 not understand a line of Shakespeare," — no dis- 
 paragement to Moore, whatever it might be to the 
 vocalist. Hermogenes and his ape (whom Ave may 
 identify with one Demetrius, who is subsequently 
 coupled with him in the same satire) were musicians 
 and vocalists, idolised, after the manner of modern 
 Italian singers, by the young misses of Rome. Pam- 
 pered favourites of fashion, the Farinellis of the hour, 
 their opinion on all matters of taste was sure to be as 
 freely given as it was worthless. The} r had been, 
 moreover, so indiscreet as to provoke Horace's sarcasm 
 by running down his verses. Leave criticism, he re- 
 joins, to men who have a right to judge. Stick to your 
 proper vocation, and 
 
HIS POET FRIEXDS. 59 
 
 "To puling girls, that listen and adore, 
 Your love-lorn chants and woful wailings pour !" 
 
 In the same Satire we have proof how warmly Horace 
 thought and spoke of living poets. Thus : — 
 
 " In grave Iambic measures Pollio sings 
 For our delight the deeds of mighty kings. 
 The stately Epic Varius leads along, 
 And where is voice so resonant, so strong ? 
 The Muses of the woods and plains have shed 
 Their every grace and charm on Virgil's head." 
 
 "With none of those will he compete. Satire is his 
 element, and there he proclaims himself to he an 
 humble follower of his great predecessor. But while 
 he bows to Lucilius as his master, and owns him supe- 
 rior in polish and scholarly grace to the satirists who 
 preceded him, still, he continues — 
 
 " Still, were he living now — had only such 
 Been Fate's decree — he would have blotted much, 
 Cut everything away that could be called 
 Crude or superfluous, or tame, or bald ; 
 Oft scratched his head, the labouring poet's trick, 
 And bitten all his nails down to the quick." 
 
 And then he lays down the canon for all high-class 
 composition, which can never be too often enforced : — 
 
 " Oh yes, believe me, you must draw your pen 
 Not once or twice, but o'er and o'er again, 
 Through what you've written, if vou would entice 
 The man who reads you once to read you twice, 
 Not making popular applause your cue, 
 But looking to find audience fit though few. (C.) 
 
 He had himself followed the rule, and found the 
 reward. "With natural exultation he appeals against 
 
 
60 HORACE. 
 
 the judgment of men of the Hermogenes type to an 
 array of critics of whose good opinion he might well 
 he proud : — 
 
 " Maecenas, Virgil, Varius, — if I please 
 In my poor writings these and such as these, — 
 If Plotius, Valgius, Fuscus will commend, 
 And good Octavius, I've achieved my end. 
 You, nohle Pollio (let your friend disclaim 
 All thoughts of flattery, when he names your name), 
 Messala and his brother, Servius too, 
 And Bihulus, and Furnius kind and true, 
 With others, whom, despite their sense and wit, 
 And friendly hearts, I purposely omit ; 
 Such I would have my critics ; men to gain 
 Whose smiles were pleasure, to forget them pain." (C.) 
 
 It is not strange that Horace, even in these early 
 days, numbered so many distinguished men among his 
 friends, for, the question of genius apart, there must 
 have been something particularly engaging in his 
 kindly and affectionate nature. He was a good hater, 
 as all warmdiearted men are; and when his blood was 
 up, he could, like Diggory, "remember his swashing 
 blow." He would fain, as he says himself (Satires, II. 
 1 ), be at peace with all men : — 
 
 " But he who shall my temper try — 
 'Twere best to touch me not, say I — 
 Shall rue it, and through all the town 
 My verse shall damn him with renown ." 
 
 But with his friends he was forbearing, devoted, 
 lenient to their foibles, not boring them with his own, 
 liberal in construing their motives, and as trustful in 
 their loyalty to himself as he was assured of his owd 
 
HIS LOYALTY TO FRIENDS. 61 
 
 to them ; clearly a man to be loved — a man pleasant 
 to meet and pleasant to remember, constant, and to be 
 relied on in sunshine or in gloom. Friendship with him 
 was not a thing to be given by halves. He could see 
 a friend's faults — no man quicker — but it did not lie 
 in his mouth to babble about them. He was not one 
 of those who "whisper faults and hesitate dislikes." 
 Love me, love my friend, was his rule. Neither would 
 he sit quietly by, while his friends were being dis- 
 paraged. And if he has occasion himself to rally their 
 foibles in his poems, he does so openly, and does it 
 with such an implied sympathy and avowal of kindred 
 weakness in himself, that offence was impossible. 
 Above all, he possessed in perfection what Mr Disraeli 
 happily calls " the rare gift of raillery, which natters 
 the self-love of those whom it seems not to spare." 
 These characteristics are admirably indicated by 
 Persius (I. 116) in speaking of his Satires — 
 
 " Arch Horace, while he strove to mend, 
 Probed all the foibles of his smiling friend ; 
 Played lightly round and round each peccant part, 
 And won, unfelt, an entrance to his heart." (Gifford.) 
 
 And we may be sure the same qualities were even 
 more conspicuous in his personal intercourse with his 
 friends. Satirist though he was, he is continuallv in- 
 culcating the duty of charitable judgments towards all 
 men. 
 
 " What's done we partly may compute, 
 But know not what's resisted," 
 
 is a thought often suggested by his works. The best 
 need large grains of allowance, and to whom should 
 
62 HORA CE. 
 
 these be given if not to friends 1 Here is his creed on 
 this subject (Satires, I. 3) : — 
 
 " True love, we know, is blind ; defects, that blight 
 The loved one's charms, escape the lover's sight, 
 Nay, pass for beauties ; as Balbinus shows 
 A passion for the wen on Agna's nose. 
 Oh, with our friendships that we did the same, 
 And screened our blindness under virtue's name ! 
 For we are bound to treat a friend's defect 
 With touch most tender, and a fond respect ; 
 Even as a father treats a child's, who hints, 
 The urchin's eyes are roguish, if lie squints : 
 Or if he be as stunted, short, and thick, 
 As Sisyphus the dwarf, will call him l chick ! ' 
 If crooked all ways, in back, in legs, and thighs, 
 With softening phrases will the flaw disguise. 
 So, if one friend too close a fist betrays, 
 Let us ascribe it to his frugal ways ; 
 Or is another — such we often find — 
 To flippant jest and braggart talk inclined, 
 'Tis only from a kindly wash to try 
 To make the time 'mongst friends go lightly by ; 
 Another's tongue is rough and over-free, 
 Let's call it bluntness and sincerity ; 
 Another's choleric ; him we must screen, 
 As cursed with feelings for his peace too keen. 
 This is the course, methinks, that makes a friend, 
 And, having made, secures him to the end." 
 
 AVhat wonder, such being bis practice — for Horace in 
 this as in other things acted up to his professions — 
 that lie was so dear, as we see he was, to so many of 
 the best men of his time'? The very contrast which 
 his life presented to that of most of his associates must 
 have helped to attract them to him. Most of them 
 
POOR AND CONTENT, IS RICH. G3 
 
 were absorbed in either political or military pursuits* 
 Wealth, power, dignity, the splendid prizes of ambition, 
 were the dream of their lives. And even those whose 
 tastes inclined mainly towards literature and art were 
 not exempt from the prevailing passion for riches and 
 display. Rich, they were eager to be more rich ; well 
 placed in society, they were covetous of higher social 
 distinction. Now at Rome, gay, luxurious, dissipated ; 
 anon in Spain, Parthia, Syria, Africa, or wherever 
 duty, interest, or pleasure called them, encountering 
 perils by land and sea with reckless indifference to 
 fatigue and danger, always with a hunger at their 
 hearts for something, which, when found, did not ap- 
 pease it; they must have felt a peculiar interest in a 
 man who, without apparent effort, seemed to get so 
 much more out of life than they were able to do, 
 with all their struggles, and all their much larger ap- 
 parent means of enjoyment. They must have seen 
 that wealth and honour were both within his 'grasp, 
 and they must have known, too, that it was from no 
 lack of appreciation of either that he deliberately de- 
 clined to seek them. Wealth would have purchased 
 for him many a refined pleasure which he could heartily 
 appreciate, and honours might have saved him from 
 some of the social slights which must have tested hi& 
 philosophy. But he told them, in every variety of 
 phrase and illustration — in ode, in satire, and epistle— 
 that without self-control and temperance in all things 
 there would be no joy without remorse, no pleasure 
 without fatigue — that it is from within that happiness 
 must come, if it come at all, and that unless the mind 
 
64 HORACE. 
 
 has schooled itself to peace by the renunciation oi 
 covetous desires, 
 
 "We may he wise, or rich, or great, 
 But never can he hi est." 
 
 And as he spoke, so they must have seen he lived. 
 Wealth and honours would manifestly have been 
 bought too dearly at the sacrifice of the tranquillity 
 and independence which he early set before him as 
 the objects of his life. 
 
 " The content, surpassing wealth, 
 The sage in meditation found ; " 
 
 the content which springs from living in consonance 
 with the dictates of nature, from healthful pursuits, 
 from a conscience void of offence ; the content which 
 is incompatible with the gnawing disquietudes of ava- 
 rice, of ambition, of social envy, — with that in his 
 heart, he knew he could be true to his genius, and 
 make life worth living for. A man of this character 
 must always be rare ; least of all was he likely to be 
 common in Horace's day, when the men in whose 
 circle he was moving were engaged in the great task of 
 crushing the civil strife which had shaken the stability 
 of the Roman power, and of consolidating an empire 
 greater and more powerful than her greatest states- 
 men had previously dreamed of. But all the more 
 delightful to these men must it have been to come 
 into intimate contact with a man who, while perfectly 
 appreciating their special gifts and aims, could bring 
 them back from the stir and excitement of their habitual 
 life to think of other things than social or political 
 
POOR AND CONTENT, IS RICH. 65 
 
 successes, — to look into their own hearts, and to live 
 for a time for something better and more enduring 
 than the triumphs of vanity or ambition. 
 
 Horace from the first seems to have wisely deter- 
 mined to keep himself free from those shackles which 
 most men are so eager to forge for themselves, by 
 setting their heart on wealth and social distinction. 
 With perfect sincerity he had told Maecenas, as we 
 have seen, that he coveted neither, and he gives his 
 reasons thus (Satires, I. 6) : — 
 
 " For then a larger income must he made, 
 Men's favour courted, and their whims obeyed ; 
 Nor could I then indulge a lonely mood, 
 Away from town, in country solitude, 
 For the false retinue of pseudo-friends, 
 That all my movements servilely attends. 
 More slaves must then be fed, more horses too, 
 And chariots bought. Now have I nought to do, 
 If I would even to Tarentum ride, 
 But mount my bobtailed mule, my wallets tied 
 Across his flanks, which, flapping as we go, 
 With my ungainly ankles to and fro, 
 Work his unhappy sides a world of weary woe." 
 
 "From this wise resolution he never swerved, and so 
 through life he maintained an attitude of independ- 
 ence in thought and action which would otherwise 
 have been impossible. He does not say it in so many 
 words, but the sentiment meets us all through his 
 pages, which Burns, whose mode of thinking so often 
 reminds us of Horace, puts into the line, 
 
 " My freedom's a lairdship nae monarch may touch." 
 A. c. vol. vi. E 
 
66 HORACE. 
 
 And we shall hereafter have occasion to see that 
 when put to the proof, lie acted upon this creed. 
 Well might the overworked statesman have envied the 
 poet the ease and freedom of his life, and longed to 
 be able to spend a day as Horace, in the same Satire, 
 tells us his days were passed ! — 
 
 " I walk alone, by mine own fancy led, 
 Inquire the price of potherbs and of bread, 
 The circus cross, to see its tricks and fun, 
 The forum, too, at times, near set of sun ; 
 With other fools there do I stand and gape 
 Round fortune-tellers' stalls, thence home escape 
 To a plain meal of pancakes, pulse, and pease ; 
 Three young boy-slaves attend on me with these. 
 Upon a slab of snow-white marble stand 
 A goblet and two beakers ; near at hand, 
 A common ewer, patera, and bowl ; 
 Campania's potteries produced the whole. 
 
 To sleep then I 
 
 I keep my couch till ten, then walk awhile, 
 
 Or having read or writ what may beguile 
 
 A quiet after-hour, anoint my limbs 
 
 With oil, not such as filthy Natta skims 
 
 From lamps defrauded of their unctuous fare. 
 
 And when the sunbeams, grown too hot to bear, 
 
 Warn me to quit the field, and hand-ball play, 
 
 The bath takes all my weariness away. 
 
 Then, having lightly dined, just to appease 
 
 The sense of emptiness, I take mine ease, 
 
 Enjoying all home's simple luxury. 
 
 This is the life of bard unclogged, like me, 
 
 By stern ambition's miserable weight. 
 
 So placed, I own with gratitude, my state 
 
 Is sweeter, ay, than though a quarter's power 
 
 From sire and grandsire's sires had been my dower" 
 
TEE SABINE FARM. G7 
 
 It would not have been easy to bribe a man ol 
 these simple habits and tastes, as some critics have 
 contended that Horace was bribed, to become the 
 laureate of a party to which he had once been opposed, 
 even had Maecenas wished to do so. His very indif- 
 ference to those favours which were within the dis- 
 posal of a great minister of state, placed him on a 
 vantage-ground in his relations with MaBcenas which 
 he could in no other way have secured. Nor, we may 
 well believe, would that distinguished man have wished 
 it otherwise. Surrounded as he was by servility and 
 selfish baseness, he must have felt himself irresisti- 
 bly drawn towards a nature so respectful, yet perfectly 
 manly and independent, as that of the poet, ^or can 
 we doubt that intimacy had grown into friendship, 
 warm and sincere, before he gratified his own feelings, 
 while he made Horace happy for life, by presenting 
 him with a small estate in the Sabine country — a gift 
 which, we may be sure, he knew well would be of all 
 gifts the most welcome. It is demonstrable that it 
 was not given earlier than_RO_J[3 i _.or after upwards 
 of four years of intimate acquaintance. That Horace 
 had longed for such a possession, he tells us himseli 
 (Satires, II. 6). He had probably expressed his long- 
 ing in the hearing of his friend, and to such a friend 
 the opportunity of turning the poet's dream into a 
 reality must have been especially delightful. 
 
 The gift was a slight one for Maecenas to bestow ; 
 but, with Horace's fondness for the country, it 
 had a value for him beyond all price. It gave 
 him a competency — satis stiperque — enough and 
 
C8 HORACE. 
 
 raore than he wanted for his needs. It gave him 
 leisure, health, amusement j and, more precious than 
 all, it secured him undisturbed freedom of thought, 
 and opportunities for that calm intercourse with nature 
 which he " needed for his spirit's health." ISTever was 
 gift better bestowed, or more worthily requited. To 
 it we are indebted for much of that poetry which has 
 linked the name of Ma3cenas with that of the poet in 
 associations the most engaging, and has afforded, and 
 will afford, ever-new delight to successive genera- 
 tions. The Sabine farm was situated in the Valley of 
 Ustica, thirty miles from Eonie, and twelve miles from 
 Tivoli. It possessed the attraction, no small one to 
 Horace, of being very secluded — Varia (Vico Varo), 
 the nearest town, being four miles off — yet, at the 
 same time, within an easy distance of Eome. When 
 his spirits wanted the stimulus of society or the 
 bustle of the capital, which they often did, his ambling 
 mule could speedily convey him thither : and when 
 jaded, on the other hand, by the noise and racket 
 and dissipations of Eome, he could, in the same homely 
 way, bury himself within a few hours among the hills, 
 and there, under the shadow of his favourite Lucre- 
 tilis, or by the banks of the clear-flowing and ice-cold 
 Digentia, either stretch himself to dream upon the 
 grass, lulled by the murmurs of the stream, or do a 
 little farming in the way of clearing his fields of stones, 
 or turning over a furrow here and there with the hoe. 
 There was a rough wildness in the scenery and a sharp- 
 ness in the air, both of which Horace liked, although, 
 as years advanced and his health grew more delicate, 
 
THE SABINE FARM THEN AND NOW. G& 
 
 he had to leave it in the colder months for Tivoli or 
 Baias. He built a villa upon it, or added to one already 
 there, the traces of which still exist. The farm gave 
 employment to five families of free coloni, who were 
 under the superintendence of a bailiff ; and the poet's 
 domestic establishment was composed of eight slaves. 
 The site of the farm is at the present day a favourite 
 resort of travellers, of Englishmen especially, who visit 
 it in such numbers, and trace its features with such 
 enthusiasm, that the resident peasantry, " who cannot 
 conceive of any other source of interest in one so long 
 dead and unsainted than that of co-patriotism or con- 
 sanguinity," believe Horace to have been an English- 
 man.* ^Yhat aspect it presented in Horace'* time w«. 
 gather from one of his Epistles (I. 1G) : — 
 
 " About my firm, dear Quinctius : You would know 
 What sort of produce for its lord 'twill grow • 
 Plough-land is it, or meadow-land, ox soil 
 For apples, vine-clad elms, or olive-oil ? 
 So (but you'll think me garrulous) I'll write 
 A full description of its form and site. 
 In long continuous lines the mountains run, 
 Cleft by a valley, which twice feels the sun — 
 Once on the right, when first he lifts his beams ; 
 Once on the left, when he descends in steams. 
 You'd praise the climate ; well, and what d'ye say 
 To sloes and cornels hanging from the spray ? 
 What to the oak and ilex, that afford 
 Fruit to the cattle, shelter to their lord ? 
 What, but that rich Tarentum must have been 
 Transplanted nearer Rome, with all its green ? 
 
 * Letter by Mr Dennis : Milman's ' Horace.' London, 1849 
 P. 109. 
 
70 HORACE. 
 
 Then there's a fountain, of sufficient size 
 To name the river that takes thence its rise- 
 Not Thracian Hebrus colder or more pure, 
 Of power the head's and stomach's ills to cure. 
 . This sweet retirement — nay, 'tis more than sweet — 
 Insures my health even in September's heat." (C.) 
 
 Here is what a last year's tourist found it : * — 
 
 " Following a path along the brink of the torrent Digen 
 tia, we passed a towering rock, on which once stood Vacu- 
 na's shrine, and entered a pastoral region of well- watered 
 meadow-lands, enamelled with flowers and studded with 
 chestnut and fruit trees. Beneath their sheltering shade 
 peasants were whiling away the noontide hours. Here sat 
 Daphnis piping sweet witching melodies on a reed to his 
 .rustic Phidyle, whilst Lydia and she wove wreaths of wild- 
 flowers, and Lyce sped down to the edge of the stream and 
 brought us cooling drink in a bulging conca borne on her 
 head. Its waters were as deliciously refreshing as they 
 could have been when the poet himself gratefully recorded 
 how often they revived his strength ; and one longed to 
 think, and hence half believed, that our homely Hebe, like 
 her fellows, was sprung from the coloni who tilled his 
 fields and dwelt in the live homesteads of which he sings. 
 . . . Near the little village of Licenza, standing like its 
 loftier neighbour, Civitella, on a steep hill at the foot of 
 Lucretilis, we turned off the path, crossed a thickly-wooded 
 knoll, and came to an orchard, in which two young labour- 
 ers were at work. We asked where the remains of Horace's 
 farm were. ' A pi$ tui /' answered the nearest of them, 
 in a dialect more like Latin than Italian. So saying, he 
 began with a shovel to uncover a massive floor in very fair 
 preservation ; a little farther on was another, crumbling to 
 pieces. Chaupy has luckily saved one all doubt as to the 
 Bite of the farm, establishing to our minds convincingly 
 
 * ' Pall Mall Gazette,' August 16, 1869. 
 
THE SABINE FARM Til EX AND NOW. 71 
 
 that it could scarcely have stood on ground other than that 
 on which at this moment we were. As the shovel was clear- 
 ing the floors, we thought how applicable to Horace himself 
 were the lines he addressed to Fuse us Aristius, ' Naturam 
 expelles,' &c. — 
 
 " ' Drive Nature forth by force, she'll turn and rout 
 
 The false refinements that would keep her out ; ' (C.) 
 
 For here was just enough of his home left to show how na- 
 ture, creeping on step by step, had overwhelmed his handi- 
 work and reasserted her sway. Again, pure and Augustan 
 in design as was the pavement before us, how little could it 
 vie with the hues and odours of the grasses that bloomed 
 around it ! — ' Deterins Lybicis' &c. — 
 
 ' Is springing grass less sweet to nose and eyes 
 Than Libyan marble's tesselated dyes V (C.) 
 
 " Indeed, so striking were these coincidences that we were 
 as nearly as possible going off on the wrong tack, and sing- 
 ing ' Io Pa3an' to Dame Nature herself at the expense of 
 the bard ; but we were soon brought back to our alleud- 
 ance by a sense of the way in which all we saw tallied 
 with the description of him who sang of nature so surpas- 
 singly well, who challenges posterity in charmed accents, 
 and could shape the sternest and most concise of tongues 
 into those melodious cadences that invest his undying verse 
 with all the magic of music and all the freshness of youth. 
 For this was clearly the * angulus iste,' the nook which 
 ' restored him to himself — this the lovely spot which his 
 steward longed to exchange for the slums of Rome. Below 
 lay the greensward by the river, where it was sweet to re- 
 cline in slumber. Here grew the vines, still trained, like 
 his own, on the trunks and branches of trees. Yonder the 
 brook which the rain would swell, till it overflowed its 
 margin, and his lazy steward and slaves were fain to bank 
 it up ; and above, among a wild jumble of hills, lay the 
 
72 iiorace. 
 
 woods where, on the Calends of March, Faunus interposed 
 to save him from the falling tree, and where another miracle 
 preserved him from the attack of the wolf as he strolled 
 along unarmed, singing of the soft voice and sweet smiles 
 of his Lalage ! The brook is now nearly dammed up ; a 
 wall of close-fitting rough-hewn stones gathers its waters 
 into a still, dark pool ; its overflow gushes out in a tiny rill 
 that rushed down beside our path, mingling its murmur 
 with the hum of mvriads of insects that swarmed in the 
 
 air." 
 
 On this farm lovers of Horace have been fain to 
 place the fountain of Bandusia, which the poet loved 
 so well, and to which he prophesied, and truly, as 
 the issue has proved, immortality from his song 
 (Odes, III. 13). Charming as the poem is, there could 
 be no stronger proof of the poet's hold upon the hearts 
 of men of all ages than the enthusiasm with which the 
 very site of the spring has been contested. 
 
 " Bandusia's fount, in clearness crystalline, 
 worthy of the wine, the flowers we vow ! 
 To-morrow shall be thine 
 A kid, whose crescent brow 
 
 " Is sprouting, all for love and victory, 
 
 In vain ; his warm red blood, so early stirred, 
 Thy gelid stream shall dye, 
 Child of the wanton herd. 
 
 u Thee the fierce Sirian star, to madness fired, 
 
 Forbears to touch ; sweet cool thy waters yield 
 To ox with ploughing tired, 
 And flocks that range afield. 
 
 " Thou too one day shall win proud eminence 
 'Mid honoured founts, while I the ilex sing 
 
LOVE FOR THE SABINE FARM. 73 
 
 Crowning the cavern, whence 
 
 Thy babbling wavelets spring." (C.) 
 
 Several commentators maintain, on what appears to 
 be very inconclusive grounds, that the fountain was 
 at Palazzo, six miles from Venusia. But the poem 
 is obviously inspired by a fountain whose babble had 
 often soothed the ear of Horace, long after lie had 
 ceased to visit Venusia. On his farm, therefore, let us 
 believe it to exist, whichever of the springs that are 
 still there we may choose to identify with his descrip- 
 tion. For there are several, and the local guides are 
 by no means dogmatic as to the " vero fonte." That 
 known as the *' Fonte della Corte" seems to make out 
 the strongest case for itself. It is within a few hun- 
 dred yards of the villa, most abundant, and in this 
 respect " fit " to name the river that there takes its rise, 
 which the others — at present, at least — certainly are not 
 
 Horace is never weary of singing the praises of his 
 mountain home — " Satis heatus unicis Sabinis" 
 
 " With what I have completely blest, 
 My happy little Sabine nest" — 
 
 Odes, II. 18. 
 
 are the words in which he contrasts his own entire 
 happiness with the restless misery of a millionaire in 
 the midst of his splendour. Again, in one of his Odes 
 to Mascenas (III. 16) he takes up and expands the 
 same theme. 
 
 " In my crystal stream, my woodland, though its acres are 
 
 but few, 
 And the kust that I shall gather home my crops in season 
 
 due, 
 
74 HORACE. 
 
 Lies a joy, which he may never grasp, who rules in gor- 
 geous state 
 Fertile Africa's dominions. Happier, happier far my fate ! 
 Though for me no bees Calabrian store their honey, nor 
 
 cloth wine 
 Sickening in the Lsestrygonian amphora for me refine ; 
 Though for me no flocks unnumbered, browsing Gallia's 
 
 pastures fair, 
 Pant beneath their swelling fleeces, I at least am free from 
 
 care ; 
 Haggard want with direful clamour ravins never at my 
 
 door, 
 Nor would st thou, if more I wanted, oh my friend, deny 
 
 me more. 
 Appetites subdued will make me richer with my scanty 
 
 gains, 
 Than the realms of Alyattes wedded to Mvgdonia's plains. 
 Much will evermore be wanting unto those who much 
 
 demand ; 
 Blest, whom Jove with what sufficeth dowers, but dowers 
 
 with sparing hand." 
 
 It is the nook of earth, which, beyond all others, has 
 a charm for him, — the one spot where he is all his 
 own. Here, as Wordsworth beautifully says, he 
 
 "Exults in freedom, can with rapture vouch 
 For the dear blessings of a lowly couch, 
 A natural meal, days, months from Nature's hand, 
 Time, place, and business all at his command/' 
 
 It is in this delightful retreat that, in one of his most 
 graceful Odes, he thus invites the fair Tyndaris to pay 
 him a visit (I. 17) : — 
 
 " My own sweet Lucre! il is oft lime can lure 
 
 From his native Lycaaua kind Faunus the ileet, 
 
LOVE FOR THE SABINE FARM. 75 
 
 To watch o'er my ilocks, and to keep them secure 
 
 From summer's fierce winds, and its rains, and its heat. 
 
 " Then the mates of a lord of too pungent a fragrance 
 Securely through brake and o'er precipice climb, 
 
 And crop, as they wander in happiest vagrance, 
 The arbutus green, and the sweet-scented thyme. 
 
 " Nor murderous wolf nor tureen snake may assail 
 My innocent kidlings, dear Tyndaris, when 
 
 His pipings resound through Ustica's low vale, 
 
 Till each mossed rock in music makes answer again. 
 
 u The muse is still dear to the gods, and they shield 
 Me, their dutiful bard ; with a bounty divine 
 
 They have blessed me with all that the country can yield ; 
 Then come, and whatever I have shall be thine ! 
 
 " Here screened from the dog-star, in valley retired, 
 
 Shalt thou sing that old song thou canst warble so well, 
 
 Which tells how one passion Penelope fired, 
 And charmed fickle Circe herself by its spell. 
 
 " Here cups shalt thou sip, 'neath the broad spreading shade 
 Of the innocent vintage of Lesbos at ease ; 
 
 No fumes of hot ire shall our banquet invade, 
 Or mar that sweet festival under the trees. 
 
 "And fear not, lest Cyrus, that jealous young bear, 
 On thy poor little self his rude fingers should set — 
 
 Should pluck from thy bright locks the chaplet, and tear 
 Thy dress, that ne'er harmed him nor any one yet." 
 
 Had Milton this Ode in his thought, when he invited 
 his friend Lawes to a repast, 
 
 " Light and choice, 
 Of Attic taste with wine, whence we may rise, 
 To hear the lute well touched, and artful voice 
 Warble immortal notes, and Tuscan air" ? 
 
76 IIORA CE. 
 
 The reference in the last verse to the violence of the 
 lady's lover — a violence of which ladies of her class 
 were constantly the victims — rather suggests that this 
 Ode, if addressed to a real personage at all, was meant 
 less as an invitation to the Sabine farm than as a 
 balm to the lady's wounded spirit. 
 
 In none of his poems is the poet's deep delight in 
 the country life of his Sabine home more apparent 
 than in the following (Satires, II. 6), which, both for 
 its biographical interest and as a specimen of his best 
 manner in his Satires, we give entire : — 
 
 " My prayers with this I used to charge, — 
 A piece of land not very large, 
 Wherein there should a garden be, 
 A clear spring flowing ceaselessly, 
 And where, to crown the whole, there should 
 A patch be found of growing wood. 
 
 All this, and more, the gods have sent, 
 And I am heartily content. 
 Oh son of Maia, that I may 
 These bounties keep is all I pray. 
 If ne'er by craft or base design 
 I've swelled what little store is mine, 
 Nor mean, it ever shall be wrecked 
 By profligacy or neglect ; 
 If nev,er from my lips a word 
 Shall drop of wishes so absurd 
 As, — ' Had I but that little nook 
 Next to my land, that spoils its look ! ' 
 Or — 'Would some lucky chance unfold 
 A crock to me of hidden gold, 
 As to the man whom Hercules 
 Enriched and settled at his case, 
 
SATIRE II. 6. 77 
 
 Who, with the treasure he had found, 
 Bought for himself the very ground 
 Which he before for hire had tilled ! ' 
 If I with gratitude am filled 
 For what I have — by this I dare 
 Adjure you to fulfil my prayer, 
 That you with fatness will endow 
 My little herd of cattle now, 
 And all things else their lord may own, 
 Except his sorry wits alone, 
 And be, as heretofore, my chief 
 Protector, guardian, and relief ! 
 So, when from town and all its ills 
 I to my perch among the hills 
 Retreat, what better theme to choose 
 Than satire for my homely Muse ? 
 No fell ambition wastes me there, 
 No, nor the south wind's leaden air, 
 Nor Autumn's pestilential breath, 
 With victims feeding hungry death. 
 Sire of the morn, or if more dear 
 The name of Janus to thine ear, 
 Tlirough whom whate'er by man is done, 
 From life's first dawning, is begun 
 (So willed the gods for man's estate), 
 Do thou my verse initiate ! 
 At Rome you hurry me away 
 To bail my friend ; ' Quick, no delay, 
 Or some one — could worse luck befall you ? — 
 Will in the kindly task forestall you.' 
 So go I must, although the wind 
 Is north and killingly unkind, 
 Or snow, in thickly -falling flakes, 
 The wintry day more wintry makes. 
 And when, articulate and clear, 
 I've spoken what may cost me dear, 
 
78 IIORA CE. 
 
 Elbowing the crowd that round me close, 
 
 I'm sure to crush somebody's toes. 
 
 'I say, where are you pushing to ? 
 
 What would you have, you madman, you? 5 
 
 So flies he at poor me, 'tis odds, 
 
 And curses me by all his gods. 
 
 ' You think that you, now, I daresay, 
 
 May push whatever stops your way, 
 
 When you are to Maecenas bound ! ' 
 
 Sweet, sweet, as honey is the sound, 
 
 I won't deny, of that last speech, 
 
 But then no sooner do I reach 
 
 The dusky Escpiiline, than straight 
 
 Buzz, buzz around me runs the prate 
 
 Of people pestering me with cares, 
 
 All about other men's affairs. 
 
 ' To-morrow, Roscius bade me state, 
 
 He trusts you'll be in court by eight ! ' 
 
 ' The scriveners, worthy Quintus, pray, 
 
 You'll not forget they meet to-day, 
 
 U pon a point both grave and new, 
 
 One touching the whole body, too.' 
 
 ' Do get Maecenas, do, to sign 
 
 This application here of mine ! ' 
 
 ' Well, well, I'll try.' ' You can with ease 
 
 Arrange it, if you only please.' 
 
 Close on eight years it now must be, 
 Since first Maecenas numbered me 
 Among his friends, as one to take 
 Out driving with him, and to make 
 The confidant of trifles, say, 
 Like this, ' What is the time of day ?' 
 ' The Thracian gladiator, can 
 One match him with the Syrian V 
 * These chilly mornings will do harm, 
 If one don't mind to wrap up warm ;' 
 
SATIRE IT. 6. 79 
 
 Such nothings as without a fear 
 
 One drops into the ehinkiest ear. 
 
 Yet all this time hath envy ? s glance 
 
 On me looked more and more askance. 
 
 From mouth to mouth such comments run : 
 
 ' Our friend indeed is Fortune's son. 
 
 Why, there he was, the other day, 
 
 Beside Maecenas at the play ; 
 
 And at the Campus, just before, 
 
 They had a bout at battledore.' 
 
 Some chilling news through lane and street 
 
 Spreads from the Forum. All I meet 
 
 Accost me thus — ' Dear friend, you're so 
 
 Close to the gods, that you must know : 
 
 About the Dacians, have you heard 
 
 Any fresh tidings ? Not a word ! ' 
 
 1 You're always jesting ! ' ' Now may all 
 
 The gods confound me, great and small, 
 
 If I have heard one word ! ' ' Well, well, 
 
 But you at any rate can tell, 
 
 If Caesar means the lands, which he 
 
 Has promised to his troops, shall be 
 
 Selected from Italian ground, 
 
 Or in Trinacria be found ? ' 
 
 And when I swear, as well I can, 
 
 That I know nothing, for a man 
 
 Of silence rare and most discreet 
 
 The}- cry me up to all the street. 
 
 Thus do my wasted days slip by, 
 Not without many a wish and sigh, 
 When, when shall I the country see, 
 Its woodlands green, — oh, when be free, 
 With books of great old men, and sleep, 
 And hours of dreamy ease, to creep 
 Into oblivion sweet of life, 
 
80 HORACE. 
 
 Its agitations and its strife ? * 
 When on my table shall be seen 
 Pythagoras s kinsman bean, 
 And bacon, not too fat, embellish 
 My dish of greens, and give it relish ? 
 Oh happy nights, oh feasts divine, 
 When, with the friends I love, I dine 
 At mine own hearth-fire, and the meat 
 We leave gives my bluff hinds a treat ! 
 No stupid laws our feasts control, 
 But each guest drains or leaves the bowi 
 Precisely as he feels inclined. 
 If he be strong, and have a mind 
 For bumpers, good ! if not, he's free 
 To sip his liquor leisurely. 
 And then the talk our banquet rouses ! 
 But not about our neighbours' houses, 
 Or if 'tis generally thought 
 That Lepos dances well or not ? t 
 But what concerns us nearer, and 
 Is harmful not to understand, 
 Whether by wealth or worth, 'tis plain, 
 That men to happiness attain ? 
 
 * Many have imitated this passage — none better than 
 Cowley. 
 
 " Oil fountains ! when in you shall I 
 Myself, eased of unpeaceful thoughts, espy? 
 Oh fields ! oh woods ! when, when shall I be made 
 The happy tenant of your shade? 
 Here's the spring-head of pleasure's flood, 
 Where all the riches be, that she 
 Has coined and stamped for good." 
 
 t How like is this to Tennyson's— 
 
 " You'll have no scandal while you dine, 
 But honest talk and wholesome wine, 
 
 And only hear the magpie gossip 
 Garrulous, under a roof of pine." 
 
THE TOWN AND COUNTRY MOUSE. 81 
 
 By what we're led to choose our friends, — 
 Regard for them, or our own ends ? 
 In what does good consist, and what 
 Is the supremest form of that ? 
 And then friend Cervius will strike in 
 With some old grandam's tale, akin 
 To what we are discussing. Thus, 
 If some one have cried up to us 
 Arellius' wealth, forgetting how 
 Much care it costs him, ' Look you now, 
 Once on a time,' he will begin, 
 ' A country mouse received within 
 His rugged cave a city brother, 
 As one old comrade would another. 
 " A frugal mouse upon the whole, 
 But loved his friend, and had a soul," 
 And could be free and open-handed, 
 "When hospitality demanded. 
 In brief, he did not spare his hoard 
 Of corn and pease, long coyly stored ; 
 Raisins he brought, ami scraps, to boot, 
 Half-gnawed, of bacon, which he put 
 "With his own mouth before his guest, 
 In hopes, by offering his best 
 In such variety, he might 
 Persuade him to an appetite. 
 But still the cit, with languid eye, 
 Just picked a bit, then put it by ; 
 Which with dismay the rustic saw, 
 As, stretched upon some stubbly straw, 
 He munched at bran and common grits, 
 Not venturing on the dainty bits. 
 At length the town mouse ; " What," says he, 
 " My good friend, can the pleasure be, 
 Of grubbing here, on the backbone 
 Of a great crag with trees o'ergrown ? 
 k. c. vol. vi. F 
 
82 HORA CE. 
 
 Who'd not to these wild woods prefer 
 
 The city, with its crowds and stir ? 
 
 Then come with me to town ; you'll ne'er 
 
 Regret the hour that took you there. 
 
 All earthly things draw mortal breath ; 
 
 Nor great nor little can from death 
 
 Escape, and therefore, friend, be gay, 
 
 Enjoy life's good things while you may, 
 
 Remembering how brief the space 
 
 Allowed to you in any case." 
 
 His words strike home ; and, light of heart, 
 
 Behold with him our rustic start, 
 
 Timing their journey so, they might 
 
 Reach town beneath the cloud of nmht, 
 
 "Which was at its high noon, when they 
 
 To a rich mansion found their way, 
 
 Where shining ivory couches vied 
 
 With coverlets in purple dyed, 
 
 And where in baskets were amassed 
 
 The wrecks of a superb repast, 
 
 Which some few hours before had closed. 
 
 There, having first his friend disposed 
 
 Upon a purple tissue, straight 
 
 The city mouse begins to wait 
 
 With scraps upon his country brother, 
 
 Each scrap more dainty than another, 
 
 And all a servant's duty proffers, 
 
 First tasting everything he offers. 
 
 The guest, reclining there in state, 
 
 Rejoices in his altered fate, 
 
 O'er each fresh tidbit smacks his lips. 
 
 And breaks into the merriest quips, 
 
 When suddenly a banging door 
 
 Shakes host and guest into the floor. 
 
 From room to room they rush aghast, 
 
 And almost drop down dead at last, 
 
SATIRISES HIMSELF. 83 
 
 When loud through all the house resounds 
 
 The dee]) bay of Molossian hounds. 
 
 " Ho ! " cries the country mouse, " this kind 
 
 Of life is not for me, I find. 
 
 Give me my woods and cavern ! There 
 
 At least I'm safe ! And though both spare 
 
 And poor my food may be, rebel 
 
 I never will ; so, fare ye well ! " '" 
 
 Tt is characteristic of Horace that in the very next 
 satire he makes his own servant Davus tell him that 
 his rhapsodies about the country and its charms are . 
 mere humbug, and that, for all his ridicide of the* 
 shortcomings of his neighbours, he is just as incon-' 
 stant as they are in his likings and dislikings. The 
 poet in this way lets us see into his own little vanities, 
 and secures the right by doing so to rally his friends 
 for theirs. To his valet, at all events, by his own 
 showing, he is no hero. 
 
 u 
 
 You're praising up incessantly 
 
 The habits, manners, likings, ways, 
 
 Of people in the good old days ; 
 
 Yet should some god this moment give 
 
 To you the power, like them to live, 
 
 You're just the man to say, ' I won't ! ' 
 
 Because in them you either don't 
 
 Believe, or else the courage lack, 
 
 The truth through thick and thin to back, 
 
 And, rather than its heights aspire, 
 
 Will go on sticking in the mire. 
 
 At Rome you for the country sigh ; 
 
 When in the country to the sky 
 
 You, flighty as the thistle's down, 
 
 Are always crying up the town. 
 
 If no one asks you out to dine 
 
84 HORACE. 
 
 Oh, then the pot-au-feii's divine ! 
 
 'You go out on compulsion only — 
 
 'Tis so delightful to be lonely ; 
 
 And drinking bumpers is a bore 
 
 You shrink from daily more and more.' 
 
 But only let Maecenas send 
 
 Command for you to meet a friend ; 
 
 Although the message comes so late, 
 
 The lamps are being lighted, straight, 
 
 ' Where's my pommade ? Look sharp ! ' you snout, 
 
 * Heavens ! is there nobody about ? 
 
 Are you all deaf ? ' and, storming high 
 
 At all the household, oil' you fly. 
 
 When Milvius, and that set, anon 
 
 Arrive to dine, and find you gone, 
 
 With vigorous curses they retreat, 
 
 Which I had rather not repeat." 
 
 Who could take amiss the rebuke of the kindly satirist, 
 who was so ready to show up his own weaknesses 1 ? 
 In this respect our own great satirist Thackeray is very 
 like him. Nor is this strange. They had many 
 points in common — the same keen eye for human folly, 
 the same tolerance for the human weaknesses of which 
 thev were so conscious in themselves, the same genuine 
 kindness of heart. Thackeray's terse and vivid style, 
 too, is probably in some measure due to this, that to 
 him, as to Malherbe, Horace was a kind of breviary. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 LIFE IX ROME. — HORACE'S BORE. — EXTRAVAGANCE OF THE 
 
 ROMAN DINNERS. 
 
 It is one of the many charms of Horace's didactic 
 writings, that he takes ns into the very heart of the 
 life of Rome. We lounge with its loungers along the 
 Via Sacra ; we stroll into the Campus Martius, where 
 young Hebrus with his noble horsemanship is witch- 
 ing the blushing ]STeobule, already too much enamoured 
 of the handsome Liparian ; and the men of the old 
 school are getting up an appetite by games of tennis, 
 bowls, or quoits ; while the young Grecianised fops — 
 lisping feeble jokes — saunter by with a listless con- 
 tempt for such vulgar gymnastics. AYe are in the 
 Via Appia. Barine sweeps along in her chariot in 
 superb toilette, shooting glances from her sleepy cruel 
 eyes. The young fellows are all agaze. "What is this ? 
 Young Pompilius, not three months married, bows to 
 her, with a visible spasm at the heart, as she hurries 
 by, full in view of his young wife, who hides her 
 mortification within the curtains of her litter, and 
 hastens home to solitude and tears. Here comes 
 Barrus — as ugly a dog as any in Rome — dressed to 
 death* and smiling Malvolic - smiles of self- com- 
 
84 HORACE. 
 
 Oh, then the pot-au-feu's divine ! 
 
 'You go out on compulsion only — 
 
 'Tis so delightful to be lonely ; 
 
 And drinking bumpers is a bore 
 
 You shrink from daily more and more.' 
 
 But only let Maecenas send 
 
 Command for you to meet a friend ; 
 
 Although the message comes so late, 
 
 The lamps are being lighted, straight, 
 
 * Where's my pommade ? Look sharp ! ' you snout, 
 
 ' Heavens ! is there nobody about ? 
 
 Are you all deaf ? ' and, storming high 
 
 At all the household, off you fly. 
 
 When Milvius, and that set, anon 
 
 Arrive to dine, and find you gone, 
 
 With vigorous curses they retreat, 
 
 Which I had rather not repeat." 
 
 Who could take amiss the rebuke of the kindly satirist, 
 who was so ready to show up his own weaknesses 1 ? 
 In this respect our own great satirist Thackeray is very 
 like him. Nor is this strange. They had many 
 points in common — the same keen eye for human folly, 
 the same tolerance for the human weaknesses of which, 
 thev were so conscious in themselves, the same genuine 
 kindness of heart. Thackeray's terse and vivid style, 
 too, is probably in some measure due to this, that to 
 him, as to Malherbe, Horace was a kind of breviary. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 LIFE IN ROME. — HORACE'S BORE. — EXTRAVAGANCE OF THE 
 
 ROMAN DINNERS. 
 
 It is one of the many charms of Horace's didactic 
 writings, that he takes us into the very heart of the 
 life of Rome. We lounge with its loungers along the 
 Via Sacra ; we stroll into the Campus Martius, where 
 young Hebrus with his noble horsemanship is witch- 
 ing the blushing ]STeobule, already too much enamoured 
 of the handsome Liparian ; and the men of the old 
 school are getting up an appetite by games of tennis, 
 bowls, or quoits ; while the young Grecianised fops — 
 lisping feeble jokes — saunter by with a listiess con- 
 tempt for such vulgar gymnastics. "We are in the 
 Via Appia. Barine sweeps along in her chariot in 
 superb toilette, shooting glances from her sleepy cruel 
 eyes. The young fellows are all agaze. What is this 1 
 Young Pompilius, not three months married, bows to 
 her, with a visible spasm at the heart, as she hurries 
 by, full in view of his young wife, who hides her 
 mortification within the curtains of her litter, and 
 hastens home to solitude and tears. Here comes 
 Barrus — as ugly a dog as any in Rome — dressed to 
 death: and smiling Malvolic - smiles of self- com- 
 
56 HORACE. 
 
 placency. The girls titter and exchange glances as 
 he passes ; Barrus swaggers on, feeling himself an 
 inch taller in the conviction that he is slaughtering 
 the hearts of the dear creatures by the score. A mule, 
 with a dead "boar thrown across it, now winds its way 
 among the chariots and litters. A little ahead of it 
 stalks Gargilius, attended by a strong force of retainers 
 armed with spears and nets, enough to thin the game 
 of the Hercynian forest. Little does the mighty 
 hunter dream, that all his friends, who congratulate 
 him on his success, are asking themselves and each 
 other, where he bought the boar, and for how much? 
 Have Ave never encountered a piscatory Gargilius near 
 the Spey or the Tweed 1 "We wander back into the 
 city and its narrow streets. In one we are jammed 
 into a doorway by a train of builders' waggons laden 
 with huge blocks of stone, or massive logs of timber. 
 Escaping these, we run against a line of undertakers' 
 men, " performing ,: a voluminous and expensive 
 funeral, to the discomfort of evervbodv and the im- 
 poverishment of the dead man's kindred. In the 
 next street we run the risk of being crushed by some 
 huge piece of masonry in the act of being swung by 
 a crane into its place; and while calculating the 
 chances of its fall with upturned eye, we find our- 
 selves landed in the gutter by an unclean pig, which 
 has darted between our legs at some attractive garbage 
 beyond. This peril over, we encounter at the next 
 turning a mad dog, who makes a passing snap at our 
 toga as he darts into a neighbouring blind alley, whither 
 we do not care to follow his vagaries among a covey 
 
LIFE IN ROME. 87 
 
 of young Roman street Arabs. Before we reach home 
 a mumping beggar drops before us as we turn the 
 corner, in a well-simulated fit of epilepsy or of help- 
 less lameness. l Quwre peregrinum' — " Try that game 
 on country cousins," — we mutter in our beard, and 
 retreat to our lodgings on the third floor, encountering 
 probably on the stair some half-tipsy artisan or slave, 
 who is descending from the attics for another cup of 
 fiery wine at the nearest wine -shop. We go to the 
 theatre. The play is " Ilione," by Pacuvius ; the 
 scene a highly sensational one, where the ghost of 
 Deiphobus, her son, appearing to Ilione, beseeches her 
 to give his body burial. " Oh mother, mother," he 
 cries, in tones most raucously tragic, " hear me 
 call!" But the Kynaston of the day who plays 
 Ilione has been soothing his maternal sorrow with 
 too potent Falernian. He slumbers on. The popu- 
 lace, like the gods of our gallery, surmise the truth, 
 and, " Oh ! mother, mother, hear me call!" is bellowed 
 from a thousand lungs. AVe are enjoying a comedy, 
 when our friends the people, " the many-headed mon- 
 ster of the pit," begin to think it slow, and stop the 
 performance with shouts for a show of bears or boxers. 
 Or, hoping to hear a good play, we find the entertain- 
 ment offered consists of pure spectacle, " inexplicable 
 dumbshow and noise " — 
 
 "Whole fleets of ships in long procession pass, 
 And captive ivory follows captive brass." (C.) 
 
 A milk-white elephant or a camelopard is con- 
 sidered more than a substitute for character, incident, 
 
88 HORA CE. 
 
 or wit. And if an actor presents himself in a dress of 
 unusual splendour, the house is in ecstasies, and a 
 roar of applause, loud as a tempest in the Garganian 
 forest, or as the surges on the Tuscan strand, makes the 
 velarium vibrate above their heads. Human nature is 
 perpetually repeating itself. So when Pope is para- 
 phrasing Horace, he has no occasion to alter the facts, 
 which were the same in his pseudo, as in the real, 
 Augustan age, but only to modernise the names : — 
 
 " Loud as the waves on Orcas' stormy steep 
 Howl to the roarings of the Northern deep, 
 Such is the shout, the long-applauding note, 
 At Quin's high plume, or Oldfield's petticoat. 
 Booth enters — hark ! the universal peal. 
 ' But has he spoken V Not a syllable. 
 ' "What shook the stage, and made the people stare V 
 1 Cato's long wig, ilowered gown, and lackered chair.' " 
 
 "We dine out. Maecenas is of the party, and comes 
 in leaning heavily on the two umbrae, (guests of his own 
 inviting) whom he has brought with him, — habitues 
 of what Augustus called his " parasitical table," who 
 make talk and find buffoonery for him. He is out of 
 spirits to-day, and more reserved than usual, for a 
 messenger has just come in with bad news from Spain, 
 or he has heard of a conspiracy against Augustus, 
 which must be crushed before it grows more danger- 
 ous. Varius is there, and being a writer of tragedies, 
 keeps up, as your tragic author is sure to do, a ceaseless 
 fire of nuns and nleasantrv At these youns Sybaris 
 smiles faintly, for his thoughts are away with his lady- 
 love, the too fascinating Lydia. Horace — who, from 
 
LIFE IN ROME. 89 
 
 the other side of the table, with an amused smile in 
 his eyes, watches him, as he " sighs like furnace," while 
 Nesera, to the accompaniment of her lyre, sings one of 
 Sappho's most passionate odes — whispers something 
 in the ear of the brilliant vocalist, which visibly pro- 
 vokes a witty repartee, with a special sting in it for 
 Horace himself, at which the little man winces — for 
 have there not been certain love-passages of old be- 
 tween Xesera and himself? The wine circulates freely. 
 Maecenas warms, and drops, with the deliberation of 
 a rich sonorous voice, now some sharp sarcasm, 
 now some aphorism heavy with meaning, which 
 sticks to the memory, like a saying of Talleyrand's. 
 His umbrce, who have put but little of allaying 
 Tiber in their cups, grow boisterous and abusive, and 
 having insulted nearly everybody at the table by- 
 coarse personal banter, the party breaks up, and we 
 are glad to get out with flushed cheeks and dizzy 
 head into the cool air of an early summer night — 
 all the more, that for the last half-hour young Piso 
 at our elbow has been importuning us with whispered 
 specimens of his very rickety elegiacs, and trying 
 to settle an early appointment for us to hear him 
 read the first six books of the great Epic Avith which 
 he means to electrify the literary circles. "We reach 
 the Fabrician bridge, meditating as we go the repar- 
 tees with which we might have turned the tables on 
 those scurrilous followers of the great man, but did 
 not. Suddenly we run up against a gentleman, who, 
 raising his cloak over his head, is on the point of 
 jumping into the Tiber. "We seize him by his mantle, 
 
90 EORA CE. 
 
 and discover in the intended suicide an old acquaint- 
 ance, equally well known to the Jews and the bric-a- 
 brac shops, whose tastes for speculation and articles of 
 veriu have first brought him to the money-lenders, 
 next to the dogs, and finally to the brink of the 
 yellow Tiber. We give Mm all the sesterces we have 
 about us, along with a few sustaining aphorisms from 
 our commonplace book upon the folly, if not the 
 wickedness, of suicide, and see him safely home. When 
 we next encounter the decayed virtuoso, he has grown 
 a beard (very badly kept), and set up as a philosopher 
 of the hyper-virtuous Jaques school. Of course he 
 lectures us upon every vice which we have not, and 
 every little frailty which we have, with a pointed as- 
 perity that upsets our temper for the day, and causes 
 us long afterwards to bewail the evil hour in which 
 we rescued such an ill-conditioned grumbler from the 
 kindly waters of the river. 
 
 These hints of life and manners, all drawn from the 
 pages of Horace, might be infinitely extended, and a 
 ramble in the streets of Eome in the present day is 
 consequently fuller of vivid interest to a man who has 
 these pages at his fingers' ends than it can possibly be 
 to any other person. Horace is so associated witli all 
 the localities, that one would think it the most natural 
 thing in the world to come upon him at any turning. 
 His old familiar haunts rise up about us out of the 
 dust of centuries. We see a short thick-set man come 
 sauntering along, "more fat than bard beseems." As 
 he passes, lost in reverie, many turn round and look 
 at him. Some point him out to their companions, 
 

 HORACE'S BORE. 91 
 
 and by what they say, we learn that this is Horace, 
 the favourite of Maecenas, the frequent visitor at the 
 unpretending palace of Augustus, the self-made man 
 and famous poet. He is still within sight, when his 
 progress is arrested. He is in the hands of a bore of 
 the first magnitude. But what ensued, let us hear 
 from his own lips (Satires, I. 9) : — 
 
 The Bore. 
 
 It chanced that I, the other day, 
 
 Was sauntering up the Sacred Way, 
 
 And musing, as my habit is, 
 
 Some trivial random fantasies, 
 
 That for the time absorbed me quite, 
 
 When there comes running up a wight, 
 
 Whom only by his name I knew ; 
 
 " Ha ! my dear fellow, how d'ye do ? " 
 
 Grasping my hand, he shouted. " Why, 
 
 As times go, pretty well," said I ; 
 
 " And you, I trust, can say the same." 
 
 But after me as still he came 
 
 "Sir, is there anything," I cried, 
 
 " You want of me ? " " Oh," he replied, 
 
 " I'm just the man you ought to know; — • 
 
 A scholar, author ! " " Is it so ? 
 
 For this I'll like you all the more ! " 
 
 Then, writhing to evade the bore, 
 
 I quicken now my pace, now stop, 
 
 And in my servant's ear let drop 
 
 Some words, and all the while I feel 
 
 Bathed in cold sweat from head to heeL 
 
 "Oh, for a touch," I moaned, in pain, 
 
 " Bolanus, of thy madcap vein, 
 
 To put this incubus to rout ! " 
 
 As he went chattering on about 
 
92 HORACE. 
 
 Whatever he descries or meets, 
 
 The crowds, the beauty of the streets, 
 
 The city's growth, its splendour, size, 
 
 " You're dying to he off," he cries ; 
 
 For all the while I'd been stock dumb. 
 
 "I've seen it this half-hour. But come, 
 
 Let's clearly understand each other ; 
 
 It's no use making all this pother. 
 
 My mind's made up, to stick by you : 
 
 So where you go, there I go, too." 
 
 "Don't put yourself," I answered, "pray, 
 
 So very far out of your way. 
 
 I'm on the road to see a friend, 
 
 Whom you don't know, that's near his end, 
 
 Away beyond the liber far, 
 
 Close by where Caesar's gardens are." 
 
 " I've nothing in the world to do, 
 
 And what's a paltry mile or two? 
 
 I like it, so I'll follow you ! " 
 
 Down dropped my ears on hearing this, 
 
 Just like a vicious jackass's, 
 
 That's loaded heavier than he likes ; 
 
 But off anew my torment strikes. 
 
 " If well I know myself, you'll end 
 
 With making of me more a friend 
 
 Than Viscus, ay, or Varius ; for 
 
 Of verses who can run off more, 
 
 Or run them off at such a pace ? 
 
 Who dance with such distinguished grace* 
 
 And as for singing, zounds ! " said he, 
 
 " Hermogenes might envy me ! " 
 
 Here was an opening to break in. 
 
 "Have you a mother, father, kin, 
 
 To whom your life is precious ? " "None; - 
 
 I've closed the eyes of every one." 
 
 Oh, happy they, I inly groan. 
 
 Now I am left, and I alone. 
 
HORACE'S BORE. 93 
 
 Quick, quick, despatch me where I stand; 
 Now is the direful doom at hand, 
 Which erst the Sabine beldam old, 
 Shaking her macric urn, foretold 
 In days when I was yet a boy : 
 " Him shall no poisons fell destroy, 
 Nor hostile sword in shock of war, 
 Nor gout, nor colic, nor catarrh. 
 In fulness of the time his thread 
 Shall by a prate-apace be shred ; 
 So let him, when he's twenty-one, 
 If he be wise, all babblers shun." 
 
 Now we were close to Vesta's fane, 
 'Twas hard on ten, and he, my bane, 
 Was bound to answer to his bail, 
 Or lose his cause if he should fail. 
 " Do, if you love me, step aside 
 One moment with me here !" he cried. 
 " Upon my life, indeed, I can't, 
 Of law I'm wholly ignorant ; 
 And you know where I'm hurrying to." 
 " I'm fairly puzzled what to do. 
 Give you up, or my cause ?" " Oh, me, 
 Me, by all means !" "I won't !" quoth he ; 
 And stalks on, holding by me tight. 
 As with your conqueror to fight 
 Is hard, I follow. " How," — anon 
 He rambles off, — " how get you on, 
 You and Maecenas ? To so few 
 He keeps himself. So clever, too ! 
 No man more dexterous to seize 
 And use his opportunities. 
 Just introduce me, and you'll see, 
 We'd pull together famously ; 
 And, hang me then, if, with my backing, 
 You don't send all your rivals packing !" 
 
94 HORA CE. 
 
 " Things in that quarter, sir, proceed 
 
 In very different style, indeed. 
 
 No house more free from all that's base, 
 
 In none cabals more out of place. 
 
 It hurts me not if others be 
 
 More rich, or better read than me. 
 
 Each has his place ! " " Amazing tact ! 
 
 Scarce credible ! " " But 'tis the fact." 
 
 " You quicken my desire to get 
 
 An introduction to his set." 
 
 " With merit such as yours, you need 
 
 But wish it, and you must succeed. 
 
 He's to be won, and that is why 
 
 Of strangers he's so very*shy." 
 
 " I'll spare no pains, no arts, no shifts \ 
 
 His servants I'll corrupt with gifts". 
 
 To-day though driven from his gate, 
 
 What matter ? I will lie in wait, 
 
 To catch some lucky chance ; I'll meet 
 
 Or overtake him in the street ; 
 
 I'll haunt him like his shadow. Nought 
 
 In life without much toil is bought." 
 
 Just at this moment who but my 
 Dear friend Aristius should come by ? 
 My rattlebrain right well he knew. 
 We stop. " Whence, friends, and whither to'?" 
 He asks and answers. Whilst we ran 
 The usual courtesies, I began 
 To pluck him by the sleeve, to pinch 
 His arms, that feel but will not flinch, 
 By nods and winks most plain to see 
 Imploring him to rescue me. 
 He, wickedly obtuse the while, 
 Meets all my signals with a smile. 
 I, choked with rage, said, " Was there not 
 Some business, I've forgotten what, 
 
COMPLETION OF THE SATIRES. 91 
 
 You mentioned, that you wished with me 
 
 To talk about, and privately ?" 
 
 " Oh, I remember ! Never mind ! 
 
 Some more convenient time I'll find. 
 
 The Thirtieth Sabbath this ! Would you 
 
 Affront the circumcised Jew ?" 
 
 " Religious scruples I have none." 
 
 " Ah, but I have. I am but one 
 
 Of the canaille — a feeble brother. 
 
 Your pardon. Some fine day or other 
 
 I'll tell you what it was." Oh, day 
 
 Of woful doom to me ! Away 
 
 The rascal bolted like an arrow, 
 
 And left me underneath the harrow ; 
 
 When, by the rarest luck, we ran 
 
 At the next turn against the man, 
 
 Who had the lawsuit with my bore. 
 
 " Ha, knave !" he cried, with loud uproar, 
 
 lt Where are you off to 1 Will you here 
 
 Stand witness ?" I present my ear. 
 
 To court he hustles him along ; 
 
 High words are bandied, high and strong. 
 
 A mob collects, the fray to see : 
 
 So did Apollo rescue me. 
 
 The Satires appear to have been completed when 
 Horace was about thirty-five years old, and published 
 collectively, B.C. 29. By this time his position in 
 society was well assured. He numbered among his 
 friends, as we have seen, the most eminent men in 
 Rome, — 
 
 " Chiefs out of war, and statesmen out of place " — 
 
 men who were not merely ripe scholars, but who had 
 borne and were bearing a leading part in the great 
 
V6 IIORA CE. 
 
 actions of that memorable epoch. Among such men 
 he would be most at home, for there his wit, his 
 shrewdness, his genial spirits, and high breeding would 
 be best appreciated. But his own keen relish of 
 life, and his delight in watching the lights and 
 shades of human character, took him into that wider 
 circle where witty and notable men are always 
 eagerly sought after to grace the feasts or enliven 
 the heavy splendour of the rich and the unlettered. 
 He was still young, and happy in the animal spirits 
 which make the exhausting life of a luxurious capital 
 endurable even in spite of its pleasures. What Victor 
 Hugo calls 
 
 " Le banquet des amis, et quelquefois les soirs, 
 Le baiser jeune et frais d'une blanche aux yeux noirs," 
 
 never quite lost their charm for him ; but during this 
 period they must often have tempted him into the 
 elaborate dinners, the late hours, and the high-strung 
 excitement, which made a retreat to the keen air and 
 plain diet of his Sabine home scarcely less necessary 
 for his body's than it was for his spirit's health. For, 
 much as he prized moderation in all things, and 
 extolled "the mirth that after no repenting draws," 
 good wine, good company, and fair and witty women 
 would be sure to work their spell on a temperament 
 so bright and sympathetic, and to quicken his spirits 
 into a brilliancy and force, dazzling for the hour, 
 but to be paid for next day in headache and de- 
 pression. 
 
 Uc was all the mure likely to sutler in this way 
 
PLAIN LIVING AND HIGH THINKING. 97 
 
 from tlie very fact that, as a rule, he was simple and 
 frugal in his tastes and habits. We have seen him 
 (p. GO), in the early days of his stay in Home, at his 
 " plain meal of pancakes, pulse, and pease," served on 
 homely earthenware. At his farm, again, beans and 
 bacon (p. 80) form his staple dish. True to the 
 old Roman taste, he was a great vegetarian, and 
 in his charming ode, written for the opening of the 
 temple of Apollo erected by Augustus on Mount Pala- 
 tine (b.c. 28), he thinks it not out of place to mingle 
 with his prayer for poetic power an entreaty that he 
 may never be without wholesome vegetables and fruit. 
 
 " Let olives, endive, mallows light, 
 
 Be all my fare ; and health 
 Give thou, Apollo, so I might 
 
 Enjoy my present wealth ! 
 Give me but these, I ask no more, 
 
 These, and a mind entire — 
 An old age, not unhonoured, nor 
 
 Unsolaced by the lyre ! " 
 
 Maecenas himself is promised (Odes, III. 28), if he will 
 visit the poet at the Sabine farm, " simple dinners 
 neatly dressed ;" and when Horace invites down his 
 friend Torquatus (Epistles, II. 5), he does it on the 
 footing that this wealthy lawyer shall be content to 
 put up with plain vegetables and homely crockery 
 (modica olus omne patella). The wine, he promises, 
 shall be good, though not of any of the crack growths. 
 If Torquatus wants better, he must send it down him- 
 self. The appointments of the table, too, though of 
 the simplest kind, shall be admirably kept — 
 
 A. C. Vol. VI. G 
 
98 HORA CE. 
 
 " The coverlets ol laultless slieen, 
 The napkins scrupulously clean, 
 Your cup and salver such that they 
 Unto yourself yourself display." 
 
 Table-service neat to a nicety was obviously a great 
 point with Horace. "What plate he had was made to 
 look its best. " Ridet argento dormis" — " My plate, 
 newly-burnished, enlivens my rooms " — is one of the 
 attractions held out in his invitation to the fair 
 Phyllis to grace his table on Maecenas's birthday 
 (Odes, IV. 11). And we. may be very sure that his 
 little dinners were served and waited on with the 
 studied care and quiet finish of a refined simplicity. 
 His rule on these matters is indicated by himself 
 (Satires, II. 2) :— 
 
 " The proper thing is to be cleanly and nice, 
 And yet so as not to be over precise ; 
 To neither be constantly scolding your slaves, 
 Like that old prig Albutus, as losels and knaves, 
 Nor, like Nsevius, in such things who's rather too easy, 
 To the guests at your board present water that's greasy." 
 
 To a man of these simple tastes the elaborate ban- 
 quets, borrowed from the Asiatic Greeks, which were 
 then in fashion, must have been intolerable. lie has 
 introduced us to one of them in describing a dinner- 
 party of nine given by one Nasidienus, a wealthy 
 snob, to Maecenas and others of Horace's friends. The 
 dinner breaks down in a very amusing way, between 
 the giver's love of display and his parsimony, which 
 prompted him, on the one hand, to present his guests 
 
0FELLU3 ON APW1ANISM. 99 
 
 with the fashionable dainties, but, on the other, would 
 not let him pay a price sufficient to secure their being 
 good. The first course consists of a Lucanian wild 
 boar, served with a garnish of turnips, radishes, and let- 
 tuce, in a sauce of anchovy-brine and wine-lees. Next 
 comes an incongruous medley of dishes, including one 
 
 " Of sparrows' gall and turbots' liver, 
 At the mere thought of which I shiver." 
 
 A lamprey succeeds, " floating vast and free, by shrimps 
 surrounded in a sea of sauce," and this is followed 
 up by a crane soused in salt and flour, the liver of a 
 snow-white goose fattened on figs, leverets' shoulders, 
 and roasted blackbirds. This menu is clearly meant 
 for a caricature, but it was a caricature of a prevailing 
 folly, which had probably cost the poet many an indi- 
 gestion. 
 
 Against this folly, and the ruin to health and purse 
 which it entailed, some of his most vigorous satire is 
 directed. It furnishes the themes of the second and 
 fourth Satires of the Second Book, both of which, 
 with slight modifications, might with equal truth be 
 addressed to the dinner-givers and diners-out of our 
 own day. In the former of these the speaker is the 
 Apulian yeoman Ofellus, who undertakes to show 
 
 " What the virtue consists in, and why it is great, 
 To live on a little, whatever your state." 
 
 Before entering on his task, however, he insists that 
 his hearers shall cut themselves adrift from their 
 luxuries, and come to him fasting, and with appetites 
 
LCO HORACE. 
 
 whetted by a sharp run with the hounds, a stiff bout 
 at tennis, or some other vigorous gymnastics ; — 
 
 " And when the hard work has your squeamishness routed, 
 When you're parched up with thirst, and your hunger's 
 
 undoubted, 
 Then spurn simple food if you can, or plain wine, 
 Which no honied gums from Hymettus refine." 
 
 His homily then proceeds in terms which would not 
 be out of place if addressed to a gourmet of modern 
 London or Paris : — 
 
 " When your butler's away, and the weather's so bad 
 
 That there is not a morsel of fish to be had, 
 
 A crust with some salt will soothe not amiss 
 
 The ravening stomach. You ask, how is this ? 
 
 Because for delight, at the best, you must look 
 
 To yourself, and not to your wealth or your cook * 
 
 Work till you perspire. Of all sauces 'tis best. 
 
 The man that's with over-indulgence oppressed, 
 
 White-livered and pursy, can relish no dish, 
 
 Be it ortolans, oysters, or finest of fish. 
 
 Still I scarcely can hope, if before you there were 
 
 A peacock and capon, you would not prefer 
 
 With the peacock to tickle your palate, you're so 
 
 Completely the dupes of mere semblance and show. 
 
 For to buy the rare bird only gold will avail, 
 
 And he makes a grand show with his fine painted tail. 
 
 * " Pour l'amour de Dieu, mi sou pour acheter un petit pain. 
 /'ai si faim !" " Comment !" responded the cloyed sensualist, 
 in search of an appetite, who was thus accosted ; "tu as faim, 
 petit drole ! Tu es hien heureux !" The readers of Pope will 
 also remember his lines on the man who 
 
 " Called ' happy dog ' the beggar at his door, 
 And envied thirst and hunger to the poor." 
 

 OFELLUS OX APIC1ANISM. 101 
 
 As if this had to do with the matter the least ! 
 
 Can you make of the feathers you prize so a feast ? 
 
 And, when the bird's cooked, what becomes of its splen- 
 dour } 
 
 Is his flesh than the capon's more juicy or tender ? 
 
 Mere appearance, not substance, then, clearly it is, 
 
 "Which bamboozles your judgment. So much, then, for 
 this." 
 
 Don't talk to me of taste, Ofellus continues — 
 
 " "Will it give you a notion 
 If this pike in the Tiber was caught, or the ocean ? 
 If it used 'twixt the bridges to glide and to quiver, 
 Or was tossed to and fro at the mouth of the river ?" 
 
 Just as our epicures profess to distinguish by flavour a 
 salmon fresh run from the sea from one that has been 
 degenerating for four-and-twenty hours in the fresh 
 water of the river — with this difference, however, 
 that, unlike the salmon with us, the above-bridge pike 
 w r as considered at Rome to he more delicate than his 
 sea-bred and leaner brother. 
 
 Ofellus next proceeds to ridicule the taste which 
 prizes what is set before it for mere size or rarity or 
 cost. It is this, he contends, and not any excellence 
 in the things themselves, which makes people load 
 their tables with the sturgeon or the stork. Fashion, 
 not flavour, prescribes the rule ; indeed, the more 
 perverted her ways, the more sure they are to be 
 followed. 
 
 " So were any one now to assure us a treat 
 
 In cormorants roasted, as tender and sweet, 
 
 The young men of Rome are so prone to what's wrong, 
 
 They'd eat cormorants all to a man, before long." 
 
102 HORACE. 
 
 But, continues Ofellus, though T would have you 
 frugal, I would not have you mean — 
 
 " One vicious extreme it is idle to shun, 
 If into its opposite straightway you run ;" 
 
 illustrating his proposition by one of those graphic 
 sketches which give a distinctive life to Horace's 
 Satires. 
 
 " There is Avidienus, to whom, like a burr, 
 
 Sticks the name he was righteously dubbed by, of ' Cur,' 
 
 Eats beechmast and olives live years old, at least, 
 
 And even when he's robed all in white for a feast 
 
 On his marriage or birth day, or some other very 
 
 High festival day, when one likes to be merry, 
 
 What wine from the chill of his cellar emerges — 
 
 'Tis a drop at the best — has the flavour of verjuice ; 
 
 While from a huge cruet his own sparing hand 
 
 On his coleworts drops oil which no mortal can stand, 
 
 So utterly loathsome and rancid in smell, it 
 
 Defies his stale vinegar even to quell it." 
 
 Let what you have be simple, the best of its kind, 
 whatever that may be, and served in the best style. 
 And now learn, continues the rustic sage, 
 
 " In what way and how greatly you'll gain 
 By using a diet both sparing and plain. 
 First, your health will be good ; for you readily can 
 Believe how much mischief is done to a man 
 By a great mass of dishes, — remembering that 
 Plain fare of old times, and how lightly it sat. 
 But the moment you mingle up boiled with roast meat, 
 And shellfish with thrushes, what tasted so sweet 
 Will be turned into bile, and ferment, not digest, in 
 Your stomach exciting a tumult intestine. 
 
OFELLUS CONTINUED. 103 
 
 Mark, from a bewildering dinner how pale 
 
 Every man rises up ! Nor is this all they ail, 
 
 For the body, weighed down by its last night's excesses, 
 
 To its own wretched level the mind, too, depresses, 
 
 And to earth chains that spark of the essence divine ; 
 
 While he, that's content on plain viands to dine, 
 
 Sleeps off his fatigues without effort, then gay 
 
 As a lark rises up to the tasks of the day. 
 
 Yet he on occasion will find himself able 
 
 To enjoy without hurt a more liberal table, 
 
 Say, on festival days, that come round with the year, 
 
 Or when his strength's low, and cries out for good cheer, 
 
 Or when, as years gather, his age must be nursed 
 
 With more delicate care than he wanted at first. 
 
 But for you, when ill health or old age shall befall, 
 
 Where's the luxury left, the relief within call, 
 
 Which has not been forestalled in the days of your prime, 
 
 When you scoffed, in your strength, at the inroads of 
 
 time ? 
 " ' Keep your boar till it's rank ! ' said our sires ; which 
 
 arose, 
 I am confident, not from their having no nose, 
 But more from the notion that some of their best 
 Should be kept in reserve for the chance of a guest : 
 And though, ere he came, it grew stale on the shelf, 
 This was better than eating all up by one's self. 
 Oh, would I had only on earth found a place 
 In the days of that noble heroic old race !" 
 
 So much as a question of mere health and good 
 feeling. But now our moralist appeals to highe? 
 considerations : — 
 
 " Do you set any store by good name, which we find 
 Is more welcome than song to the ears of mankind ? 
 Magnificent turbot, plate richly embossed, 
 Will bring infinite shame with an infinite cost. 
 
104 HORACE. 
 
 Add kinsmen and neighbours all furious, your owd 
 Disgust with yourself, when you find yourself groan 
 For death, which has shut itself off from your hope, 
 With not even a sou left to buy you a rope. 
 
 " 'Most excellent doctrine !' you answer, 'and would, 
 For people like Trausius, be all very good ; 
 But I have great wealth, and an income that brings 
 In enough to provide for the wants of three kings.' 
 But is this any reason y _>u hrouII net ipply 
 Your superfluous wealth to ends nobler, more high ? 
 You so rich, why should any good honest man lack 1 
 Our temples, why should they be tumbling to wrack ? 
 Wretch, of all this great heap have you nothing to spare 
 For our dear native land } Or why should you dare 
 To think that misfortune will never o'ertake you ? 
 Oh, then, what a butt would vour enemies make you ! 
 
 7 7 »/ t> 
 
 Who will best meet reverses ? The man who, you find, 
 
 Has by luxuries pampered both body and mind ? 
 
 Or he who, contented with little, and still 
 
 Looking on to the future, and fearful of ill, 
 
 Long, long ere a murmur is heard from afar, 
 
 In peace has laid up the munitions of war ?" 
 
 Alas for the wisdom of Ofellus the sacje ! Nineteen 
 centuries have come and gone, and the spectacle is 
 still before us of the same selfishness, extravagance, 
 and folly, which he rebuked so well and so vainly, 
 but pushed to even greater excess, and more widely 
 diffused, enervating the frames and ruining the for- 
 tunes of one great section of society, and helping to 
 inspire another section, and that a dangerous one, 
 with angry disgust at the hideous contrast between 
 the opposite extremes of wretchedness and luxury 
 which everywhere meets the eye in the great cities 
 of the civilised world. 
 
 In the fourth Satire of the Second Book, Horace 
 
CATIUS OX THE CUISINE. 105 
 
 ridicules, in a vein of exquisite irony, the gourmets of 
 his day, who made a philosophy of flavours, with 
 whom sauces were a science, and who had condensed 
 into aphorisms the merits of the poultry, game, or fish 
 of the different and often distant regions from which 
 they were brought to Borne. Catius has been listen- 
 ing to a dissertation by some Brillat-Savarin of this 
 class, and is hurrying home to commit to his tablets 
 the precepts by which he professes himself to have been 
 immensely struck, when he is met by Horace, and pre- 
 vailed upon to repeat some of them in' the very words 
 of this philosopher of the dinner-table. Exceedingly 
 curious they are, throwing no small light both upon 
 the materials of the Roman cuisine and upon the 
 treatment by the Romans of their wines. Being 
 delivered, moreover, with the epigrammatic precision 
 of philosophical axioms, their effect is infinitely amus- 
 ing. Thus : — 
 
 l O" 
 
 " Honey Aufidius mixed with strong 
 Falernian ; he was very wrong." 
 
 " The flesh of kid is rarelv fine, 
 That has been chiefly fed on vine." 
 
 " To meadow mushrooms give the prize, 
 And trust no others, if you're wise." 
 
 " Till I had the example shown, 
 The art was utterly unknown 
 Of telling, when you taste a dish, 
 The age and kind of bird or fish." 
 
 Horace professes to be enraptured at the depth of 
 sagacity and beauty of expression in what he hears, 
 and exclaims, — ■ 
 
10G HORACE. 
 
 " Oh, learned Catius, prithee, by 
 Our friendship, by the gods on high, 
 Take me along with you, to hear 
 Such wisdom, be it far or near! 
 For though you tell me all — in fact, 
 Your memory is most exact — 
 Still there must be some grace of speech, 
 Which no interpreter can reach. 
 The look, too, of the man, the mien ! 
 Which you, what fortune ! having seen, 
 May for that very reason deem 
 Of no account ; but to the stream, 
 Even at its very fountain-head, 
 I fain would have my footsteps led, 
 That, stooping, I may drink my fill, 
 Where such life-giving saws distil." 
 
 Manifestly the poet was no gastronome, or he would 
 not have dealt thus sarcastically with matters so 
 solemn and serious as the gusts, and flavours, and 
 " sacred rage " of a highly-educated appetite. At 
 the same time, there is no reason to suppose him to 
 have been insensible to the attractions of the " haute 
 cuisine" as developed by the genius of the Vattel or 
 Erancatelli of Maecenas, and others of his wealthy 
 friends. Indeed, he appears to have been prone, 
 rather than otherwise, to attack these with a relish, 
 which his feeble digestion had frequent reason to 
 repent. His servant Davus more than hints as much 
 in the passage above quoted (p. 83) ; ami the consci- 
 ousness of his own -frailty may have given additional 
 vigour to his assaults on the ever-increasing indulgence 
 in the pleasures of the table, which he saw gaining 
 ground so rapidly around him. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HORACE S LOVE POETRY. 
 
 When young, Horace threw himself ardently into 
 the pleasures of youth ; and his friends being, for the 
 most part, young and rich, their banquets were sure 
 to "h« sumptuous, and carried far into the night. Nor 
 in these days did the " blanche aux yeux noirs" 
 whose beauty and accomplishments formed the crown- 
 ing grace of most bachelors' parties, fail to engage a 
 liberal share of his attention. He tells us as much 
 himself (Epistles, I. 14), when contrasting to the 
 steward of his farm the tastes of his maturer years 
 with the habits of his youth. 
 
 " He, whom fine clothes became, and glistering hair, 
 Whom Cinara welcomed, that rapacious fair, 
 As well you know, for his own simple sake, 
 Who on from noon would wine in bumpers take, 
 Now quits the table soon, and loves to dream 
 And drowse upon the grass beside a stream," 
 
 adding, with a sententious brevity which it is hope- 
 less to imitate, " Nee lusisse pudet, sed non incidere 
 ludurri, — 
 
108 HORACE. 
 
 " Nor blushes that of sport he took his fill ; 
 He'd blush, indeed, to be tomfooling still." 
 
 Again, when lamenting how little the rolling years 
 have left him of his past (Epistles, II. 2), his regrets 
 are for the " Venerem, convivia, ludum" to which he 
 no longer finds himself equal — 
 
 " Years following years steal something every day, 
 Love, feasting, frolic, fun, they've swept away ; " — 
 
 and to the first of these, life " in his hot youth " mani- 
 festly owed much of its charm. 
 
 To beauty he would appear to nave been always 
 susceptible, but his was the lightly-stirred suscepti- 
 bility which is an affair of the senses rather than of 
 the soul. " There is in truth," says Rochefoucauld, 
 " only one kind of love ; but there are a thousand 
 different copies of it." Horace, so far at least as we 
 can judge from his poetry, was no stranger to the 
 spurious form of the passion, but his whole being had 
 never been penetrated by the genuine fire. The god- 
 dess of his worship is not Venus Urania, pale, dreamy, 
 spiritual, but Erycina ridens, quam Jocus circum volai 
 et Oupido, who comes 
 
 " With laughter in her eyes, and Love 
 And Glee around her flying." 
 
 Accordingly, of all those infinitely varied chords of 
 deep emotion and imaginative tenderness, of which oc- 
 casional traces are to be found in the literature of anti- 
 quity, and with which modern poetry, from Dante to 
 Tennyson, is familiar, no hint is to be found in his 
 
HIS LOVE-POETRY. 109 
 
 pages. His deepest feeling is at best but a ferment of 
 the blood ; it is never the all-absorbing devotion of the 
 heart. He had learned by his own experience just 
 enough of the tender passion to enable him to write 
 pretty verses about it, and to rally, not unsympatheti- 
 cally, such of his friends as had not escaped so lightly 
 from the flame. Therefore it is that, as has been 
 truly said, " his love-ditties are, as it were, like flowers, 
 beautiful in form and rich in hues, but without the 
 scent that breathes to the heart." We seek in them 
 in vain for the tenderness, the negation of self, the 
 passion and the pathos, which are the soul of all true 
 love-poetry. 
 
 At the same time, Horace had a subtle appreciation 
 of the beauty and grace, the sweetness and the fasci- 
 nation, of womanhood. Poet as he was, he must have 
 delighted to contemplate the ideal elevation and purity 
 of woman, as occasionally depicted in the poetry of 
 Greece, and of which he could scarcely fail to have 
 had some glimpses in real life. Nay, he paints 
 (Odes, III. 11) the devotion of Hypermnestra for her 
 husband's sake " magnificently false " (splendide men- 
 dux) to the promise which, with her sister Danaids, 
 she had given to her father, in a way that proves he 
 was not incapable of appreciating, and even of depict- 
 ing, the purer and higher forms of female worth. Ent 
 this exquisite portrait stands out in solitary splendour 
 among the Lydes and Lalages, the Myrtales, Phrynes, 
 and Glyceras of his other poems. These ladies were 
 types of the class with which, probably, he was most 
 famdiar, those brilliant and accomplished Jietairw, 
 
110 HORACE. 
 
 generally Greeks, who were trained up in slavery 
 with every art and accomplishment which could 
 heighten their beauty or lend a charm to their 
 society. Always beautiful, and by force of their 
 very position framed to make themselves attractive, 
 these " weeds of glorious feature," naturally enough, 
 took the chief place in the regards of men of fortune, 
 in a state of society where marriage was not an alfair 
 of the heart but of money or connection, and where 
 the wife so chosen seems to have been at pains to 
 make herself more attractive to everybody rather than 
 to her husband. Here and there these Aspasias made 
 themselves a distinguished position, and occupied a 
 place with their protector nearly akin to that of wife. 
 But in the ordinary way their reign over any one heart 
 was shortlived, and their career, though splendid, was 
 brief, — a youth of folly, a premature old age of squalor 
 and neglect. Their habits were luxurious and extrava- 
 gant. In dress they outvied the splendour, not insig- 
 nificant, of the Roman matrons ; and they might be 
 seen courting the admiration of the wealthy loungers 
 of Rome by dashing along the Appian Way behind a 
 team of spirited ponies driven by themselves. These 
 tilings were often paid for out of the ruin of their 
 admirers. Their society, while in the bloom and fresh- 
 ness of their charms, was greatly sought after, for wit 
 and song came with them to the feast. Even Cicero, 
 then well up in years, finds a pleasant excuse (Fami- 
 liar Letters, IX. 2G) for enjoying till a late hour the 
 society of one Cytheris, a lady of the class, at the house 
 of Volunmius Eutrapelus, her protector. His friend 
 
THE HETAIRjE. Ill 
 
 Atticus was with liiin ; aud altliough Cicero finds some 
 excuse necessary, it is still obvious that even grave 
 and sober citizens might dine in such equivocal com- 
 pany without any serious compromise of character. 
 
 It was perhaps little to be wondered at that Horace 
 did not squander his heart upon women of this class. 
 His passions were too well controlled, and his love of 
 ease too strong, to admit of his being carried away by 
 the headlong impulses of a deeply-seated devotion. 
 This would probably have been the case even had the 
 object of his passion been worthy of an unalloyed 
 regard. As it was, 
 
 " His loves were like most other loves, 
 A little glow, a little shiver ; " 
 
 and if he sometimes had, like the rest of mankind, to 
 pay his homage to the. universal passion by " sighing 
 upon his midnight pillow " for the regards of a mis- 
 tress whom he could not win, or who had played him 
 false, he was never at a loss to find a balm for his 
 wounds elsewhere. He was not the man to nurse the 
 bitter-sweet sorrows of the heart — to write, and to feel, 
 like Burns — 
 
 " 'Tis sweeter for thee despairing, 
 Than aught in the world beside." 
 
 o J 
 
 Parabilem amo Vcncrem facilemque, " Give me the 
 beauty that is not too coy," is the Alpha and Omega of 
 his personal creed. How should it have been other- 
 wise] Knowing woman chiefly, as he obviously did, 
 only in the ranks of the deuti-iuoiide, he was not 
 
112 HORACE. 
 
 likely to regard the fairest face, after the first heyday 
 of his youth was past, as worth the pain its owner's 
 caprices could inflict. For, as seen under that phase, 
 woman was apt to be both mercenary and capricious; 
 and if the poet suffered, as he did, from the fickleness 
 of more than one mistress, the probability is — and this 
 he was too honest not to feel — that they had only 
 forestalled him in inconstancy. 
 
 If Horace ever had a feeling which deserved the 
 name of love, it was for the Cinara mentioned in the 
 lines above quoted. She belonged to the class of 
 hetairse, but seems to have preferred him, from a 
 genuine feeling of affection, to her wealthier lovers. 
 Holding him as she did completely under her thral- 
 dom, it was no more than natural that she should 
 have played with his emotions, keeping him between 
 ecstasy and torture, as such a woman, especially if her 
 own heart were also somewhat engaged, would delight 
 to do with a man in whose love she must have rejoiced 
 as something to lean upon amid the sad frivolities ol 
 her life. The exquisite pain to which her caprices 
 occasionally subjected him was more than he could 
 bear in silence, and drove him, despite his quick sense 
 of the ridiculous, into lachrymose avowals to Ma3cenas 
 of his misery over his wine, which were, doubtless, no 
 small source of amusement to the easy-going states- 
 man, before his wife Terentia had taught him by ex- 
 perience what infinite torture a charming and coquettish 
 woman has it in her power to inflict. Long years 
 afterwards, when he is well on to fifty, Horace reminds 
 his friend (Epistles, 1. 7) of 
 
CINARA. 113 
 
 * The woes blabbed o'er our wine, when Cinara chose 
 To tease me, cruel flirt — ah, happy woes ! " — 
 
 words in which lurks a subtle undercurrent of pathos, 
 like that in Sophie Arnould's exclamation in Le Bran's 
 Epigram, — 
 
 " Oh, le bon temps ! J'etais bien malheureuse ! " 
 
 Twice also in his later odes (IV. 1 and 13), Horace 
 recurs with tenderness to the " gentle Cinara" as 
 having held the paramount place in his heart. She 
 was his one bit of romance, and this all the more 
 that she died young. Cinarce breves annos fata de- 
 derunt — " Few years the fates to Cinara allowed ;" 
 and in his meditative rambles by the Digenti», the 
 lonely poet, we may well believe, often found himself 
 sighing " for the touch of a vanished hand, and the 
 sound of a voice that is still." 
 
 In none of his love -poems is the ring of personal 
 feeling more perceptible than in the following. It is 
 one of his earliest, and if we are to identify the jSasera 
 to whom it is addressed with the ]NTa3era referred to in 
 Ode 14, Look III., it must have been written Commie 
 Planco, that is, in the year of Horace's return to Eome 
 after the battle of Philippi. — 
 
 "'Twas night ! — let me recall to thee that night ! 
 The silver moon in the unclouded sky 
 Amid the lesser stars was shining bright, 
 
 When, in the words I did adjure thee by, 
 Thou with thy clinging arms, more tightly knit 
 
 Around me than the ivy clasps the oak, 
 Didst breathe a vow — mocking the gods with it — 
 A vow which, false one, thou has foully broke ; 
 a. c. vol. vi. H 
 
114 HORACE. 
 
 That while the ravening wolf should hunt the flocks, 
 The shipman's foe, Orion, vex the sea, 
 
 And zephyrs waft the unshorn Apollo's locks, 
 So long wouldst thou he fond, he true to me ! 
 
 " Yet shall thy heart, Nseera, bleed for this, 
 
 For if in Flaccus aught of man remain, 
 Give thou another joys that once were his, 
 
 Some other maid more true shall soothe his pain ; 
 Nor think again to lure him to thy heart ! 
 
 The pang once felt, his love is past recall ; 
 And thou, more favoured youth, whoe'er thou art, 
 
 Who revell'st now in triumph o'er his fall, 
 Though thou be rich in land and golden store, 
 
 In lore a sage, with shape framed to beguile, 
 Thy heart shall ache when, this brief fancy o'er, 
 
 She seeks a new love, and I calmly smile." 
 
 This is tlie poetry of youth, the passion of wounded 
 vanity ; but it is clearly the product of a strong per- 
 sonal feeling — a feeling which has more often found 
 expression in poetry than the higher emotions of those 
 with whom " love is love for evermore," and who 
 have infinite pity, but no rebuke, for faithlessness. 
 The lines have been often imitated ; and in Sir Eobert 
 Aytoun's poem on "Woman's Inconstancy," the imita- 
 tion has a charm not inferior to the original. 
 
 "Yet do thou glory in thy choice, 
 
 Thy choice of his good fortune boast ; 
 I'll neither grieve nor yet rejoice 
 To see him gain what I have lost ; 
 The height of my disdain shall be 
 To laugh at him, to blush for thee ; 
 To love thee still, yet go no more 
 A-begging to a beggar's door." 
 
ODE TO PYRRIIA. 115 
 
 Note how Horace deals with the same theme in his 
 (Me to Pyrrha, famous in Milton's overrated transla- 
 tion, and the difference Let ween the young man writ- 
 ing under the smart of wounded feeling and the poet, 
 calmly though intensely elaborating his subject as a 
 work of art, becomes at once apparent. 
 
 " Pyrrha, what slender boy, in perfume steeped, 
 Doth in the shade of some delightful grot 
 Caress thee now on couch with roses heaped ? 
 For whom dost thou thine amber tresses knot 
 
 " "With all thy seeming-artless grace 1 Ah me, 
 How oft will he thy perfidy bewail, 
 And joys all flown, and shudder at the sea 
 Rough with the chafing of the blust'rous gale, 
 
 "Who now, fond dreamer, revels in thy charms ; 
 Who, all unweeting how the breezes veer, 
 Hopes still to find a welcome in thine arms 
 As warm as now, and thee as loving-dear ! 
 
 " Ah, woe for those on whom thy spell is flung ! 
 My votive tablet, in the temple set. 
 Proclaims that I to ocean's god have hung 
 
 The vestments in my shipwreck smirched and wet." 
 
 It may be that among Horace's odes some were 
 directly inspired by the ladies to whom they are 
 addressed ; but it is time that modern criticism should 
 brush away all the elaborate nonsense which has been 
 written to demonstrate that Pyrrha, Chloe, Lalage, 
 Lydia, Lyde, Leuconoe, Tyndaris, Glycera, and Barine, 
 not to mention others, were real personages to whom 
 +he poet was attached. At this rate his occupations 
 
116 HORACE. 
 
 must have rather been those of a Don Giovanni than of 
 a man of studious habits and feeble health, who found 
 it hard enough to keep pace with the milder dissipa- 
 tions of the social circle. We are absolutely without 
 any information as to these ladies, whose liquid and 
 beautiful names are almost poems in themselves ; never- 
 theless the most wonderful romances have been spun 
 about them out of the inner consciousness of the com 
 mentators. Who would venture to deal in this way with 
 the Eleanore, and "rare pale Margaret," and Cousin 
 Amy, of Mr Tennyson 1 And yet to do so would be 
 quite as reasonable as to conclude, as some critics have 
 done, that such a poem as the following (Odes, I. 23) 
 was not a graceful poetical exercise merely, but a 
 serious appeal to the object of a serious passion : — 
 
 " Nay, hear me, dearest Chloe, pray ! 
 You shun me like a timid fawn, 
 That seeks its mother all the day 
 
 By forest brake and upland lawn, 
 Of every passing breeze afraid, 
 And leaf that twitters in the glade. 
 
 " Let but the wind with sudden rush 
 The whispers of the wood awake, 
 Or lizard green disturb the hush, 
 
 Quick-darting through the grassy brake, 
 The foolish frightened thing will start, 
 With trembling knees and beating heart.* 
 
 * The same idea has been beautifully worked out by Spenser, 
 in whom, and in Milton, the influence of Horace's poetry is 
 perhaps more frequently traceable than in any of our poets :-- 
 
 '• Like as an hynde forth singled from the herde, 
 That hath escaped from a ravenous beast, 
 
CHLOE AXD I YD I A. 117 
 
 " But I am neither lion fell 
 
 Nor tiger grim to work you woe ; 
 I love you, sweet one, much too well, 
 
 Then cling not to your mother so, 
 But to a lover's fonder arms 
 Confide your ripe and rosy charms." 
 
 Such a poem as this, one should have supposed, 
 might have escaped the imputation of being dictated 
 l>y mere personal desire. But no; even so acute a 
 critic as Walckenaer will have it that Chloe was one 
 of Horace's many mistresses, to whom he fled for con- 
 solation when Lydia, another of them, played him 
 false, " et qu'il l'a recherchee avec empressement." 
 And his sole ground for this conclusion is the circum- 
 stance that a Chloe is mentioned in this sense in the 
 famous Dialogue, in which Horace and Lydia have 
 quite gratuitously been assumed to be the speakers. 
 That is to say, he first assumes that the dialogue is 
 not a mere exercise of fancy, but a serious fact, and, 
 having got so far, concludes as a matter of course 
 that the Chloe of the one ode is the Chloe of 
 the other ! " The ancients," as Buttmann has well 
 said, " had the skill to construct such poems so 
 that each speech tells us by whom it is spoken ; but 
 we let the editors treat us all our lives as school- 
 Yet flies away, of her own feet afearde ; 
 And every leaf, that shaketh with the least 
 Murnmre of winde, her terror hath encreast ; 
 So fled fayre Flojrimel from her vaine feare, 
 Lona; afVr she from perill was releast; 
 Each shade she saw, unci each noyse she did heare, 
 Did seeme to be the ^aine, which she escaypt whileare. * 
 
 —Fairy Queen, m. vii. 1. 
 
118 HORACE. 
 
 boys, and interline such dialogues, as we do our 
 plays, with the names. Even in an English poem 
 we should he offended at seeing Collins by the side 
 of Phyllis." Read without the prepossession which 
 the constant mention of it as a dialogue between 
 Horace and Lydia makes it difficult to avoid, the 
 Ode commends itself merely as a piece of graceful 
 fancy. Peal feeling is the last thing one looks for 
 in two such excessively well-bred and fickle person- 
 ages as the speakers. Their pouting and recon- 
 ciliation make very pretty fooling, such as might be 
 appropriate in the wonderful beings who people the 
 garden landscapes of Watteau. But where are the 
 fever and the strong pulse of passion which, in less 
 ethereal mortals, would be proper to such a theme? 
 Had there been a real lady in the case, the tone 
 would have been less measured, and the strophes less 
 skilfully balanced. 
 
 " He.— Whilst I was clear and thou wert kind. 
 And I, and I alone, might lie 
 Upon thy snowy breast reclined, 
 Not Persia's king so blest as I. 
 
 She. — Whilst I to thee was all in all, 
 
 Nor Chine might with Lydia vie, 
 Renowned in ode or madrigal, 
 Not Roman Ilia famed as I. 
 
 Hh. — I now am Thracian Chloe's slave, 
 
 With hand and voice that charms the air, 
 For whom even death itself I'd brave, 
 So fate the darling girl would spare ! 
 
THE AMjEB(EAN DIALOGUE. 119 
 
 She. — I dote on Calais — and I 
 
 Am all his passion, all Iris care, 
 For whom a double death I'd die, 
 So fate the darling boy would spare ! 
 
 He. — What, if onr ancient love return, 
 And bind us with a closer tie, 
 If I the fair-haired Chloe spurn, 
 And as of old, for Lydia sigh ? 
 
 She. — Though lovelier than von star is he, 
 
 And lighter thou than cork — ah why ? 
 More churlish, too, than Adria's sea, 
 With thee I'd live, with thee I'd die ! " 
 
 In this graceful trifle Horace is simply dealing with 
 one of the commonplaces of poetry, most probably 
 only transplanting a Greek flower into the Latin soil. 
 There is more of the vigour of originality and of living 
 truth in the following ode to Barine (II. 8), where he 
 gives us a cameo portrait, carved with exquisite finish, 
 of that beanie de citable, " dallying and dangerous," 
 as Charles Lamb called Peg Wofrington's, and, what 
 hers was not, heartless, which never dies out of the 
 world. A real person, Lord Lytton thinks, u was cer- 
 tainly addressed, and in a tone which, to such a per- 
 son, would have been the most exquisite flattery; and 
 as certainly the person is not so addressed by a lover " 
 — a criticism which, coming from such an observer, 
 outweighs the opposite conclusions of a score of 
 pedantic scholars : — 
 
 " If for thy perjuries and broken truth, 
 Barine, thou hadst ever come to harm, 
 " Hadst lost, but in a nail or blackened tooth, 
 One single charm, 
 
120 HORACE. 
 
 " I'd trust thee ; but when thou art most forsworn, 
 
 Thou blazest forth with beauty most supreme, 
 And of our young men art, noon, night, and morn, 
 The thought, the dream. 
 
 "To thee 'tis gain thy mother's dust to mock, 
 To mock the silent watchfires of the night, 
 All heaven, the gods, on whom death's icy shock 
 Can never light. 
 
 " Smiles Venus' self, I vow, to see thy arts, 
 
 The guileless Nymphs and cruel Cupid smile, 
 And, smiling, whets on bloody stone his darts 
 Of fire the while. 
 
 " Nay more, our youth grow up to be thy prey, 
 
 New slaves throng round, and those who crouched at 
 first, 
 Though oft they threaten, leave not for a day 
 Thy roof accurst. 
 
 " Thee mothers for their unfledged younglings dread ; 
 Thee niggard old men dread, and brides new-made, 
 In misery, lest their lords neglect their bed, 
 By thee delayed." 
 
 Horace is more at home in playful raillery of the 
 bewildering effects of love upon others, than in giving 
 expression to its emotions as felt by himself. In the 
 fourteenth Epode, it is true, he begs Maecenas to 
 excuse his failure to execute some promised poem, 
 because he is so completely upset by his love for a 
 certain naughty Phryne that he cannot put a couple 
 of linos together. Again, be tells us (Odes, I. 19,) 
 into what a ferment his whole being has been thrown, 
 long after he bad thought himself safe from such 
 
BAD BE "SUFFERED L0VE"1 121 
 
 emotions, by the marble-like sheen of Glycera's beauty 
 — her grata protervitas, et voltus nimium lubricus 
 adspici — 
 
 " Her pretty, pert, provoking ways, 
 And face too fatal-fair to see." 
 
 The first Ode' of the Fourth Book is a beautiful 
 fantasia on a similar theme. He paints, too, the 
 tortures of jealousy with the vigour (Odes, I. 13) oi 
 a man who knew something of them : — 
 
 " Then reels my brain, then on my cheek 
 The shifting colour comes and goes, 
 
 And tears, that flow unbidden, speak 
 The torture of my inward throes, 
 
 The fierce unrest, the deathless flame, 
 
 That slowly macerates my frame." 
 
 And when rallying his friend Tibullus (Odes, I. 23) 
 about his doleful ditties on the fickleness of his mis- 
 tress Glycera, he owns to having himself suffered ter- 
 ribly in the same way. But despite all this, it is very 
 obvious that if love has, in Rosalind's phrase, " clapped 
 him on the shoulder," the little god left him " heart- 
 whole." Being, as it is, the source of the deepest and 
 strongest emotions, love presents many aspects for the 
 humorist, and perhaps to no one more than to him who 
 has felt it intensely. Horace may or may not have 
 sounded the depths of the passion in his own person ; 
 but, in any case, a fellow-feeling for the lover's pleas- 
 ures and pains served to infuse a tone of kindliness 
 into his ridicule. How charming in this way is the 
 Ode to Lydia (I. 8), of which the late Henry LuttreT* 
 
122 HORACE. 
 
 once popular and still delightful ' Letters to Julia ' is 
 an elaborate paraphrase ! — 
 
 " Why, Lydia, why, 
 I pray, by all the gods above, 
 
 Art so resolved that Svbaris should die, 
 And all for love ? 
 
 " Why doth he shun 
 The Campus Martins' sultry glare ? 
 
 He that once recked of neither dust nor sun, 
 Why rides he there, 
 
 " First of the brave, 
 Taming the Gallic steed no more ? 
 
 Why doth he shrink from Tiber's yellow wave ? 
 Why thus abhor 
 
 " The wrestlers' oil, 
 As 'twere from viper's tongue distilled ? 
 Why do his arms no livid bruises soil, 
 He, once so skilled, 
 
 " The disc or dart 
 Far, far beyond the mark to hurl ? 
 
 And tell me, tell me, in what nook apart, 
 Like baby-girl, 
 
 " Lurks the poor boy, 
 Veiling Ids manhood, as did Thetis' son, 
 
 To 'scape war's bloody clang, while fated Troy 
 Was yet undone ?" 
 
 In the same class with this poem may bo ranked 
 the following ode (I. 27). Just as the poet has made 
 us as familiar with the lovelorn Sybaris as if we 
 knew him, so does he here transport us into the middle 
 
A WIXE-PARTY. 123 
 
 of a wine-party of young Romans, with that vivid dra- 
 matic force wl ich constitutes one great source of the 
 excellence of his lyrics. 
 
 " Hold ! hold ! Tis for Thracian madmen to fight 
 With wine-cups, that only were made for delight. 
 'Tis barbarous — brutal ! I beg of you all, 
 Disgrace not our banquet with bloodshed and brawl ! 
 
 " Sure, Median scimitars strangely accord 
 With lamps and with wine at the festival board ! 
 'Tis out of all rule ! Friends, your places resume, 
 And let us have order once more in the room ! 
 
 " If I am to join you m pledging a beaker 
 Of this stout Falernian, choicest of liquor, 
 Megilla's fair brother must say, from what eyes 
 Flew the shaft, sweetly fatal, that causes his sighs. 
 
 " How — dumb ! Then I drink not a drop. Never blush, 
 Whoever the fair one may be, man ! Tush, tush ! 
 She'll do your taste credit, I'm certain — for yours 
 Was always select in its little amours. 
 
 " Don't be frightened ! We're all upon honour, you know, 
 So out with your tale ! — Graci'ous powers ! Is it so ? 
 Poor fellow ! Your lot has crone sadlv amiss, 
 When you feL into such a Charybdis as this ! 
 
 ■' What witch, what magician, with drinks and with charms, 
 What god can effect your release from her harms ? 
 So fettered, scarce Pegasus' self, were he near you, 
 From the fangs of this triple Chimsera would clear you." 
 
 In this poem, which lias all the^effect of an im- 
 promptu, we have a genre picture of Roman life, as 
 vivid as though painted by the pencil of Couture or 
 Gerome. 
 
124 HORACE. 
 
 Serenades were as common an expedient among 
 the Roman gallants of the days of Augustus as among 
 their modern successors. In the fine climate of 
 Greece, Italy, and Spain, they were a natural growth, 
 and involved no great strain upon a wooer's endurance. 
 They assume a very different aspect under a northern 
 sky, where young Absolute, found by his Lydia 
 Languish " in the garden, in the coldest night in 
 January, stuck like a dripping statue," presents <i 
 rather lugubrious spectacle. Horace (Odes, III. 7) 
 warns the fair Asterie, during the absence of her hus- 
 band abroad, to shut her ears against the musical 
 nocturnes of a certain Enipeus : — 
 
 " At nightfall shut your doors, nor then 
 Look down into the street again, 
 When quavering fifes complain ;" 
 
 using almost the words of Shylock to his daughter 
 Jessica : — 
 
 u Lock up my doors ; and when you hear the drum 
 And the vile squeaking of the wry necked fife, 
 Clamper not you up to the casement then, 
 Nor thrust your head into the public street." 
 
 The name given to such a serenade, adopted pro- 
 bably, with the serenades themselves, from Greece, 
 was paraclausithyron — literally, an out-of-door lament.. 
 Hire is a specimen of what they were (Odes, III. 10), 
 in which, under the guise of imitating their form, 
 Horace quietly makes a mock of the absurdity of the 
 practice. His serenade! has none of the insensibility 
 to the elements of the lover in the Scotch song — 
 
A SERENADE. 125 
 
 " Wi' the sleet in my hair, I'd gang ten miles and inair, 
 For a word o' that sweet lip o' thine, o' thine, 
 For ae glance o' thy dark e'e divine." 
 
 Neither is there in his pleading the tone of earnest 
 entreat}^ which marks the wooer, in a similar plight, 
 of Burns's " Let me in this ae nicht " — 
 
 " Thou hear'st the winter wind and weet, 
 Nae star blinks through the driving sleet : 
 Tak pity on my weary feet, 
 
 And shield me frae the rain, jo." 
 
 There can be no mistake as to the seriousness of this 
 appeal. Horace's is a mere jeu-d 'esprit : — 
 
 " Though your drink were Tanais, ehillest of rivers, 
 And your lot with some conjugal savage were cast, 
 You would pity, sweet Lyce, the poor soul that shivers 
 Out here at your door in the merciless blast. 
 
 " Only hark how the doorway goes straining and creaking, 
 And the piercing wind pipes through the trees that 
 surround 
 The court of your villa, while black frost is streaking 
 With ice the crisp snow that lies thick on the ground ! 
 
 " In your pride — Venus hates it — no longer envelop ye, 
 Or haply you'll find yourself laid on the shelf ; 
 You never were made for a prudish Penelope, 
 'Tis not in the blood of your sires or yourself. 
 
 *' Though nor gifts nor entreaties can win a soft answer, 
 Nor the violet pale of my love-ravaged cheek, 
 To your husband's intrigue with a Greek ballet-dancer, 
 Though you still are blind, and forgiving and meek ; 
 
126 HORACE. 
 
 " Yet be not as cruel — forgive ray upbraiding — 
 
 As snakes, nor as hard as the toughest of oak ; 
 To stand out here, drenched to the skin, serenading 
 All night may in time prove too much of a joke." 
 
 It is not often that Horace's poetry is vitiated by 
 bad taste. Strangely enough, almost the only in- 
 stances of it occur where he is writing of women, as 
 in the Ode to Lydia (Book I. 25) and to Lyce 
 (Book IV. 13). Both ladies seem to have been former 
 favourites of his, and yet the burden of these poems is 
 exultation in the decay of their charms. The deaden- 
 ing influence of mere sensuality, and of the prevalent 
 low tone of morals, must indeed have been great, when 
 a man "so singularly susceptible," as Lord Lytton has 
 truly described him, "to amiable, graceful, gentle, and 
 noble impressions of man and of life," could write of a 
 woman whom he had once loved in a strain like this : — 
 
 " The gods have heard, the gods have heard my prayer ; 
 Yes, Lyce ! you are growing old, and still 
 You struggle to look fair ; 
 
 You drink, and dance, and trill 
 Your songs to youthful love, in accents weak 
 
 With wine, and age, and passion. Youthful Love ! 
 He dwells in Chia's clunk, 
 
 And hears her harp-strings move. 
 Rude hoy, he flies like lightning o'er the heath 
 
 Past withered trees like you; you're wrinkled now; 
 The white has left your teeth, 
 And settled on vour brow. 
 Your Coan silks, your jewels bright as stars — 
 Ah no ! they bring not back the days of old, 
 In public calendars 
 
 By flying time enrolled. 
 
LYCE. 127 
 
 Where now that beauty ? Where those movements I 
 Where 
 That colour ? What of her, of her is left, 
 Who, breathing Love's own air, 
 Me of myself bereft, 
 Who reigned in Ginara's steal, a fair, fair face, 
 Queen of sweet arts ? But Fate to Cinara gave 
 A life of little space; 
 
 And now she cheats the grave 
 Of Lyce, spared to raven's length of days, 
 
 That youth may see, with laughter and disgust, 
 A firebrand, once ablaze, 
 
 Now smouldering in grey dust." (C.) 
 
 What had this wretched Lyce done that Horace 
 should have prayed the gods to strip her of her 
 charms, and to degrade her from a haughty beauty 
 into a maudlin hag, disgusting and ridiculous 1 Why- 
 cast such very merciless stones at one who, by his own 
 avowal, had erewhile witched his verv soul from him 1 
 Why rejoice to see this once beautiful creature the 
 seoif of all the heartless young fops of Home '? If 
 she had injured him, what of that? Was it so very 
 strange that a woman trained, like all the class to 
 which she belonged, to be the plaything of man's 
 caprice, should have been fickle, mercenary, or even 
 heartless 1 Poor Lyce might at least have claimed his 
 silence, if he could not do, what Thackeray says 
 every honest fellow should do, "think well of the 
 woman he has once thought well of, and remember 
 her with kindness and tenderness, as a man remembers 
 a place where he has been very happy." 
 
 Horace's better self comes out in his playful appeal 
 
128 HORACE. 
 
 to his friend Xanthias (Odes, II. 4) not to he ashamed 
 of having fallen in love with his handmaiden Phyllia 
 That she is a slave is a matter of no account. A girl 
 f such admirable qualities must surely come of a 
 good stock, and is well worth any man's love. iJid 
 not Achilles succumb to Briseis, Ajax to Tecmessa, 
 A immenmon himself to Cassandra? Moreover, 
 
 " For aught that you know, the fair Phyllis may be 
 
 The shoot of some highly respectable stem ; 
 Nay, she counts, never doubt it, some kings in her tree, 
 
 And laments the lost acres once lorded by them. 
 Never think that a creature so exquisite grew 
 
 In the haunts where but vice and dishonour are known, 
 Nor deem that a girl so unselfish, so true, 
 
 Had a mother 'twould shame thee to take for thine own." 
 
 Here we have the true Horace ; and after all these 
 fascinating but doubtful Lydes, Neasras, and Pyrrhas, 
 it is pleasant to come across a young beauty like this 
 Phyllis, sic fidelem, sic lucro aversam. She, at least, 
 is a fresh and fragrant violet among the languorous 
 hothouse splendours of the Horatian garden. 
 
 Domestic love, which plays so large a part in 
 modern poetry, is a theme rarely touched on in 
 Roman verse. Hence we know but little of the 
 Romans in their homes — for such a topic used to be 
 thought beneath the dignity of history — and especially 
 little of the women, who presided over what have been 
 called "the tender and temperate honours of the 
 hearth." The ladies who flourish in the poetry and 
 also in the history of those times, however conspicuous 
 for beauty or attraction, are not generally of the kind 
 
" 
 
 DOMESTIC LOVE IX THE AUQV 
 
 that make home happy. Such matrons as we chiefly 
 read of there would in the present day be apt to 
 figure in the divorce court. Xor is the explanation 
 of this difficult. The prevalence of marriage for mere 
 wealth or connection, and the facility of divorce, 
 which made the marriage-tie almost a farce among the 
 upper classes, had resulted, as it could not fail to do, 
 in a great debasement of morals. A lady did not lose 
 caste either by being divorced, or by seeking divorce, 
 from husband after husband. And as wives in the 
 higher ranks often held the purse-strings, they made 
 themselves pretty frequently more dreaded than beloved 
 by their lords, through being tyrannical, if not un- 
 chaste, or both. So at least Horace plainly indicates 
 (Odes, III. 24), when contrasting the vices of Rome 
 with the simpler virtues of some of the nations that 
 were under its sway. In those happier lands, he 
 says, " Nee dotata regit virum cowjux, nee nitido fidii 
 adultero " — 
 
 " No downed dame her spouse 
 O'erbears, nor trusts the sleek seducer's vows." 
 
 But it would be as wrong to infer from this that the 
 taint was universal, as it would be to gauge our own 
 social morality by the erratic matrons and fast young 
 ladies with whom satirical essayists delight to point 
 their periods. The human heart is stronger than the 
 corruptions of luxury, even among the luxurious and 
 the rich ; and the life of struggle and privation which 
 is the life of the mass of every nation would have 
 been intolerable but for the security and peace of well- 
 a. c. vol. vi. i 
 
130 HORACE. 
 
 ordered and happy households. Sweet honest love, 
 cemented by years of sympathy and mutual endurance, 
 was then, as ever, the salt of human life. Many a 
 monumental inscription, steeped in the tenderest 
 pathos, assures us of the fact. What, for example, 
 must have been the home of the man who wrote on 
 his wife's tomb, " She never caused me a pang but 
 when she died ! " And Catullus, mere man of pleas- 
 ure as he was, must have had strongly in his heart 
 the thought of what a tender and pure-souled womar 
 had been in his friend's home, when he wrote his e* ' 
 quisite lines to Calvus on the death of Quinctilia : — 
 
 " Calvus, if those now silent in the tomb 
 
 Can feel the touch of pleasure in our tears 
 For those we loved, that perished in their bloom, 
 
 And the departed friends of former years — ■ 
 Oh, then, full surely thy Quinctilia's love 
 
 For the untimely fate, that bids thee part, 
 Will fade before the bliss she feels to know 
 
 How very dear she is unto thy heart ! " 
 
 Horace, the bachelor, revered the marriage - tie, and 
 did his best, by his verses, to forward the policy of 
 Augustus in his effort to arrest the decay of morals 
 by enforcing the duty of marriage, which the well-to- 
 do Romans of that day were inclined to shirk 
 whenever they could. Nay, the charm of constancy 
 and conjugal sympathy inspired a few of his very 
 finest lines (Odes, I. 13) — " Felices ter et dmplius, quos 
 irrupta tenet copula" &c, — the feeling of which is 
 better preserved in Moore's well-known paraphrase 
 *han is possible in mere translation : — 
 
SINGLE HIMSELF, EXTOLS MARRIAGE. 13* 
 
 '•' There's a bliss beyond all that the minstrel has told, 
 When two that are linked in one heavenly tie, 
 With heart never changing, and brow never cold, 
 
 Love on through all ills, and love on till they die ! 
 One hour of a pas.sion so sacred is worth 
 
 Whole ages of heartless and wandering bliss ; 
 And oh ! if there be an Elysium on earth, 
 It is this, it is this ! " 
 
 To leave the placens uxor — " the winsome wife " — 
 behind, is one of the saddest regrets, Horace tells his 
 friend Posthumus (Odes, II. 14), which death can 
 bring. Still Horace only sang the praises of marriage, 
 contenting himself with painting the Eden within 
 which, for reasons unknown to us, he never sought 
 to enter. He was well up in life, probably, before 
 these sager views dawned upon him. Was it then 
 too late to reduce his precepts to practice, or was he 
 unable to overcome his dread of the dotata eonjux, 
 and thought his comfort would be safer in the hands 
 of some less exacting fair, such as the Phyllis 10 
 whom the following Ode, one of his latest (IV. 11), is 
 addressed 1 — 
 
 " I have laid in a cask of Albanian wine, 
 
 Which nine mellow summers have ripened and more ; 
 In my garden, dear Phyllis, thy brows to entwine, 
 
 Grows the brightest of parsley in plentiful store. 
 There is ivy to gleam on thy dark glossy hair ; 
 
 My plate, newly burnished, enlivens my rooms , 
 And the altar, athirst for its victim, is there, 
 
 Enwreathed with chaste vervain and choicest of bloom a. 
 
 " Every hand in the household is busily toiling, 
 And hither and thither boys bustle and girls ; 
 
132 HORACE. 
 
 Whilst, up from the hearth-fires careering and coiling. 
 
 The smoke round the rafter-beams languidly curls. 
 Let the joys of the revel be parted between us ! 
 
 'Tis the Ides of young April, the day which divides 
 The month, dearest Phyllis, of ocean-sprung Venus, 
 
 A day to me dearer than any besides. 
 
 " And well may I prize it, and hail its returning — 
 
 My own natal-day not more hallowed nor dear ; 
 For Maecenas, my friend, dates from this happy morning 
 
 The life which has swelled to a lustrous career. 
 You sigh for young Telephus : better forget him ! 
 
 His rank is not yours, and the gaudier charms 
 Of a girl that's both wealthy and wanton benet him, 
 
 And hold him the fondest of slaves in her arms. 
 
 " Remember fond Phaethon's fiery sequel, 
 
 And heavenward-aspiring Bellerophon's fate ; 
 And pine not for one who would ne'er be your equal. 
 
 But level your hopes to a lowlier mate. 
 So, come, my own Phyllis, my heart's latest treasure — 
 
 For ne'er for another this bosom shall long — 
 And I'll teach, while your loved voice re-echoes the measure, 
 
 How to charm away care with the magic of song." 
 
 This is very pretty and picturesque ; and Maecenas 
 was sure to be charmed with it as a birthday Ode, for 
 such it certainly was, whether there was any real 
 Phyllis in the case or not. Most probably there was 
 not, — the allusion to Telephus, the lady-killer, is so 
 very like many other allusions of the same kind ir 
 other Odes, which are plainly mere exeirises of fancy. 
 and the protestation that the lady is the very, very 
 last of his loves, so precisely what all middle-aged 
 gentlemen think it right to say, whose "jeunesse" like 
 the poet's, has been notoriously " oragevse." 
 
RUSTIC PHTDYLE. 133 
 
 It was probably not within the circle of his city 
 friends that Horace saw the women for whom he 
 entertained the deepest respect, but by the hearth-fire 
 in the farmhouse, "the homely house, that harbours 
 quiet rest," with which he was no less familiar, where 
 people lived in a simple and natural way, and where, 
 if anywhere, good wives and mothers were certain to 
 be found. It was manifestly by some woman of this 
 class that the following poem (Odes, III. 23) was 
 inspired : — 
 
 " If thou, at each new moon, thine upturned palms, 
 My rustic Phidyle, to heaven shalt lift, 
 The Lares soothe with steam of fragrant balms, 
 A sow, and fruits new-plucked, thy simple gift, 
 
 " Nor venomed blast shall nip thy fertile vine, 
 Nor mildew blight thy harvest in the ear; 
 Nor shall thy flocks, sweet nurslings, peak and pine, 
 When apple-bearing Autumn chills the year. 
 
 " The victim marked lor sacrifice, that feeds 
 On snow-capped Algidus, in leafy lane 
 Of oak and ilex, or on Alba's meads, 
 
 With its rich bloo>l the pontiff's axe may stain : 
 
 " Thy little gods for humbler tribute call 
 
 Than blood of many victims; twine for them. 
 Of rosemary a simple coronal, 
 
 And the lush myrtle's frail and fragrant stem. 
 
 " The costliest sacrifice that wealth can make 
 From the incensed Penates less commands 
 A soft response, than doth the poorest cake, 
 If on the altar laid with spotless hands." 
 
 When this was written, Horace had got far beyond 
 
134 HORACE. 
 
 che Epicurean creed of his youth. He had come to 
 believe in the active intervention of a Supreme Dis- 
 poser of events in the government of the world, — 
 "insignem attenuans, obscura promens" (Odes, I. 34): — 
 
 " The mighty ones of earth o'erthrowing, 
 Advancing the obscure ; — 
 
 and to whose " pure eyes and perfect witness " a 
 blameless life and a conscience void of offence were 
 not indifferent. 
 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 HORACE'S POEMS TO HIS FRIENDS.— HIS PRAISES OF 
 
 CONTENTMENT. 
 
 If it "be merely the poet, and not the lover, whc 
 speaks in most of Horace's love verses, there can never 
 be any doubt that the poems to his friends come 
 direct from his heart. They glow with feeling. To 
 whatever chord they are attuned, sad, or solemn, or 
 joyous, they are always delightful; consummate in 
 their grace of expression, while they have all the 
 warmth and easy now of spontaneous emotion. Take, 
 for example, the following (Odes, II. 7). Pompeius 
 Varus, a fellow-student with Horace at Athens, and a 
 brother in arms under Brutus, who, after the defeat of 
 Philippi, had joined the party of the younger Pompey, 
 has returned to Eome, profiting probably by the gene- 
 ral amnesty granted by Octavius to his adversaries 
 after the battle of Actium. How his heart must have 
 leapt at such a welcome from his poet -friend as 
 this !— 
 
 " Dear comrade in the days when thou and I 
 With Brutus took the field, his perils bore, 
 
136 HORACE. 
 
 Who liatli restored thee, freely as of yore, 
 To thy home gods, and loved Italian sky, 
 
 " Pompey, who wert the first my heart to share, 
 With whom full oft I've sped the lingering day, 
 Quaffing bright wine, as in our tents we lay, 
 With Syrian spikenard on our glistening hair ? 
 
 " With thee I shared Philippi's headlong flight, 
 My shield behind me left, which was not well, 
 When all that brave array was broke, and fell 
 In the vile dust full many a towering wight. 
 
 " But me, poor trembler, swift Mercurius bore, 
 
 Wrapped in a cloud, through all the hostile din, 
 Whilst war's tumultuous eddies, closing in, 
 Swept thee away into the strife once more. 
 
 " Then pay to Jove the feasts that are his fee, 
 
 And stretch at ease these war-worn limbs of thine 
 Beneath my laurel's shade ; nor spare the wine 
 Which I have treasured through long years for thee. 
 
 " Pour till it touch the shining goblet's rim, 
 
 Care-drowning Massic; let rich ointments flow 
 From amplest conchs ! No measure we shall know* 
 What ! shall we wreaths of oozy parsley trim, 
 
 " Or simple myrtle ? Whom will Venus* send 
 
 To rule our revel ? Wild my draughts shall be 
 As Thracian Bacchanals', for 'tis sweet to me 
 To lose my wits, when I regain my friend." 
 
 "When Horace penned the playful allusion hero 
 
 * Venus was tbe highest cast of the dice. The meaning here 
 is, Who shall be the master of our feast?— that office lulling to 
 the member of the wine-party who threw sixes. 
 
ODE TO SEPTIMIVS. 137 
 
 made to having left his shield on the field of "battle 
 (parmuJd non bene relicta), he could never have 
 thought that his commentators — professed admirers, 
 too — would extract from it an admission of personal 
 cowardice. As if any man, much more a Roman to 
 Romans, would make such a confession ! Horace could 
 obviously afford to put in this way the fact of his having 
 given up a desperate cause, for this very reason, that he 
 had done his duty on the field of Philippi, and that 
 it was known he had done it. Commentators will be 
 so cruelly prosaic ! The poet was quite as serious in 
 saying that Mercury carried him out of the melee in a 
 cloud, like one of Homer's heroes, as that he had left 
 his shield discreditably (non bene) on the battle-field. 
 But it requires a poetic sympathy, which in classical 
 editors is rare, to understand that, as Lessing and 
 others have urged, the very way he speaks of his own 
 retreat was by implication a compliment, not ungrace- 
 ful, to his friend, who had continued the struggle 
 against the triumvirate, and come home at last, war- 
 worn and weary, to find the more politic comrade of 
 his youth one of the celebrities of Rome, and on the 
 best of terms with the very men against whom they 
 had once fought side by side. 
 
 Not less beautiful is the following Ode to Septim- 
 ins, another of the poet's old companions in arms 
 (Odes, II. 6). His speaking of himself in it as "with 
 war and travel worn" has puzzled the commenta- 
 tors, as it is plain from the rest of the poem that it 
 must have been written long after his campaigning 
 days were past. But the fatigues of those days may 
 
138 HORACE. 
 
 have left their traces for many years \ and the diffi- 
 culty is at once got over if we suppose the poem to 
 have been written under some little depression from 
 languid health due to this cause. Tarentum, where his 
 friend lived, and whose praises are so warmly sung, was 
 a favourite resort of the poet's. He used to ride there 
 (p. 65) on his mule, very possibly to visit Septi- 
 mius, before he had his own Sabine villa; and all his 
 love for that villa never chilled his admiration for 
 Tibur, with its " silvan shades, and orchards moist 
 with wimpling rills," — the " Til/wni lucus, et uda 
 mob'dlbus pomaria rivis," — and its milder climate, so 
 genial to his sun-loving temperament : — 
 
 " Septimius, thou who wouldst, I know, 
 With me to distant Gades go, 
 And visit the Cantabrian fell, 
 "Whom all our triumphs cannot quell, 
 And even the sands barbarian brave, 
 Where ceaseless seethes the Moorish wave ; 
 
 " May Tibur, that delightful haunt, 
 Reared by an Argive emigrant, 
 The tranquil haven be, I pray, 
 For my old age to wear away ; 
 Oh, may it be the final bourne 
 To one with war and travel worn ! 
 
 " But should the cruel fates decree 
 That this, my friend, shall never be, 
 Then to Galsesus, river sweet 
 To skin-clad flocks, will I retreat, 
 And those rich mends, where sway of yora 
 Laconian Phalanthus bore. 
 
ODE TO SEPTIMIUS. 139 
 
 u In all the world no spot there is, 
 That wears for me a smile like this, 
 The honey of whose thymy fields 
 May vie with what Hymettus yields, 
 Where berries clustering every slope 
 May with Venafruni's greenest cope. 
 
 " There Jove accords a lengthened spring, 
 And winters wanting winter's sting, 
 And sunny Aulon's* broad incline 
 Such mettle puts into the vine, 
 Its clusters need not envy those 
 Which fiery Falernum grows. 
 
 " Thyself and me that spot invites, 
 Those pleasant fields, those sunny heights ; 
 And there, to life's last moments true, 
 Wilt thou with some fond tears bedew — 
 The last sad tribute love can lend — 
 The ashes of thy poet-friend." 
 
 Septimius was himself a poet, or thought himsell 
 one, who, 
 
 " Holding vulgar ponds and runnels cheap, 
 At Pindar's fount drank valiantly and deep," 
 
 as Horace says of him in an Epistle (I. 3) to Julius 
 Florus ; adding, with a sly touch of humour, which 
 throws more than a doubt on the poetic powers of 
 their common friend, — 
 
 " Thinks he of me ? And does he still aspire 
 To marry Theban strains to Latium's lyre, 
 Thanks to the favouring muse ? Or haply rage 
 And mouth in bombast for the tragic stage ? " 
 
 * Galaesus (Galaso), a river ; Aulon, a hill near Tarentum 
 
140 HORACE. 
 
 When this was written Septimius was in Armenia 
 along with Floras, on the staff of Tiberius Claudius 
 Nero, the future emperor. For this appointment he 
 was probably indebted to Horace, who applied for it, 
 at his request, in the following Epistle to Tiberius 
 (L 9), which Addison ('Spectator,' 493) cites as a 
 tine specimen of what a letter of introduction should 
 be. Horace was, on principle, wisely chary of giving 
 such introductions. 
 
 " Look round and round the man you recommend, 
 For yours will be the shame if he offend," (C.) 
 
 is his maxim on this subject (Epistles, I. 18, 76); 
 and he was sure to be especially scrupulous in writing 
 to Tiberius, who, even in his youth — and he was at this 
 time about twenty- two — was so morose and unpleas- 
 ant in his manners, to say nothing of his ample share 
 of the hereditary pride of the Claudian family, that 
 even Augustus felt under constraint in his company : — 
 
 " Septimius only understands, 'twould seem, 
 How high 1 stand in, Claudius, your esteem : 
 For when he begs and prays me, day by day, 
 Before you his good qualities to lay, 
 As not unfit the heart and home to share 
 Of Nero, who selects his friends with care ; 
 When he supposes you to me extend 
 The rights and place of a familiar friend, 
 Far better than myself he sees and knows, 
 How far with you my commendation goes. 
 Pleas without number T protest I've used, 
 In hope he'd hold me from the task excused, 
 Yet feared the while it might be thought I feigned 
 Too low the influence I perchance have gained, 
 
ICC I US THE PHILOSOPHER. HI 
 
 Dissembling it as nothing with my friends, 
 To keep it for my own peculiar ends. 
 So, to escape such dread reproach, I put 
 My blushes by, and boldly urge my suit. 
 If then you hold it as a grace, though small, 
 To doff one's baslifulness at friendship's call, 
 Enrol him in your suite, assured you'll find 
 b. man of heart in him, as well as mind." 
 
 v% a may be very sure that, among the many pleas 
 u ^i oy Horace for not giving Septimius the intro- 
 duction he desired, was the folly of leaving his delight- 
 ful retieat at Tarentum to go once more abroad in 
 search or wealth or promotion. Let others " cross, to 
 plunder provinces, the main," surely this was no 
 ambition for an embryo Pindar or half-developed JEs- 
 clivlus. Horace had tried similar remonstrances before, 
 and with just as little success, upon Iccius, another of 
 his scholarly friends, who sold off his fine library and 
 joined an expedition into Arabia Felix, expecting to 
 find it an FA Dorado. He playfully asks this studi- 
 ous friend (Odes, I. 29), from whom he expected 
 better things — "pollicitus meliora " — if it be true 
 that he grudges the Arabs their wealth, and is actu- 
 ally forging fetters for the hitherto invincible Sabsean 
 nionarchs, and those terrible Medians'? To which of 
 the royal damsels does he intend to throw the hand- 
 kerchief, having first cut down her princely betrothed 
 in single combat ? Or what young " oiled and curled " 
 Oriental prince is for the future to pour out his wine 
 for him 1 Iccius, like many another Raleigh, went 
 out to gather wool, and came back shorn. The expe- 
 dition proved disastrous, and he was lucky in being 
 
142 HORACE. 
 
 one of the few who survived it. Some years after- 
 wards we meet with him again as the steward of 
 Agrippa's great estates in Sicily. He has resumed 
 his studies, — 
 
 " On themes sublime alone intent, — 
 What causes the wild ocean sway, 
 The seasons what from June to May, 
 If free the constellations roll, 
 Or moved by some supreme control ; 
 "What makes the moon obscure her light, 
 What pours her splendour on the night." 
 
 Absorbed in these and similar inquiries, and living 
 happily on " herbs and frugal fare," Iccius realises the 
 noble promise of his youth ; and Horace, in writing 
 to him (Epist., I. 12), encourages him in his disregard 
 of wealth by some of those hints for contentment 
 which the poet never tires of reproducing : — 
 
 " Let no care trouble you ; for poor 
 That man is not, who can insure 
 Whate'er for life is needful found. 
 Let your digestion be but sound, 
 Your side unwrung by spasm or stitch, 
 Your foot unconscious of a twitch ; 
 And could you be more truly blest, 
 Though of the wealth of kings possessed 1 " 
 
 It must have been pleasant to Horace to find even 
 one among his friends illustrating in his life this mod- 
 est Socratic creed ; for he is so constantly enforcing it, 
 in every variety of phrase and metaphor, that while 
 we must conclude that he regarded it as the one 
 doctrine most needful for his time, we must equally 
 
M AM MOX- WORSHIP IN ROME. 143 
 
 conclude that he found it utterly disregarded. All round 
 him wealth, wealth, wealth, was the universal aim : 
 wealth, to build line houses in town, and villas at 
 Praeneste or Baiie ; wealth, to stock them with statues, 
 old bronzes (mostly fabrications from the Wardoiu 
 Streets of Athens or Rome), ivories, pictures, gold 
 plate, pottery, tapestry, stuns from the looms of Tyre, 
 and other articles de luxe; wealth, to give gorgeous 
 dinners, and wash them down with the costliest wines; 
 wealth, to provide splendid equipages, to forestall the 
 front seats in the theatre, as Ave do opera-boxes on the 
 grand tier, and so get a few yards nearer to the Em- 
 peror's chair, or gain a closer view of the favourite 
 actor or dancer of the day ; wealth, to secure a wife 
 with a fortune and a pedigree ; wealth, to attract gad- 
 fly friends, who will consume your time, eat your din- 
 ners, drink your wines, and then abuse them, and 
 who will with amiable candour regale their circle by 
 quizzing your foibles, or slandering your taste, if they 
 are even so kind as to spare your character. "A 
 dowried wife," he says (Epistles, I. 6), 
 
 " Friends, beauty, birth, fair fame, 
 These are the gifts of money, heavenly dame ; 
 Be but a moneyed man, persuasion tips 
 Your tongue, and Venus settles on your lips." (C.) 
 
 And to achieve this wealth, no sacrifice was to be 
 
 spared — time, happiness, health, honour itself. " Rem 
 
 facias, rem ! Si possis recte, si non, quocunque modo 
 
 rem " — 
 
 " Get raonev, money still, 
 And then let Virtue follow, if she will." 
 
144 HORACE. 
 
 Wealth sought in this spirit, and for such ends, of 
 course brought no more enjoyment to the contempor- 
 aries of Horace than we see it doincr to our own. And 
 not the least evil of the prevailing mania, then as 
 now, was, that it robbed life of its simplicity, and of 
 the homely friendliness on which so much of its pleas- 
 ure depends. People lived for show — to propitiate 
 others, not to satisfy their own better instincts or 
 their genuine convictions ; and straining after the 
 shadow of enjoyment, they let the reality slip from 
 their grasp. They never " were, but always to be, 
 blest." It was the old story, which the world is 
 continually re-enacting, wdiile the sage stands by, and 
 marvels at its folly, and preaches what we call com- 
 monplaces, in a vain endeavour to modify or to pre- 
 vent it. But the wisdom of life consists of common- 
 places, which we should all be much the better for work- 
 ing into our practice, instead of complacently sneering 
 at them as platitudes. Horace abounds in common- 
 places, and on no theme more than this. He has no 
 divine law of duty to appeal to, as we have — no as- 
 sured hereafter to which he may point the minds of 
 men ; but he presses strongly home their folly, in so 
 far as this world is concerned. To what good, he asks, 
 all this turmoil and disquiet? No man truly possesses 
 more than he is able thoroughly to enjoy. Grant that 
 you roll in gold, or, by accumulating land, become, in 
 Hamlet's phrase, " spacious in the possession of dirt." 
 What pleasure will you extract from these, which a 
 moderate estate will not yield in equal, if not greater, 
 measure ] You fret yourself to acquire your wealth — 
 
HOW TO LIVE. 145 
 
 you fret yourself lest you should lose it. It robs you 
 of your health, your ease of mind, your freedom of 
 thought and action. Riches will not bribe inexorable 
 death to spare you. At any hour that great leveller 
 may sweep you away into darkness and dust, and what 
 will it then avail you, that you have wasted all your 
 hours, and foregone all wholesome pleasure, in adding 
 ingot to ingot, or acre to acre, for your heirs to squander? 
 Set a bound, then, to your desires : think not of how 
 much others have, but of how much which they have 
 you can do perfectly well without. Be not the slave 
 of show or circumstance, " but in yourself possess 
 your own desire." Do not lose the present in vain per- 
 plexities about the future. If fortune lours to-day, 
 she may smile to-morrow ; and when she lavishes her 
 gifts upon you, cherish an humble heart, and so fortify 
 yourself against her caprice. Keep a rein upon all 
 your passions — upon covetousness, above all; for once 
 that has you within its clutch, farewell for ever to the 
 light heart and the sleep that comes unbidden, to the 
 open eye that drinks in delight from the beauty and 
 freshness and infinite variety of nature, to the un- 
 clouded mind that judges justly and serenely of men 
 and things. Enjoy wisely, for then only you enjoy 
 thoroughly. Live each day as though it were your 
 last. Mar not your life by a hopeless quarrel with 
 destiny. It will be only too brief at the best, and the 
 day is at hand when its inequalities will be redressed, 
 and king and peasant, pauper and millionaire, be 
 huddled, poor shivering phantoms, in one unclistinguish- 
 able crowd, across the melancholy Styx, to the judg- 
 a. c. vol. vi. K 
 
146 HORACE. 
 
 meiit-hall of Minos. To tins theme many of Horace's 
 finest Odes are strung. Of these, not the least graceful 
 is that addressed to Dellius (II. 3) : — 
 
 (t Let not the frowns of fate 
 Disquiet thee, my friend, 
 Nor, when she smiles on thee, do thou, elate 
 With vaunting thoughts, ascend 
 Beyond the limits of becoming mirth ; 
 For, Dellius, thou must die, become a clod of earth ! 
 
 " "Whether thy days go down 
 In gloom, and dull regrets, 
 Or, shunning life's vain struggle for renown, 
 Its fever and its frets, 
 
 Stretch' d on the grass, with old Falernian wine, 
 Thou giv'st the thoughtless hours a rapture all divine. 
 
 " Where the tall spreading pine 
 And white-leaved poplar grow, 
 And, mingling their broad boughs in leafy twine, 
 A grateful shadow throw, 
 
 Where down its broken bed the wimpling stream 
 Writhes on its sinuous way with many a quivering 
 gleam, 
 
 " There wine, there perfumes bring, 
 Bring garlands of the rose, 
 Fair and too shortlived daughter of the spring, 
 While youth's bright current flows 
 Within thy veins, — ere yet hath come the hour 
 When the dread Sisters Three shall clutch thee in their 
 power. 
 
 " Thy woods, thy treasured pride, 
 Thy mansion's pleasant seat, 
 Thy lawns washed by the Tiber's yellow tide, 
 Each favourite retreat, 
 
 
ALL EQUAL hV DEATH. 147 
 
 Thou must leave all — all, and thine heir shall run 
 In riot through the wealth thy years of toil have won. 
 
 " It recks not whether thou 
 Be opulent, and trace 
 
 Thy birth from kings, or bear upon thy brow 
 Stamp of a beggar's race ; 
 In rags or splendour, death at tnee alike, 
 That no compassion hath for aught of earth, will strike. 
 
 " One road, and to one bourne 
 We all are goaded. Late 
 Or soon will issue from the urn 
 Of unrelenting Fate 
 The lot, that in yon bark exiles us all 
 To undiscovered shores, from which is no recall." 
 
 In a still higher strain he sings (Odes, III. 1) the 
 ultimate equality of all human souls, and the vanity 
 of encumbering life with the anxieties of ambition or 
 wealth : — 
 
 " Whate'er our rank may be, 
 We all partake one common destiny ! 
 
 In fair expanse of soil, 
 Teeming with rich returns of wine and oil, 
 
 His neighbour one outvies ; 
 
 Another claims to rise 
 
 To civic dignities, 
 Because of ancestry and noble birth, 
 Or fame, or proved pre-eminence of worth, 
 Or troops of clients, clamorous in his cause ; 
 Still Fate doth grimly stand, 
 And with impartial hand 
 The lots of lofty and of lowly draws 
 
 From that capacious urn 
 Whence every name that lives is shaken in its turn 
 
148 HORACE. 
 
 " To him, above whose guilty head, 
 
 Suspended by a thread, 
 The naked sword is hung for evermore, 
 
 Not feasts Sicilian shall 
 
 "With all their cates recall 
 That zest the simplest fare could once inspire ; 
 Nor song of birds, nor music of the lyre 
 
 Shall his lost sleep restore : 
 
 But gentle sleep shuns not 
 
 The rustic's lowly cot, 
 Nor mossy bank o'ercanopied with trees, 
 Nor Tempe's leafy vale stirred by the western breeze. 
 
 " The man who lives content with whatsoe'er 
 
 Sufficeth for his needs, 
 The storm-tossed ocean vexetn not with care, 
 Nor the tierce tempest which Arcturus breeds, 
 
 When in the skv he sets, 
 Nor that which Hoedus, at his rise, begets ■ 
 
 Nor will he grieve, although 
 
 His vines be all laid low 
 Beneath the driving hail, 
 Nor though, by reason of the drenching rain, 
 
 Or heat, that shrivels up his fields like fire, 
 
 Oi fierce extremities of winter's ire, 
 Blight shall o'erwhelm his fruit-trees and his grain, 
 
 And all his farm's delusive promise fail. 
 
 " The fish are conscious that a narrower bound 
 Is drawn the seas around 
 By masses huge hurled down into the deep. 
 There, at the bidding of a lord, for whom 
 Not all the land he owns is ample room, 
 Do the contractor and his labourers heap 
 Vast piles of stone, the ocean back to sweep. 
 
OB, SWEET CONTENT I 149 
 
 But let him climb in pride, 
 
 That lord of halls unblest, 
 
 Up to their topmost crest, 
 Yet ever by his side 
 
 Climb Terror and Unrest ; 
 Within the brazen galley's side? 
 
 Care, ever wakeful, flits, 
 And at his back, when forth in state he rideSj 
 
 Her withering shadow sits. 
 
 " If thus it fore with all, 
 If neither marbles from the Phrygian mine, 
 Nor star-bright robes of purple and of pall, 
 Nor the Falernian vine, 
 Nor costliest balsams, fetched from farthest Ind, 
 Can soothe the restless mind, 
 Why should I choose 
 To rear on high, as modern spendthrifts use, 
 A lofty hall, might be the home for kings, 
 With portals vast, for Malice to abuse, 
 Or Envy make her theme to point a tale ; 
 
 Or why for wealth, which new-born trouble brings 
 Exchange my Sabine vale ? " 
 
CHAPTER V1TT. 
 
 PREVAILING BELIEF IN A8TR0L00T. HORACE'S VIEWS OF A 
 HEREAFTER.— RELATIONS WITH M^CENAS. — BELIEF IN THE 
 PERMANENCE OF HIS OWN KAMI. 
 
 " When all looks fair about," says Sir Thomas 
 Browne, "and thou seest not a cloud so big as a hand 
 fco threaten thee, forget not the wheel of things ; think 
 of sudden vicissitudes, but beat not thy brains to 
 foreknow them." It was characteristic of an age of 
 Luxury (hat. it should be one of superstition and men- 
 ial disquietude, eager to penetrate the future, and 
 credulous in its belief of those who pretended to 
 unveil its pecrets. En such an age astrology naturally 
 found many dupes. Rome was infested with profes- 
 sors of that so-called science, who had flocked thither 
 from the East, and were always ready, like other 
 oracles, to supply responses acceptable to their votaries. 
 In what contempt Horace lield their prognostications 
 the following Ode (1. 11) very clearly indicates. The 
 women of Rome, according to Juvenal, wore great 
 believers in astrology, and carried manuals of it on 
 their persons, which they consulted before they took 
 an airing or broke their fast. Possibly on this account 
 
ODE TO LEUCOXOE. 151 
 
 Horace addressed the ode to a lady. But in such 
 tilings, and not under the Roman Empire only, there 
 have always been, as La Fontaine says, "bon nombre 
 cChomines qui sont femmes." If Augustus, and his great 
 goneral and statesman Agrippa, had a Theogenes t*. 
 forecast their fortunes, so the first Napoleon had his 
 "Madame Lenormand. 
 
 "Ask not — such lore's forbidden — 
 What destined term may be 
 Within the future hidden 
 For us, Leuconoe. 
 Both thou and I 
 Must quickly die ! 
 Content thee, then, nor madly Hope 
 To wrest a false assurance from Chaldean horoscope. 
 
 " Far nobler, better were it, 
 Whate'er may be in store, 
 With soul serene to bear it, 
 If winters many more 
 Jove spare lor thee, • 
 Or this shall be 
 The last, that now with sullen roar 
 
 Scatters the Tuscan surge in loam upon the rock-bouna 
 shore. 
 
 "Be, wise, your spirit firing 
 
 With cups of tempered wine, 
 And hopes afar aspiring 
 In compass brief confine, 
 Use all life's powers ; 
 The envious hours 
 Fly as we talk ; then live to-day, 
 Nor fondly to to-morrow trust more than you must or may." 
 
152 Horace. 
 
 In the verses of Horace we are perpetually reminds 
 that our life is compassed round with darkness, but he 
 will not suffer this darkness to overshadow his cheer- 
 fulness. On the contrary, the beautiful world, and 
 the delights it offers, are made to stand out, as it were, 
 in brighter relief against the gloom of Orcus. Thus, 
 for example, this very gloom is made the background 
 in fhe following Ode (I. 4) for the brilliant pictures 
 which crowd on the poet's fancy with the first burst 
 of Spring. Here, lie says, oh Sestius, all is fresh and 
 joyous, luxuriant and lovely ! Be happy, drink in 
 " at every pore the spirit of the season," while the 
 roses are fresh within your hair, and the wine-cup 
 flashes ruby in your hand. Yonder lies Pluto's 
 meagrely- appointed mansion, and filmy shadows of 
 the dead are waiting for you there, to swell their 
 joyless ranks. To that unlovely region you must go, 
 alas ' too soon ; but the golden present is yours, so 
 drain it of its sweets. 
 
 " As biting Winter flies, lo ! Spring with sunny skies, 
 And balmy airs ; and barks long dry put out again from 
 shore ; 
 Now the ox forsakes his byre, and the husbandman his fire, 
 And daisy-dappled meadows bloom where winter frosts 
 lay hoar. 
 
 "By Cvtherea led, while the moon shines overhead, 
 
 The Nymphs and Graces, hand-in-hand, with alternating 
 feet 
 Shake the ground, while swmking Vulcan strikes the 
 sparkles fieiv e and red 
 From the forges of the Cyclops, with reiterated beat. 
 
1/OW THE ANCIENTS VIEWED DEATH. 153 
 
 " 'T„ the time with myrtle green to bind our glistening locks, 
 Or with flowers, wherein the loosened earth herself hath 
 newly dressed,. 
 
 Acd to sacrifice to Faunus in some glade amidst the rocks 
 A yearling lamb or else a kid, if such delight him best 
 
 u Death comes alike to all — to the monarch's lordly hall, 
 Or the hovel of the beggar, and his summons none shall 
 stay. 
 
 Oh, Sestius, happy Sestius ! use tne moments as they pass ; 
 Far-reaching hopes are not for us, the creatures of a day. 
 
 " Thee soon shall night enshroud ; and the Manes' phantom 
 crowd, 
 And the starveling house unbeautiful of Pluto shut 
 thee in ; 
 And thou shalt not banish care by the ruddy wine-cup there, 
 Nor woo the gentle Lvcidas, whom all are mad to win." 
 
 A modern would no more think of using such 
 images as those of the last two verses to stimulate the 
 festivity of his friends than he would of placing, like 
 the old Eg} r ptians, a skull upon his dinner-table, or of 
 decorating his ball-room with Holbein's " Dance of 
 Death." We rebuke our pride or keep our vanities 
 in check by the thought of death, and our poets use 
 it to remind us that 
 
 " The glories of our blood and state 
 
 Are shadows, not substantial things." 
 
 Horace does this too ; but out of the sad certainty of 
 mortality he seems to extract a keener zest for the too 
 Drief enjoyment of the flying hours. Why is this 1 ? 
 Probably because by the pagan mind life on this side 
 the grave was regarded as a thing more precious, more 
 
154 HORACE. 
 
 noble, than the life beyond. That there was a life 
 beyond was undoubtedly the general belief. " Sunt 
 <iliquid Manes; lefumuon omnia • Jinit, Luridaque evictos 
 e fur/ it umbra rogos" — 
 
 " The Manes are no dream ; death closes not 
 Our all of being, and the wan-visaged shade 
 Escapes unscathed from the funereal tires," 
 
 says Propertius (Eleg. IV. 7) ; and unless this were so, 
 there would be no meaning whatever in the whole 
 pagan idea of Hades — in the " domus exit is Plutoida;" 
 in the Hermes driving the spirits of the dead across 
 the Styx ; in the "judicantem sEacum, sedesque dis- 
 cretes piorum" — the " /Eacus dispensing doom, and 
 the Elysian Fields serene" (Odes, II. 13). But this 
 after-life was a cold, sunless, unsubstantial thing, 
 lower in quality and degree than the full, vigorous, 
 passionate life of this world. The nobler spirits of 
 antiquity, it hardly need be said, had higher dreams of 
 a future state than this. For them, no more than for 
 us, was it possible to rest in the conviction that their 
 brief and troubled career on earth was to be the " be all 
 and the end all" of existence, or that those whom 
 they had loved and lost in death became thenceforth 
 as though they had never been. At is idle to draw, 
 as is often done, a different conclusion from such 
 phrases as that after death we are a shadow and mere 
 dust, " pulvis et umbra surnusl r or from Horace's 
 bewildered cry (Odes, I. 24), when a friend of signal 
 nobleness and purity is suddenly struck down — "Ergo 
 Qui net ilium perpetuus soqior ztrget?" — "And is Quinc- 
 
BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY. 155 
 
 tilius, then, weighed down by a sleep that knows no 
 waking ? " We might as reasonably argue that Shake- 
 speare did not believe in a life after death because he 
 makes Prospero say — 
 
 " We are such stuff 
 As dreams are made of, and our little life 
 Is rounded with a sleep." 
 
 Horace and Shakespeare both believed in an immor- 
 tality, but it was an immortality different in its kind. 
 Horace, indeed, — who, as a rule, is wisely silent on a 
 question which for him had no solution, however 
 much it may have engaged his speculations, — has 
 gleams not unlike those which irradiate our happier 
 creed, as when he writes (Odes, III. 2) of " Virtus, re- 
 cludens immeritis mori ccehun, negata tentat iter via " — 
 
 " "Worth, which heaven's gates to those unbars 
 Who never should have died, 
 A pathway cleaves among the stars, 
 To meaner souls denied." 
 
 But they are only gleams, impassioned hopes, yearn- 
 ings of the unsatisfied soul in its search for some solu- 
 tion of the great mystery of life. To him, therefore, 
 it was of more moment than it was to. us, to make the 
 most of the present, and to stimulate his relish for 
 what it has to give by contrasting it with a phantas- 
 mal future, in which no single faculty of enjoyment 
 should be left. 
 
 Take from life the time spent in hopes or fears or 
 regrets, and how small the residue ! For the same 
 reason, therefore, that he prized life intensely, Horace 
 
156 HORACE. 
 
 seems to have resolved to keep these consumers of ita 
 hours as much at hay as possible. He would riot look 
 too far forward even for a pleasure ; for Hope, he 
 knew, comes never unaccompanied by her twin sister 
 Fear. Like the Persian poet, Omar Khayyam, this is 
 ever in his thoughts — 
 
 " What hoots it to repeat, 
 How Time is slipping underneath our feet ? 
 Unborn To-morrow, and dead Yesterday, 
 Why fret about them if To-day be sweet ? " 
 
 To-day — that alone is ours. Let us welcome and 
 note what it brings, and, if good, enjoy it ; if evil, 
 endure. Let us, in any case, keep our eyes and senses 
 open, and not lose their impressions in dreaming of 
 an irretrievable past or of an impenetrable future. 
 " Write it on your heart," says Emerson (' Society and 
 Solitude '), " that every day is the best day in the 
 year. ]S T o man has learned anything rightly until he 
 knows that every day is Doomsday. . . . Ah, 
 poor dupe ! will you never learn that as soon as the 
 irrecoverable years have woven their blue glories be- 
 tween To-day and us, these passing hours shall glitter, 
 and draw us, as the wildest romance and the homes 
 of beauty and poetry % " Horace would have hailed a 
 brother in the philosopher of New England. 
 
 Even in inviting MoBceiiiU? to his Sabine farm (Odes, 
 III. 29). he does not think it out of place to remind 
 the minister of state, worn with the cares of govern- 
 ment, and looking restlessly ahead to anticipate its 
 difficulties, that it may, after all, be wiser not to look 
 
INVITATION TO MAECENAS. 157 
 
 so far ahead, or to trouble himself about contingencies 
 which may never arise. We must not think that 
 Horace undervalued that essential quality of true 
 statesmanship, the "animus rerum xjrudens'" (Odes, 
 IV. 9), the forecasting spirit that "looks into the 
 seeds of Time," and reads the issues of events while 
 they are still far off. He saw and prized the splendid 
 fruits of the exercise of this very power in the growing 
 tranquillity and strength of the Roman empire. But 
 the wisest may over-study a subject. . Maecenas may 
 have been working too hard, and losing under the 
 pressure something of his usual calmness ; and Horace, 
 while urging him to escape from town for a few days, 
 may have had it in view to insinuate the suggestion, 
 that Jove smiles, not at the common mortal merely, 
 but even at the sagacious statesman, who is over-anxi- 
 ous about the future — " ultra fas tr&pidat " — and to 
 remind him that, after all, 
 
 " There's a divinity that shapes our ends, 
 Rough-hew them how we may." 
 
 Dry den's splendid paraphrase of this Ode is one of the 
 glories of our literature, but it is a paraphrase, and a 
 version closer to the original may be more appropriate 
 here :■ — 
 
 " Scion of Tuscan kings, in store 
 
 I've laid a cask of mellow wine, 
 That never has been broached before. 
 
 I've roses, too, for wreaths to twine, 
 And Nubian nut, that for thy hair 
 An oil shall yield of fragrance rare. 
 
158 HORACE. 
 
 " The plenty quit, that only palls, 
 
 And, turning from the cloud-capped pile 
 That towers above thy palace halls, 
 
 Forget to worship for a while 
 The privileges Rome enjoys, 
 Her smoke, her splendour, and her noise. 
 
 " It is the rich who relish Lest 
 
 To dwell at times from state aloof ; 
 And simple suppers, neatly dressed, 
 
 Beneath a poor man's humble roof, 
 With neither pail nor purple there, 
 Have smoothed ere now the brow of care. 
 
 " Now with his spent and languid flocks 
 The wearied shepherd seeks the shade, 
 
 The river cool, the shaggy rocks, 
 That overhang the tangled glade, 
 
 And bv the stream no breeze's gush 
 
 Disturbs the universal hush. 
 
 u Thou dost devise with sleepless zeal 
 
 What course may best the state beseem, 
 
 And, fearful for the City's weal, 
 
 Weigh'st anxiously each hostile scheme 
 
 That may be hatching far away 
 
 In Scythia, India, or Cathay. 
 
 " Most wisely Jove in thickest night 
 The issues of the future veils, 
 And laughs at the self-torturing wight 
 
 Who with imagined terrors quails. 
 The present only is thine own, 
 Then use it well, ere it has flown. 
 
 "All else which may by time be bred 
 Is like a river of the plain, 
 
ODE TO MAECENAS. 159 
 
 Now gliding gently o'er its bed 
 Along to the Etruscan main, 
 Now whirling onwards, fierce and fast, 
 Uprooted trees, and boulders vast, 
 
 " And flocks, and houses, all in drear 
 Confusion tossed from shore to shore, 
 
 "While mountains far, and forests near 
 Reverberate the rising roar, 
 
 When lashing rains among the hills 
 
 To fury wake the quiet rills. 
 
 " Lord of himself that man will be, 
 
 And happy in his life alway, 
 Who still at eve can sav with free 
 
 Contented soul, ' I've lived to-day ! 
 Let Jove to-morrow, if he will, 
 With blackest clouds the welkin fill, 
 
 " ' Or flood it all with sunlight pure, 
 Yet from the past he cannot take 
 Its influence, for that is sure, 
 
 Nor can he mar or bootless make 
 Whate'er of rapture and delight 
 The hours have borne us in their flight.' " 
 
 o' 
 
 The poet here passes, by one of those sudden transi- 
 tions for which he is remarkable, into the topic of the 
 fickleness of fortune, which seems to have no imme- 
 diate connection with what has gone before, — but only 
 seems, for this very fickleness is but a fresh reason fur 
 making ourselves, by self-possession and a just estimate 
 of what is essential to happiness, independent of the 
 accidents of time or chance. 
 
1G0 HORACE. 
 
 " Fortune, who with malicious glee 
 
 Her merciless vocation plies, 
 Benignly smiling now on me, 
 
 Now on another, bids him rise, 
 And in mere wantonness. of whim 
 Her favours shifts from me to him. 
 
 " I laud her whilst by me she holds, 
 But if she spread her pinions swift, 
 
 I wrap me in my virtue's folds, 
 And, yielding back her every gift, 
 
 Take refuge in the life so free 
 
 Of bare but honest poverty. 
 
 " You will not find me, when the mast 
 
 Groans 'neath the stress of southern gales, 
 To wretched prayers rush off, nor cast 
 
 Vows to the great gods, lest my bales 
 From Tyre or Cyprus sink, to be 
 Fresh booty for the hungry sea. 
 
 " When others then in wild despair 
 
 To save their cumbrous wealth essay, 
 I to the vessel's skiff repair, 
 
 And, whilst the Twin Stars light my way, 
 Safely the breeze my little craft 
 Shall o'er the iEgean billows waft." 
 
 -cr 
 
 Ma3cenas was of a melancholy temperament, and 
 liable to great depression of spirits. Not only was 
 his health at no time robust, but he was constitution- 
 ally prone to i\'\'cr, which more than once proved 
 nearly fatal to him. On his first appearance in the 
 theatre after one of these dangerous attacks, he was 
 received with vehement cheers, and Horace alludes 
 twice to this incident in his Odes, as if he knew that 
 
POPULARITY OF MAECENAS. 161 
 
 it had given especial pleasure to his friend. To mark 
 tlie event the poet laid up in his cellar a jar of Sabine 
 wine, and some j r ears afterwards he invites Maecenas 
 to come and partake of it in this charmiug lyric (Odes, 
 I. 20) :— 
 
 " Our common Sabine wine shall be 
 The only drink I'll give to thee, 
 
 In modest goblets, too ; 
 'Twas stored in crock of Grecian del£ 
 Dear knight Maecenas, by myself, 
 
 That very day when through 
 The theatre thy plaudits rang, 
 And sportive echo caught the clang, 
 
 And answered from the banks 
 Of thine own dear paternal stream, 
 Whilst Vatican renewed the theme 
 
 Of homage and of thanks ! 
 Old Caecnban, the very best, 
 And juice in vats Calenian pressed, 
 
 You drink at home, I know : 
 My cups no choice Falernian fills, 
 Nor unto them do Formise's hills 
 
 Impart a tempered glow." 
 
 About the same time that Maecenas recovered from 
 this fever, Horace made a narrow escape from being 
 killed by the fall of a tree, and, what to him was a 
 great aggravation of the disaster, upon his own beloved 
 farm (Odes, II. 13). He links the two events together 
 as a marked coincidence in the following Ode (II. 17). 
 His friend had obviously been a prey to one of his fits 
 of low spirits, and vexing the kindly soul of the poet 
 by gloomy anticipations of an early death. Suffering, 
 
 A. C. VOL vi. L 
 
1G2 HORACE. 
 
 as Maecenas did, from those terrible attacks of sleep- 
 lessness to which he was subject, and which he tried 
 ineffectually to soothe "by the plash of falling water 
 and the sound of distant music,* such misgivings were 
 only too natural. The case was too serious this time 
 for Horace to think of rallying his friend into a brighter 
 humour. He may have even seen good cause to 
 share his fears ; for his heart is obviously moved to its 
 very depths, and his sympathy and affection well out 
 in words, the jmthos of which is still as fresh as the 
 day they first came with comfort to the saddened 
 spirits of Maecenas himself. 
 
 " Why wilt thou kill me with thy boding fears ? 
 Why, oh Maecenas, why ? 
 Before thee lies a train of happy years : 
 
 Yes, nor the gods nor I 
 Could brook that thou shouldst first be laid in dust, 
 Who art my stay, my glory, and my trust ! 
 
 " Ah, if untimely Fate should snatch thee hence, 
 Thee, of my soul a part, 
 Why should I linger on, with deadened sense, 
 
 And ever- aching heart, 
 A worthless fragment of a fallen shrine ? 
 No, no, one clay shall see thy death and mine ! 
 
 " Think not that I have sworn a bootless oath ; 
 Yes, we shall go, shall go, 
 Hand link'd in hand, whene'er thou leadest, both 
 The last sad road below ! 
 
 * Had Horace this in his mind when he wrote " JSfon avium 
 titharceque cantus somnum rcducejit?"— (Odes, III. 1.) 
 
 " Nor song of birds, nor music of the lyre, 
 Shall his lost sleep restore." 
 
AFFECTION FOR MjECENAS. 163 
 
 Me neither the Ghimaera's fiery breath, 
 
 Nor Gyges, even could Gyges rise from death, 
 
 " With all his hundred hands from thee shall sever ; 
 
 For in such sort it hath 
 Pleased the dread Fates, and Justice potent ever, 
 
 To interweave our path.* 
 Beneath whatever aspect thou wert born, 
 Libra, or Scorpion tierce, or Capricorn, 
 
 " The blustering tyrant of the western deep, 
 
 This well I kuow, my friend, 
 Our stars in wondrous wise one orbit keep, 
 
 Arid in one radiance blend. 
 From thee were Saturn's baleful rays afar 
 Averted by great Jove's refulgent star, 
 
 " And His hand stayed Fate's downward-swooping wing, 
 
 When thrice with glad acclaim 
 The teeming theatre was heard to ring, 
 
 And thine the honoured name : 
 So had the falling timber laid me low, 
 But Pan in mercy warded off the blow, 
 
 " Pan who keeps watch o'er easy souls like mine. 
 Remember, then, to rear 
 In gratitude to Jove a votive shrine, 
 
 And slaughter many a steer, 
 Whilst I, as fits, an humbler tribute pay, 
 And a meek lamb upon his altar lay." 
 
 What the poet, in this burst of loving sympathy, 
 
 * So Cowley, in his poem on the death of Mr William 
 Harvey : — 
 
 " He was my friend, the truest friend on earth ; 
 A strong and mighty influence joined our birth. 
 
164 HORACE. 
 
 said would happen, did happen almost as he foretold 
 it. Maecenas "first deceased;" and Horace, like the 
 wife in the quaint, tender, old epitaph, 
 
 " For a little tried 
 To live without him, liked it not, and died." 
 
 But this was not till many years after this Ode was 
 written, which must have been about the year B.C. 36, 
 when Horace was thirty-nine. Maecenas lived for 
 seventeen years afterwards, and often and often, we 
 may believe, turned to read the Ode, and be refreshed 
 by it, when his pulse was low, and his heart sick and 
 weary. 
 
 Horace included it in the first series of the Odes, 
 containing Books I. and II., which he gave to the 
 world (B.C. 21). The first of these Odes, like the first 
 of the Satires, is addressed to Maecenas. The}'' had 
 for the most part been written, and were, no doubt, 
 separately in circulation several years before. That 
 they should have met with success was certain ; for 
 the accomplished men who led society in Rome must 
 have felt their beauty even more keenly than the 
 scholars of a more recent time. These lyrics brought 
 the music of Greece, which was their ideal, into their 
 native verse ; and a feeling of national pride must have 
 helped to augment their admiration. Horace had 
 tuned Ids ear upon the lyres of Sappho and Alcseus. 
 He had even in his youth essayed to imitate them in 
 their own tongue, — a mistake as great as for Goethe 
 or Heine to have tried to put their lyrical inspiration 
 into the language of Herrick or of Burns. But Horace 
 was preserved from perseverance in this mistake by his 
 
THE ODES. 1G5 
 
 natural good sense, or, as he puts it himself, with a fair 
 poetic licence (Satires, I. 10), by Eome's great founder 
 Quirinus warning him in a dream, that 
 
 a 
 
 To think of adding to the mighty throng 
 Of the great paragons of Grecian song, 
 Were no less mad an act than his who should 
 Into a forest carry logs of wood." 
 
 These exercises may not, however, have been with 
 out their value in enabling him to transfuse the mel 
 odic rhythm cf the Greeks into his native verse. And 
 as he was the first to do this successfully, if we except 
 Catullus in some slight but exquisite poems, so he was 
 the last. " Of lyrists," sa^s Quintilian, " Horace is 
 alone, one might say, worthy to be read. For he has 
 bursts of inspiration, and is full of playful delicacy and 
 grace ; and in the variety of his images, as well as in 
 expression, shows a most happy daring." Time has 
 confirmed the verdict ; and it has recently found elo- 
 quent expression in the words of one of our greatest 
 scholars : — 
 
 "Horace's style," says Mr H. A. J. Munro, in the intro- 
 duction to his edition of the poet, "is throughout his own, 
 borrowed from none who preceded him, successfully imi- 
 tated by none who came after him. The Virgilian heroic 
 was appropriated by subsequent generations of poets, and 
 adapted to their purposes with signal success. The hen- 
 decasyllable and scazon of Catullus became part and parcel 
 of the poetic heritage of Rome, and Martial employs 
 them only less happily than their matchless creator. But 
 the moulds in which Horace cast his lyrical and his sat- 
 irical thoughts were broken at his death. The stvle neither 
 of Persius nor of Juvenal has the faintest resemblance to 
 that of their common master. Statius, whose hendeca- 
 

 166 HORACE. 
 
 syllables are passable enough, has given us one Alcaic and 
 one Sapphic ode, which recall the bald and constrained 
 efforts of a modern schoolboy. I am sure he could not 
 have written any two consecutive stanzas of Horace ; and 
 if he could not, who could ? " 
 
 Before he published the first two books of his Odes, 
 Horace had fairly felt his wings, and knew they 
 could carry him gracefully and well. He no longer 
 hesitates, as he had done while a writer of Satires only 
 (p. 55), to claim the title of poet ; but at the same 
 time he throws himself, in his introductory Ode, with 
 a graceful deference, upon the judgment of Maecenas. 
 Let that only seal his lyrics with approval, and he 
 will feel assured of his title to rank with the great 
 sons of song : — 
 
 " Do thou Dut rank me 'mong 
 The sacred bards of lyric song, 
 I'll soar beyond the lists of time, 
 And strike the stars with head sublime." 
 
 In the last Ode, also addressed to Maecenas, of the 
 uecond Book, the poet gives way to a burst of joyous 
 anticipation of future fame, figuring himself as a 
 swan soaring majestically across all the then known 
 regions of the world. When he puts forth the 
 Third Book several years afterwards, he closes it 
 with a similar paean of triumph, which, unlike 
 most prophecies of the kind, has been completely 
 fulfilled. In both he alludes to the lowliness of 
 his birth, speaking of himself in the former as a 
 child of poor parents — "pauperum sanguis p<ircn* 
 turn ; " in the latter as having risen to eminence from 
 <* mean estate — " "& hwrnih pateim. Iht^e Gone tier 
 
ANTICIPATION OF FAME, 167 
 
 of egotism, the sallies of some brighter hour, are not 
 merely venial ; they are delightful in a man s'j habitu- 
 ally modest. 
 
 " I've reared a monument, my own, 
 More durable than brass ; 
 Yea, kingly pyramids of stone 
 In height it doth surpass. 
 
 u 
 
 Rain shall not sap, nor driving blast 
 
 Disturb its settled base, 
 Nor countless ages rolling past 
 
 Its symmetry deface. 
 
 " I shall not wholly die. Some part, 
 Nor that a little, shall 
 Escaj)e the dark Destroyer's dart, 
 And his grim festival. 
 
 " For long as with his Vestals mute 
 Rome's Pontifex shall climb 
 The Capitol, my feme shall shoot 
 Fresh buds through future time. 
 
 " Where brawls loud Aufidus, and came 
 Parch'd Daunus erst, a horde 
 Of rustic boors to sway, my name 
 Shall be a household word ; 
 
 " A? one who rose from mean estate. 
 The first with poet fire 
 JEoXic song to modulate 
 To the Italian lyre. 
 
 " Then grant, Melpomene, thy son 
 Thy guerdon proud to wear, 
 And Delphic laurels, duly woo, 
 Bind thou upon my haix V 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 HORACE'S RELATIONS WITH AUGUSTUS. — HIS LOV* Cr 
 
 INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 No intimate friend of Maecenas was likely to D% 
 long a stranger to Augustus ; and it is most impro- 
 bable that Augustus, who kept up his love of good 
 literature amid all the distractions of conquest and 
 empire, should not have early sought the acquaintance 
 of a man of such conspicuous ability as Horace. But 
 when they first became known to each other is uncer- 
 tain. In more than one of the Epodes Horace speaks 
 of him, but not in terms to imply personal acquaint- 
 ance. Some years further on it is different. When 
 Trebatius (Satires, II. 1) is urging the poet, if write 
 he must, to renounce satire, and to sing of Caesar's 
 triumphs, from which he would reap gain as well aa 
 glory, Horace replies, — 
 
 " Most worthy sir, that's just the thing 
 I'd like especially to sing ; 
 But at the task my spirits faint, 
 For 'tis not every one can paint 
 Battalions, with their bristling wall 
 Of pikes, and make you see the Gaul, 
 
AUGUSTUS. 169 
 
 "With shivered spear, in death-throe bleed, 
 Or Parthian stricken from his steed." 
 
 Then why not sing, rejoins Trebatius, his justice and 
 his fortitude, 
 
 " Like sage Lucilius, in his lays 
 To Scipio Africanus' praise ? " 
 
 The reply is that of a man "who had obviously 
 been admitted to personal contact with the Caesar, 
 and, with instinctive good taste, recoiled from doing 
 what he knew would be unacceptable to him, unless 
 called for by some very special occasion : — 
 
 " When time and* circumstance suggest, 
 
 DO 7 
 
 I shall not fail to do my best ; 
 
 But never words of mine shall touch 
 
 Great Caesar's ear, but only such 
 
 As are to the occasion due, 
 
 And spring from my conviction, too ; 
 
 For stroke him with an awkward hand, 
 
 And he kicks out — you understand ?" 
 
 an allusion, no doubt, to the impatience entertained 
 by Augustus, to which Suetonius alludes, of the indis- 
 creet panegyrics of poetasters by which he was perse- 
 cuted. The gossips of Rome clearly believed (Satires, 
 II. 6) that the poet was intimate with Caesar ; for he 
 is "so close to the gods" — that is, on such a footing 
 with Augustus and his chief advisers — that they 
 assume, as a matter of course, he must have early 
 tidings of all the most recent political news at first 
 hand. However this may be, by the time the Odes 
 were published Horace had overcome any previous 
 
170 HORACE. 
 
 scruples, and sang in no measured terms the praises of 
 him, the back-stroke of whose rebuke he had professed 
 himself so fearful of provoking. 
 
 All Horace's prepossessions must have been against 
 one of the leaders before whose opposition Brutus, the 
 ideal hero of bis youthful enthusiasm, had succumbed. 
 Neither were the sanguinary proscriptions and ruthless 
 spoliations by which the triumvirate asserted its power, 
 and from a large share of the guilt of which Augustus 
 could not shake himself free, calculated to conciliate 
 his regards. He had much to forget and to forgive 
 before he could look without aversion upon the 
 blood-stained avenger of the great Caesar. But in 
 times like those in which Horace's* lot was cast, we 
 do not judge of men or things as we do when 
 social order is unbroken, when political crime is never 
 condoned, and the usual standards of moral judg- 
 ment are rigidly enforced. Horace probably soon 
 came to see, what is now very apparent, that when 
 Brutus and his friends struck down Caesar, they dealt 
 a deathblow to what, but for this event, might have 
 proved to be a well-ordered government. Liberty was 
 dead long before Caesar aimed at supremacy. It was 
 dead when individuals like Sylla and Marius had 
 become stronger than the laws ; and the death of 
 Caesar was, therefore, but the prelude to fresh disasters, 
 and to the ultimate investiture with absolute power ot 
 whoever, among the competitors for it, should come 
 triumphantly out of what was sure to be a protracted 
 and a sanguinary struggle. In what state did Horace 
 tind Italy after his return from Philippi 1 Drenched 
 
AUGUSTUS. 171 
 
 in the blood of its citizens, desolated by pillage, har- 
 assed by daily fears of internecine conflict at home 
 and of invasion from abroad, its sovereignty a stake 
 played for by political gamblers. In such a state of 
 things it was no longer the question, how the eld 
 Ronian constitution was to be restored, but how the 
 country itself was to be saved from ruin. Prestige 
 was with the nephew of the Cix j sar whose memory the 
 Roman populace had almost from his death worshipped 
 as divine; and whose conspicuous ability and address, as 
 well as those of his friends, naturally attracted to his 
 side the ablest survivors of the party of Brutus. The 
 very course of events pointed to him as the future chief 
 of the state. Lepidus, by the sheer weakness and inde- 
 cision of his character, SDon went to the wall ; and the 
 power of Antony was weakened by his continued 
 absence from Borne, and ultimately destroyed by the 
 malign influence exerted upon his character by the 
 fascinations of the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra. The 
 disastrous failure of his Parthian expedition (b.c. 
 36), and the tidings that reached Rome from 
 time to time of the mad extravagance of his 
 private life, of his abandonment of the character 
 of a Roman citizen, and his assumption of the 
 barbaric pomp and habits of an oriental despot, 
 made men look to his great rival as the future head of 
 the state, especially as they saw that rival devoting all 
 his powers to the task of reconciling divisions and 
 restoring peace to a country exhausted by a long 
 series of civil broils, of giving security to life and pro- 
 perty at hom°, and making Rome once more a name 
 
172 HORACE. 
 
 of awe throughout the world. Was it, then, otherwise 
 than natural that Horace, in common with many of his 
 friends, should have been not only content to forget 
 the past, with its bloody and painful records, but 
 should even have attached himself cordially to the 
 parly of Augustus? Whatever the private aims of 
 the Caesar may have been, his public life showed that 
 he had the welfare of his country strongly at heart, 
 and the current of events had made it clear that he at 
 least was alone able to end the strife of faction by 
 assuming the virtual supremacy of the state. 
 
 Pollio, Messalla, Varus, and others of the Brutus 
 party, have not been denounced as renegades because 
 they arrived at a similar conclusion, and lent the 
 whole influence of their abilities and their names to 
 the cause of Augustus. Horace has not been so for- 
 tunate ; and because he has expressed, — what was no 
 doubt the prevailing feeling of his countrymen, — grati- 
 tude to Augustus for quelling civil strife, for bringing 
 glory to the empire, and giving peace, security, and 
 happiness to his country by the power of his arms and 
 the wisdom of his administration, the poet has been 
 called a traitor to the nobler principles of his youth — 
 an obsequious flatterer of a man whom he ought to 
 have denounced to posterity as a tyrant. Adroit 
 esdave is the epithet applied to him in this respect by 
 Voltaire, who idolises him as a moralist and poet. 
 But it carries little weight in the mouth of the cynic 
 who could fawn with more than courtierly complais- 
 ance on a Frederick or a Catherine, and weave graceful 
 llatteries for the Pompadour, and who " dearly loved a 
 
AUGUSTUS. 173 
 
 lord " in his practice, however he may have sneered at 
 aristocracy in his writings. But if we put ourselves 
 as far as we can into the poet's place, we shall come to a 
 much more lenient conclusion. He could no doubt 
 appreciate thoroughly the advantages of a free repub- 
 lic or of a purely constitutional government, and would, 
 of course, have preferred either of these for his country. 
 But while theory pointed in that direction, facts were 
 all pulling the opposite way. The materials for the 
 establishment of such a state of things did not exist in 
 a strong middle class or an equal balance of parties. 
 The choice lay between the anarchy of a continued 
 strife of selfish factions, and the concentration of power 
 in the hands of some individual who should be cap- 
 able of enforcing law at home and commanding re- 
 spect abroad. So at least Horace obviously thought ; 
 and surely it is reasonable to suppose that the man, 
 whose integrity and judgment in all other matters 
 are indisputable, was more likely than the acutest 
 critic or historian of modern times can possibly be to 
 form a just estimate of what was the possible best for 
 his country, under the actual circumstances of the 
 time. 
 
 Had Horace at once become the panegyrist of the 
 Caesar, the sincerity of his convictions might have 
 been open to question. But thirteen years at least 
 had elapsed between the battle of Philippi and the 
 composition of the Second Ode of the First Book, 
 which is the first direct acknowledgment by Horace 
 of Augustus as the chief of the state. This Ode is 
 directly inspired by gratitude for the cessation of civil 
 
174 HORACE. 
 
 strife, and the skilful administration which had brought 
 things to the point when the whole fighting force of 
 the kingdom, which had so long been wasted in that 
 strife, could be directed to spreading the glory of the 
 Roman name, and securing its supremacy throughout 
 its conquered provinces. The allusions to Augustus 
 in this and others of the earlier Odes are somewhaf 
 cold and formal in their tone. There is a visible in- 
 crease in glow and energy in those of a later date, when, 
 as years went on, the Caesar established fresh claims 
 on the gratitude of Rome by his firm, sagacious, and 
 moderate policy, by the general prosperity which grew 
 up under his administration, by the success of his 
 arms, by the great public works which enhanced the 
 splendour and convenience of the capital, by the res- 
 toration of the laws, and by his zealous endeavour to 
 stem the tide of immorality which had set in during 
 the protracted disquietudes of the civil wars. It is true 
 that during this time Augustus was also establishing 
 the system of Imperialism, Avhich contained in itself 
 the germs of tyranny, with all its brutal excesses on 
 the one hand, and its debasing influence upon the sub- 
 ject nation on the other. But we who have seen into 
 what it developed must remember that these baneful 
 fruits of the system were of lengthened growth; and 
 Horace, who saw no farther into the future than the 
 practical politicians of his time, may be forgiven if he 
 dwelt only upon the immediate blessings which the 
 government of Augustus effected, and the peace and 
 security which came with a tenfold welcome after the 
 long agonies of the civil wars. 
 
HIS PRAISE OF AUGUSTUS. 175 
 
 The glow and sincerity of feeling of which we have 
 spoken are conspicuous in the following Ode (IV. 2), 
 addressed to lulus Antonius, the son of the triumvir, 
 of whose powers as a poet nothing is known beyond 
 the implied recognition of them contained in this Ode. 
 The Sicambri, with two other German tribes, had 
 crossed the Rhine, laid waste part of the Roman terri- 
 tory in Gaul, and inflicted so serious a blow on Lollius, 
 the Roman legate, that Augustus himself rej>aired to 
 Gaul to retrieve the defeat and resettle the province. 
 This he accomplished triumphantly (b.c. 17); and we 
 may assume that the Ode was written while the tidings 
 of his success were still fresh, and the Romans, who 
 had been greatly agitated by the defeat of Lollius, 
 were looking eagerly forward to his return. Apart 
 from its other merits, the Ode is interesting from the 
 estimate Horace makes in it of his own powers, and 
 his avowal of the labour which his verses cost him. 
 
 u lulus, he who'd rival Pindar's fame, 
 On waxen wings doth sweep 
 The Empyrean steep, 
 To fall like Icarus, and with his name 
 Endue the glassy deep. 
 
 " Like to a mountain stream, that roars 
 From bank to bank along, 
 When Autumn rains are strong, 
 So deep-mouthed Pindar lifts his voice, and pours 
 His fierce tumultuous song. 
 
 fa Worthy Apollo's laurel wreath, 
 Whether he strike the lyre 
 To love and young desire, 
 
17G HORACE. 
 
 While bold and lawless numbers grow beneatb. 
 His mastering touch of fire ; 
 
 " Or sings of gods, and monarchs sprung 
 Of gods, that overthrew 
 The Centaurs, hideous crew, 
 And, fearless of the monster's fiery tongue, 
 The dread Chimsera slew , 
 
 ' 4 Or those the Elean palm doth lift 
 To heaven, for winged steed, 
 Or sturdv arm decreed, 
 Giving, than hundred statues nobler crift, 
 The poet's deathless meed ; 
 
 w Or mourns the youth snatched from his bride, 
 Extols his manhood clear, 
 And to the starry sphere 
 Exalts his golden virtues, scattering wide 
 The gloom of Orcus drear. 
 
 
 
 o* 
 
 " When the Dircean swan doth climb 
 Into the azure sky, 
 There poised in ether high, 
 He courts each gale, and floats on wing sublime, 
 Soaring with steadfast eye. 
 
 " I, like the tiny bee, that sips 
 
 The fragrant thyme, and strays 
 Humming through leafy ways, 
 By Tibur's sedgy banks, with trembling lips 
 Fashion my toilsome lays. 
 
 " But thou, when up the sacred steep 
 Crcsar, with garlands crowned, 
 Leads the Sicambrians bound, 
 With bolder hand the echoing strings shalt sweep. 
 And bolder measures sound. 
 
ODE TO IULUS AN TOy I US. 177 
 
 ** Caesar, than whom a nobler son 
 
 The Fates and Heaven's kind powers 
 Ne'er gave this earth of ours, 
 Nor e'er will give though backward time should run 
 To its first golden hours. 
 
 " Thou too shalt sing the joyful days, 
 The city's festive throng, 
 When Caesar, absent long, 
 A.t length returns, — the Forum's silent ways, 
 Serene from strife and wrong. 
 
 *»• 
 
 " Then, though in statelier power it lack, 
 My voice shall swell the lay, 
 And sing, ' Oh, glorious day, 
 Oh, day thrice blest, that gives great Caesar back 
 To Rome, from hostile fray ! ' 
 
 " ' Io Triumphe ! ' thrice the cry ; 
 ' Io Triumphe ! ' loud 
 Shall shout the echoing crowd 
 The city through, and to the gods on high 
 "Raise incense like a cloud. 
 
 * Ten bulls shall pay thy sacrifice, 
 With whom ten kine shall bleed : 
 I to the fane will lead 
 A yearling of the herd, of modest size, 
 From the luxuriant mead, 
 
 *' Horned like the moon, when her pale light 
 Which three brief days have fed, 
 She trimmeth, and dispread 
 On his broad brows a spot of snowy white, 
 All else a tawny red." 
 
 Augustus did not return from Gaul, as was expected 
 v hen this Ode was written, but remained there for 
 a. c. vol. vi. m 
 
178 iiorace. 
 
 about two } 7 ears. That this protracted absence caused 
 no little disquietude in Homo is apparent from the 
 following Ode (IV. 5) :— 
 
 " From gods benign descended, thou 
 Best guardian of the fates of Rome, 
 Too long already from thy home 
 Hast thou, dear chief, been absent now ; 
 
 " Oh, then return, the pledge redeem, 
 
 Thou gav'st the Senate, and once mor^j 
 Its light to all the land restore ; 
 For when thy face, like spring-tide's gleam, 
 
 u Its brightness on the people sheds, 
 
 Then glides the day more sweetly by, 
 A brighter blue pervades the sky, 
 The sun a richer radiance spreads ! 
 
 " As on her boy the mother calls, 
 , Her boy, whom envious tempests keep 
 Beyond the vexed Carpathian deep, * 
 From his dear home, till winter falls, 
 
 u And still with vow and prayer she cries, 
 Still gazes on the winding shore, 
 So yearns the country evermore 
 For Csesar, with fond, wistful eyes. 
 
 "For safe, the herds range field and fen, 
 Full-headed stand the shocks of grain, 
 Our sailors sweep the peaceful main, 
 And man can trust his fellow-men. 
 
 " No more adulterers stain our beds, 
 Laws, morals, both that taint ellace, 
 The husband in the child we trace, 
 And close on crime sure vengeance treada. 
 
-ODE TO AUGUSTUS. \\ 9 
 
 " The Parthian, under Ccesar's reign, 
 Or icy Scythian, who can dread, 
 Or all the tribes barbarian bred 
 By Germany, ur ruthless Spain I 
 
 " Now each man, basking on his slopes, 
 Weds to his widowed trees the vine, 
 Then, as he gaily quaffs his wine, 
 Salutes thee god of all his hopes ; 
 
 " And prayers to thee devoutly sends, 
 "With deep libations ; and, as Greece 
 Ranks Castor and great Hercules, 
 Thy godship with his Lares blends. 
 
 "Oh, may'st thou on Hesperia shine, 
 Her chief, her joy, for many a day ! 
 Thus, dry-lipped, thus at morn we pray, 
 Thus pray at eve, when flushed with wine." 
 
 « 
 
 It was perhaps the poliey of Augustus," says Macleane, 
 "to make his absence felt ; and we may believe that the 
 language of Horace, which bears much more the impress 
 of real feeling than of flattery, represented the sentiments 
 of great numbers at Rome, who felt the want of that pre- 
 siding genius which had brought the city through its long 
 troubles, and given it comparative peace. There could not 
 be a more comprehensive picture of security and rest 
 obtained through the influence of one mind than is repre- 
 sented in this Ode, if we except that with which no merely 
 mortal language can compare (Isaiah, xi. and lxv. ; Micah, 
 iv.)" 
 
 We must not assume, from the reference in this 
 and other Odes to the divine origin of Augustus, that 
 this was seriously believed in by Horace, any more 
 than it was by Augustus himself. Popular credulity 
 
180 HORACE. 
 
 ascribed divine honours to great men ; and this was 
 the natural growth of a religious system in which a 
 variety of gods and demigods played so large a part. 
 Julius Caesar claimed — no doubt, for the purpose of 
 impressing the Roman populace — a direct descent 
 from Alma Verms Genitrix, as Antony did from Her- 
 cules. Altars and temples were dedicated to great 
 statesmen and generals ; and the Romans, among the 
 other things which they borrowed from the East, bor- 
 rowed also the practice of conferring the honours of 
 apotheosis upon their rulers, — the visible agents, in 
 their estimation, of the great invisible power that 
 governed the world. To speak of their divine descent 
 and attributes became part of the common forms of 
 the poetical vocabulary, not inappropriate to the 
 exalted pitch of lyrical enthusiasm. Horace only falls 
 into the prevailing strain, and is not compromising 
 himself by servile flattery, as some have thought, 
 when he speaks in this Ode of Augustus as "from 
 gods benign descended," and in others as " the heaven- 
 sent son of Maia" (I. 2), or as reclining among the 
 gods and quaffing nectar " with lip of deathless bloom" 
 (III. 3). In lyrical poetry all this was quite in place. 
 But when the poet contracts his wings, and drops 
 from its empyrean to the level of the earth, he speaks 
 to Augustus and of him simply as he thought (Epi.stles, 
 II. 1) — as a man on whose shoulders the weight of 
 empire rested, who protected the commonwealth by 
 the vigour of his armies, and strove to grace it by 
 " sweeter manners, purer laws." He adds, it is 
 true, — 
 
HORACE NO SYCOPHANT. 181 
 
 " You while m life are honoured as divine, 
 And vows and oaths are taken at your shrine ; 
 So Koine pays honour to her man of men, 
 Ne'er seen on earth before, ne'er to be seen again " — (C* 
 
 but this is no more than a statement of a fact. Altars 
 were erected to Augustus, much against his will, and 
 at these men made their pnayers or plighted their 
 oaths every day. There is not a word to imply either 
 that Augustus took these divine honours, or that 
 Horace joined in ascribing them, seriously. 
 
 It is of some importance to the argument in favour 
 of Horace's sincerity and independence, that he had no 
 selfish end to serve by standing well with Augustus. 
 We have seen that he was more than content with 
 the moderate fortune secured to him by Maecenas. 
 Wealth had no charms for him. His ambition was to 
 make his mark as a poet. His happiness lay in being 
 his own master. There is no trace of his having at 
 any period been swayed by other views. What then 
 had he to gain by courting the favour of the head of 
 the state 1 But the argument goes further. When 
 Augustus found the pressure of his private correspond- 
 ence too great, as his public duties increased, and his 
 health, never robust, began to fail, he offered Horace 
 the post of his private secretary. The poet declined 
 on the ground of health. He contrived to do so in 
 such a way as to give no umbrage by the refusal ; nay, 
 the letters which are quoted in the life of Horace 
 ascribed to Suetonius show that Augustus begged 
 the poet to treat him on the same footing as if he had 
 accepted the office, and actually become a member of 
 
182 HORACE. 
 
 his household. "Our friend Septimius," lie says in 
 another letter, " will tell you how much you are in my 
 thoughts ; for something led to my speaking of you 
 before him. Xeither, if you were too proud to accept 
 my friendship, do I mean to deal with you in the 
 same spirit." There could have been little of the 
 courtier in the man who was thus addressed. Horace 
 apparently felt that Augustus and himself were likely 
 to be better friends at a distance. He had seen 
 enough of court life to know how perilous it is to 
 that independence which was his dearest possession. 
 " Dulcis inexpertis cult'ura potentis amid, — Expertus 
 metuit" is his ultimate conviction on this head 
 (Epistles, I. 18)— 
 
 " Till time has made us wise, 'tis sweet to wait 
 Upon the smiles and favour of the great ; 
 But he that once has ventured that career 
 Shrinks from its perils M'ith instinctive fear." 
 
 In another place (Epistles, I. 10) he says, "Fug* 
 magna; licet sub paupere tecto lieges et regum vita 
 praicurrere amicos " — 
 
 " Keep clear of courts ; a homely life transcends 
 The vaunted bliss of monarchs and their friends." (C.) 
 
 But apart from such considerations, life would have 
 lost its charm for Horace, had he put himself within the 
 trammels of official service. At no time would these 
 have been tolerable to him ; but as he advanced into 
 middle age, the freedom of entire independence, the 
 refreshing solitudes of the country, leisure for study 
 
HIS INDEPENDENCE. 183 
 
 and reflection, became more and more precious to him. 
 The excitements and gaieties and social enjoyments of 
 Rome were all verv well, but a little of them went a 
 great way. They taxed his delicate health, and they 
 interfered with the graver studies, to which he became 
 daily more inclined as the years went by. Not all 
 his regard for Maecenas himself, deep as it was, could 
 induce him to stay in town to enliven the leisure 
 hours of the statesman by his companionship at the 
 expense of those calm seasons of communion with 
 nature and the hooks of the great men of old, in 
 which he could indulge his - irresistible craving for 
 some solution of the great problems of life and philo- 
 sophy. Men like Maecenas, whose power and wealth 
 are practically unbounded, are apt to become impor- 
 tunate even in their friendships, and to think that 
 everything should give way to the gratification of their 
 wishes. Something of this spirit had obviously been 
 shown towards Horace. Ma3cenas may have expressed 
 himself in a tone of complaint, either to the poet him- 
 self, or in some way that had reached his ears, about 
 his prolonged absence in the country, which implied 
 that he considered his bounties had given him a claim 
 upon the time of Horace which was not sufficiently 
 considered. This could only have been a burst of 
 momentary impatience, for the nature of Maecenas was 
 too generous to admit of any other supposition. But 
 Horace felt it ; and with the utmost delicacy of tact, 
 but with a decision that left no room for mistake, he 
 lost no time in letting Maecenas know, that rather 
 than brook control upon his movements, howevei 
 
184 HORACE. 
 
 slight, he will cheerfully forego the gifts of his friend, 
 clear as they are, and grateful for them as he must 
 always be. To this we owe the following Epistle 
 (I. 7) That Maecenas loved his friend all the better 
 for it — he could scarcely respect him more than he 
 seems to have done from the first — we may be very 
 sure. 
 
 Only five days, I said, I should be gone ; 
 
 Yet August's past, and still I linger on. 
 
 'Tis true I've broke my promise. But if you 
 
 Would have me well, as I am sure you do, 
 
 Grant me the same indulgence, which, were I 
 
 Laid up with illness, you would not deny, 
 
 Although I claim it only for the fear 
 
 Of being ill, this deadly time of year, 
 
 When autumn's clammy heat and early fruits 
 
 Deck undertakers out, and inky mutes ; 
 
 When young mammas, and fathers to a man, 
 
 With terrors for their sons and heirs are wan ; 
 
 When stifling anteroom, or court, distils 
 
 Fevers wholesale, and breaks the seals of wills. 
 
 Should winter swathe the Alban fields in snow, 
 
 Down to the sea your poet means to go, 
 
 To nurse his ailments, and, in cosy nooks 
 
 Close huddled up, to loiter o'er his books. 
 
 But once let zephyrs blow, sweet friend, and then, 
 
 If then you'll have him, he will quit his den, 
 
 With the first swallow hailing you again. 
 
 When you bestowed on me what made me rich, 
 Not in the spirit was it done, in which 
 Your bluff Calabrian on a guest will thrust 
 His pears : " Come, eat, man, eat — you can, you must !" 
 " Indeed, indeed, my friend, I've had enough." 
 "Then take somehome!" "You're too obliging." "Stuff J 
 
 
EPISTLE TO MAECENAS. 185 
 
 If you have pockets full of them, I guess, 
 
 Your little lads will like you none the less." 
 
 " I really can't — thanks all the same !" "You won't 1 
 
 Why then the pigs shall have them, if you don't." 
 
 'Tis fools and prodigals, whose gifts consist 
 Of what they spurn, or what is never missed : 
 Such tilth will never yield, and never could, 
 A harvest save of coarse ingratitude. 
 A wise good man is evermore alert, 
 When he encounters it, to own desert ; 
 Nor is he one, on whom you'd try to pass 
 For sterling currency mere lackered "brass. 
 For me, 'twill be my aim myself to raise 
 Even to the flattering level of your praise ; 
 But if you'd have me always by your side, 
 Then give me back the chest deep-breathed and wide, 
 The low brow clustered with its locks of black, 
 The flow of talk, the ready laugh, give back, 
 The woes blabbed o'er our wine, when Cinara chose 
 To teaze me, cruel flirt— ah, happy woes ! 
 
 Through a small hole a field-mouse, lank and thii 
 Had squeezed his way into a barley bin, 
 And, having fed to fatness on the grain, 
 Tried to get out, but tried and squeezed in vain. 
 a Friend," cried a weasel, loitering thereabout, 
 u Lean you went in, and lean you must get out." 
 Now, at my head if folks this story throw, 
 Whate'er I have I'm ready to forego ; 
 I am not one, with forced meats in my throat, 
 Fine saws on poor men's dreamless sleep to quote. 
 Unless in soul as very air I'm free, 
 Not all the wealth of Araby for me. 
 
 You've ofttimes praised the reverent, yet true 
 Devotion, which my heart has shown for you. 
 King, father, I have called you, nor been slack 
 In words of gratitude behind your back ; 
 
186 HORACE. 
 
 Bitf even your bounties, if you care to try, 
 Y"ou'll find I can renounce without a sigh. 
 Not badly young Telemachus replied, 
 Ulysses' son, that man so surely tried : 
 " No mettled steeds in Ithaca we want; 
 The ground is broken there, the herbage scant. 
 Let me, Atrides, then, thy gifts decline, 
 In thy hands they are better far than mine ! " 
 Yes, little things fit little folks. In Rome 
 The Great I never feel myself at home. 
 Let me have Tibur, and its dreamful ease, 
 Or soft Tarentum's nerve-relaxing breeze. 
 Philip, the famous counsel, on a day — 
 A. burly man, and wilful in his way — 
 From court returning, somewhere about two, 
 And grumbling, fur his years were far from few, 
 That the Carina?* were so distant, though 
 But from the Forum half a mile or so, 
 Descried a fellow in a barber's booth, 
 All by himself, his chin fresh shaved and smooth, 
 Trimming his nails, and with the easy air 
 Of one un cumbered by a wish or care. 
 " Demetrius ;' ; — 'twas his page, a boy of tact, 
 In comprehension swift, and swift in act, 
 " Go, ascertain his rank, name, fortune; track 
 His father, patron ! " In a trice he's back. 
 " An auction-crier, Volteius Mena, sir, 
 Means poor enough, no spot on character, 
 Good or to work or idle, get or spend, 
 Has his own house, delights to sec a friend, 
 Fund of the play, and sure, when work is done, 
 Of those who crowd the Campus to make one." 
 
 * The street where lie lived, or, as we should say, "Ship 
 Street." The name was due probably to the circumstance of 
 models of ships being set up in it. 
 
PHILIP AND MEN A. 187 
 
 "I'd like to hear all from himself. Awav, 
 
 } 
 
 Bid liim come dine with me — at once — to-day V' 
 
 Mena some trick in the request divines, 
 
 Turns it all ways, then civilly declines. 
 
 " What ! Says me nay ?" " 'Tis even so, sir. Why 1 
 
 Can't say. Dislikes you, or, more likely, shy." 
 
 Next morning Philip searches Mena out, 
 
 And finds him vending to a rabble rout 
 
 Old crazy lumber, frippery of the worst, 
 
 And with all courtesy salutes him first. 
 
 Mena pleads occupation, ties of trade, 
 
 His service else he would by dawn have paid, 
 
 At Philip's house, — was grieved to think, that how 
 
 He should have failed to notice him till now. 
 
 " On one condition I accept your plea. 
 
 You come this afternoon, and dine with me." 
 
 " Yours to command." " Be there, then, sharp at four! 
 
 Now go, work hard, and make vour little more !" 
 
 At dinner Mena rattled on, expressed 
 
 Whate'er came uppermost, then home to rest. 
 
 The hook was baited craftily, and when 
 
 The fish came nibbling ever and again, 
 
 At morn a client, and, when asked to ame, 
 
 Not now at all in humour to decline, 
 
 Philip himself one holiday drove him down, 
 
 To see his villa some few miles from town. 
 
 Mena keeps praising up, the whole way there, 
 
 The Sabine country, and the Sabine air ; 
 
 So Philip sees his fish is fairly caught, 
 
 And smiles with inward triumph at the thought. 
 
 Besolved at any price to have his whim, — 
 
 For that is best of all repose to him, — 
 
 Seven hundred pounds he gives him there and then, 
 
 Proffers on easy terms as much again, 
 
 And so persuades him, that, with tastes like his, 
 
 He ought to buy a firm ; — so bought it is. 
 
188 HORACE. 
 
 Not to detain 3*011 longer than enough, 
 The dapper cit becomes a farmer bluff, 
 Talks drains and subsoils, ever on the strain 
 Grows lean, and ages with the lust of gain. 
 But when his sheep arc stolen, when murrains smite 
 His goats, and his best crops are killed with blight, 
 When at the plough his oxen drop down dead, 
 Stung with his losses, up one night from bed 
 He springs, and on a cart-horse makes his way, 
 All wrath, to Philip's house, by break of day. 
 " How's this ?" cries Philip, seeing bim unshorn 
 And shabby. " Why, Vulteius, you look worn. 
 You work, methinks, too long upon the stretch." 
 " Oh, that's not it, my patron. Call me wretch ! 
 That is the only fitting name for me. 
 Oh, by thy Genius, by the gods that be 
 Thy hearth's protectors, I beseech, implore, 
 Give me, oh, give me back my life of yore !" 
 
 If for the worse you find you've changed your pla^e, 
 Pause not to think, but straight your steps retrace. 
 In every state the maxim still is true, 
 On your own last take care to fit your shoe 1 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 DELICACY OF H jRACE S HEALTH. — HIS CHEERFULNESS. — LOVE 
 OF BOOKS. — HIS PHILOSOPHY PRACTICAL. — EPISTLE TO 
 AUGUSTUS. —DEATH. 
 
 Horace had probably passed forty when the Epistle 
 just quoted was written. Describing himself at forty- 
 four (Epistles, I. 20), he says he Avas " prematurely 
 grey," — his hair, as Ave have just seen (p. 185), having 
 been originally black, — adding that he is 
 
 " In person small, one to whom warmth is life, 
 In temper hasty, yet averse from strife." 
 
 His health demanded constant care ; and we find him 
 writing (Epistles, I. 15) to a friend, to ask what sort 
 of climate and people are to be found at Yelia and 
 Salernum, — the one a town of Lucania, the other of 
 Campania, — as he has been ordered by his doctor to 
 give up his favourite watering-place, Baiae, as too relax- 
 ing. This doctor was Antonius Musa, a great apostle 
 of the cold-water cure, by which he had saved the 
 life of Augustus when in extreme danger. The 
 remedy instantly became fashionable, and continued 
 
190 HORA CE. 
 
 so until the Emperor's nephew, the young Marceflus, 
 died under the treatment. Horace's inquiries are just 
 such as a valetudinarian fond of his comforts would 
 be likely to make : — 
 
 "Which place is best supplied with corn, d'ye think ? 
 Have they rain-water or fresh springs to drink ? 
 Their wines I care not for, when at my farm 
 I can drink any sort without much harm ; 
 But at the sea I need .a generous kind 
 To warm my veins, and pass into my mind, 
 Enrich me with new hopes, choice words supply, 
 And make me comely in a lady's eye. 
 Which tract is best for eame ? on which sea-coast 
 Urchins and other fish abound the most ? 
 That so, when I return, my friends may see 
 A sleek Phteacian * come to life in me : 
 These things you needs must tell me, Vala dear, 
 And I no less must act on what I hear." (C.) 
 
 Valetudinarian though he was, Horace maintains, 
 in his later as in his early writings, a uniform cheer- 
 fulness. This never forsakes him ; for life is a boon 
 for which he is ever grateful. The gods have allotted 
 him an ample share of the means of enjoyment, and it 
 is his own fault if he suffers self-created worries or 
 desires to vex him. By the questions he puts to a 
 friend in one of the latest of his Epistles (11. 2), we 
 see what was the discipline he applied to himself — 
 
 " You're not a miser: has all other vice 
 Departed in the train of avarice ? 
 Or do ambitions longings, angry fret, 
 The terror of the grave, torment you yet ? 
 
 * The Plueacians were proverbially fond of good Aving. 
 
HIS SELF-DISCIPLINE. 191 
 
 Can you make sport of portents, gipsy crones, 
 Hobgoblins, dreams, raw head and bloody bones 1 
 Do you count up your birthdays year by year, 
 And thank the gods with gladness and blithe cheer, 
 O'erlook the failings of your friends, and grow 
 Gentler and better as your sand runs low ) " (C.) 
 
 And to this beautiful catalogue of what should be a 
 good man's aims, let us add the picture of himself 
 which Horace gives us in another and earlier Epistle 
 (1.18):- 
 
 "For me, when freshened by my spring's pure cold, 
 Which makes my villagers look pinched and old, 
 What prayers are mine ? ' may I yet possess 
 The goods I have, or, if heaven pleases, less ! 
 Let the few years that Fate may grant me still 
 Be all my own, not held at others' will ! 
 Let me have books, and stores for one year hence, 
 Nor make my life one flutter of suspense !' 
 
 But I forbear; sufficient 'tis to pray 
 To Jove for what he gives and takes away ; 
 Grant life, grant fortune, for myself I'll find 
 
 • That best of blessings — a contented mind." (C.) 
 
 " Let me have books ! " These play a great part in 
 Horace's life. They were not to him, what Montaigne 
 calls them, " a languid pleasure," but rather as they 
 were to Wordsworth — 
 
 " A substantial world, both fresh and good, 
 Round which, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, 
 Our pastime and our happiness may grow." 
 
 Next to a clear friend, they were Horace's most cher- 
 ished companions. Not for amusement merely, and 
 
192 HORACE. 
 
 the listless luxury of the self-wrapt lounger, were they 
 prized by him, but as teachers to correct his faults, to 
 subdue his evil propensities, to develop his higher 
 nature, to purify his life (Epistles, I. 1), and to help 
 him towards attaining " that best of blessings, a con- 
 tented mind : " — 
 
 (c Say, is your bosom fevered with the fire 
 Of sordid avarice or unchecked desire ? 
 Know there are spells will help you to allay 
 The pain, and put good part of it away. 
 You're bloated by ambition ? take advice ; 
 Yon book will ease you, if you read it thrice. 
 Run through the list of faults ; whate'er you be, 
 Coward, pickthank, spitfire, drunkard, debauchee, 
 Submit to culture patiently, you'll find 
 Her charms can humanise the rudest mind." (C.) 
 
 Horace's taste was as catholic in philosophy as in 
 literature. He was of no school, but sought in the 
 teachings of them all such principles as would make 
 life easier, better, and happier: " Condo at compojio, 
 quce mox depromere possum " — 
 
 "I search and search, and where I find I lay 
 The wisdom up against a rainy day." (C.) 
 
 He is evermore urging his friends to follow his 
 example; — to resort like himself to these " spells," — 
 the vcrha et voces, by which he brought his own rest- 
 less desires and disquieting aspirations into subjection, 
 and fortified himself in the bliss of contentment. He 
 saw they were letting the precious hours slip from 
 their grasp, — hours that might have been so happy, 
 
HIS HOLD ON OUR HEARTS. 193 
 
 but were so weighted with disquiet and weariness ; 
 and he loved his friends too well to keep silence on 
 this theme. We, like them, it has been admirably 
 said,* are " possessed by the ambitions, the desires, 
 the weariness, the disquietudes, which pursued the 
 friends of Horace. If he does not always succeed 
 with us, any more than with them, in curing us of 
 these, he at all events soothes and tranquillises us in 
 the moments which we spend with him. He aug- 
 ments, on the other hand, the happiness of those who 
 are already happy ; and there is not one of us but 
 feels under obligation to him for his gentle and salu- 
 tary lessons, — verbaqite et voces, — for his soothing or 
 invigorating balsams, as much as though this gifted 
 physician of soul and body had compounded them 
 specially for ourselves." 
 
 When he published the First Book of Epistles he 
 seems to have thought the time come for him to write 
 no more lyrics (Epistles, I. 1) : — 
 
 " So now I bid my idle songs adieu, 
 And turn my thoughts to what is j ust and true." (C. ) 
 
 Graver habits, and a growing fastidiousness of taste, 
 were likely to give rise to this feeling. But a poet 
 can no more renounce his lyre than a painter his 
 palette ; and his fine " Secular Hymn," and many of 
 the Odes of the Fourth Book, which were written after 
 this period, prove that, so far from suffering any decay 
 in poetical power, he had even gained in force of con- 
 
 * Etude Morale et Litteraire sur les Epitres d'Horace ; par 
 J. A. Estienne. Paris, 1851. P. 212. 
 
 A. C. vol. vi. N 
 
194 HORACE. 
 
 ception, and in that curlosa felicitas, that exquisite 
 felicity of expression, which has been justly ascribed 
 to him by Petronius. Several years afterwards, when 
 writing of the mania for scribbling verse which had 
 beset the Romans, as if, like Dogberry's reading and 
 writing, the faculty of writing poetry came by nature, 
 he alludes to his own sins in the same direction with 
 a touch of his old irony (Epistles, II. 1) : — 
 
 u E'en I, who vow I never write a verse, 
 Am found as false as Parthia, maybe worse ; 
 Before the dawn I rouse myself and call 
 For pens and parchment, writing-desk, and all. 
 None dares be pilot who ne'er steered a craft ; 
 No untrained nurse administers a draught ; 
 None but skilled workmen handle workmen's tools; 
 But verses all men scribble, wise or fools." (C.) 
 
 Or, as Pope with a liner emphasis translates his 
 words — ■ 
 
 "But those who cannot write, and those who can, 
 All rhyme, and scrawl, and scribble to a man." 
 
 It was very well for Horace to laugh at his own 
 inability to abstain from verse-making, but, had he 
 been ever so much inclined to silence, his friends 
 would not have let him rest. Some wanted an Ode, 
 some an Epode, some a Satire (Epistles, II. 2) — 
 
 ** Three hungry guests for different dishes call, 
 And how's one host to. satisfy them all ? " (C.) 
 
 And there was one friend, whose request it was not easy 
 to deny. This was Augustus. Ten years after vhe 
 
EPISTLE TO AUGUSTUS. 197 
 
 It is not while they live, he continues, that, in the 
 ordinary case, the worth of the great benefactors of 
 mankind is recognised. Only after they are dead, do 
 misunderstanding and malice give way to admiration 
 and love. Rome, it is true, has been more just. It 
 has appreciated, and it avows, how much it owes to 
 Augustus. But the very same people who have 
 shown themselves wise and just in this are unable to 
 extend the same principle to living literary genius. 
 A poet must have been long dead and buried, or 
 he is nought. The very flaws of old writers are 
 cried up as beauties by pedantic critics, while the 
 highest excellence in a writer of the day meets with 
 no response. 
 
 " Had Greece but been as carping and as cold 
 To new productions, what would now be old ? 
 "What standard works would there have been, to come 
 Beneath the public eye, the public thumb ? " (C.) 
 
 Let us then look the facts fairly in the face ; let us 
 
 " clear our minds of cant." If a poem be bad in itself, 
 
 let us say so, no matter how old or how famous it be ; 
 
 if it be good, let us be no less candid, though the poet 
 
 be still struggling into notice among us. 
 
 Thanks, he proceeds, to our happy times, men are 
 
 now devoting themselves to the arts of peace. " Grcpxia 
 
 capta ferum victorem cepit " — " Her ruthless conqueror 
 
 Greece has overcome." The Romans of the better 
 
 class, who of old thought only of the triumphs of the 
 
 forum, or of turning over their money profitably, are 
 
 now bitten bv a literary furor. 
 
 N* 
 
198 no RACE. 
 
 " Pert boys, prim fathers, dine in wreaths of bay, 
 And 'twixt the courses warble out the lay." (C.) 
 
 But this craze is no unmixed evil ; for, take him all in 
 all, your poet can scarcely be a bad fellow. Pulse 
 and second bread are a banquet for him. He is sure 
 not to be greedy or close-fisted ; for to him, as Tenny- 
 son in the same spirit says, " Mellow metres are more 
 than ten per cent." Neither is he likely to cheat his 
 partner or his ward. He may cut a poor figure in a 
 campaign, but he does the state good service at home. 
 
 " His lessons form the child's young lips, and wean 
 The boyish ear from words and tales unclean ; 
 As years roll on, he moulds the ripening mind, 
 And makes it just and generous, sweet and kind ; 
 He tells of worthy precedents, displays 
 The examples of the past to after days, 
 Consoles affliction, and disease allays." (C.) 
 
 Horace then goes on to sketch the rise of poetry and 
 the drama among the Romans, glancing, as he goes, 
 at the perverted taste which was making the stage the 
 vehicle of mere spectacle, and intimating his own high 
 estimate of the dramatic writer in words which Shake- 
 speare seems to have been meant to realise : — 
 
 " That man I hold true master of his art, 
 Who with fictitious woes can wring my heart ; 
 Can rouse me, soothe me, pierce me with the thrill 
 Of vain alarm, and, as by magic skill, 
 Bear me to Thebes, to Athens, where you will." (C.) 
 
 Here, as elsewhere, Horace treats dramatic writing as 
 the very highest exercise of poetic genius ; and, in 
 
EPISTLE TO AUGUSTUS. 199 
 
 dwelling on it as he does, he probably felt sure of 
 carrying with him the fullest sympathies of Augustus. 
 For among his varied literary essays, the Emperor, like 
 most dilettanti, had tried his hand upon a tragedy. 
 Failing, however, to satisfy himself, he? had the rarer 
 wisdom to suppress it. The story of his play was 
 that of Ajax, and when asked one day how it was 
 getting on, he replied that his hero " had finished Tiis 
 career upon a sponge ! " — " Ajacem suum in spongio 
 incubuisse." 
 
 From the drama Horace proceeds to speak of the 
 more timid race of bards, who, " instead of being hissed 
 and acted, would be read," and who, himself included, 
 are apt to do themselves harm in various ways through 
 over-sensitiveness or simplicity. Thus, for example, 
 they will intrude their works on Augustus, when he 
 is busy or tired ; or wince, poor sensitive rogues, if a 
 friend ventures to take exception to a verse ; or bore 
 him by repeating, unasked, one or other of their pet 
 passages, or by complaints that their happiest thoughts 
 and most highly-polished turns escape unnoticed ; or, 
 worse folly than all, they will expect to be sent for by 
 Augustus the moment he comes across their poems, 
 and told " to starve no longer, and go writing on." Yet, 
 continues Horace, it is better the whole tribe should 
 be disappointed, than that a great man's glory should 
 be dimmed, like Alexander's, by being sung of by a 
 second-rate poet. And wherefore should it be so, when 
 Augustus has at command the genius of such men as 
 Virgil and Yarius 1 They, and they only, are the fit 
 laureates of the Emperor's great achievements ; and in 
 
200 HORACE. 
 
 this way the poet returns, like a skilful composer, to 
 the motif with which he set out — distrust of his own 
 powers, which has restrained, and must continue to 
 restrain, him from pressing himself and his small 
 poetic powers -upon the Emperor's notice. 
 
 In the other poems which belong to this period — 
 the Second Epistle of the Second Book, and the Epistle 
 to the Pisos, generally known as the Ars Poet lea — 
 Horace confines himself almost exclusively to purely 
 literary topics. The dignity of literature was never 
 better vindicated than in these Epistles. In Horace's 
 estimation it was a thing always to be approached with 
 reverence. Mediocrity in it was intolerable. Genius 
 is much, but genius without art will not win immor- 
 tality ; " for a good poet's made, as well as born." 
 There must be a working up to the highest models, 
 a resolute intolerance of anything slight or slovenly, 
 a fixed purpose to put what the writer has to express 
 into forms at once the most beautiful, suggestive, and 
 compact. The mere trick of literary composition 
 Horace holds exceedingly cheap. Brilliant nonsense 
 finds no allowance from him. Truth — truth in feel- 
 ing and in thought — must be present, if the work is 
 to have any value. "Scribendi recte sapere est et prin- 
 cijnum et forte ^ — 
 
 " Of writing well, be sure f he secret lies 
 In wisdom, therefore study to be wise." (C 
 
 Whatever the form of composition, heroic, didactic, 
 lyric, or dramatic, it must be pervaded by unity of 
 feeling and design; and no style is good, or illustration 
 
TUB SECULAR HYMN. 195 
 
 imperial power had been placed in his hands (b.c. 17), 
 he resolved to celebrate a great national festival in 
 honour of his own successful career. Horace was 
 called on to write an Ode, known in his works as 
 "The Secular Hymn," to be sung upon the occa- 
 sion by twenty-seven boys and twenty-seven girls of 
 noble birth. " The Ode," says Macleane, " was sung 
 at the most solemn part of the festival, while the 
 Emperor was in person offering sacrifice at the second 
 hour of the night, on the river side, upon three altars, 
 attended by the fifteen men who presided over religi- 
 ous affairs. The effect must have been very beautiful, 
 and no wonder if the impression on Horace's feelings 
 was strong and lasting." He was obviously pleased 
 at being chosen for the task, and not without pride, — a 
 very just one, — at the way it was performed. In the 
 Ode (TV. 6), which seems to have been a kind of prelude 
 to the " Secular Hymn," he anticipates that the virgins 
 Avho chanted it will on their marriage-day be proud 
 to recall the fact that they had taken part in this ora 
 torio under his baton : — 
 
 " When the cvclical year brought its festival daA*s, 
 
 My voice led the hymn of thanksgiving and praise, 
 
 So sweet, the immortals to hear it were fain, 
 
 And 'twas Horace the Poet who taught me the strain ! " 
 
 It was probably at the suggestion of Augustus, also, 
 that he wrote the magnificent Fourth and Four- 
 teenth Odes of the Fourth Book. These were written, 
 however, to celebrate great national victories, and were 
 pitched in the high key appropriate to the theme. 
 But this was not enough for Augustus. He wanted 
 
196 HORACE. 
 
 something more homely and human, and was envious 
 of the friends to whom Horace had addressed the 
 charming Epistles of the First Book, a copy of which 
 the poet had sent to him by the hands of a friend 
 (Epistles, I. 13), but only to be given to the Caesar, 
 
 " If he be well, and in a happy mood, 
 And ask to have them,— be it understood." 
 
 And so he wrote to Horace — the letter is quoted by 
 Suetonius — "Look you, I take it much amiss that 
 none of your writings of this class are addressed to me. 
 Are you afraid it will damage your reputation with 
 posterity to be thought to have been one of my inti- 
 mates ? " Such a letter, had Horace been a vain man 
 or an indiscreet, might have misled him into approach- 
 ing Augustus with the freedom he courted. But he 
 fell into no such error. There is perfect frankness 
 throughout the whole of the Epistle, with which he 
 met the Emperor's request (II. 1), but the social dis- 
 tance between them is maintained with an emphasis 
 which it is impossible not to feel. The Epistle opens 
 by skilfully insinuating that, if the poet has not before 
 addressed the Emperor, it is that he may not be sus- 
 pected of encroaching on the hours which were due to 
 the higher cares of state : — 
 
 " Since you, great Caesar, singly wield the charge 
 Of Rome's concerns, so manifold and lar^e, — 
 With sword and shield the commonwealth protect, 
 With morals grace it, and with laws correct, — 
 The bard, methinks, would do a public wrong, 
 Who, having gained your ear, should keep it long." (C.) 
 
EPISTLE TO THE PISOS. 201 
 
 endurable, which either overlays or does not harmonise 
 with the subject in hand. 
 
 The Epistle to the Pisos does not profess to be 
 a complete exposition of the poet's art. It glances 
 only at small sections of that wide theme. So far as 
 it goes, it is all gold, full of most instructive hints 
 for a sound critical taste and a pure literary style. 
 It was probably meant to cure the younger Piso of 
 that passion for writing verse which had, as we have 
 seen, spread like a plague among the Eomans, and 
 which made a visit to the public baths a penance to 
 critical ears, — for there the poetasters were always 
 sure of an audience, — and added new terrors to the 
 already sufficiently formidable horrors of the Roman 
 banquet.* When we find an experienced critic like 
 Horace urging young Piso, as he does, to keep what he 
 writes by him for nine years, the conclusion is irresist- 
 ible, that he hoped by that time the writer would see 
 the wisdom of suppressing his crude lucubrations alto- 
 gether. No one knew better than Horace that first- 
 class work never wants such protracted mellowing. 
 
 Soon aftei this poem was written the great palace 
 on the Esquiline lost its master. He died (b.c. 8) in 
 the middle of the year, bequeathing his poet-friend to 
 the care of Augustus in the words " Hordti Flacci, id 
 mei, esto memor" — " Bear Horace in your memory as 
 you would myself." But the legacy was not long upon 
 
 * This theory has been worked out with great ability by the 
 late M. A. Baron, in his 'Epitre d'Horace aux Pisor.s sur l'Art 
 Poetique' — Bruxelles, 1857; which is accompanied bj a masterly 
 translation and notes of great value. 
 
202 HORACE. 
 
 the emperor's hands. Seventeen years before, Horace 
 had written : 
 
 " Think not that I have sworn a bootless oath ; 
 Yes, we shall go, shall go, 
 Hand linked in hand, where'er thou leadest, both 
 The last sad road below." 
 
 The lines must have rung in the poet's ears like a sad 
 refrain. The Digentia lost its charm ; he could not 
 see its costal waters for the shadows of Charon's 
 rueful stream. The prattle of his loved Bandusian 
 spring could not wean his thoughts from the vision of 
 his other self wandering unaccompanied along that 
 "last sad road." We may fancy that Horace was 
 thenceforth little seen in his accustomed haunts. He 
 who had so often soothed the sorrows of other bereaved 
 hearts, answered with a wistful smile to the friendly 
 consolations of the many that loved him. His work 
 was done. It was time to go away. Not all the 
 skill of Orpheus could recall him whom he had lost. 
 The welcome end came sharply and suddenly ; and 
 one day, when the bleak November wind was whirl- 
 ing down the oak-leaves on his welldoved brook, the 
 servants of his Sabine farm heard that they should no 
 more see the good, cheery master, whose pleasant 
 smile and kindly word had so often made their labours 
 light. There was many a sad heart, too, we may be 
 sure, in Eome, when the wit who never wounded, the 
 poet who ever charmed, the friend who never failed, 
 was laid in a corner of the Esquiline, close to the 
 tomb of his " dear knight Mascenas." He died on the 
 
HIS DEATH. 
 
 203 
 
 27th November B.C. 8, the kindly, lonely man, 
 leaving to Augustus what little he possessed. One 
 would fain trust his own words were inscribed upon 
 his tomb, as in the supreme hour the faith they 
 expressed was of a surety strong within his heart, — 
 
 NON OMNIS MORIAR. 
 
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