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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/25563-8.txt b/25563-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..06d1cd1 --- /dev/null +++ b/25563-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3246 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Horace, by William Tuckwell + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Horace + + +Author: William Tuckwell + + + +Release Date: May 22, 2008 [eBook #25563] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HORACE*** + + +E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, David Garcia, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 25563-h.htm or 25563-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/5/5/6/25563/25563-h/25563-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/5/5/6/25563/25563-h.zip) + + + + + +HORACE + +[Illustration: [_Bib. Nat., Paris._ +HORACE. +From a bronze medallion of the period of Constantine.] + +Bell's Miniature Series of Great Writers + +HORACE + +by + +REV. W. TUCKWELL, M.A. +Author of "Chaucer," Etc. + + + + + + + +[Illustration] + +London +George Bell & Sons +1905 + +Chiswick Press: Charles Whittingham and Co. +Tooks Court, Chancery Lane, London. + + + + +TABLE OF CONTENTS + + PAGE + + Struggle 9 + Success 19 + Satires and Epistles 30 + Odes and Epodes 51 + Swan-Song 74 + The Wines of Horace 82 + Chronology 85 + Index 87 + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + TO FACE PAGE + + Horace, from a Bronze Medallion _Frontispiece_ + Brutus 12 + Maecenas 16 + The Site of Horace's Villa 22 + The Roman Forum 26 + Augustus 46 + Virgil 64 + The Forum Restored, as in A.D. 80 74 + + + + +THE LIFE OF HORACE + + + + +STRUGGLE + + +Quintus Horatius Flaccus, the "old popular Horace" of Tennyson, petted +and loved, by Frenchmen and Englishmen especially, above all the poets +of antiquity, was born on 8th December, B.C. 65. He calls himself in his +poems by the three names indifferently, but to us he is known only by +the affectionate diminutive of his second or gentile name, borne by his +father, according to the fashion of the time, as slave to some member +of the noble Horatian family. A slave the father unquestionably had +been: meanness of origin was a taunt often levelled against his son, +and encountered by him with magnanimous indifference; but long before +Horace's birth the older Horatius had obtained his freedom, had gained +sufficient money to retire from business, and to become owner of the +small estate at Venusia on the borders of Apulia, where the poet was +born and spent his childhood. He repeatedly alludes to this loved early +home, speaks affectionately of its surrounding scenery, of the dashing +river Aufidus, now Ofanto, of the neighbouring towns, Acherontia, +Bantia, Forentum, discoverable in modern maps as Acerenza, Vanzi, +Forenza, of the crystal Bandusian spring, at whose identity we can only +guess. Here he tells us how, wandering in the forest when a child and +falling asleep under the trees, he woke to find himself covered up by +woodpigeons with leaves, and alludes to a prevailing rural belief that +he was specially favoured by the gods. Long afterwards, too, when +travelling across Italy with Maecenas, he records with delight his +passing glimpse of the familiar wind-swept Apulian hills. + +Of his father he speaks ever with deep respect. "Ashamed of him?" he +says, "because he was a freedman? whatever moral virtue, whatever charm +of character, is mine, that I owe to him. Poor man though he was, he +would not send me to the village school frequented by peasant children, +but carried me to Rome, that I might be educated with sons of knights +and senators. He pinched himself to dress me well, himself attended me +to all my lecture-rooms, preserved me pure and modest, fenced me from +evil knowledge and from dangerous contact. Of such a sire how should I +be ashamed? how say, as I have heard some say, that the fault of a man's +low birth is Nature's, not his own? Why, were I to begin my life again, +with permission from the gods to select my parents from the greatest of +mankind, I would be content, and more than content, with those I had." +The whole self-respect and nobleness of the man shines out in these +generous lines. (Sat. I, vi, 89.) + +Twice in his old age Horace alludes rather disparagingly to his +schooldays in Rome: he was taught, he says, out of a translation from +Homer by an inferior Latin writer (Ep. II, i, 62, 69), and his master, +a retired soldier, one Orbilius, was "fond of the rod" (Ep. II, i, 71). +I observe that the sympathies of Horatian editors and commentators, +themselves mostly schoolmasters, are with Orbilius as a much enduring +paedagogue rather than with his exasperated pupil. We know from other +sources that the teacher was a good scholar and a noted teacher, and +that, dying in his hundredth year, he was honoured by a marble statue in +his native town of Beneventum; but like our English Orbilius, Dr. Busby, +he is known to most men only through Horace's resentful epithet;--"a +great man," said Sir Roger de Coverley, "a great man; he whipped my +grandfather, a very great man!" + +The young Englishman on leaving school goes to Oxford or to Cambridge: +the young Roman went to Athens. There we find Horace at about nineteen +years of age, learning Greek, and attending the schools of the +philosophers; those same Stoics and Epicureans whom a few years later +the first great Christian Sophist was to harangue on Mars' Hill. These +taught from their several points of view the basis of happiness and the +aim of life. Each in turn impressed him: for a time he agreed with Stoic +Zeno that active duty is the highest good; then lapsed into the easy +doctrine of Epicurean Aristippus that subjective pleasure is the only +happiness. His philosophy was never very strenuous, always more practical +than speculative; he played with his teachers' systems, mocked at their +fallacies, assimilated their serious lessons. + +[Illustration: _Alinari photo._] [_Palace of the Conservators, Rome._ + +BRUTUS.] + +Then into his life at this time came an influence which helped to shape +his character, but had nearly wrecked his fortunes. Brutus, fresh from +Caesar's murder, was at Athens, residing, as we should say, in his old +University, and drawing to himself the passionate admiration of its most +brilliant undergraduates; among the rest, of the younger Cicero and of +Horace. Few characters in history are more pathetically interesting than +his. High born, yet disdainful of ambitious aims, irreproachable in an +age of almost universal profligacy, the one pure member of a grossly +licentious family, modest and unobtrusive although steeped in all the +learning of old Greece, strong of will yet tolerant and gentle, his +austerity so tempered by humanism that he won not only respect but love; +he had been adored by the gay young patricians, who paid homage to the +virtue which they did not rouse themselves to imitate, honoured as an +equal by men far older than himself, by Cicero, by Atticus, by Caesar. +As we stand before the bust in the Palace of the Conservators which +preserves his mobile features, in that face at once sweet and sad, at +once young and old, as are the faces not unfrequently of men whose +temperaments were never young--already, at thirty-one years old, stamped +with the lineaments of a grand but fatal destiny--we seem to penetrate +the character of the man whom Dante placed in hell, whom Shakespeare, +with sounder and more catholic insight, proclaimed to be the noblest +Roman of them all: + + His life was gentle, and the elements + So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up, + And say to all the world, _This was a man._ + + +Quitting Athens after a time to take command of the army which had been +raised against Antony, Brutus carried Horace in his company with the +rank of military tribune. He followed his patron into Asia; one of his +early poems humorously describes a scene which he witnessed in the law +courts at Clazomenae. (Sat. I, vii, 5.) He was several times in action; +served finally at Philippi, sharing the headlong rout which followed +on Brutus' death; returned to Rome "humbled and with clipped wings." +(Od. II, vii, 10; Ep. II, ii, 50.) His father was dead, his property +confiscated in the proscription following on the defeat, he had to begin +the world again at twenty-four years old. He obtained some sort of +clerkship in a public office, and to eke out its slender emoluments he +began to write. What were his earliest efforts we cannot certainly say, +or whether any of them survive among the poems recognized as his. He +tells us that his first literary model was Archilochus (Ep. I, xix, 24), +a Greek poet of 700 B.C., believed to have been the inventor of personal +satire, whose stinging pen is said to have sometimes driven its victims +to suicide. For a time also he imitated a much more recent satirist, +Lucilius, whom he rejected later, as disliking both the harshness of his +style and the scurrilous character of his verses. (Sat. I, x.) It has +been conjectured therefore that his earliest compositions were severe +personal lampoons, written for money and to order, which his maturer +taste destroyed. In any case his writings found admirers. About three +years after his return to Rome his friends Varius and Virgil praised him +to Maecenas; the great man read the young poet's verses, and desired to +see him. (Sat. I, vi, 54.) + +It is as an enlightened and munificent patron of letters that Maecenas +holds his place in popular estimation, but he was much more than this. +He had been since Caesar's death the trusty agent and the intimate +adviser of Augustus; a hidden hand, directing the most delicate +manoeuvres of his master. In adroit resource and suppleness no +diplomatist could match him. His acute prevision of events and his +penetrating insight into character enabled him to create the +circumstances and to mould the men whose combination was necessary to +his aims. By the tact and moderation of his address, the honied words +which averted anger, the dexterous reticence which disarmed suspicion, +he reconciled opposing factions, veiled arbitrary measures, impressed +alike on nobles and on populace the beneficence of imperial despotism, +while he kept its harshness out of sight. Far from parading his +extensive powers, he masked them by ostentatious humility, refusing +official promotion, contented with the inferior rank of "Knight," +sitting in theatre and circus below men whom his own hand had raised +to station higher than his own. Absorbed in unsleeping political toil, +he wore the outward garb of a careless, trifling voluptuary. It was +difficult to believe that this apparently effeminate lounger, foppish in +dress, with curled and scented hair, luxuriating in the novel refinement +of the warm bath, an epicure in food and drink, patronizing actors, +lolling in his litter amid a train of parasites, could be the man on +whom, as Horace tells us, civic anxieties and foreign dangers pressed +a ceaseless load. He had built himself a palace and laid out noble +gardens, the remains of which still exist, at the foot of the Esquiline +hill. It had been the foulest and most disreputable slum in Rome, given +up to the burial of paupers, the execution of criminals, the obscene +rites of witches, a haunt of dogs and vultures. He made it healthy +and beautiful; Horace celebrates its salubrity, and Augustus, when +an invalid, came thither to breathe its air. (Sat. I, viii, 8, 14.) +There Maecenas set out his books and his gems and his Etruscan ware, +entertained his literary and high born friends, poured forth his +priceless Caecuban and Chian wines. There were drops of bitter in these +cups. His beautiful wife Terentia tormented him by her temper and her +infidelities; he put her away repeatedly, as often received her back. +It was said of him that he had been married a hundred times, though only +to a single wife: "What is the latest conjugal news?" men asked as his +sumptuous litter passed by, "is it a marriage or a divorce?" And he was +haunted by terror of death. "Prolong my life," was his prayer, in words +which Seneca has ridiculed and La Fontaine translated finely, yet +missing the terseness of the original, "life amid tortures, life even +on a cross, only life!" + + Qu'on me rend impotent, + Cul-de-jatte, goutteux, manchot, pourvu qu'en somme + Je vive, c'est assez; je suis plus que content. + + +His patronage of intellectual men was due to policy as well as +inclination. Himself a cultured literary critic, foreseeing the +full-winged soar of writers still half-fledged--the "Aeneid" in Virgil's +"Eclogues," the "Odes" of Horace in his "Epodes"--he would not only +gather round his board the men whom we know to have been his equals, +whose wit and wisdom Horace has embalmed in an epithet, a line, an ode; +Varius, and Sulpicius, and Plotius, and Fonteius Capito, and Viscus; +but he saw also and utilized for himself and for his master the social +influence which a rising poet might wield, the effect with which a bold +epigram might catch the public ear, a well-conceived eulogy minister to +imperial popularity, an eloquent sermon, as in the noble opening odes of +Horace's third book, put vice out of countenance and raise the tone of +a decadent community. + +[Illustration: _Alinari photo._] [_Palace of the Conservators, Rome._ + +MAECENAS.] + +To Horace, then, now twenty-seven years old, these imposing doors were +opened. The first interview was unsatisfactory; the young poet was +tongue-tied and stammering, the great man reserved and haughty: they +parted mutually dissatisfied. Nine months later Maecenas sent for him +again, received him warmly, enrolled him formally amongst his friends. +(Sat. I, vi, 61.) Horace himself tells the story: he explains neither +the first coldness, the long pause, nor the later cordiality. But he +rose rapidly in his patron's favour; a year afterwards we find him +invited to join Maecenas on a journey to Brundusium, of which he has +left us an amusing journal (Sat. I, v); and about three years later +still was presented by him with a country house and farm amongst the +Sabine hills, a few miles to the east of Tibur, or, as it is now +called, Tivoli. + +With this a new chapter in his life begins. During six years he had +lived in Rome, first as an impecunious clerk, then as a client of +Maecenas. To all Roman homes of quality and consequence clients were a +necessary adjunct: men for the most part humble and needy, who attended +to welcome the patron when issuing from his chamber in the morning, +preceded and surrounded his litter in the streets, clearing a way for +it through the crowd; formed, in short, his court, rewarded by a daily +basket of victuals or a small sum of money. If a client was involved in +litigation, his patron would plead his cause in person or by deputy; he +was sometimes asked to dinner, where his solecisms in good breeding and +his unfashionable dress, the rustic cut of his beard, thick shoes, gown +clumsily draped, made him the butt of the higher guests. Juvenal, in a +biting satire, describes the humiliation of a poor client at a rich +man's table. "The host," he says, "drinks old beeswinged Setian wine, +served to him in a gold goblet by a beautiful boy; to you a coarse black +slave brings in a cracked cup wine too foul even to foment a bruise. +His bread is pure and white, yours brown and mouldy; before him is +a huge lobster, before you a lean shore-crab; his fish is a barbel or +a lamprey, yours an eel:--and, if you choose to put up with it, you +are rightly served." The relation, though not held to be disgraceful, +involved sometimes bitter mortifications, and seems to us inconsistent +with self-respect. We remember how it was resented in modern times, +though in a much milder form, by Edmund Spenser, Dr. Johnson, and the +poet Crabbe. Even between a Horace and a Maecenas it must have caused +occasional embarrassment: we find the former, for instance, dedicating +poems to men whose character he could not respect, but to whom, as his +patron's associates, he was bound to render homage; while his supposed +intimacy with the all-powerful minister exposed him to tedious +solicitants, who waylaid him in his daily walks. He had become sick of +"the smoke and the grandeur and the roar of Rome" (Od. III, 29, 12); his +Sabine retreat would be an asylum and a haven; would "give him back to +himself"; would endow him with competence, leisure, freedom; he hailed +it as the mouse in his delightful apologue craved refuge in the country +from the splendour and the perils of the town: + + Give me again my hollow tree, + A crust of bread--and liberty. + + (Sat. II, 6, fin.) + + + + +SUCCESS + + +Horace's Sabine farm ranks high among the holy places of the classic +world; and through the labours of successive travellers, guided by the +scattered indications in his poems, its site is tolerably certain. It +was about thirty-two miles from Rome, reached in a couple of hours by +pilgrims of the present time; to Horace, who never allowed himself to be +hurried, the journey of a full day, or of a leisurely day and a half. +Let us follow him as he rides thither on his bob-tailed mule (Sat. I, +vi, 104), the heavy saddlebags across its loins stored with scrolls of +Plato, of the philosopher Menander, Eupolis the comedian, Archilochus +the lyric poet. His road lies along the Valerian Way, portions of whose +ancient pavement still remain, beside the swift waters of the Anio, amid +steep hills crowned with small villages whose inmates, like the Kenites +of Balaam's rhapsody, put their nests in rocks. A ride of twenty-seven +miles would bring him to Tivoli, or Tibur, where he stopped to rest, +sometimes to pass the night, possessing very probably a cottage in the +little town. No place outside his home appealed to him like this. Nine +times he mentions it, nearly always with a caressing epithet. It is +green Tibur, dew-fed Tibur, Tibur never arid, leisurely Tibur, breezy +Tibur, Tibur sloping to the sun. He bids his friend Varus plant vines in +the moist soil of his own Tiburtine patrimony there; prays that when the +sands of his life run low, he may there end his days; enumerates, in a +noble ode (Od. I, 7), the loveliest spots on earth, preferring before +them all the headlong Anio, Tibur's groves, its orchards saturated with +shifting streams. + + The dark pine waves on Tibur's classic steep, + From rock to rock the headlong waters leap, + Tossing their foam on high, till leaf and flower + Glitter like emeralds in the sparkling shower. + Lovely--but lovelier from the charms that glow + Where Latium spreads her purple vales below; + The olive, smiling on the sunny hill, + The golden orchard, and the ductile rill, + The spring clear-bubbling in its rocky fount, + The mossgrown cave, the Naiad's fabled haunt, + And, far as eye can strain, yon shadowy dome, + The glory of the earth, Eternal Rome. + + +No picture of the spot can be more graphic than are these noble lines. +They open a Newdigate Prize Poem of just eighty years ago, written, says +tradition, by its brilliant author in a single night. (R. C. Sewell, +Magdalen College, 1825.) Tivoli he had never visited; but those who +stand to-day beside the Temple of the Sibyl on the edge of its ravine, +who enjoy the fair beauty of the headlong Anio and the lesser +Cascatelle, of the ruined Temple of Tiburtus, the Grottos of the Sirens +and of Neptune, understand how a poet's genius can, as Shakespeare +tells us, shadow forth things unseen, and give them local habitation. + +From Tibur, still beside the Anio, we drive for about seven miles, until +we reach the ancient Varia, now Vico Varo, mentioned by Horace as the +small market town to which his five tenant-farmers were wont to repair +for agricultural or municipal business. (Ep. I, xiv, 3.) Here, then, we +are in the poet's country, and must be guided by the landmarks in his +verse. Just beyond Vico Varo the Anio is joined by the Licenza. This is +Horace's Digentia, the stream he calls it whose icy waters freshen him, +the stream of which Mandela drinks. (Ep. I, xviii, 104-105.) And there, +on its opposite bank, is the modern village Bardela, identified with +Mandela by a sepulchral inscription recently dug up. We turn northward, +following the stream; the road becomes distressingly steep, recalling +a line in which the poet speaks of returning homeward "to his mountain +stronghold." (Sat. II, vi, 16.) Soon we reach a village, Roccagiovine, +whose central square is named Piazza Vacuna. Vacuna was the ancient name +for the goddess Victory; and against the wall is fixed an exhumed tablet +telling how the Emperor Vespasian here restored an ancient Temple of +Victory. One more echo this name wakes in Horatian ears--he dates a +letter to his friend Aristius Fuscus as written "behind the crumbling +shrine of Vacuna." (Ep. I, x, 49.) Clearly we are near him now; he +would not carry his writing tablets far away from his door. Yet another +verification we require. He speaks of a spring just beside his home, cool +and fine, medicinal to head and stomach. (Ep. I, xvi, 12.) Here it is, +hard by, called to-day Fonte d'Oratini, a survival, we should like to +believe, of the name Horatius. Somewhere close at hand must have been +the villa, on one side or the other of a small hill now called Monte +Rotondo. We may take our Horace from our pocket, and feel, as with our +Wordsworth at Dove Cottage, with our Scott at Ashestiel, that we are +gazing on the hills, the streams, and valleys, which received the primal +outpourings of their muse, and are for ever vocal with its memories. + +[Illustration: THE SITE OF HORACE'S VILLA.] + +From M. Rotondo, eastward to the Licenza, and southward to the +high ground of Roccogiovine, stretched apparently the poet's not +inconsiderable demesne. Part of it he let off to five peasants on the +_métayage_ system; the rest he cultivated himself, employing eight +slaves superintended by a bailiff. The house, he tells us, was simple, +with no marble pillars or gilded cornices (Od. II, xviii), but spacious +enough to receive and entertain a guest from town, and to welcome +occasionally his neighbours to a cheerful evening meal--"nights and +suppers as of gods" (Sat. II, vi, 65), he calls them; where the talk +was unfashionably clean and sensible, the fare beans and bacon, garden +stuff and chicory and mallows. Around the villa was a garden, not filled +with flowers, of which in one of his odes he expresses dislike as +unremunerative (Od. II, xv, 6), but laid out in small parallelograms +of grass, edged with box and planted with clipped hornbeam. The house +was shaded from above by a grove of ilexes and oaks; lower down were +orchards of olives, wild plums, cornels, apples. In the richer soil of +the valley he grew corn, whose harvests never failed him, and, like Eve +in Eden, led the vine to wed her elm. Against this last experiment his +bailiff grumbled, saying that the soil would grow spice and pepper as +soon as ripen grapes (Ep. I, xiv, 23); but his master persisted, and +succeeded. Inviting Maecenas to supper, he offers Sabine wine from his +own estate (Od. I, xx, 1); and visitors to-day, drinking the juice of +the native grape at the little Roccogiovine inn, will be of opinion with +M. de Florac, that "this little wine of the country has a most agreeable +smack." Here he sauntered day by day, watched his labourers, working +sometimes, like Ruskin at Hincksey, awkwardly to their amusement with +his own hands; strayed now and then into the lichened rocks and forest +wilds beyond his farm, surprised there one day by a huge wolf, who +luckily fled from his presence (Od. I, xxii, 9); or--most enjoyable of +all--lay beside spring or river with a book or friend of either sex. + + A book of verses underneath the bough, + A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou + Beside me singing in the wilderness, + Oh, wilderness were Paradise enow! + + +So roll to each other across the ages and the continents echoes of the +Persian and the Roman bards. + +Of the _beauty_ of his home he speaks always modestly; it may not +compare with Praeneste, Tarentum, Baiae; its _charm_ he is never weary +of extolling. Nowhere, he says, is the air sweeter and more balmy, in +summer temperate, warm in winter; but beyond all this it yielded calm, +tranquillity, repose, making, as Wordsworth says, the very thought of +country life a thought of refuge; and that was what, so long in populous +city pent, he longed to find, and found. It was his _home_, where he +could possess his soul, could be self-centred and serene. "This," says +Ruskin, "is the true nature of Home; it is the Place of Peace." + +He loved the country, yet he was no hermit. When sickened of town life +he could apostrophize the country in the beautiful lines which many a +jaded Londoner has echoed (Sat. II, vi, 60); but after some months of +its placid joys the active social side of him would re-assert itself: +the welcoming friends of the great city, its brilliant talk, its rush of +busy life, recovered their attractiveness, and for short intervals, in +the healthy season of the year, he would return to Rome. There it is +less easy to image him than in his rustic home. Nature, if spared by +man, remains unaltered; the heights and recesses of the Digentian valley +meet our eye to-day scarce changed in twenty centuries, but the busy, +crowded Rome of Horace is now only a desolate excavation. We stand upon +the "Rock of Triumph," the Capitoline Hill, looking down upon the Forum: +it lies like a stonemason's yard: stumps of pillars, fragments of brick +or marble, overthrown entablatures, pillars, altars, tangles of +staircases and enclosures, interspersed with poppies, wild oats, +trefoils, confuse and crowd it: + + Cypress and ivy, weed and wallflower grow + Matted and massed together, hillocks heaped + On what were chambers; arch crushed, columns strown + In fragments; choked up vaults, where the owl peeped, + Deeming it midnight. + + +But patient, daily survey, educated by the restorations of a Lanciani, +enables us to piece together these encumbering ruins, until with +tolerable clearness we can follow Horace in his walk along the Via Sacra +towards Caesar's gardens, and can fairly reconstruct the objects which +must have met his view. Everywhere is haunted ground: there is the +bronze wolf of the Capitol, "thunder-stricken nurse of Rome," and the +Tarpeian rock, from which "the Traitor's leap cured all ambition." +There is the mythical gulf of Curtius, and the Mamertine prison where +the Catiline conspirators were strangled, with its vault into which +Jugurtha, after gracing the triumph of Marius, was hurled to die. +Maiden-hair fern grows profusely in the crevices of Juturna's well, +hard by the spring where the great twin brethren gave their horses drink +after the battle of the Lake Regillus. Half covered with a mass of green +acanthus is the base of Vesta's Temple, adjoining the atrium of the +Virgins' house surrounded with their portrait statues: their names are +engraved on each pedestal, but one is carefully erased, its original +having, it is supposed, violated her vestal vow. We pause upon the spot +where Caesar's body was burned, and beside the rostra whence Cicero +thundered, and Antony spoke his "Friends, Romans, countrymen"; return +finally to the Capitoline Museum, nucleus and centre of the ancient +mistress of the world, to gaze upon gods, senators, emperors, shining +still in undiminished majesty; on the Antinous, the Amazon, the Juno, +the Dying Gladiator, and the Grecian masterpiece of Praxiteles. + +[Illustration: _Alinari photo._ + +THE ROMAN FORUM.] + +Of his life in Rome Horace has given us a minute account (Sat. I, vi, +110, etc.). "Waking usually about six, I lie in bed or on my sofa, +reading and writing, till nearly ten o'clock; anoint myself, go to the +Campus for a game at ball, return home to a light luncheon. Then perhaps +I amuse myself at home, perhaps saunter about the town; look in at the +Circus and gossip with the fortune-tellers who swarm there when the +games are over; walk through the market, inquiring the price of garden +stuff and grain. Towards evening I come home to my supper of leeks and +pulse and fritters, served by my three slave-boys on a white marble +slab, which holds besides two drinking cups and ladle, a saltcellar +shaped like a sea-urchin, an oil flask, and a saucer of cheap Campanian +ware; and so at last I go to bed, not harassed by the thought that I +need rise at day-break." Sometimes, to his great annoyance, he would be +roused early to become sponsor in the law courts for a friend; shivering +in the morning cold, pelted by falling hailstones, abused by the crowd +through which he had to force his way. Or he would accompany Maecenas +on a drive, their talk of matters trivial--the time of day, the early +frosts, the merits of popular gladiators. We remember how delightfully +Pope has adapted the passage to his own relation with Harley. (Imitation +of Sat. II, vi.) Often he dined with Maecenas or his friends, and one +such dinner he has described, at the house of a rich, vulgar epicure +(Sat. II, viii). The guests were nine in number, including Maecenas, +Varius, and Viscus: they lay on couches at maplewood tables arranged +in three sides of a square. The first course was a Lucanian wild boar +garnished with salads; when that was removed, servants wiped the board +with purple napkins. Then a procession of slaves brought in Caecuban and +Chian wines, accompanied with cheesecakes, fish, and apples. The second +course was a vast lamprey, prawns swimming in its sauce; the third an +olio of crane, hare, goose's liver, blackbirds, and wood-pigeons. +A sumptuous meal, but spoiled by the host's tedious disquisitions on +each dish as it appeared. Of social gatherings in their higher aspect, +of the feasts of reason which he must have often shared at his patron's +board, we long to know, but Horace is discreet; for him the rose of +Harpocrates was suspended over every caenobium, and he would not profane +its sacrament. He sat there as an equal, we know; his attitude towards +those above him had in it no tinge of servility. That he was, and meant +to be, independent they were fairly warned; when Maecenas wished to heap +on him further benefits, he refused: "What I have is enough and more +than enough," he said, "nay, should fortune shake her wings and leave +me, I know how to resign her gifts" (Od. III, xxix, 53). And if not +to Maecenas, so neither to Maecenas' master, would he sacrifice his +freedom. The emperor sought his friendship, writes caressingly to +Maecenas of "this most lovable little bit of a man," wished to make him +his secretary, showed no offence at his refusal. His letters use the +freedom of an intimate. "Septimius will tell you how highly I regard +you. I happened to speak of you in his presence; if you disdain my +friendship, I shall not disdain in return."--"I wish your little book +were bigger; you seem to fear lest your books should be bigger than +yourself."--"I am vexed with you, that you have never addressed one of +your Epistles to myself; are you afraid that to have appeared as my +friend will hurt you with posterity?" Such royal solicitations are a +command, and Horace responded by the longest and one amongst the most +admired of his Epistles (Ep. II, i). This was his final effort, unless +the fragmentary essay on criticism, known as the "Art of Poetry," +belongs to these last years; if that be so, his closing written words +were a humorous disparagement of the "homely slighted shepherd's trade" +(A. P. 470-476). + +His life was drawing to a close; his friends were falling round him like +leaves in wintry weather. Tibullus was dead, and so was Virgil, dearest +and whitest-souled of men (Sat. I, v, 41); Maecenas was in failing +health and out of favour. Old age had come to himself before its time; +love, and wine, and festal crown of flowers had lost their zest: + + Soon palls the taste for noise and fray, + When hair is white and leaves are sere. + + +But he rallies his life-long philosophy to meet the change; patience +lightens the inevitable; while each single day is his he will spend and +enjoy it in such fashion that he may say at its conclusion, "I have +lived" (Od. III, xxix, 41). His health had never been good, undermined, +he believed, by the hardships of his campaign with Brutus; all the +care of Augustus' skilful physician, Antonius Musa, failed to prolong +his days. He passed away on the 17th of November, B.C. 8, in his +fifty-seventh year; was buried on the Esquiline Hill, in a grave near +to the sepulchre of Maecenas, who had died only a few days before; +fulfilling the promise of an early ode, shaped almost in the words of +Moabitish Ruth, that he would not survive his friend. + + The self-same day + Shall crush us twain; no idle oath + Has Horace sworn; where'er you go, + We both will travel, travel both + The last dark journey down below. + + Od. II, xvii. + + + + +THE SATIRES AND EPISTLES + + +Horace's poems are of two kinds; of one kind the Satires and Epistles, +of another the Odes and Epodes. Their order and dates of publication are +shown in the following table: + + B.C. + 35. First Book of Satires. + 30. Second Book of Satires, and Epodes. + 23. First three Books of Odes. + 20. First Book of Epistles. + 19. Epistle to Florus. + 17. The Century Hymn. + about 13. Fourth Book of the Odes. + 13. Epistle to Augustus. + (?) 10. The Art of Poetry. + + +Let us examine first the Satires and Epistles. The word "Satire" meant +originally a _farrago_, a medley of various topics in various styles and +metres. But all early writings of this kind have perished; and the first +extant Latin satirist, Lucilius, who lived in the second century B.C., +devoted his pen to castigating the vices of contemporary society +and of living individuals. This style of writing, together with his +six-foot measure, called hexameter, was adopted by the ethical writers +who followed him, Horace, Persius, Juvenal; and so gave to the word +satire a meaning which it retains to-day. In more than one passage +Horace recognizes Lucilius as his master, and imitates him in what is +probably the earliest, certainly the coarsest and least artistic of his +poems; but maturer judgement, revolting later against the censorious +spirit and bad taste of the older writer, led him to abandon his model. +For good taste is the characteristic of these poems; they form a comedy +of manners, shooting as it flies the folly rather than the wickedness of +vice: not wounding with a red-hot iron, but "just flicking with uplifted +lash," Horace stands to Juvenal as Chaucer stands to Langland, as Dante +to Boccaccio. His theme is life and conduct, the true path to happiness +and goodness. I write sermons in sport, he says; but sermons by a +fellow-sinner, not by a dogmatic pulpiteer, not by a censor or a cynic. +"Conversations" we may rather call them; the polished talk of a +well-bred, cultured, practised worldling, lightening while they point +the moral which he ever keeps in view, by transitions, personalities, +ironies, anecdotes; by perfect literary grace, by the underlying +sympathy whereby wit is sublimed and softened into humour. + +So he tells stories; often trivial, but redeemed by the lightness of +his touch, the avoidance of redundancy, the inevitable epithets, the +culminating point and finish. He illustrates the extravagance of the day +by the spendthrift Clodius, who dissolved in vinegar a pearl taken from +the ear of beautiful Metella (Sat. II, iii, 239), that he might enjoy +drinking at one draught a million sesterces, near a thousand pounds. +More than once he returns to castigation of the gluttony, which, though +not yet risen to the monstrosity described by Juvenal, was invading the +houses of the wealthy. He tells of two brothers--"a precious pair"--who +used to breakfast daily upon nightingales: of one Maenius, who ruined +himself in fieldfares (Ep. I, xv, 41). In a paper on the "Art of Dining" +he accumulates ironical gastronomic maxims (Sat. II, iv): as that oblong +eggs are to be preferred to round; that cabbages should be reared in dry +soil; that the forelegs of a doe-hare are choice titbits; that to make a +fowl tender you must plunge it alive into boiling wine and water; that +oysters are best at the new moon; that prawns and snails give zest to +wine; that olive oil should be mixed with pickled tunny roe, chopped +herbs, and saffron. If these prescriptions are observed, he says, +travestying a fine Lucretian line, the diner-out may draw near to and +drink deep from the well-spring of a happy life. By contrast he paints +the character of Ofellus, a farmer, whom he had known when a boy on the +Apulian hills, and had visited in his old age (Sat. II, ii). Deprived of +his estate after Philippi, Ofellus had rented it from its new master, +working on as tenant where he had formerly been lord. "How are we worse +off now?" says the gallant old fellow to his sons. "When I was rich, we +lived on smoked bacon and cabbages, with perhaps a pullet or a kid if +a friend dropped in; our dessert of split figs and raisins grown upon +the farm. Well, we have just the same to-day. What matter that they +called me 'owner' then, that a stranger is called owner now? There is no +such thing as 'owner.' This man turned us out, someone else may turn him +out to-morrow; his heir will do so at any rate when he dies. The farm +was called mine once, it is called his to-day; it can never 'belong' to +anyone except the man who works and uses it. So, my boys, keep stout +hearts, and be ready to meet adversity bravely when it comes." + +He lashes the legacy-hunters, who, in a time when disinclination to +marriage had multiplied the number of childless old men, were becoming a +curse to society; gives rules with affected seriousness for angling in a +senior's hoards (Sat. II, v). Be sure you send him game, tell him often +how you love him, address him by his first, what we should call his +Christian, name--that tickles sensitive ears. If he offers you his will, +refuse to read it, but glance sidelong at the line where the names of +legatees are written. Praise his bad verses, shoulder a way for him in +the streets, entreat him to cover up from cold his dear old head, make +up to his housekeeper, flatter him till he bids you stop. Then when he +is dead and you find yourself his heir, shed tears, spend money on his +funeral, bear your honours meekly--and go on to practise upon someone +else. And he throws in a sly story of a testatrix who bequeathed her +money on condition that the heir should carry to the grave upon his +naked shoulders her body oiled all over; he had stuck to her all her +life, and she hoped to shake him off for a moment after death. He +enforces the virtue of moderation and contentment from Aesop's fables, +of the frog, of the daw with borrowed plumage, of the lean weasel who +squeezed himself into a granary through a tiny hole, and grew so fat +that he could not return; from the story of Philippus, who amused +himself by enriching a poor man to the ruin of his victim's peace and +happiness (Ep. I, vii, 46); and from the delightful apologue of the +City and the Country Mouse (Sat. II, vi). He denounces the folly of +miserliness from the example of the ant, provident in amassing store, +but restful in fruition of it when amassed; reproves ill-natured +judgement of one's neighbours almost in the words of Prior, bidding +us be to their faults a little blind and to their virtues very kind, +softening their moral blemishes as lovers and mothers euphemize a dear +one's physical defects. (Sat. I, iii) "You will not listen to me?" he +stops now and then to say; "I shall continue to cry on all the same +until I rouse you, as the audience in the theatre did the other day" +(Sat. II, iii, 60). For it seems that one Fufius, a popular actor, +assumed in a tragedy the part of Trojan Ilione, whose cue was to fall +asleep upon the stage until roused with a whisper of "Mother awake!" +by the ghost of her dead son Deiphilus. Poor Fufius was tipsy, fell +asleep in earnest, and was insensible to the ghost's appeal, until +the audience, entering into the fun, unanimously shouted, "Wake up, +Mother!" Some of you, I know, he goes on, will listen, even as Polemon +did (Sat. II, iii, 254). Returning from a debauch, the young profligate +passed the Academy where Xenocrates was lecturing, and burst riotously +in. Presently, instead of scoffing, he began to hearken; was touched +and moved and saddened, tore off conscience-stricken his effeminate +ornaments, long sleeves, purple leggings, cravat, the garland from his +head, the necklace from his throat; came away an altered and converted +man. One thinks of a poem by Rossetti, and of something further back +than that; for did we not hear the story from sage Mr. Barlow's lips, +in our Sandford and Merton salad days? + +In the earlier Satires his personalities are sometimes gross: +chatterbox Fabius, scattercash Nomentanus, blear-eyed Crispinus, +Hermogenes the fop, Pantolabus the trencherman, Gorgonius the +goat-scented, Rufillus the pastille-perfumed, were derisive sobriquets, +which, while ministering to the censoriousness of readers by names +genuine or well understood, must have bitterly offended the men thus +stigmatized or transparently indicated. This he admits regretfully in +his later Satires, throwing some blame on a practice of his father, who +when cautioning him against vice, always pointed the warning by some +example from among their acquaintance. So, leaving personal satire, he +turns to other topics; relates divertingly the annoyances of a journey; +the mosquitoes, the frogs which croaked all night (Sat. I, v), the bad +water and the ill-baked bread. Or he paints the slummy quarter of the +city in which the witches held their horrible rites, and describes their +cruel orgies as he peeped at them through the trees one night. Or he +girds, facetiously and without the bitterness of Persius or Juvenal, +at the Jews (Sat. I, v, 100), whose stern exclusiveness of faith was +beginning to excite in Rome the horror vigorously expressed by Gallio +in M. Anatole France's recent brilliant work. Or he delineates, on a +full canvas and with the modernity which is amongst his most endearing +characteristics, the "Bore" of the Augustan age. He starts on a summer +morning, light-hearted and thinking of nothing at all, for a pleasant +stroll along the Sacred Way (Sat. I, ix).[1] A man whom he hardly knew +accosts him, ignores a stiff response, clings to him, refuses to be +shaken off, sings his own praises as poet, musician, dancer, presses +impertinent questions as to the household and habits of Maecenas. +Horace's friend Fuscus meets them; the poet nods and winks, imploring +him to interpose a rescue. Cruel Fuscus sees it all, mischievously +apologizes, will not help, and the shy, amiable poet walks on with his +tormentor, "his ears dropped like those of an overladen ass." At last +one of the bore's creditors comes up, collars him with threats, hales +him to the law courts, while the relieved poet quotes in his joy from +the rescue of Hector in the Iliad, "Thus Apollo bore me from the fray." +In this Satire, which was admirably imitated by Swift, it always seems +to me that we get Horace at his very best, his dry quaintness and his +inoffensive fun. The _delicacy_ of Roman satire died with him; to +reappear in our own Augustan age with Addison and Steele, to find faint +echo in the gentle preachments of Cowper, to impress itself in every +page on the lambent humour, the self-accusing tolerance, the penetrative +yet benignant wit of Thackeray. + +[Footnote 1: May the writer ask indulgence while he recalls how, +exactly fifty-eight years ago, as senior boy at Winchester, +he recited this Satire publicly, receiving in recompense at +Warden Barter's hands the Queen's silver medal for elocution.] + + * * * * * + +Between the latest of the Satires and the earliest of the Epistles, we +have to reckon an interval of something like ten years, during which had +been published the Epodes and the majority of the Odes. "Epistles" his +editors have agreed to entitle them; but not all of them are genuine +Letters. Some are rather dedicated than written to the persons whose +names they bear; some are thrown for literary purposes into epistolary +form; some again are definitely and personally addressed to friends. +"Sermons" he calls them himself as he called the Satires, and their +motive is mostly the same; like those, they are Conversations, only with +absent correspondents instead of with present interlocutors, real or +imagined. He follows in them the old theme, the art of living, the +happiness of moderation and contentment; preaching easily as from +Rabelais' easy chair, with all the Frenchman's wit, without his +grossness. And, as we read, we feel how the ten years of experience, of +thought, of study, have matured his views of life, how again the labour +spent during their progress on lyrical composition, with perhaps the +increasing influence over his taste of Virgil's poetry, have trained his +ear, mellowed and refined his style. "The Epistles of Horace," says Dean +Milman, "are, with the Poem of Lucretius, the Georgics of Virgil, and +perhaps the Satires of Juvenal, the most perfect and most original form +of Roman verse." + +Of the three letters to Maecenas, one, like the Ode we have before +quoted on p. 28, is a vigorous assertion of independence. The great +man, sorely sick and longing for his friend, had written peevishly +(Ep. I, vii), "You said you should be absent five days only, and you +stay away the whole of August." "Well--I went away because I was ill, +and I remain away because in this 'undertakers' month,' as you call +it in Rome, I am afraid of being worse if I go back. When cold weather +comes I shall go down to the sea; then, with the first swallow, dear +friend, your poet will revisit you. I love you fondly; am grateful to +you every hour of my life; but if you want to keep me always by your +side, you must restore to me the tender grace of vanished youth; strong +lungs, thick black hair, musical voice and ringing laughter; with our +common love for pretty Cinara now dead and gone." A positive sturdy +refusal, not without hints that if the patron repents his benefactions +or demands sacrifice of freedom in exchange for them, he had better take +them back: yet a remonstrance so disarming, infused with such a blend of +respect and playfulness, such wealth of witty anecdote and classical +allusion, that we imagine the fretfulness of the appeased protector +evaporating in admiration as he reads, the answer of affectionate +apology and acceptance dictated in his pacified response. + +In another inimitable letter (Ep. I, 9), as brief as this is long, he +recommends his friend Septimius to Tiberius Claudius Nero, stepson of +Augustus, a young man of reserved unpleasant manners, and difficult to +approach. The suasive grace with which it disclaims presumption, yet +pleads his own merits as a petitioner and his friend's as a candidate +for favour, with its dignified deference, implied not fulsome, to the +young prince's rank, have caused it to be compared with that masterpiece +of delicate solicitation, St. Paul's Epistle to Philemon. It is cited by +Steele in the "Spectator" as a model of epistolary tact ("Spectator," +No. 493); we cannot improve upon his translation: + + "Septimius, who waits on you with this, is clearly well acquainted + with the place you are pleased to allow me in your friendship. + For when he beseeches me to recommend him to your notice in such + a manner as to be received by you, who are delicate in the choice + of your friends and domestics, he knows our intimacy and understands + my ability to serve him better than I do myself. I have defended + myself against his ambition to be yours as long as I possibly + could; but fearing the imputation of hiding my influence with you + out of mean and selfish considerations, I am at last prevailed + upon to give you this trouble. Thus, to avoid the appearance + of a greater fault, I have put on this confidence. If you can + forgive such transgression of modesty in behalf of a friend, + receive this gentleman into your interests and friendship, and + take it from me that he is a brave and honest man." + + +An epistle written and sent about the same time, possibly by the same +bearer, shows Horace in an amiable light as kindly Mentor to the young +Telemachi of rank who were serving on Tiberius' staff (Ep. I, iii). +"Tell me, Florus, whereabouts you are just now, in snowy Thrace or +genial Asia? which of you poets is writing the exploits of Augustus? how +does Titius get on with his Latin rendering of Pindar? my dear friend +Celsus, what is he at work upon? his own ideas, I hope, not cribs from +library books. And you? are you abandoning all other allurements for +the charms of divine philosophy? Tell me, too, if you have made up your +quarrel with Munatius. To break the tie of brotherhood is a crime: +please, please be friends with him again, and bring him with you when +next you come to see me. I am fattening a calf to feast you both." Here +is a dinner invitation (Ep. I, v.): "If you can put up with deal tables +and a mess of greens served in a common dish, with wine five years old +and not at all bad, come and sup with me, Torquatus, at sunset. We have +swept up the hearth and cleaned the furniture; you may see your face +reflected in cup and platter. We will have a long summer evening of +talk, and you can sleep afterwards as late as you like, for to morrow is +Augustus' birthday, and there will be no business in the courts. I told +you the wine is good, and there is nothing like good drink. It unlocks +reticence, unloads hearts, encourages the shy, makes the tongue-tied +eloquent and the poor opulent. I have chosen my company well: there will +be no blab to repeat our conversation out of doors. Butra and Septimius +are coming, and I hope Sabinus. Just send a line to say whom you would +like to have besides. Bring friends if you choose, but the weather is +hot, and we must not overcrowd the rooms." It all sounds delightful, +except perhaps the mess of greens; but a good Italian cook can make +vegetables tempting down to the present day. I think we should all have +loved to be there, as at the neat repast of Attic taste with wine, which +tempted virtuous Laurence to sup with Milton. So should we like to know +what called forth this pretty piece of moralizing, addressed to the +poet Tibullus (Ep. I, iv). He was handsome, prosperous, popular, yet +melancholy. Horace affectionately reproves him. "Dear Albius," he says, +using the intimate fore-name, "Dear Albius, tell me what you are about +in your pretty villa: writing delicate verses, strolling in your forest +glades, with thoughts and fancies I am sure all that a good man's should +be? What can you want besides the beauty, wealth, full purse, and seemly +household which the gods have given you? Dear friend, I tell you what +you want, contentment with the present hour. Try and imagine that each +day which dawns upon you is your last; then each succeeding day will +come unexpected and delightful. I practise what I preach: come and take +a look at me; you will find me contented, sleek, and plump, 'the fattest +little pig in Epicurus' sty.'" And he impresses the same lesson on +another friend, Bullatius, who was for some reason restless at home and +sought relief in travel. "What ails you to scamper over Asia or voyage +among the Isles of Greece? Sick men travel for health, but you are well. +Sad men travel for change, but change diverts not sadness, yachts and +chaises bring no happiness; their skies they change, but not their souls +who cross the sea. Enjoy the to-day, dear friend, which God has given +you, the place where God has placed you: a Little Pedlington is cheerful +if the mind be free from care" (Ep. I, xi). + +His great friend Fuscus twits him, as Will Honeycomb twitted Mr. +Spectator, with his passion for a country life (Ep. I, x). "You are a +Stoic," Horace says, "your creed is to live according to Nature. Do you +expect to find her in the town or in the country? whether of the two +yields more peaceful nights and sweeter sleep? is a marble floor more +refreshing to the eyes than a green meadow? water poured through leaden +pipes purer than the crystal spring? Even amid your Corinthian columns +you plant trees and shrubs; though you drive out Nature she will silently +return and supplant your fond caprices. Do interpose a little ease and +recreation amid the money-grubbing which confines you to the town. Money +should be the servant, not the queen, the captive, not the conqueror. +If you want to see a happy man, come to me in the country. I have only +one thing wanting to perfect happiness, my desire for your society." +Two longer letters are written to his young friend Lollius (Ep. I, ii, +xviii). The first is a study of Homer, which he has been reading in the +country. In the "Iliad" he is disgusted by the reckless selfishness of +the leaders; in the hero of the "Odyssey" he sees a model of patient, +wise endurance, and impresses the example on his friend. It is curious +that the great poet of one age, reading the greater poet of another, +should fasten his attention, not on the poetry, but on the ethics of his +predecessor. The remaining letter is called out by Lollius' appointment +as confidential secretary to some man of great consequence; an office +such as Horace himself declined when offered by Augustus. The post, +he says, is full of difficulty, and endangering to self-respect: the +servility it exacts will be intolerable to a man so truthful, frank, and +independent as his friend. Let him decline it; or, if committed, get out +of it as soon as possible. + +Epistles there are without a moral purpose, called forth by some +special occasion. He sends his "Odes" by one Asella for presentation +to Augustus, punning on the name, as representing an Ass laden with +manuscripts (Ep. I, xiii). The fancy was carried out by Pope in his +frontispiece to the "Dunciad." Then his doctor tells him to forsake +Baiae as a winter health resort, and he writes to one Vala, who lives in +southern Italy, inquiring as to the watering places lower down the coast +(Ep. I, xv). He must have a place where the bread is good and the water +pure; the wine generous and mellow; in the market wild boars and hares, +sea-urchins and fine fish. He can live simply at home, but is sick +now and wants cherishing, that he may come back fat as one of the +Phaeacians--luxurious subjects, we remember, of King Alcinous in the +"Odyssey," + + Good food we love, and music, and the dance, + Garments oft changed, warm baths, and restful beds. + + Odyssey, viii, 248. + + +Julius Florus, poet and orator, presses him to write more lyrics +(Ep. II, ii). For many reasons, no, he answers. I no longer want money. +I am getting old. Lyrics are out of fashion. No one can write in Rome. +I have become fastidious. His sketch of the ideal poet is believed to +portray the writings of his friend Virgil. It is nobly paraphrased +by Pope: + + But how severely with themselves proceed + The men, who write such verse as we can read! + Their own strict judges, not a word they spare, + That wants or force, or light, or weight, or care; + Pour the full tide of eloquence along, + Serenely pure, and yet divinely strong; + Prune the luxuriant, the uncouth refine, + But show no mercy to an empty line; + Then polish all with so much life and ease, + You think 'tis nature, and a knack to please; + But ease in writing flows from art, not chance, + As those move easiest who have learned to dance. + + +The "Epistle to Augustus" (Ep. II, i) was written (page 28) at the +Emperor's request. After some conventional compliments it passes to a +criticism of Latin poetry past and present; comparing, like Swift's +"Battle of the Books," the merits of the contemporary and of the older +masters. There is a foolish mania just now, he says, for admiring our +older poets, not because they are good, but because they are old. The +origin and development of Roman poetry made it certain that perfection +must come late. He assumes that Augustus champions the moderns, and +compliments him on the discernment which preferred a Virgil and a Varius +(and so, by implication, a Horace) to the Plautuses and Terences of the +past. + +The "Art of Poetry" is thought to be an unfinished work. Unmethodical +and without proportion, it may have been either compiled clumsily +after the poet's death, or put together carelessly by himself amid +the indolence which grows sometimes upon old age. It declares the +essentials of poetry to be unity of conception and ingenuity of diction, +urges that mechanical correctness must be inspired by depth of feeling, +gives technical rules of dramatic action, of the chorus, of metre. +For matter such as this a Horace was not needed, but the felicity of +its handling has made it to many Horatian students the most popular of +his conversational works. It abounds in passages of finished beauty; such +as his comparison of verbal novelties imported into a literature with +the changing forest leaves; his four ages of humanity--the childish, +the adolescent, the manly, the senile--borrowed from Aristotle, expanded +by Shakespeare, and taken up by Keats; his comparison of Poetry to +Painting; his delineation of an honest critic. Brief phrases which +have become classical abound. The "purple patch" sewn on to a sober +narrative; the wine jar turning to a pitcher as the potter's wheel +revolves; the injunction to keep a book ten years before you publish +it; the near kinship of terseness to obscurity; the laughable outcome +of a mountain's labour; the warning to be chary of bringing gods upon +the stage; the occasional nod of Homer;--are commonplace citations so +crisp and so exhaustive in their Latin garb, that even the unlettered +scientist imports them into his treatises, sometimes with curious +effect. + +[Illustration: _Alinari photo._] [_Uffizi Gallery, Florence._ + +AUGUSTUS.] + +If for a full appreciation of these minor beauties a knowledge of the +Latin text is necessary, the more abounding charm of both Satires and +Epistles is accessible to the Latinless reader. For the bursts of poetry +are brief and rare, issuing from amid what Horace often reminds us are +essentially plain prose essays in conversational form, their hexametral +garb an unpoetical accident. Two versions present themselves to the +unclassical student. The first is Conington's scholarly rendering, +hampered sometimes rather than adorned by its metrical shape; the other +is the more recent construe of Dean Wickham, clear, flowing, readable, +stamping with the translator's high authority many a disputed passage. +Both set temptingly before English readers the Rome of Horace's day, +and promote them to an intimacy with his own mind, character, history. +Preferable to both, no doubt, are the "Imitations" of Pope, which do +not aim at literal transference, but work, as does his yet more famous +Homer, by melting down the original, and pouring the fused mass into +an English mould. Their background is Twit'nam and the Mall instead of +Tibur and the Forum; their Maecenas St. John, their Trebatius Fortescue, +their Numicius Murray. Where Horace appeals to Ennius and Attius, +they cite Shakespeare and Cowley; while the forgotten wits, worthies, +courtiers, spendthrifts of Horatian Rome reappear as Lord Hervey or Lady +Mary, as Shippen, Chartres, Oldfield, Darteneuf; and Horace's delicate +flattery of a Roman Emperor is travestied with diabolical cleverness +into bitter mockery of an English king. In these easy and polished +metamorphoses we have Pope at his very best; like Horace, an epitome +of his time, bearing the same relation, as patriot, scholar, worldling, +epicurean, poet, satirist, to the London of Queen Anne, which Horace +bore to the Augustan capital; and so reproducing in an English garb +something at any rate of the exotic flavour of his original. In an +age when Pope is undeservedly and disastrously neglected, I shall do +well to present some few Horatian samples from the king-poet of his +century; by whose wit and finish, unsurpassed if not unequalled in our +literature, the taste of my own contemporaries was formed; and to whom +a public which decries or ignores him pays homage every day, by quoting +from him unconsciously oftener than from anyone except Shakespeare. + +Here is a specimen from the Satires, heightening our interest in +Horace's picture by its adaptation to familiar English characters. Great +Scipio and Laelius, says Horace (Sat. II, i, 72), could unbend their +dignity to trifle and even to romp with Lucilius. Says Pope of his own +Twickenham home: + + Know, all the distant din that world can keep + Rolls o'er my Grotto, and but sooths my sleep. + There my retreat the best Companions grace, + Chiefs out of war, and Statesmen out of place. + There St. John mingles with my friendly bowl + The feast of reason and the flow of soul: + And he, whose lightning pierced the Iberian lines, + Now forms my Quincunx and now ranks my vines, + Or tames the genius of the stubborn plain, + Almost as quickly as he conquered Spain. + + +That Naevius is no longer read (Ep. II, i, 53) affects us slightly, for +of Naevius we know nothing; Pope substitutes a writer known and admired +still: + + Who now reads Cowley? if he pleases yet, + His moral pleases, not his pointed wit; + Forget his Epic, nay, Pindaric art, + But still I love the language of his heart. + + +Horace tells how the old rough Saturnian measure gave way to later +elegance (Ep. II, i, 157). Pope aptly introduces these fine resonant +lines: + + Waller's was smooth; but Dryden taught to join + The varying verse, the full resounding line, + The long majestic march, and energy divine. + + +Horace claims for poetry that it lifts the mind from the coarse and +sensual to the imaginative and pure (Ep. II, i, 128). Pope illustrates +by a delightful compliment to moral Addison, with just one little flick +of the lash to show that he remembered their old quarrel: + + In our own day (excuse some courtly stains), + No whiter page than Addison's remains. + He from the taste obscene reclaims our youth, + And sets the passions on the side of Truth; + Forms the soft bosom with the gentlest art, + And pours each human virtue in the heart. + + +Horace, speaking of an old comic poet, Livius (Ep. II, i, 69), whom he +had been compelled to read at school, is indignant that a single neat +line or happy phrase should preserve an otherwise contemptible +composition. This is Pope's expansion: + + But, for the wits of either Charles' days, + The mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease, + Sprat, Carew, Sedley, and a hundred more, + Like twinkling stars the Miscellanies o'er, + One simile, that solitary shines + In the dry desert of a thousand lines, + Or lengthened thought that gleams through many a page, + Has sanctified whole poems for an age. + + +Horace paints the University don as he had seen him emerging from his +studious seclusion to walk the streets of Athens, absent, meditative, +moving the passers-by to laughter (Ep. II, ii, 81). Pope carries him +to Oxford: + + The man, who, stretched in Isis' calm retreat, + To books and study gives seven years complete; + See, strowed with learned dust, his nightcap on, + He walks, an object new beneath the sun. + The boys flock round him, and the people stare; + So stiff, so mute! some statue you would swear, + Stept from its pedestal to take the air. + + +Finally, Horace extols the poet as distinct from the mere versifier +(Ep. II, i, 210). Pope's rendering ought to dispel the plea of an +unfeelingness sometimes lightly urged against him: + + Let me for once presume to instruct the times + To know the Poet from the Man of Rhymes: + 'Tis he, who gives my breast a thousand pains, + Can make me feel each passion that he feigns, + Enrage, compose, with more than magic art, + With pity and with terror tear my heart; + And snatch me o'er the earth or through the air, + To Thebes, to Athens, when he will, and where. + + +If only he had handled more! but of the forty-one Conversations Pope +imitated only seven. And so to assimilate those remaining we must +descend from the heights of poetry to the cool sequestered vale of +literal masquerade. To a lady wintering in Rome who consulted me lately +as to guide-books, I ventured to recommend Hawthorne's "Transformation," +Marion Crawford's "Ave Roma," and Dean Wickham's translation of the +Satires and Epistles. + + + + +ODES AND EPODES + + +I have tried to interpret in some degree the teaching of the Satires +and Epistles. Yet had the author's genius found expression in these +Conversations only, he would not have become through nineteen centuries +the best beloved of Latin poets: beloved in his own time alike by the +weary Atlas Augustus and the refined sensualist Maecenas; "playing round +the heartstrings" of the stern censor Persius; endowed by Petronius and +Quintilian with the prize of incommunicable felicity; the darling of +Dante, Montaigne, Voltaire, Chesterfield; the "old popular Horace" of +Tennyson; the Horace whose "sad earnestness and vivid exactness" pierced +the soul and brain of aged John Henry Newman. "His poems," says a great +French critic (St. Beuve, "Horace"), "form a manual of good taste, of +poetic feeling, of practical and worldly wisdom. The Christian has his +Bible; the scholar his Homer; Port Royal lived on St. Augustine; an +earlier philosophy on Montaigne; Horace comes within the range of all: +in reading him we break not in any way with modernity, yet retain our +hold upon antiquity. I know nothing more delightful as one grows in +years, when the mind retains its subtlety, but is conscious of increasing +languor, than to test the one and brace the other by companionship +with a book familiar and frequently re-read: we walk thereby with a +supporting staff, stroll leaning upon a friendly arm. This is what +Horace does for us: coming back to him in our old age, we recover our +youthful selves, and are relieved to learn while we appreciate afresh +his well-remembered lines, that if our minds have become more inert, +they are also more feeling, than of yore." + +For full justification of these graceful amenities we must turn to the +lyrical poems. The Satires and Epistles, as their author frequently +reminds us, were in prose: the revealed Horatian secret, the condensed +expression of the Horatian charm, demanded musical verse; and this we +have in the Odes and Epodes. The word Ode is Greek for a Song; Epode was +merely a metrical term to express an ode which alternated in longer and +shorter lines, and we may treat them all alike as Odes. The Epodes are +amongst his earliest publications, and bear signs of a 'prentice hand. +"Iambi," he calls them, a Greek word meaning "lampoons"; and six of them +are bitter personal attacks on individuals, foreign to the good breeding +and urbanity which distinguish his later writings. More of the same +class he is believed to have suppressed, retaining these as specimens +of that earlier style, and because, though inchoate, they won the +admiration of Virgil, and preferred their author to the patronage of +Maecenas. One of the finer Epodes (Epod. ix) has peculiar interest, as +written probably on the deck of Maecenas' galley during or immediately +after the battle of Actium; and is in that case the sole extant +contemporary record of the engagement. It reflects the loathing kindled +in Roman breasts by Antony's emasculate subjugation to his paramour; +imagines with horror a dissolute Egyptian harlot triumphant and supreme +in Rome, with her mosquito-curtained beds and litters, and her train of +wrinkled eunuchs. It describes with a spectator's accuracy the desertion +of the Gallic contingent during the battle, the leftward flight of +Antony's fleet: then, with his favourite device of lapsing from +high-wrought passion into comedy, Horace bewails his own sea-sickness +when the excitement of the fight is over, and calls for cups of wine to +quell it. In another Epode (Epod. ii) he recalls his boyish memories in +praise of country life: the vines wedded to poplars in the early spring, +after that the sheepshearing, later still the grape-gathering and honey +harvest; when winter comes, the hunting of the boar by day, at night the +cheery meal with wife and children upon olives, sorrel, mallows, beside +the crackling log-piled hearth. Even here he is not weaned from the +tricks of mocking irony manifest in his early writings and born perhaps +of his early struggles; for he puts this delicious pastoral, which +tinkles through the page like Milton's "L'Allegro," into the mouth of a +Roman capitalist, who, bitten by transient passion for a country life, +calls in all his money that he may buy a farm, pines in country +retirement for the Stock Exchange, sells his estate in quick disgust, +and returns to city life: + + So said old Ten-per-cent, when he + A jolly farmer fain would be. + His moneys he called in amain-- + Next week he put them out again. + + +is the spirited rendering of Mr. Goldwin Smith. + +In his remaining Epodes we may trace the germ of his later written +Odes. We have the affectionate addresses to Maecenas, the disgust at +civil discords, the cheery invitations to the wine cup, the wooing +of some coy damsel. By and by Maecenas presses him to bring them out +completed in a volume, and he pleads a fugitive amour in excuse for his +delay. Published, however, they were, notwithstanding the distractions +of Neaera; went, neatly written out in red-lined columns, to the +brothers Sosii in the street called Argiletum, to be multiplied by the +librarian's scribes on well-bleached Egyptian papyrus, bound in pumiced +parchment, stored in metal boxes on the bookseller's shelves within, +while the names of the author and his work were inscribed upon a pillar +outside the shop, as a guide to intending purchasers. Copies were sold, +probably, for a few denarii each; what would we not give for one of them +to-day? Let us hope that their author was well paid. + +Horace was now thirty-five years old: the Epodes had taught him his +power over lyric verse. He had imitated at first the older Roman +satirists; here by Maecenas' advice he copied from Greek models, from +Alcaeus and Sappho, claiming ever afterwards with pride that he was +the first amongst Roman poets to wed Aeolian lays to notes of Italy +(Od. III, xxx, 13). He spent seven years in composing the first three +Books of the Odes, which appeared in a single volume about B.C. 23. +More than any of his poems they contain the essence of his indefinable +magic art. They deal apparently with dull truisms and stale moralities, +avowals of simple joys and simple sorrows. They tell us that life is +brief and death is sure, that light loves and ancient wines are good, +that riches are burdensome, and enough is better than a feast, that +country life is delightful, that old age comes on us apace, that our +friends leave us sorrowing and our sorrow does not bring them back. +Trite sayings no doubt; but embellished one and all with an adorable +force and novelty at once sadly earnest and vividly exact; not too +simple for the profound and not too artful for the shallow; consecrated +by the verbal felicity which belongs only to an age of peculiar +intellectual refinement, and which flashed diamond-like from the facets +of his own highly polished mind. "He is the Breviary of the natural man, +his poetry is the Imitation not of Christ but of Epicurus." + +His Odes may be roughly classified as Religious, Moral, Philosophical, +Personal, Amatory. + +1. RELIGIOUS. Between the classic and the Christian hymn, as Matthew +Arnold has reminded us, there is a great gulf fixed. The Latin +conception of the gods was civic; they were superior heads of the +Republic; the Roman church was the invisible Roman state; religion was +merely exalted patriotism. So Horace's addresses to the deities for +the most part remind them of their coronation oaths, of the terms on +which they were worshipped, their share in the bargain with humanity, +a bargain to be kept on their side if they expected tribute of lambs and +piglings, of hallowed cakes and vervain wreaths. Very little of what we +call devotion seasons them. In two Odes (I, ii, xii), from a mere litany +of Olympian names he passes to a much more earnest deification of +Augustus. Another (III, xix) is a grace to Bacchus after a wine-bout. +Or Faunus is bidden to leave pursuing the nymphs (we think of Elijah's +sneer at Baal) and to attend to his duties on the Sabine farm, of +blessing the soil and protecting the lambs (III, xviii). The hymn to +Mercury recounts mythical exploits of the winged god, his infantile +thefts from Apollo, his guiding Priam through the Grecian camp, his +gift of speech to men, his shepherding souls to Hades (I, x). Venus is +invoked in a dainty prayer to visit the chapel which Glycera is building +for her (I, xxx): + + O come, and with thee bring thy glowing boy, + The Graces all, with kirtles flowing free, + Youth, that without thee knows but little joy, + The jocund nymphs and blithesome Mercury. + + +The doctrine of an overruling Providence Horace had expressly rejected +in the Satires (Sat. iv, 101), holding that the gods are too happy and +too careless in their superior aloof security to plague themselves with +the affairs of mortals. But he felt sometimes, as all men feel, the need +of a supreme celestial Guide: in the noble Ode which Ruskin loved he +seems to find it in Necessity or Fortune (Od. I, xxxv); and once, when +scared by thunder resounding in a cloudless sky, recants what he calls +his "irrational rationalism," and admits that God may, if He will, put +down the mighty and exalt the low (I, xxxiv). So again in his hymn for +the dedication of Apollo's Temple on the Palatine (I, xxxi) a serious +note is struck. He will not ask the God for rich cornfields and fat +meadow land, for wines of Cales proffered in a golden cup. A higher boon +than these his prayer demands: + + O grant me, Phoebus, calm content, + Strength unimpaired, a mind entire, + Old age without dishonour spent, + Nor unbefriended of the lyre. + + +On the other hand, his Ode to Melpomene (IV, iii), written in the +consciousness of accepted eminence as the national poet, "harpist of the +Roman lyre," breathes a sentiment of gratitude to Divinity far above the +typical poetic cant of homage to the Muse. And his fine Secular Hymn, +composed by Augustus's request for the great Century Games, strikes a +note of patriotic aspiration and of moral earnestness, not unworthy to +compare with King Solomon's Dedication Prayer; and is such as, with some +modernization of the Deities invoked, would hardly misbecome a national +religious festival to-day. It was sung by twenty-seven noble boys and as +many high-born maidens, now in antiphon, now in chorus, to Apollo and +Diana, as representing all the gods. Apollo, bless our city! say the +boys. Dian, bless our women and our children, say the girls, and guard +the sanctity of our marriage laws. Bring forth Earth's genial fruits, +say both; give purity to youth and peace to age. Bring back the lapsed +virtues of the Golden Age; Faith, Honour, antique Shame-fastness and +Worth, and Plenty with her teeming horn. Hear, God! hear, Goddess! Yes, +we feel our prayers are heard-- + + Now homeward we repair, + Full of the blessed hope which will not fail, + That Jove and all the gods have heard our prayer, + And with approving smiles our homage hail: + We, skilled in choral harmonies to raise + The hymn to Phoebus and Diana's praise. + + +Of course in all this there is no touch of ecstasy; no spark of the +inspiration which in a St. Francis, a St. Teresa, or a Charles Wesley, +scales the heights of hymnody. And, as the unimaginative Roman +temperament lacked the instinct of adoration, so was it deficient in +that other constituent of supernatural faith, the belief in immortality. +There might be a shadowy world--the poets said so--Odysseus visited its +depths and brought back its report--but it was a gloomy place at best. +Horace alludes to it always in the tone of the Hebrew Psalmists, or of +Hezekiah sick to death, utilizing Minos and Cerberus and Tantalus and +Sisyphus for poetic effect, yet ever with an undertone of sadness and +alarm. Not Orpheus' self, he says (I, xxiv, 13), in his exquisite lament +for dead Quinctilius, can bring back life-blood to the phantom pale +who has joined the spectral band that voyage to Styx: the gods are +pitiless--we can only bear bereavements patiently (II, iii). You must +leave, my Dellius, your pleasant groves and your cottage upon Tiber's +banks, since Orcus, ruthless king, swoops equally on all: + + Land, home, and winsome wife must all be left; + And cypresses abhorred, + Alone of all the trees + That now your fancy please, + Shall shade his dust who was awhile their lord. + + (II, xiv, 21.) + + +2. MORAL. But if the gods are beyond our ken, and if the world to come +is misty, we still have this world with us; a world not always to be +daffed aside with love and wine and comradeship, since behind its frolic +wantonness lie the ennobling claims of duty and of conscience. As with +Fielding, as with Thackeray, the light current tone of sportiveness or +irony heightens the rare solemnity of didactic moral earnestness. Of all +the Latin poets, says Sir Richard Fanshaw, Horace is the fullest fraught +with excellent morality. In the six stately Odes which open the third +book, together with a later Ode (xxiv) which closes the series and ought +never to have been severed from it, Horatian poetry rises to its +greatest height of ethical impressiveness. Ushered in with the solemn +words of a hierophant bidding the uninitiated avaunt at the commencement +of a religious ceremony (III, i, 1-2), delivered with official +assumption in the fine frenzy of a muse-inspired priest, their unity +of purpose and of style makes them virtually a continuous poem. It +lashes the vices and the short-sighted folly of society; with the Sword +of Damocles above his head the rich man sits at a luxurious board +(III, i, 17); sails in his bronzed galley, lolls in his lordly chariot, +with black Care ever at the helm or on the box (III, i, 40). By +hardihood in the field and cheerful poverty at home Rome became great +of yore; such should be the virtues of to-day. Let men be _moral_; it +was immorality that ruined Troy; _heroic_--read the tale of Regulus; +_courageous_, but with courage ordered, disciplined, controlled (III, +iii; v; iv, 65). Brute force without mind, he says almost in Milton's +words, falls by its own strength, as the giants fell encountering the +gods: + + For what is strength without a double share + Of wisdom? vast, unwieldy, burdensome; + Proudly secure, yet liable to fall + By weakest subtleties, not made to rule, + But to subserve where wisdom bears command. + + ("Samson Ag.," 53.) + + +Self-discipline, he reminds his audience, need not be sullen and +austere; in regenerated Rome the Muses still may rule. Mild thoughts +they plant, and they joy to see mild thoughts take root; refinement +of manners and of mind, and the gladsomeness of literary culture +(III, iv, 41). + +He turns to reprove the ostentation of the rich; their adding field to +field, poor families evicted from farmstead and cottage to make way for +spreading parks and ponds and gardens; + + driven from home + Both wife and husband forth must roam, + Bearing their household gods close pressed, + With squalid babes, upon their breast. + + (II, xviii, 23.) + + +Not thus was it in the good old times. Then rich men lavished marble on +the temples of the gods, roofed their own cottages with chance-cut turf +(II, xv, 13). And to what end all this splendour? Behind your palace +walls lurks the grim architect of a narrower home; the path of glory +leads but to the grave (II, xviii, 17). And as on the men, so on the +women of Rome his solemn warnings are let fall. Theirs is the task to +maintain the sacred family bond, the purity of marriage life. Let them +emulate the matrons of the past, severe mothers of gallant sons (III, +vi, 37). Let men and women join to stay the degeneracy which has begun +to set in, and which, unchecked, will grow deadlier with each generation +as it succeeds. + + How Time doth in its flight debase + Whate'er it finds? our fathers' race, + More deeply versed in ill + Than were their sires, hath born us yet + More wicked, destined to beget + A race more vicious still. + + (III, vi, 45.) + + +3. PHILOSOPHICAL. "How charming is divine philosophy?" said the meek +younger brother in "Comus" to his instructive senior. Speaking as one +of the profane, I find not less charming the humanist philosophy of +Horace. Be content! be moderate! seize the present! are his maxims. + +_Be content!_ A mind without anxiety is the highest good (II, xvi). +Great desires imply great wants (III, xvi, 42). 'Tis well when prayer +seeks and obtains no more than life requires. + + Happy he, + Self-centred, who each night can say, + "My life is lived": the morn may see + A clouded or a sunny day: + That rests with Jove; but what is gone + He will not, can not, turn to nought, + Nor cancel as a thing undone + What once the flying hour has brought. + + (III, xxix, 41.) + + +_Be moderate!_ He that denies himself shall gain the more (III, xvi, +21). He that ruleth his spirit is better than the lord of Carthage. +Hold fast the golden mean (II, x, 5). The poor man's supper, spare +but neat and free from care, with no state upon the board except his +heirloom silver saltcellar, is better than a stalled ox and care +therewith (II, xvi, 13). And he practised what he preached, refusing +still fresh bounties which Maecenas pressed upon him. What more want +I than I have? he says: + + Truth is mine with genius mixed, + The rich man comes and knocks at my poor gate. + Favoured thus I ne'er repine, + Nor weary Heaven for more, nor to the great + For larger bounty pray, + My Sabine farm my one sufficient boon. + +(II, xviii, 9.) + + +_Seize the Present!_ _Now_ bind the brow with late roses and with myrtle +crowns; now drown your cares in wine, counting as gain each day that +Chance may give (I, vii, 31; I, ix, 14). Pale Death will be here anon; +even while I speak time slips away: seize to-day, trust nothing to the +morrow. + + Ah, my Beloved, fill the cup that clears + _To-day_ of past regrets and future fears: + _To-morrow?_ why to-morrow I may be + Myself with yesterday's seven thousand years. + + +What more commonplace than this saying that we all must die? but he +brings it home to us ever and again with pathetic tearful fascinating +force. Each time we read him, his sweet sad pagan music chants its ashes +to ashes, dust to dust, and we hear the earth fall upon the coffin lid +amongst the flowers. + + Ah, Postumus, they fleet away + Our years, nor piety one hour + Can win from wrinkles, and decay, + And death's indomitable power; + + Not though three hundred steers you heap + Each day, to glut the tearless eyes + Of Him, who guards in moated keep + Tityos, and Geryon's triple size: + + All, all, alas! that watery bound + Who eat the fruits that Nature yields, + Must traverse, be we monarchs crowned, + Or humblest tillers of the fields. + + (II, xiv.) + + +The antipathy is not confined to heathenism; we distrust the Christian +who professes to ignore it; many of us felt drawn by a brotherhood of +humanity to the late scholarly Pope, when we learned that, as death +looked him in the face, he clung to Pagan Horace as a truthful and +sympathetic oracle. "And we all go to-day to this singer of the ancient +world for guidance in the deceptions of life, and for steadfastness in +the face of death." + +[Illustration: _Alinari photo._] + +[_Capitol Museum, Rome._ + +VIRGIL.] + +4. PERSONAL. Something, but not very much, we learn of Horace's intimates +from this class of Odes. Closest to him in affection and oftenest +addressed is Maecenas. The opening Ode pays homage to him in words +closely imitated by Allan Ramsay in addressing the chief of his clan: + + Dalhousie of an auld descent, + My chief, my stoup, my ornament; + + +and at the end of the volume the poet repeats his dedication (III, +xxix). Twice he invites his patron to a feast; to drink wine bottled on +the day some years before when entering the theatre after an illness +he was received with cheers by the assembled multitude (I, xx); again +on March 1st, kept as the festal anniversary of his own escape from a +falling tree (III, viii). To a querulous letter from his friend written +when sick and dreading death, he sends the tender consolation and +remonstrance of which we spoke before (p. 29). In a very different tone +he sings the praises of Licymnia (II, xii), supposed to be Terentia, +Maecenas' newly-wedded wife, sweet voiced, witty, loving, of whom her +husband was at the time passionately enamoured. He recounts finally, with +that delicate respectful gratitude which never lapses into servility, +his lifelong obligation, lauding gratefully the still removed place which +his friend's bounty has bestowed: + + A clear fresh stream, a little field, o'ergrown + With shady trees, a crop that ne'er deceives. + + (III, xvi, 29.) + + +Not less tenderly affectionate is the exquisite Ode to Virgil on the +death of Quinctilius. + + By many a good man wept Quinctilius dies, + By none than you, my Virgil, trulier wept; + + (I, xxiv.) + + +or to his devoted young friend Septimius (p. 39) (II, vi), who would +travel with him to the ends of the world, to Moorish or Cantabrian +wilds. Not so far afield need they go; but when age steals on they will +journey to Tarentum, sweetest spot on earth: + + That spot, those happy heights, desire + Our sojourn; there, when life shall end, + Your tear shall dew my yet warm pyre, + Your bard and friend. + + +To the great general Agrippa (I, vi), rival of Maecenas in the good +graces of Augustus, he sends a tribute complimentary, yet somewhat +stiffly and officially conceived; lines much more cordial to the +high-born Aelius Lamia (III, 17), whose statue stands to-day amid the +pale immortalities of the Capitoline Museum. We have a note of tonic +banter to Tibullus, "jilted by a fickle Glycera," and "droning piteous +elegies" (I, xxxiii); a merry riotous impersonation of an imaginary +symposium in honour of the newly-made augur Murena (III, 19), with +toasts and tipsiness and noisy Bacchanalian songs and rose-wreaths flung +about the board; a delicious mockery of reassurance to one Xanthias (II, +iv), who has married a maidservant and is ashamed of it. He may yet find +out that though fallen into obscurity she is in truth high-born and +noble, and will present him with a patrician mother-in-law. + + For aught that you know now, fair Phyllis may be + The shoot of some highly respectable stem; + Nay, she counts, I'll be sworn, a few 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. + + +Several of his correspondents we can only name; the poet Valgius, +the tragedians Pollio and Fuscus; Sallust, grandson of the historian; +Pompeius, his old comrade in the Brutus wars; Lollius, defeated in +battle and returning home in disgrace. Nor need we labour to identify a +host of others; Iccius, Grosphus, Dellius; who figure as mere dedicatory +names; nor persons mentioned casually, such as Telephus of the rosy neck +and clustering hair (I, xiii; III, xix), whom Bulwer Lytton, with fine +memories of his own ambrosial petted youth, calls a "typical beautyman +and lady-killer." The Horatian personages, remarks Dean Milman, would +contain almost every famous name of the Augustan age. + +5. AMATORY. "Speak'st thou of nothing but ladies?" says Feste the Jester +to poor Malvolio. He might have said the same to Horace; for of the Odes +in the first three Books one third part is addressed to or concerned +with women. How many of the pretty female names which musicalize his +love songs, in syllables that breathe of the sweet south and melt like +kisses in the utterance, are representative of real girls, we cannot +guess; with none of them except perhaps one, who died young, does he +seem to have been really in love. He was forty years old when most +of his amorous Odes were written; an age at which, as George Eliot +has reminded us, the baptism of passion is by aspersion rather than +immersion. Something he must have known of love, or he could not write +as he has done; but it is the superficial gallantry of a flirt rather +than the impassioned self-surrender of a lover; of a gay bachelor, with +roving critical eye, heart whole yet fancy free, too practised a judge +of beauty to become its slave. Without emotion, without reverence, but +with keen relishing appreciation, he versifies Pyrrha's golden curls, +and Lycoris' low forehead--feminine beauties both to a Roman eye--and +Phyllis' tapering arms and shapely ankles, and Chia's dimpled cheek, +and the tangles of Neaera's hair, and the gadabout baggage Lyde, +and Glycera's dazzling complexion that blinds the gazer's eye +(I, v, xix, xxxiii; II, iv, 21; III, xiv, 21). They are all inconstant +good-for-noughts, he knows; but so are men, and so is he; keep up the +pleasant give-and-take, the quarrels and the reconciliations. All the +youths of Rome are in love with a beautiful Ninon D'Enclos named +Barine--Matthew Arnold declared this to be the finest of all the Odes +(II, viii)--she perjures herself with every one in turn. But it seems to +answer; she shines forth lovelier than ever. Venus and the nymphs only +laugh, and her lovers, young and old, continue to hug their chains. + + New captives fill the nets you weave; + New slaves are bred; and those before, + Though oft they threaten, never leave + Your perjured door. + + +Sometimes he plays the monitor. Asterie's husband is laid up in Greece +by contrary winds: he is faithful to his wife, though his hostess tempts +him: let the wife be on her guard against her handsome neighbour Enipeus +(III, vii). His own charmers are sometimes obdurate: Chloe and Lyde run +away from him like fawns (I, xxiii): that is because they are young; he +can wait till they are older; they will come to him then of themselves: +"they always come," says Disraeli in "Henrietta Temple." He has +quarrelled with an old flame (I, xvi), whom he had affronted by some +libellous verses. He entreats her pardon; was young and angry when he +wrote; will burn the offending lines, or fling them into the sea: + + Come, let me change my sour for sweet, + And smile complacent as before; + Hear me my palinode repeat, + And give me back your heart once more. + + +He professes bitter jealousy of a handsome stripling whose beauty Lydia +praises (I, xiii). She is wasting her admiration; she will find him +unfaithful; Horace knows him well: + + Oh, trebly blest, and blest for ever, + Are they, whom true affection binds, + In whom no doubts nor janglings sever + The union of their constant minds; + But life in blended current flows, + Serene and sunny to the close. + + +If anyone now reads "Lalla Rookh," he will recall an exquisite rendering +of these lines from the lips of veiled Nourmahal: + + 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 passion 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! + + +But, perhaps, if a jury of scholars could be polled as to the most +enchanting amongst all Horace's lovesongs, the highest vote would be +cast in favour of the famous "Reconciliation" of the roving poet with +this or with some other Lydia (III, ix). The pair of former lovers, +mutually faithless, exchange defiant experience of their several +infidelities; then, the old affection reviving through the contact of +their altercation, agree to discard their intervening paramours, and +return to their first allegiance. + + _He._ + + Whilst I was dear 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 Chloe might with Lydia vie, + Renowned in ode or madrigal, + Not Roman Ilia famed as I. + + _He._ + + 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. + + _She._ + + I dote on Calais; and I + Am all his passion, all his care, + For whom a double death I'd die, + So fate the darling boy would spare. + + _He._ + + What if our 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 yon star is he, + Thou fickle as an April sky, + More churlish too than Adria's sea, + With thee I'd live, with thee I'd die. + + +The austere Scaliger used to say that he would rather have written this +ode than be King of Spain and the Indies: Milton's Eve expresses her +devotion to Adam in an apostrophe paraphrased from its closing lines. + +Observe, too, how we find in all the Odes as we read them, not only a +gallery of historical pictures, nor only an unconscious revelation of +the poet's self, of, that is, the least subjective among poets, ever, as +says Sir Stephen De Vere, looking outward, never looking in; but they +incidentally paint for us in vivid and familiarizing tints the intimate +daily life of that far-off ancient queen of cities. We walk with them +the streets of Rome. We watch the connoisseurs gazing into the curiosity +shops and fingering the bronzes or the silver statuettes; the naughty +boys jeering the solemn Stoic as he walks along, staid, superior, +absent; the good boys coming home from school with well-thumbed lesson +books; the lovers in the cookshops or restaurants shooting apple pips +from between finger and thumb, rejoicing in the good omen if they strike +the ceiling; the stores of Sulpicius the wine merchant and of Sosius the +bookseller; the great white Latian ox, exactly such as you see to-day, +driven towards the market, with a bunch of hay upon his horns to warn +pedestrians that he is dangerous; the coarse drawings in chalk or +colours on the wall advertising some famous gladiator; at dusk the +whispering lovers in the Campus, or the romping hide-and-seek of lads +and lasses at the corners of the streets or squares, just as you may +watch them to-day on spring or winter evenings amongst the lower arches +of the Colosseum;--it is a microcosm, a cameo, of that old-world life. +Horace knew, and feared not to say, that in his poems, in his Odes +especially, he bequeathed a deathless legacy to mankind, while setting +up a lasting monument to himself. One thing he could not know, that when +near two thousand years had passed, a race of which he had barely heard +by name as dwelling "quite beyond the confines of the world," would +cherish his name and read his writings with a grateful appreciation +even surpassing that of his contemporary Romans. + +A few Odes remain, too casual to be classified; rejoicings over the +vanishing of winter and the return of spring (I, iv); praises of the +Tibur streams, of Tarentum (II, vi) which he loved only less than Tibur, +of the Lucretilis Groves (I, xvii) which overhung his Sabine valley, +of the Bandusian spring beside which he played in boyhood. We have the +Pindaric or historic Odes, with tales of Troy, of the Danaid brides, +of Regulus, of Europa (III, iii, v, xi, xvii); the dramatic address to +Archytas (I, xxviii), which soothed the last moments of Mark Pattison; +the fine epilogue which ends the book, composed in the serenity of +gained renown; + + And now 'tis done: more durable than brass + My monument shall be, and raise its head + O'er royal pyramids: it shall not dread + Corroding rain or angry Boreas, + Nor the long lapse of immemorial time. + I shall not wholly die; large residue + Shall 'scape the Queen of funerals. Ever new + My after fame shall grow, while pontiffs climb + With silent maids the Capitolian height. + "Born," men will say, "where Aufidus is loved, + Where Danaus scant of streams beneath him bowed + The rustic tribes, from dimness he waxed bright, + First of his race to wed the Aeolian lay + To notes of Italy." Put glory on, + My own Melpomene, by genius won, + And crown me of thy grace with Delphic bay. + + + + +SWAN SONG + + +When a well-graced actor has left the stage amid trumpeted farewells +from an admiring but regretful audience, we somewhat resent his +occasional later reappearance. So, when a poet's last word has been +spoken, and spoken emotionally, an Afterword is apt to offend: and we +may wish that the fine poem just quoted had been reserved as finish to +the volume yet to come, which lacks a closing note, or even that the +volume itself had not been published. The fourth Book of the Odes was +written nearly ten years after the other three, and Horace wrote it not +as Poet but as Laureate. His Secular Hymn appeared in B.C. 17, when +he was forty-eight years old; and after it Augustus pressed him to +celebrate the victories of his two stepsons, Drusus and Tiberius, over +the tribes of the Eastern Alps. If he wrote unwillingly, his hand had +not lost its cunning. The sentiment is paler and more artificial, but +the old condensation and felicity remain. He begins with rather sad +reluctance. He is old; the one woman whom he loved is dead; his lyric +raptures and his love campaignings are at an end; he is tired of +flattering hopes, of noisy revels, of flower garlands fresh with dew. +Or are they war songs, not love songs, that are wanted? There he is +more helpless still. It needs a Pindar worthily to extol a Caesar: he is +no Pindar; and so we have an ode in honour of the Theban bard. And yet, +as chosen lyrist of the Roman race, he cannot altogether refuse the +call. Melpomene, who from his cradle marked him for her own, can still +shed on him if she will the power to charm, can inspire in him "music of +the swan." So, slowly, the wasting lyric fire revives; we get the +martial odes to conquering Drusus and to Lollius, the panegyrics on +Augustus and Tiberius, all breathing proud consciousness that "the Muse +opens the good man's grave and lifts him to the gods"; that immortality +can be won only by the poet's pen, and that it is in his own power to +confer it. + +[Illustration: _Becchetti photo._ + +THE FORUM RESTORED AS IN A.D. 80. + +(Reproduced by special permission.)] + +The remaining poems are in the old spirit, but are somewhat mournful +echoes of the past. They remind us of the robin's winter song--"Hark to +him weeping," say the country folk, as they listen to the music which +retains the sweetness but has lost what Wordsworth calls the gushes of +the summer strains. There is still an ode to Venus; its prayer not now +"come to bless thy worshipper"; but "leave an old heart made callous by +fifty years, and seek some younger votary." There is an ode to Spring. +Spring brought down from heaven his earliest Muse; it came to him +charged with youthful ardours, expectations, joys; now its only message +is that change and death attend all human hopes and cares. Like an army +defeated, the snow has retreated; the Graces and the Nymphs can dance +unclad in the soft warm air. But summer will thrust out spring, autumn +summer, then dull winter will come again; will come to the year, will +come to you and me. Not birth nor eloquence nor virtue can save from +Minos' judgement seat; like Aeneas, Tullus, Ancus, like all the great +ones of the earth, we shall soon be nameless shades and a poor pinch of +dust. More of the old buoyant glee comes back in a festal invitation +to one Virgilius, not the poet. There is a ring of Tom Moore in Sir +Theodore Martin's rendering of it. + + * * * * * + + On the young grass reclined, near the murmur of fountains, + The shepherds are piping the song of the plains, + And the god who loves Arcady's purple-hued mountains, + The god of the flocks, is entranced by their strains. + + * * * * * + + To the winds with base lucre and pale melancholy! + In the flames of the pyre these, alas! will be vain; + Mix your sage ruminations with glimpses of folly, + 'Tis delightful at times to be somewhat insane! + + +There follows a savage assault on one Lyce, an ancient beauty who had +lost her youthful charms, but kept up her youthful airs: + + Where now that beauty? where those movements? where + That colour? what of her, of her is left, + Who, breathing Love's own air, + Me of myself bereft! + Poor 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. + + +Poor Lyce indeed! what had she done to be so scourged? One address we +miss: there is no ode in this book to Maecenas, who was out of favour +with Augustus, and had lost all political influence. But the friend is +not sunk in the courtier. The Ides or 13th of April is his old patron's +birthday--a nativity, says Horace, dearer to him almost than his own, +and he keeps it always as a feast. With a somewhat ghostly resurrection +of voluptuousness dead and gone he bids Phyllis come and keep it with +him. All things are ready, a cask of Alban nine years old is broached, +the servants are in a stir, the altar wreathed for sacrifice, the flames +curling up the kitchen chimney, ivy and parsley gathered to make a +wreath for Phyllis' hair. Come then, sweet girl, last of my loves; for +never again shall this heart take fire at a woman's face--come, and +learn of me a tune to sing with that dear voice, and drive away dull +care. I am told that every man in making love assures the charmer that +no woman shall ever succeed her in his regards; but this is probably +a veritable amorous swan-song. He was older than are most men at +fifty-two. Years as they pass, he sadly says, bereave us one by one +of all our precious things; of mirth, of loves, of banquets; at last +the Muse herself spreads wings to follow them. "You have sported long +enough," she says, "with Amaryllis in the shade, you have eaten and +drunk your fill, it is time for you to quit the scene." And so the +curtain falls. + + * * * * * + +To our great loss there is no contemporary portrait of Horace. He +tells us himself (Ep. II, ii, 214; I, xx, 29) that he was short of +stature, his hair black but early tinged with grey; that he loved to +bask in sunshine, that his temper was irascible but easily appeased. +In advanced life he became fat; Augustus jests with him rather coarsely +on his protuberant figure. The portrait prefixed to this volume is +from a Contorniate, or bronze medallion of the time of Constantine, +representing the poet's likeness as traditionally preserved amongst +his countrymen three hundred years after his death. + +The oldest extant manuscript of his works is probably that in the public +library of Berne, and dates from the ninth century. The earliest printed +edition, bearing neither date nor printer's name, is supposed to have +been published at Milan in 1470. Editions were also printed at Florence +and at Venice in 1482, and a third at Venice in 1492. An illustrated +edition on vellum was brought out by Aldus in 1501, and reissued in +1509, 1514, 1519. The Florence Press of the Giunti produced splendid +specimens in 1503, 1514, 1519. Between this date and the end of the +century seven more came forth from famous presses. Of modern editions +we may notice the vellum Bodoni folio of 1791, and the matchless Didot +of 1799 with its exquisite copperplate vignettes. Fortunate is the +collector who possesses the genuine first edition of Pine's "Horace," +1733. It is known by an error in the text, corrected in the subsequent +and less bibliographically valuable impression of the same year. +A beautifully pictorial book is Dean Milman's; the student will prefer +Orelli, Macleane, Yonge, Munro and King, or Dean Wickham's scholarly +volumes. + + * * * * * + +In composing this modest little book I have had in view principally +readers altogether ignorant of Latin, but wishing to know something of +a writer lauded enthusiastically by all classical scholars: they will +observe that I have not introduced into its pages a single Latin word. +I have nourished also the hope that it might be serviceable to those +who have forgotten, but would like to recover, the Horace which they +learned at school; and to them I would venture to recommend the little +copy of the Latin text with Conington's version attached, in "Bell's +Pocket Classics." Latinless readers of course must read him in English +or not at all. No translation can quite convey the cryptic charm of +any original, whether poetry or prose. "Only a bishop," said Lord +Chesterfield, "is improved by translation." But prose is far easier to +render faithfully than verse; and I have said that either Conington's +or Dean Wickham's version of the Satires and Epistles, which are both +virtually in prose, will tell them what Horace said, and sometimes +very nearly how he said it. On the Odes a host of English writers have +experimented. Milton tried his hand on one, with a result reflecting +neither Milton nor Horace. Dryden has shown what he could have done but +would not do in his tantalising fragment of the Ode to Fortune. Pope +transformed the later Ode to Venus into a purely English poem, with a +gracefully artificial mechanism quite unlike the natural flow of the +original. Marvell's noble "Horatian Ode," with its superb stanzas on +the death of Charles I, shows what he might have achieved, but did +not attempt. Francis' rendering of 1765 is generally respectable, +and in default of a better was universally read and quoted by his +contemporaries: once, in the Ode to Pyrrhus (III, xx) he attains +singular grace of phrase and metre. Cowper translated two Odes and +imitated two more, not without happy touches, but with insertions +and omissions that lower poetry into commonplace. Of Calverley's few +attempts three are notably good; a resounding line in his "Leuconoe" +(I, xi): + + Which flings now the flagging sea-wave on the obstinate sandstone reef, + + +is at once Horatian and Tennysonian; and his "Oh! where is all thy +loveliness?" in the later Ode to Lyce has caught marvellously the minor +key of tender memory which relieves the brutality of that ruthless +flagellation. Mr. Goldwin Smith's more numerous "Bay Leaves" are +fashioned all in goodly measure; and his "Blest man who far from care +and strife" well transfers to English the breathlessness of Horace's +sham pastoral ecstasy. Of more ambitious translators Bulwer Lytton +catches now and then the careless rapture of his original; Sir Theodore +Martin is always musical and flowing, sometimes miraculously fortunate +in his metres, but intentionally unliteral and free. Conington is +rigidly faithful, oftentimes tersely forcible; but misses lyrical +sweetness. Perhaps, if Marvell, Herrick, Cowley, Prior, the now +forgotten William Spencer, Tom Moore, Thackeray, could be alchemized +into one, they might combine to yield an English Horace. Until eclectic +nature, emulating the Grecian sculptor, shall fashion an archetype from +these seven models, the vernacular student, with his Martin and his +Conington, sipping from each alternately, like Horace's Matine bee +(IV, ii, 27), the terseness of the professor and the sweetness of the +poet, may find in them some echo from the ever-shifting tonality of the +Odes, something of their verbal felicity, something of their thrilling +wistfulness; may strive not quite unsuccessfully, in the words of +Tennyson's "Timbuctoo," to attain by shadowing forth the unattainable. + + + + +ON THE "WINES" OF HORACE'S POETRY + + +The wines whose historic names sparkle through the pages of Horace +have become classical commonplaces in English literature. "Well, my +young friend, we must for once prefer the Falernian to the _vile +Sabinum?_" says Monkbarns to Lovel when the landlord of the Hawes Inn +at Queensferry brings them claret instead of port. It may be well +that we should know somewhat of them. + +The choicest of the Italian wines was _Caecuban_, from the +poplar-trained vines grown amongst the swamps of Amyclae in Campania. +It was a heady, generous wine, and required long keeping; so we find +Horace speaking of it as ranged in the farthest cellar end, or "stored +still in our grandsire's binns"(III, xxviii, 2, 3; I, xxxvii, 6); it was +reserved for great banquets, kept carefully under lock and key: "your +heir shall drain the Caecuban you hoarded under a hundred padlocks" +(II, xiv, 25). It was beyond Horace's means, and only rich men could +afford to drink it; we hear of it at Maecenas' table and on board his +galley (I, xx, 9); and it appeared at the costly banquet of Nasidienus +(page 27). With the Caecuban he couples the _Formian_ (I, xx, 11), and +_Falernian_ (I, xx, 10), grown on the southern slopes of the hills +dividing Campania from Latium. "In grassy nook your spirit cheer with +old Falernian vintage," he says to his friend Dellius (II, iii, 6). +He calls it fierce, rough, fiery; recommends mixing it with Chian +wine, or with wine from Surrentum (Sat. II, iv, 55), or sweetening and +diluting it with honey from Mount Hymettus (Sat. II, ii, 15). From +the same district came the _Massic_ wine, also strong and fiery. "It +breeds forgetfulness" (II, vii, 21), he says; advises that it should +be softened by exposure to the open sky (Sat. II, iv, 51). He had a +small supply of it, which he kept for a "happy day" (III, xxi, 6). The +_Calenian_ wine, from Cales near Falernum, was of similar character. +He classes it with Caecuban as being too costly for a poor man's purse +(I, xx, 10): writing late in life to a friend, promises to find him +some, but says that his visitor must bring in exchange an alabaster box +of precious spikenard (IV, xii, 17). Next after these Campanian vintages +came the _Alban_. He tells Phyllis that he will broach for her a cask +of it nine years old (IV, xi, 1). It was offered, too, at Nasidienus' +dinner as an alternative to Caecuban; and Horace praises the raisins +made from its berries (Sat. II, iv, 72). Of the _Sabine_, poorest of +Italian wines, we have spoken (page 23). + +The finest Greek wine was _Chian_, thick and luscious; he couples it +in the Epode to Maecenas (IX, 34) with _Lesbian_ which he elsewhere +(I, xvii, 21) calls "innocent" or mild. _Coan_ wine he mentions twice, +commending its medicinal value (Sat. II, iv, 29; II, viii, 9). + +In justice to Horace and his friends, it is right to observe that +connoisseurship in wine must not be confounded with inebriety. They +drank to exhilarate, not to stupefy themselves, to make them what +Mr. Bradwardine called _ebrioli_ not _ebrii_; and he repeatedly warns +against excess. The vine was to him "a sacred tree," its god, Bacchus, +a gentle, gracious deity (I, xviii, 1): + + 'Tis thine the drooping heart to heal, + Thy strength uplifts the poor man's horn; + Inspired by thee, the soldier's steel, + The monarch's crown, he laughs to scorn. + + III, xxi, 17. + + +"To total abstainers," he says, "heaven makes all things hard" +(I, xviii, 3); so let us drink, but drink with moderate wisdom, leave +quarrelsomeness in our cups to barbarous Scythians, to brute Centaurs +and Lapithae: let riot never profane our worship of the kindly god. We +must again remember that they did not drink wine neat, as we do, but +always mixed with water. Come, he says to his slave as they sit down, +quench the fire of the wine from the spring which babbles by (II, xi, +19). The common mixture was two of water to one of wine; sometimes nine +of water to three of wine, the Muses to the Graces; very rarely nine of +wine to three of water. + + Who the uneven Muses loves, + Will fire his dizzy brain with three times three. + Three once told the Grace approves; + She with her two bright sisters, gay and free, + Hates lawless strife, loves decent glee. + + III, xix, 11. + + + + +CHRONOLOGY OF HORACE'S LIFE AND WORKS + + + =========================================== + B.C. AGE. + + 65 Born December 8th. + + 44 21 Entered as student at Athens. + + 43 22 In Brutus' army. + + { Philippi. + 41 24 { + { Return to Rome. + + 38 27 Introduced to Maecenas. + + 35 30 Satires, Book I. + + 30 35 Satires, Book II, and Epodes. + + 23 42 Odes I-III. + + 20 45 Epistles, Book I. + + 19 46 Epistles, Book II, ii. + + 17 48 The Century Hymn. + + 13 52 Odes, Book IV. + + 13 52 Epistle to Augustus. + + 10? 55? Art of Poetry. + + 8 57 Died November 17th. + =========================================== + + + + +INDEX + + +Actium, 53. + +Addison, 37, 49. + +Aelius, Lamia, 65. + +Agrippa, 65. + +Anio, 19-21. + +Antony, 26. + +Archilochus, 13, 19. + +Argiletum, 54. + +Aristius, Fuscus, 21, 36, 42, 61, 66. + +Arnold, Matthew, 55, 68. + +Asella, 43. + +Asterie, 68. + +Athens, 11, 50. + +Aufidus, 9, 73. + +Augustus, 15, 28, 29, 45, 51, 56, 57, 65, 75, 77, 78. + + +Bandusia, 10, 72. + +Barine, 68. + +Brundusium, 17. + +Brutus, 12, 13. + + +Calverley, 80. + +Capitoline Hill, 16, 24-26, 65. + +Chesterfield, 79. + +Clients, 17. + +Conington, 46, 81. + +Coverley, 11. + +Cowper, 80. + + +De Vere, Sir Stephen, 71. + +Digentia, 21. + +Dryden, 79. + + +Eliot, G., 67. + +Enipeus, 68. + +Epicureans, 11. + +Epicurus, 55. + + +Fanshaw, Sir R., 59. + +Florac, 23, 44. + +Florus, 40, 44. + +Fonteius Capito, 16. + +Forum, 24, etc. + +Fufius, 34. + + +Gallio, 36. + +Goldwin Smith, 54, 80. + + +Homer: Iliad, 11, 37, 43; + Odyssey, 44. + +Horace: childhood, 10; + studies at Athens, 11; + influence of Brutus, 12; + Philippi, 13; + struggle at Rome, 13; + introduction to Maecenas, 14; + Sabine farm, 19; + publishes Satires, 30; + Epistles, 37; + Epodes, 52; + Odes, 55; + Swan Song, 74; + his death, 29, 77; + editions of his works, 78; + his "wines," 82; + bibliography, 85. + + +Jews in Rome, 36. + +Juvenal, 17, 23, 31. + + +Lalla Rookh, 69. + +Lanciani, Professor, 25. + +Lollius, 43, 66. + +Lucilius, 13, 31, 48. + +Lyce, 80. + +Lydia, 69, 70. + +Lytton, E. B., 66, 80. + + +Maecenas, 14, 17, 27-29, 38, 51-54, 62, 64. + +Martin, Sir Theodore, 76, 80. + +Marvell, 80, 81. + +Milman, 38. + +Milton, 41, 53, 60-62, 71, 79. + +Murena, 66. + + +Newman, Cardinal, 51. + + +Ofellus, 32. + +Omar Khayyám, 23, 63. + +Orbilius, 11. + + +Pattison, Mark, 72. + +Philippi, 13, 32. + +Philippus, 34. + +Phyllis, 66, 67, 77. + +Pindar, 75. + +Polemon, 35. + +Pope, 27, 41, 44, 47-50, 79. + +Pope Leo XIII, 64. + +Postumus, 63. + + +Sabine farm, 17-19, etc. + +Satire, origin of, 30. + +Scaliger, 71. + +Scott, 22, 82, 84. + +Secular hymn, 57, 74. + +Seneca, 16. + +Septimius, 28, 39, 41, 65. + +Sewell, R. C., 20. + +Shakespeare, 13. + +Sosii, 54, 71. + +Steele, 37, 39. + +Stoics, 11. + +St. Beuve, 51. + + +Tarentum, 24, 65, 72. + +Telephus, 66. + +Tennyson, 9, 51, 80, 81. + +Terentia, 15, 64. + +Thackeray, 37, 59, 81. + +Tiberius Nero, 39, 74, 75. + +Tibullus, 28, 41, 65. + +Tibur, 17, 19, 20, 72. + + +Vacuna, 21. + +Varius, 14, 27. + +Varus, 20. + +Via Sacra, 25, 26. + +Virgil, 14, 28, 38, 44. + + +Wickham, Dean, 47, 79. + +Wordsworth, 22, 24, 75. + + +Xanthius, 66. + + + + CHISWICK PRESS: PRINTED BY CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO. + TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON. + + + * * * * * + + +_Messrs. Bell's Books for Presents & Prizes_ + +The British Artists Series. + +_Large post 8vo, in special bindings, with 90 to 100 Illustrations, +7s. 6d. net each._ + + + Sir Edward Burne-Jones, Bart. + By MALCOLM BELL. + + Dante Gabriel Rossetti. + By H. C. MARILLIER. + + Sir J. E. Millais, Bart. + By A. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Horace</p> +<p>Author: William Tuckwell</p> +<p>Release Date: May 22, 2008 [eBook #25563]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HORACE***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, David Garcia,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="pg" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page1" name="page1"></a>[1]</span></p> + +<a name="h2H_4_0001" id="h2H_4_0001"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + HORACE +</h2> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page3" name="page3"></a>[3]</span></p> + +<p> </p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page4" name="page4"></a>[4]</span></p> + +<a name="image-0001"><!--IMG--></a> +<div class="figure"> +<a href="images/illus-01.jpg"><img src="images/illus-01.png" width="256" height="500" +alt="HORACE" /></a> +<br /> +<p class="right">[<i>Bib. Nat., Paris.</i></p> +<p class="center" style="clear:both;"> HORACE.<br /> +From a bronze medallion of the period of Constantine. +</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page5" name="page5"></a>[5]</span></p> + +<a name="h2H_4_0002" id="h2H_4_0002"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<p class="center"> + Bell's Miniature Series of Great Writers +</p> + +<h1> + HORACE +</h1> + +<h2> +BY REV. W. TUCKWELL, M.A. +<br /> +<small>AUTHOR OF "CHAUCER," ETC.</small> +</h2> + +<a name="image-0002"><!--IMG--></a> +<div class="figure"> +<img src="images/colophon.png" width="100" height="136" +alt="[Publisher's Colophon]" /> +</div> + +<p class="center"> +<small>LONDON<br /> +GEORGE BELL & SONS<br /> +1905</small> +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page6" name="page6"></a>[6]</span></p> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<p class="center"> +<small>CHISWICK PRESS: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.<br /> +TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.</small> +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page7" name="page7"></a>[7]</span></p> + +<a name="h2H_TOC" id="h2H_TOC"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + TABLE OF CONTENTS +</h2> + +<table border="0" align="center" summary="Table of Contents"> +<tr><td> </td><td align="right"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> +<tr><td> <span class="sc">Struggle</span> </td><td align="right"><a href="#h2H_4_0005"> 9</a> </td></tr> +<tr><td> <span class="sc">Success</span> </td><td align="right"><a href="#h2H_4_0006">19</a> </td></tr> +<tr><td> <span class="sc">Satires and Epistles</span> </td><td align="right"><a href="#h2H_4_0007">30</a> </td></tr> +<tr><td> <span class="sc">Odes and Epodes</span> </td><td align="right"><a href="#h2H_4_0008">51</a> </td></tr> +<tr><td> <span class="sc">Swan-Song</span> </td><td align="right"><a href="#h2H_4_0009">74</a> </td></tr> +<tr><td> <span class="sc">The Wines of Horace</span> </td><td align="right"><a href="#h2H_4_0010">82</a> </td></tr> +<tr><td> <span class="sc">Chronology</span> </td><td align="right"><a href="#h2H_4_0011">85</a> </td></tr> +<tr><td> <span class="sc">Index</span> </td><td align="right"><a href="#h2H_4_0012">87</a> </td></tr> +</table> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page8" name="page8"></a>[8]</span></p> + +<a name="h2H_LIST" id="h2H_LIST"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS +</h2> + +<table border="0" align="center" summary="List of Illustrations"> + +<tr><td> </td><td align="right"><small>TO FACE<br /> PAGE</small></td></tr> + +<tr><td> <span class="sc">Horace, from a Bronze Medallion</span> </td><td align="right"><a href="#image-0001"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td></tr> +<tr><td> <span class="sc">Brutus</span> </td><td align="right"><a href="#image-0003">12</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> <span class="sc">Maecenas</span> </td><td align="right"><a href="#image-0004">16</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> <span class="sc">The Site of Horace's Villa</span> </td><td align="right"><a href="#image-0005">22</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> <span class="sc">The Roman Forum</span> </td><td align="right"><a href="#image-0006">26</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> <span class="sc">Augustus</span> </td><td align="right"><a href="#image-0007">46</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> <span class="sc">Virgil</span> </td><td align="right"><a href="#image-0008">64</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> <span class="sc">The Forum Restored, as in A.D. 80</span> </td><td align="right"><a href="#image-0009">74</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page9" name="page9"></a>[9]</span></p> + +<a name="h2H_4_0004" id="h2H_4_0004"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + THE LIFE OF HORACE +</h2> + +<a name="h2H_4_0005" id="h2H_4_0005"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + STRUGGLE +</h2> +<p> +Quintus Horatius Flaccus, the "old popular Horace" of Tennyson, petted +and loved, by Frenchmen and Englishmen especially, above all the poets +of antiquity, was born on 8th December, <span class="sc">B.C.</span> 65. He calls +himself in his poems by the three names indifferently, but to us he is +known only by the affectionate diminutive of his second or gentile name, +borne by his father, according to the fashion of the time, as slave to +some member of the noble Horatian family. A slave the father +unquestionably had been: meanness of origin was a taunt often levelled +against his son, and encountered by him with magnanimous indifference; +but long before Horace's birth the older Horatius had obtained his +freedom, had gained sufficient money to retire from business, and to +become owner of the small estate at Venusia on the borders of Apulia, +where the poet was born and spent his childhood. He repeatedly alludes +to this loved early home, speaks affectionately of its surrounding +scenery, of the dashing river Aufidus, now Ofanto, of the neighbouring +towns, + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page10" name="page10"></a>[10]</span> + + Acherontia, Bantia, Forentum, discoverable in modern maps as +Acerenza, Vanzi, Forenza, of the crystal Bandusian spring, at whose +identity we can only guess. Here he tells us how, wandering in the +forest when a child and falling asleep under the trees, he woke to +find himself covered up by woodpigeons with leaves, and alludes to a +prevailing rural belief that he was specially favoured by the gods. Long +afterwards, too, when travelling across Italy with Maecenas, he records +with delight his passing glimpse of the familiar wind-swept Apulian +hills. +</p> +<p> +Of his father he speaks ever with deep respect. "Ashamed of him?" he +says, "because he was a freedman? whatever moral virtue, whatever charm +of character, is mine, that I owe to him. Poor man though he was, he +would not send me to the village school frequented by peasant children, +but carried me to Rome, that I might be educated with sons of knights +and senators. He pinched himself to dress me well, himself attended me +to all my lecture-rooms, preserved me pure and modest, fenced me from +evil knowledge and from dangerous contact. Of such a sire how should I +be ashamed? how say, as I have heard some say, that the fault of a man's +low birth is Nature's, not his own? Why, were I to begin my life again, +with permission from the gods to select my parents from the greatest of +mankind, I would be content, and more than content, with those I had." +The whole self-respect and nobleness of the man shines out in these +generous lines. (Sat. I, vi, 89.) +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page11" name="page11"></a>[11]</span></p> + +<p> +Twice in his old age Horace alludes rather disparagingly to his +schooldays in Rome: he was taught, he says, out of a translation from +Homer by an inferior Latin writer (Ep. II, i, 62, 69), and his master, a +retired soldier, one Orbilius, was "fond of the rod" (Ep. II, i, 71). +I observe that the sympathies of Horatian editors and commentators, +themselves mostly schoolmasters, are with Orbilius as a much enduring +paedagogue rather than with his exasperated pupil. We know from other +sources that the teacher was a good scholar and a noted teacher, and +that, dying in his hundredth year, he was honoured by a marble statue in +his native town of Beneventum; but like our English Orbilius, Dr. Busby, +he is known to most men only through Horace's resentful epithet;—"a +great man," said Sir Roger de Coverley, "a great man; he whipped my +grandfather, a very great man!" +</p> +<p> +The young Englishman on leaving school goes to Oxford or to Cambridge: +the young Roman went to Athens. There we find Horace at about nineteen +years of age, learning Greek, and attending the schools of the +philosophers; those same Stoics and Epicureans whom a few years later +the first great Christian Sophist was to harangue on Mars' Hill. These +taught from their several points of view the basis of happiness and the +aim of life. Each in turn impressed him: for a time he agreed with Stoic +Zeno that active duty is the highest good; then lapsed into the easy +doctrine of Epicurean Aristippus that subjective pleasure is the only +happiness. His philosophy was never + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page12" name="page12"></a>[12]</span> + + very strenuous, always more practical +than speculative; he played with his teachers' systems, mocked at their +fallacies, assimilated their serious lessons. +</p> + +<a name="image-0003"><!--IMG--></a> +<div class="figure"> +<a href="images/illus-02.png"><img src="images/illus-02.png" width="335" height="500" +alt="BRUTUS." /></a> +<br /> +<p class="left"><i>Alinari photo.</i>]</p> +<p class="right">[<i>Palace of the Conservators, Rome.</i></p> +<p class="center">BRUTUS.</p> +</div> + +<p> +Then into his life at this time came an influence which helped to shape +his character, but had nearly wrecked his fortunes. Brutus, fresh from +Caesar's murder, was at Athens, residing, as we should say, in his old +University, and drawing to himself the passionate admiration of its most +brilliant undergraduates; among the rest, of the younger Cicero and of +Horace. Few characters in history are more pathetically interesting than +his. High born, yet disdainful of ambitious aims, irreproachable in an +age of almost universal profligacy, the one pure member of a grossly +licentious family, modest and unobtrusive although steeped in all the +learning of old Greece, strong of will yet tolerant and gentle, his +austerity so tempered by humanism that he won not only respect but love; +he had been adored by the gay young patricians, who paid homage to the +virtue which they did not rouse themselves to imitate, honoured as an +equal by men far older than himself, by Cicero, by Atticus, by Caesar. +As we stand before the bust in the Palace of the Conservators which +preserves his mobile features, in that face at once sweet and sad, at +once young and old, as are the faces not unfrequently of men whose +temperaments were never young—already, at thirty-one years old, stamped +with the lineaments of a grand but fatal destiny—we seem to penetrate +the character of the man whom Dante + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page13" name="page13"></a>[13]</span> + + placed in hell, whom Shakespeare, +with sounder and more catholic insight, proclaimed to be the noblest +Roman of them all: +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> His life was gentle, and the elements </p> +<p class="i2"> So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up, </p> +<p class="i2"> And say to all the world, <i>This was a man.</i> </p> +</div> +</div> + +<p> +Quitting Athens after a time to take command of the army which had been +raised against Antony, Brutus carried Horace in his company with the +rank of military tribune. He followed his patron into Asia; one of his +early poems humorously describes a scene which he witnessed in the law +courts at Clazomenae. (Sat. I, vii, 5.) He was several times in action; +served finally at Philippi, sharing the headlong rout which followed +on Brutus' death; returned to Rome "humbled and with clipped wings." +(Od. II, vii, 10; Ep. II, ii, 50.) His father was dead, his property +confiscated in the proscription following on the defeat, he had to begin +the world again at twenty-four years old. He obtained some sort of +clerkship in a public office, and to eke out its slender emoluments he +began to write. What were his earliest efforts we cannot certainly say, +or whether any of them survive among the poems recognized as his. He +tells us that his first literary model was Archilochus (Ep. I, xix, 24), +a Greek poet of 700 <span class="sc">B.C.</span>, believed to have been the inventor of +personal satire, whose stinging pen is said to have sometimes driven its +victims to suicide. For a time also he imitated a much more recent +satirist, Lucilius, whom he rejected later, as disliking + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page14" name="page14"></a>[14]</span> + + both the +harshness of his style and the scurrilous character of his verses. (Sat. +I, x.) It has been conjectured therefore that his earliest compositions +were severe personal lampoons, written for money and to order, which +his maturer taste destroyed. In any case his writings found admirers. +About three years after his return to Rome his friends Varius and Virgil +praised him to Maecenas; the great man read the young poet's verses, and +desired to see him. (Sat. I, vi, 54.) +</p> +<p> +It is as an enlightened and munificent patron of letters that Maecenas +holds his place in popular estimation, but he was much more than this. +He had been since Caesar's death the trusty agent and the intimate +adviser of Augustus; a hidden hand, directing the most delicate +manoeuvres of his master. In adroit resource and suppleness no +diplomatist could match him. His acute prevision of events and his +penetrating insight into character enabled him to create the +circumstances and to mould the men whose combination was necessary to +his aims. By the tact and moderation of his address, the honied words +which averted anger, the dexterous reticence which disarmed suspicion, +he reconciled opposing factions, veiled arbitrary measures, impressed +alike on nobles and on populace the beneficence of imperial despotism, +while he kept its harshness out of sight. Far from parading his +extensive powers, he masked them by ostentatious humility, refusing +official promotion, contented with the inferior rank of "Knight," +sitting in theatre and circus below men whom his own hand had raised to + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page15" name="page15"></a>[15]</span> + + station higher than his own. Absorbed in unsleeping political toil, +he wore the outward garb of a careless, trifling voluptuary. It was +difficult to believe that this apparently effeminate lounger, foppish in +dress, with curled and scented hair, luxuriating in the novel refinement +of the warm bath, an epicure in food and drink, patronizing actors, +lolling in his litter amid a train of parasites, could be the man on +whom, as Horace tells us, civic anxieties and foreign dangers pressed +a ceaseless load. He had built himself a palace and laid out noble +gardens, the remains of which still exist, at the foot of the Esquiline +hill. It had been the foulest and most disreputable slum in Rome, given +up to the burial of paupers, the execution of criminals, the obscene +rites of witches, a haunt of dogs and vultures. He made it healthy +and beautiful; Horace celebrates its salubrity, and Augustus, when +an invalid, came thither to breathe its air. (Sat. I, viii, 8, 14.) +There Maecenas set out his books and his gems and his Etruscan ware, +entertained his literary and high born friends, poured forth his +priceless Caecuban and Chian wines. There were drops of bitter in these +cups. His beautiful wife Terentia tormented him by her temper and her +infidelities; he put her away repeatedly, as often received her back. +It was said of him that he had been married a hundred times, though only +to a single wife: "What is the latest conjugal news?" men asked as his +sumptuous litter passed by, "is it a marriage or a divorce?" And he was +haunted by terror of death. "Prolong my life," was his prayer, in + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page16" name="page16"></a>[16]</span> + + words +which Seneca has ridiculed and La Fontaine translated finely, yet +missing the terseness of the original, "life amid tortures, life even on +a cross, only life!" +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i22"> Qu'on me rend impotent,</p> +<p class="i2"> Cul-de-jatte, goutteux, manchot, pourvu qu'en somme</p> +<p class="i2"> Je vive, c'est assez; je suis plus que content.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p> +His patronage of intellectual men was due to policy as well as +inclination. Himself a cultured literary critic, foreseeing the +full-winged soar of writers still half-fledged—the "Aeneid" in Virgil's +"Eclogues," the "Odes" of Horace in his "Epodes"—he would not only +gather round his board the men whom we know to have been his equals, +whose wit and wisdom Horace has embalmed in an epithet, a line, an ode; +Varius, and Sulpicius, and Plotius, and Fonteius Capito, and Viscus; +but he saw also and utilized for himself and for his master the social +influence which a rising poet might wield, the effect with which a bold +epigram might catch the public ear, a well-conceived eulogy minister to +imperial popularity, an eloquent sermon, as in the noble opening odes of +Horace's third book, put vice out of countenance and raise the tone of +a decadent community. +</p> + +<a name="image-0004"><!--IMG--></a> +<div class="figure"> +<a href="images/illus-03.jpg"><img src="images/illus-03.png" width="340" height="500" +alt="MAECENAS." /></a> +<br /> +<p class="left"><i>Alinari photo.</i>]</p> +<p class="right">[<i>Palace of the Conservators, Rome.</i></p> +<p class="center">MAECENAS.</p> +</div> + +<p> +To Horace, then, now twenty-seven years old, these imposing doors were +opened. The first interview was unsatisfactory; the young poet was +tongue-tied and stammering, the great man reserved and haughty: they +parted mutually dissatisfied. Nine months later Maecenas sent for + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page17" name="page17"></a>[17]</span> + + him +again, received him warmly, enrolled him formally amongst his friends. +(Sat. I, vi, 61.) Horace himself tells the story: he explains neither +the first coldness, the long pause, nor the later cordiality. But he +rose rapidly in his patron's favour; a year afterwards we find him +invited to join Maecenas on a journey to Brundusium, of which he has +left us an amusing journal (Sat. I, v); and about three years later +still was presented by him with a country house and farm amongst the +Sabine hills, a few miles to the east of Tibur, or, as it is now +called, Tivoli. +</p> +<p> +With this a new chapter in his life begins. During six years he had +lived in Rome, first as an impecunious clerk, then as a client of +Maecenas. To all Roman homes of quality and consequence clients were a +necessary adjunct: men for the most part humble and needy, who attended +to welcome the patron when issuing from his chamber in the morning, +preceded and surrounded his litter in the streets, clearing a way for +it through the crowd; formed, in short, his court, rewarded by a daily +basket of victuals or a small sum of money. If a client was involved in +litigation, his patron would plead his cause in person or by deputy; he +was sometimes asked to dinner, where his solecisms in good breeding and +his unfashionable dress, the rustic cut of his beard, thick shoes, gown +clumsily draped, made him the butt of the higher guests. Juvenal, in a +biting satire, describes the humiliation of a poor client at a rich +man's table. "The host," he says, "drinks old beeswinged Setian wine, +served to + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page18" name="page18"></a>[18]</span> + + him in a gold goblet by a beautiful boy; to you a coarse black +slave brings in a cracked cup wine too foul even to foment a bruise. +His bread is pure and white, yours brown and mouldy; before him is +a huge lobster, before you a lean shore-crab; his fish is a barbel or +a lamprey, yours an eel:—and, if you choose to put up with it, you +are rightly served." The relation, though not held to be disgraceful, +involved sometimes bitter mortifications, and seems to us inconsistent +with self-respect. We remember how it was resented in modern times, +though in a much milder form, by Edmund Spenser, Dr. Johnson, and the +poet Crabbe. Even between a Horace and a Maecenas it must have caused +occasional embarrassment: we find the former, for instance, dedicating +poems to men whose character he could not respect, but to whom, as his +patron's associates, he was bound to render homage; while his supposed +intimacy with the all-powerful minister exposed him to tedious +solicitants, who waylaid him in his daily walks. He had become sick of +"the smoke and the grandeur and the roar of Rome" (Od. III, 29, 12); his +Sabine retreat would be an asylum and a haven; would "give him back to +himself"; would endow him with competence, leisure, freedom; he hailed +it as the mouse in his delightful apologue craved refuge in the country +from the splendour and the perils of the town: +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> Give me again my hollow tree,</p> +<p class="i2"> A crust of bread—and liberty.</p> + +<p class="i22"> (Sat. II, 6, fin.)</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page19" name="page19"></a>[19]</span></p> + +<a name="h2H_4_0006" id="h2H_4_0006"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + SUCCESS +</h2> +<p> +Horace's Sabine farm ranks high among the holy places of the classic +world; and through the labours of successive travellers, guided by the +scattered indications in his poems, its site is tolerably certain. It +was about thirty-two miles from Rome, reached in a couple of hours by +pilgrims of the present time; to Horace, who never allowed himself to be +hurried, the journey of a full day, or of a leisurely day and a half. +Let us follow him as he rides thither on his bob-tailed mule (Sat. I, +vi, 104), the heavy saddlebags across its loins stored with scrolls of +Plato, of the philosopher Menander, Eupolis the comedian, Archilochus +the lyric poet. His road lies along the Valerian Way, portions of whose +ancient pavement still remain, beside the swift waters of the Anio, amid +steep hills crowned with small villages whose inmates, like the Kenites +of Balaam's rhapsody, put their nests in rocks. A ride of twenty-seven +miles would bring him to Tivoli, or Tibur, where he stopped to rest, +sometimes to pass the night, possessing very probably a cottage in the +little town. No place outside his home appealed to him like this. Nine +times he mentions it, nearly always with a caressing + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page20" name="page20"></a>[20]</span> + + epithet. It is +green Tibur, dew-fed Tibur, Tibur never arid, leisurely Tibur, breezy +Tibur, Tibur sloping to the sun. He bids his friend Varus plant vines in +the moist soil of his own Tiburtine patrimony there; prays that when the +sands of his life run low, he may there end his days; enumerates, in a +noble ode (Od. I, 7), the loveliest spots on earth, preferring before +them all the headlong Anio, Tibur's groves, its orchards saturated with +shifting streams. +</p> + + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> The dark pine waves on Tibur's classic steep, </p> +<p class="i2"> From rock to rock the headlong waters leap, </p> +<p class="i2"> Tossing their foam on high, till leaf and flower </p> +<p class="i2"> Glitter like emeralds in the sparkling shower. </p> +<p class="i2"> Lovely—but lovelier from the charms that glow </p> +<p class="i2"> Where Latium spreads her purple vales below; </p> +<p class="i2"> The olive, smiling on the sunny hill, </p> +<p class="i2"> The golden orchard, and the ductile rill, </p> +<p class="i2"> The spring clear-bubbling in its rocky fount, </p> +<p class="i2"> The mossgrown cave, the Naiad's fabled haunt, </p> +<p class="i2"> And, far as eye can strain, yon shadowy dome, </p> +<p class="i2"> The glory of the earth, Eternal Rome. </p> +</div> +</div> + +<p> +No picture of the spot can be more graphic than are these noble lines. +They open a Newdigate Prize Poem of just eighty years ago, written, says +tradition, by its brilliant author in a single night. (R. C. Sewell, +Magdalen College, 1825.) Tivoli he had never visited; but those who +stand to-day beside the Temple of the Sibyl on the edge of its ravine, +who enjoy the fair beauty of the headlong Anio and the lesser +Cascatelle, of the ruined Temple of Tiburtus, the Grottos of the Sirens +and of Neptune, understand how a poet's genius can, as Shakespeare + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page21" name="page21"></a>[21]</span> + + tells us, shadow forth things unseen, and give them local habitation. +</p> +<p> +From Tibur, still beside the Anio, we drive for about seven miles, until +we reach the ancient Varia, now Vico Varo, mentioned by Horace as the +small market town to which his five tenant-farmers were wont to repair +for agricultural or municipal business. (Ep. I, xiv, 3.) Here, then, we +are in the poet's country, and must be guided by the landmarks in his +verse. Just beyond Vico Varo the Anio is joined by the Licenza. This is +Horace's Digentia, the stream he calls it whose icy waters freshen him, +the stream of which Mandela drinks. (Ep. I, xviii, 104-105.) And there, +on its opposite bank, is the modern village Bardela, identified with +Mandela by a sepulchral inscription recently dug up. We turn northward, +following the stream; the road becomes distressingly steep, recalling +a line in which the poet speaks of returning homeward "to his mountain +stronghold." (Sat. II, vi, 16.) Soon we reach a village, Roccagiovine, +whose central square is named Piazza Vacuna. Vacuna was the ancient name +for the goddess Victory; and against the wall is fixed an exhumed tablet +telling how the Emperor Vespasian here restored an ancient Temple of +Victory. One more echo this name wakes in Horatian ears—he dates a +letter to his friend Aristius Fuscus as written "behind the crumbling +shrine of Vacuna." (Ep. I, x, 49.) Clearly we are near him now; he would +not carry his writing tablets far away from his door. Yet another +verification we require. + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page22" name="page22"></a>[22]</span> + + He speaks of a spring just beside his home, cool +and fine, medicinal to head and stomach. (Ep. I, xvi, 12.) Here it is, +hard by, called to-day Fonte d'Oratini, a survival, we should like to +believe, of the name Horatius. Somewhere close at hand must have been +the villa, on one side or the other of a small hill now called Monte +Rotondo. We may take our Horace from our pocket, and feel, as with our +Wordsworth at Dove Cottage, with our Scott at Ashestiel, that we are +gazing on the hills, the streams, and valleys, which received the primal +outpourings of their muse, and are for ever vocal with its memories. +</p> + +<a name="image-0005"><!--IMG--></a> +<div class="figure"> +<a href="images/illus-04.jpg"><img src="images/illus-04.png" width="500" height="335" +alt="THE SITE OF HORACE'S VILLA." /></a> +<br /> +<p class="center">THE SITE OF HORACE'S VILLA.</p> +</div> + +<p> +From M. Rotondo, eastward to the Licenza, and southward to the +high ground of Roccogiovine, stretched apparently the poet's not +inconsiderable demesne. Part of it he let off to five peasants on the +<i>métayage</i> system; the rest he cultivated himself, employing eight +slaves superintended by a bailiff. The house, he tells us, was simple, +with no marble pillars or gilded cornices (Od. II, xviii), but spacious +enough to receive and entertain a guest from town, and to welcome +occasionally his neighbours to a cheerful evening meal—"nights and +suppers as of gods" (Sat. II, vi, 65), he calls them; where the talk +was unfashionably clean and sensible, the fare beans and bacon, garden +stuff and chicory and mallows. Around the villa was a garden, not filled +with flowers, of which in one of his odes he expresses dislike as +unremunerative (Od. II, xv, 6), but laid out in small parallelograms + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page23" name="page23"></a>[23]</span> + + of grass, edged with box and planted with clipped hornbeam. The house +was shaded from above by a grove of ilexes and oaks; lower down were +orchards of olives, wild plums, cornels, apples. In the richer soil of +the valley he grew corn, whose harvests never failed him, and, like Eve +in Eden, led the vine to wed her elm. Against this last experiment his +bailiff grumbled, saying that the soil would grow spice and pepper as +soon as ripen grapes (Ep. I, xiv, 23); but his master persisted, and +succeeded. Inviting Maecenas to supper, he offers Sabine wine from his +own estate (Od. I, xx, 1); and visitors to-day, drinking the juice of +the native grape at the little Roccogiovine inn, will be of opinion with +M. de Florac, that "this little wine of the country has a most agreeable +smack." Here he sauntered day by day, watched his labourers, working +sometimes, like Ruskin at Hincksey, awkwardly to their amusement with +his own hands; strayed now and then into the lichened rocks and forest +wilds beyond his farm, surprised there one day by a huge wolf, who +luckily fled from his presence (Od. I, xxii, 9); or—most enjoyable of +all—lay beside spring or river with a book or friend of either sex. +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> A book of verses underneath the bough,</p> +<p class="i2"> A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou</p> +<p class="i2"> Beside me singing in the wilderness,</p> +<p class="i2"> Oh, wilderness were Paradise enow!</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p> +So roll to each other across the ages and the continents echoes of the +Persian and the Roman bards. +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page24" name="page24"></a>[24]</span></p> + +<p> +Of the <i>beauty</i> of his home he speaks always modestly; it may not +compare with Praeneste, Tarentum, Baiae; its <i>charm</i> he is never weary +of extolling. Nowhere, he says, is the air sweeter and more balmy, in +summer temperate, warm in winter; but beyond all this it yielded calm, +tranquillity, repose, making, as Wordsworth says, the very thought of +country life a thought of refuge; and that was what, so long in populous +city pent, he longed to find, and found. It was his <i>home</i>, where he +could possess his soul, could be self-centred and serene. "This," says +Ruskin, "is the true nature of Home; it is the Place of Peace." +</p> +<p> +He loved the country, yet he was no hermit. When sickened of town life +he could apostrophize the country in the beautiful lines which many a +jaded Londoner has echoed (Sat. II, vi, 60); but after some months of +its placid joys the active social side of him would re-assert itself: +the welcoming friends of the great city, its brilliant talk, its rush of +busy life, recovered their attractiveness, and for short intervals, in +the healthy season of the year, he would return to Rome. There it is +less easy to image him than in his rustic home. Nature, if spared by +man, remains unaltered; the heights and recesses of the Digentian valley +meet our eye to-day scarce changed in twenty centuries, but the busy, +crowded Rome of Horace is now only a desolate excavation. We stand upon +the "Rock of Triumph," the Capitoline Hill, looking down upon the Forum: +it lies like a stonemason's yard: stumps of pillars, + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page25" name="page25"></a>[25]</span> + + fragments of brick +or marble, overthrown entablatures, pillars, altars, tangles of +staircases and enclosures, interspersed with poppies, wild oats, +trefoils, confuse and crowd it: +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> Cypress and ivy, weed and wallflower grow</p> +<p class="i2"> Matted and massed together, hillocks heaped</p> +<p class="i2"> On what were chambers; arch crushed, columns strown</p> +<p class="i2"> In fragments; choked up vaults, where the owl peeped,</p> +<p class="i2"> Deeming it midnight.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p> +But patient, daily survey, educated by the restorations of a Lanciani, +enables us to piece together these encumbering ruins, until with +tolerable clearness we can follow Horace in his walk along the Via Sacra +towards Caesar's gardens, and can fairly reconstruct the objects which +must have met his view. Everywhere is haunted ground: there is the +bronze wolf of the Capitol, "thunder-stricken nurse of Rome," and the +Tarpeian rock, from which "the Traitor's leap cured all ambition." +There is the mythical gulf of Curtius, and the Mamertine prison where +the Catiline conspirators were strangled, with its vault into which +Jugurtha, after gracing the triumph of Marius, was hurled to die. +Maiden-hair fern grows profusely in the crevices of Juturna's well, +hard by the spring where the great twin brethren gave their horses drink +after the battle of the Lake Regillus. Half covered with a mass of green +acanthus is the base of Vesta's Temple, adjoining the atrium of the +Virgins' house surrounded with their portrait statues: their names are +engraved on each pedestal, but one is carefully erased, its original + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page26" name="page26"></a>[26]</span> + + having, it is supposed, violated her vestal vow. We pause upon the spot +where Caesar's body was burned, and beside the rostra whence Cicero +thundered, and Antony spoke his "Friends, Romans, countrymen"; return +finally to the Capitoline Museum, nucleus and centre of the ancient +mistress of the world, to gaze upon gods, senators, emperors, shining +still in undiminished majesty; on the Antinous, the Amazon, the Juno, +the Dying Gladiator, and the Grecian masterpiece of Praxiteles. +</p> + +<a name="image-0006"><!--IMG--></a> +<div class="figure"> +<a href="images/illus-05.jpg"><img src="images/illus-05.png" width="500" height="325" +alt="THE ROMAN FORUM." /></a> +<br /> +<p class="left"><i>Alinari photo.</i>]</p> +<p class="center" style="clear:both;">THE ROMAN FORUM.</p> +</div> + +<p> +Of his life in Rome Horace has given us a minute account (Sat. I, vi, +110, etc.). "Waking usually about six, I lie in bed or on my sofa, +reading and writing, till nearly ten o'clock; anoint myself, go to the +Campus for a game at ball, return home to a light luncheon. Then perhaps +I amuse myself at home, perhaps saunter about the town; look in at the +Circus and gossip with the fortune-tellers who swarm there when the +games are over; walk through the market, inquiring the price of garden +stuff and grain. Towards evening I come home to my supper of leeks and +pulse and fritters, served by my three slave-boys on a white marble +slab, which holds besides two drinking cups and ladle, a saltcellar +shaped like a sea-urchin, an oil flask, and a saucer of cheap Campanian +ware; and so at last I go to bed, not harassed by the thought that I +need rise at day-break." Sometimes, to his great annoyance, he would be +roused early to become sponsor in the law courts for a friend; shivering +in the morning cold, pelted by falling hailstones, abused by the + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page27" name="page27"></a>[27]</span> + + crowd +through which he had to force his way. Or he would accompany Maecenas +on a drive, their talk of matters trivial—the time of day, the early +frosts, the merits of popular gladiators. We remember how delightfully +Pope has adapted the passage to his own relation with Harley. (Imitation +of Sat. II, vi.) Often he dined with Maecenas or his friends, and one +such dinner he has described, at the house of a rich, vulgar epicure +(Sat. II, viii). The guests were nine in number, including Maecenas, +Varius, and Viscus: they lay on couches at maplewood tables arranged +in three sides of a square. The first course was a Lucanian wild boar +garnished with salads; when that was removed, servants wiped the board +with purple napkins. Then a procession of slaves brought in Caecuban and +Chian wines, accompanied with cheesecakes, fish, and apples. The second +course was a vast lamprey, prawns swimming in its sauce; the third an +olio of crane, hare, goose's liver, blackbirds, and wood-pigeons. +A sumptuous meal, but spoiled by the host's tedious disquisitions on +each dish as it appeared. Of social gatherings in their higher aspect, +of the feasts of reason which he must have often shared at his patron's +board, we long to know, but Horace is discreet; for him the rose of +Harpocrates was suspended over every caenobium, and he would not profane +its sacrament. He sat there as an equal, we know; his attitude towards +those above him had in it no tinge of servility. That he was, and meant +to be, independent they were fairly warned; when Maecenas wished to heap +on him further + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page28" name="page28"></a>[28]</span> + + benefits, he refused: "What I have is enough and more +than enough," he said, "nay, should fortune shake her wings and leave +me, I know how to resign her gifts" (Od. III, xxix, 53). And if not +to Maecenas, so neither to Maecenas' master, would he sacrifice his +freedom. The emperor sought his friendship, writes caressingly to +Maecenas of "this most lovable little bit of a man," wished to make him +his secretary, showed no offence at his refusal. His letters use the +freedom of an intimate. "Septimius will tell you how highly I regard +you. I happened to speak of you in his presence; if you disdain my +friendship, I shall not disdain in return."—"I wish your little book +were bigger; you seem to fear lest your books should be bigger than +yourself."—"I am vexed with you, that you have never addressed one of +your Epistles to myself; are you afraid that to have appeared as my +friend will hurt you with posterity?" Such royal solicitations are a +command, and Horace responded by the longest and one amongst the most +admired of his Epistles (Ep. II, i). This was his final effort, unless +the fragmentary essay on criticism, known as the "Art of Poetry," +belongs to these last years; if that be so, his closing written words +were a humorous disparagement of the "homely slighted shepherd's trade" +(A. P. 470-476). +</p> +<p> +His life was drawing to a close; his friends were falling round him like +leaves in wintry weather. Tibullus was dead, and so was Virgil, dearest +and whitest-souled of men (Sat. I, v, 41); + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page29" name="page29"></a>[29]</span> + + Maecenas was in failing +health and out of favour. Old age had come to himself before its time; +love, and wine, and festal crown of flowers had lost their zest: +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> Soon palls the taste for noise and fray,</p> +<p class="i2"> When hair is white and leaves are sere.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p> +But he rallies his life-long philosophy to meet the change; patience +lightens the inevitable; while each single day is his he will spend and +enjoy it in such fashion that he may say at its conclusion, "I have +lived" (Od. III, xxix, 41). His health had never been good, undermined, +he believed, by the hardships of his campaign with Brutus; all the care +of Augustus' skilful physician, Antonius Musa, failed to prolong his +days. He passed away on the 17th of November, <span class="sc">B.C.</span> 8, in his +fifty-seventh year; was buried on the Esquiline Hill, in a grave near +to the sepulchre of Maecenas, who had died only a few days before; +fulfilling the promise of an early ode, shaped almost in the words of +Moabitish Ruth, that he would not survive his friend. +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i18"> The self-same day </p> +<p class="i2"> Shall crush us twain; no idle oath </p> +<p class="i2"> Has Horace sworn; where'er you go, </p> +<p class="i2"> We both will travel, travel both </p> +<p class="i2"> The last dark journey down below. </p> + +<p class="i22"> Od. II, xvii. </p> +</div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page30" name="page30"></a>[30]</span></p> + +<a name="h2H_4_0007" id="h2H_4_0007"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + THE SATIRES AND EPISTLES +</h2> +<p> +Horace's poems are of two kinds; of one kind the Satires and Epistles, +of another the Odes and Epodes. Their order and dates of publication are +shown in the following table: +</p> + +<table border="0" align="center" summary="Order and dates of Horace's publications"> + +<tr><td style="text-align: right;"> B.C. </td></tr> +<tr><td style="text-align: right;"> 35. </td><td style="text-align: left;">First Book of Satires.</td></tr> +<tr><td style="text-align: right;"> 30. </td><td style="text-align: left;">Second Book of Satires, and Epodes.</td></tr> +<tr><td style="text-align: right;"> 23. </td><td style="text-align: left;">First three Books of Odes.</td></tr> +<tr><td style="text-align: right;"> 20. </td><td style="text-align: left;">First Book of Epistles.</td></tr> +<tr><td style="text-align: right;"> 19. </td><td style="text-align: left;">Epistle to Florus.</td></tr> +<tr><td style="text-align: right;"> 17. </td><td style="text-align: left;">The Century Hymn.</td></tr> +<tr><td style="text-align: right;"> about 13. </td><td style="text-align: left;">Fourth Book of the Odes.</td></tr> +<tr><td style="text-align: right;"> 13. </td><td style="text-align: left;">Epistle to Augustus.</td></tr> +<tr><td style="text-align: right;"> (?) 10. </td><td style="text-align: left;">The Art of Poetry.</td></tr> +</table> + +<p> +Let us examine first the Satires and Epistles. The word "Satire" meant +originally a <i>farrago</i>, a medley of various topics in various styles and +metres. But all early writings of this kind have perished; and the first +extant Latin satirist, Lucilius, who lived in the second century +<span class="sc">B.C.</span>, devoted his pen to castigating the vices of contemporary +society and of living individuals. This style of writing, together with +his six-foot measure, called hexameter, was adopted by the + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page31" name="page31"></a>[31]</span> + + ethical writers +who followed him, Horace, Persius, Juvenal; and so gave to the word +satire a meaning which it retains to-day. In more than one passage +Horace recognizes Lucilius as his master, and imitates him in what is +probably the earliest, certainly the coarsest and least artistic of his +poems; but maturer judgement, revolting later against the censorious +spirit and bad taste of the older writer, led him to abandon his model. +For good taste is the characteristic of these poems; they form a comedy +of manners, shooting as it flies the folly rather than the wickedness of +vice: not wounding with a red-hot iron, but "just flicking with uplifted +lash," Horace stands to Juvenal as Chaucer stands to Langland, as Dante +to Boccaccio. His theme is life and conduct, the true path to happiness +and goodness. I write sermons in sport, he says; but sermons by a +fellow-sinner, not by a dogmatic pulpiteer, not by a censor or a cynic. +"Conversations" we may rather call them; the polished talk of a +well-bred, cultured, practised worldling, lightening while they point +the moral which he ever keeps in view, by transitions, personalities, +ironies, anecdotes; by perfect literary grace, by the underlying +sympathy whereby wit is sublimed and softened into humour. +</p> +<p> +So he tells stories; often trivial, but redeemed by the lightness of +his touch, the avoidance of redundancy, the inevitable epithets, the +culminating point and finish. He illustrates the extravagance of the day +by the spendthrift Clodius, who dissolved in vinegar a pearl taken from + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page32" name="page32"></a>[32]</span> + + the ear of beautiful Metella (Sat. II, iii, 239), that he might enjoy +drinking at one draught a million sesterces, near a thousand pounds. +More than once he returns to castigation of the gluttony, which, though +not yet risen to the monstrosity described by Juvenal, was invading the +houses of the wealthy. He tells of two brothers—"a precious pair"—who +used to breakfast daily upon nightingales: of one Maenius, who ruined +himself in fieldfares (Ep. I, xv, 41). In a paper on the "Art of Dining" +he accumulates ironical gastronomic maxims (Sat. II, iv): as that oblong +eggs are to be preferred to round; that cabbages should be reared in dry +soil; that the forelegs of a doe-hare are choice titbits; that to make a +fowl tender you must plunge it alive into boiling wine and water; that +oysters are best at the new moon; that prawns and snails give zest to +wine; that olive oil should be mixed with pickled tunny roe, chopped +herbs, and saffron. If these prescriptions are observed, he says, +travestying a fine Lucretian line, the diner-out may draw near to and +drink deep from the well-spring of a happy life. By contrast he paints +the character of Ofellus, a farmer, whom he had known when a boy on the +Apulian hills, and had visited in his old age (Sat. II, ii). Deprived of +his estate after Philippi, Ofellus had rented it from its new master, +working on as tenant where he had formerly been lord. "How are we worse +off now?" says the gallant old fellow to his sons. "When I was rich, we +lived on smoked bacon and cabbages, with perhaps a pullet or a kid if + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page33" name="page33"></a>[33]</span> + + a friend dropped in; our dessert of split figs and raisins grown upon +the farm. Well, we have just the same to-day. What matter that they +called me 'owner' then, that a stranger is called owner now? There is no +such thing as 'owner.' This man turned us out, someone else may turn him +out to-morrow; his heir will do so at any rate when he dies. The farm +was called mine once, it is called his to-day; it can never 'belong' to +anyone except the man who works and uses it. So, my boys, keep stout +hearts, and be ready to meet adversity bravely when it comes." +</p> +<p> +He lashes the legacy-hunters, who, in a time when disinclination to +marriage had multiplied the number of childless old men, were becoming a +curse to society; gives rules with affected seriousness for angling in a +senior's hoards (Sat. II, v). Be sure you send him game, tell him often +how you love him, address him by his first, what we should call his +Christian, name—that tickles sensitive ears. If he offers you his will, +refuse to read it, but glance sidelong at the line where the names of +legatees are written. Praise his bad verses, shoulder a way for him in +the streets, entreat him to cover up from cold his dear old head, make +up to his housekeeper, flatter him till he bids you stop. Then when he +is dead and you find yourself his heir, shed tears, spend money on his +funeral, bear your honours meekly—and go on to practise upon someone +else. And he throws in a sly story of a testatrix who bequeathed her +money on condition that the heir should carry to the grave upon his +naked + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page34" name="page34"></a>[34]</span> + + shoulders her body oiled all over; he had stuck to her all her +life, and she hoped to shake him off for a moment after death. He +enforces the virtue of moderation and contentment from Aesop's fables, +of the frog, of the daw with borrowed plumage, of the lean weasel who +squeezed himself into a granary through a tiny hole, and grew so fat +that he could not return; from the story of Philippus, who amused +himself by enriching a poor man to the ruin of his victim's peace and +happiness (Ep. I, vii, 46); and from the delightful apologue of the +City and the Country Mouse (Sat. II, vi). He denounces the folly of +miserliness from the example of the ant, provident in amassing store, +but restful in fruition of it when amassed; reproves ill-natured +judgement of one's neighbours almost in the words of Prior, bidding +us be to their faults a little blind and to their virtues very kind, +softening their moral blemishes as lovers and mothers euphemize a dear +one's physical defects. (Sat. I, iii) "You will not listen to me?" he +stops now and then to say; "I shall continue to cry on all the same +until I rouse you, as the audience in the theatre did the other day" +(Sat. II, iii, 60). For it seems that one Fufius, a popular actor, +assumed in a tragedy the part of Trojan Ilione, whose cue was to fall +asleep upon the stage until roused with a whisper of "Mother awake!" +by the ghost of her dead son Deiphilus. Poor Fufius was tipsy, fell +asleep in earnest, and was insensible to the ghost's appeal, until +the audience, entering into the fun, unanimously shouted, "Wake up, + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page35" name="page35"></a>[35]</span> + + Mother!" Some of you, I know, he goes on, will listen, even as Polemon +did (Sat. II, iii, 254). Returning from a debauch, the young profligate +passed the Academy where Xenocrates was lecturing, and burst riotously +in. Presently, instead of scoffing, he began to hearken; was touched +and moved and saddened, tore off conscience-stricken his effeminate +ornaments, long sleeves, purple leggings, cravat, the garland from his +head, the necklace from his throat; came away an altered and converted +man. One thinks of a poem by Rossetti, and of something further back +than that; for did we not hear the story from sage Mr. Barlow's lips, +in our Sandford and Merton salad days? +</p> +<p> +In the earlier Satires his personalities are sometimes gross: +chatterbox Fabius, scattercash Nomentanus, blear-eyed Crispinus, +Hermogenes the fop, Pantolabus the trencherman, Gorgonius the +goat-scented, Rufillus the pastille-perfumed, were derisive sobriquets, +which, while ministering to the censoriousness of readers by names +genuine or well understood, must have bitterly offended the men thus +stigmatized or transparently indicated. This he admits regretfully in +his later Satires, throwing some blame on a practice of his father, who +when cautioning him against vice, always pointed the warning by some +example from among their acquaintance. So, leaving personal satire, he +turns to other topics; relates divertingly the annoyances of a journey; +the mosquitoes, the frogs which croaked all night (Sat. I, v), the bad +water and the ill-baked + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page36" name="page36"></a>[36]</span> + + bread. Or he paints the slummy quarter of the +city in which the witches held their horrible rites, and describes their +cruel orgies as he peeped at them through the trees one night. Or he +girds, facetiously and without the bitterness of Persius or Juvenal, +at the Jews (Sat. I, v, 100), whose stern exclusiveness of faith was +beginning to excite in Rome the horror vigorously expressed by Gallio +in M. Anatole France's recent brilliant work. Or he delineates, on a +full canvas and with the modernity which is amongst his most endearing +characteristics, the "Bore" of the Augustan age. He starts on a summer +morning, light-hearted and thinking of nothing at all, for a pleasant +stroll along the Sacred Way (Sat. I, ix).<a href="#note-1" name="noteref-1"><small>1</small></a> A man whom he hardly knew +accosts him, ignores a stiff response, clings to him, refuses to be +shaken off, sings his own praises as poet, musician, dancer, presses +impertinent questions as to the household and habits of Maecenas. +Horace's friend Fuscus meets them; the poet nods and winks, imploring +him to interpose a rescue. Cruel Fuscus sees it all, mischievously +apologizes, will not help, and the shy, amiable poet walks on with his +tormentor, "his ears dropped like those of an overladen ass." At last +one of the bore's creditors comes up, collars him with threats, hales +him to the law courts, while the relieved + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page37" name="page37"></a>[37]</span> + + poet quotes in his joy from +the rescue of Hector in the Iliad, "Thus Apollo bore me from the fray." +In this Satire, which was admirably imitated by Swift, it always seems +to me that we get Horace at his very best, his dry quaintness and his +inoffensive fun. The <i>delicacy</i> of Roman satire died with him; to +reappear in our own Augustan age with Addison and Steele, to find faint +echo in the gentle preachments of Cowper, to impress itself in every +page on the lambent humour, the self-accusing tolerance, the penetrative +yet benignant wit of Thackeray. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +Between the latest of the Satires and the earliest of the Epistles, we +have to reckon an interval of something like ten years, during which had +been published the Epodes and the majority of the Odes. "Epistles" his +editors have agreed to entitle them; but not all of them are genuine +Letters. Some are rather dedicated than written to the persons whose +names they bear; some are thrown for literary purposes into epistolary +form; some again are definitely and personally addressed to friends. +"Sermons" he calls them himself as he called the Satires, and their +motive is mostly the same; like those, they are Conversations, only with +absent correspondents instead of with present interlocutors, real or +imagined. He follows in them the old theme, the art of living, the +happiness of moderation and contentment; preaching easily as from + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page38" name="page38"></a>[38]</span> + + Rabelais' easy chair, with all the Frenchman's wit, without his +grossness. And, as we read, we feel how the ten years of experience, of +thought, of study, have matured his views of life, how again the labour +spent during their progress on lyrical composition, with perhaps the +increasing influence over his taste of Virgil's poetry, have trained his +ear, mellowed and refined his style. "The Epistles of Horace," says Dean +Milman, "are, with the Poem of Lucretius, the Georgics of Virgil, and +perhaps the Satires of Juvenal, the most perfect and most original form +of Roman verse." +</p> +<p> +Of the three letters to Maecenas, one, like the Ode we have before +quoted on p. 28, is a vigorous assertion of independence. The great man, +sorely sick and longing for his friend, had written peevishly (Ep. I, +vii), "You said you should be absent five days only, and you stay away +the whole of August." "Well—I went away because I was ill, and I remain +away because in this 'undertakers' month,' as you call it in Rome, I am +afraid of being worse if I go back. When cold weather comes I shall go +down to the sea; then, with the first swallow, dear friend, your poet +will revisit you. I love you fondly; am grateful to you every hour of my +life; but if you want to keep me always by your side, you must restore +to me the tender grace of vanished youth; strong lungs, thick black +hair, musical voice and ringing laughter; with our common love for +pretty Cinara now dead and gone." A positive sturdy refusal, not without +hints that if the patron repents + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page39" name="page39"></a>[39]</span> + + his benefactions or demands sacrifice +of freedom in exchange for them, he had better take them back: yet a +remonstrance so disarming, infused with such a blend of respect and +playfulness, such wealth of witty anecdote and classical allusion, that +we imagine the fretfulness of the appeased protector evaporating in +admiration as he reads, the answer of affectionate apology and +acceptance dictated in his pacified response. +</p> +<p> +In another inimitable letter (Ep. I, 9), as brief as this is long, he +recommends his friend Septimius to Tiberius Claudius Nero, stepson of +Augustus, a young man of reserved unpleasant manners, and difficult to +approach. The suasive grace with which it disclaims presumption, yet +pleads his own merits as a petitioner and his friend's as a candidate +for favour, with its dignified deference, implied not fulsome, to the +young prince's rank, have caused it to be compared with that masterpiece +of delicate solicitation, St. Paul's Epistle to Philemon. It is cited by +Steele in the "Spectator" as a model of epistolary tact ("Spectator," +No. 493); we cannot improve upon his translation: +</p> +<p class="quote"> + "Septimius, who waits on you with this, is clearly well acquainted + with the place you are pleased to allow me in your friendship. + For when he beseeches me to recommend him to your notice in such + a manner as to be received by you, who are delicate in the choice + of your friends and domestics, he knows our intimacy and understands + my ability to serve him better + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page40" name="page40"></a>[40]</span> + + than I do myself. I have defended + myself against his ambition to be yours as long as I possibly + could; but fearing the imputation of hiding my influence with you + out of mean and selfish considerations, I am at last prevailed + upon to give you this trouble. Thus, to avoid the appearance + of a greater fault, I have put on this confidence. If you can + forgive such transgression of modesty in behalf of a friend, + receive this gentleman into your interests and friendship, and + take it from me that he is a brave and honest man." +</p> +<p> +An epistle written and sent about the same time, possibly by the same +bearer, shows Horace in an amiable light as kindly Mentor to the young +Telemachi of rank who were serving on Tiberius' staff (Ep. I, iii). +"Tell me, Florus, whereabouts you are just now, in snowy Thrace or +genial Asia? which of you poets is writing the exploits of Augustus? how +does Titius get on with his Latin rendering of Pindar? my dear friend +Celsus, what is he at work upon? his own ideas, I hope, not cribs from +library books. And you? are you abandoning all other allurements for +the charms of divine philosophy? Tell me, too, if you have made up your +quarrel with Munatius. To break the tie of brotherhood is a crime: +please, please be friends with him again, and bring him with you when +next you come to see me. I am fattening a calf to feast you both." Here +is a dinner invitation (Ep. I, v.): "If you can put up with deal tables +and a mess of greens served in a common dish, with wine five years old +and not at all bad, come and sup with me, Torquatus, at sunset. + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page41" name="page41"></a>[41]</span> + + We have +swept up the hearth and cleaned the furniture; you may see your face +reflected in cup and platter. We will have a long summer evening of +talk, and you can sleep afterwards as late as you like, for to morrow is +Augustus' birthday, and there will be no business in the courts. I told +you the wine is good, and there is nothing like good drink. It unlocks +reticence, unloads hearts, encourages the shy, makes the tongue-tied +eloquent and the poor opulent. I have chosen my company well: there will +be no blab to repeat our conversation out of doors. Butra and Septimius +are coming, and I hope Sabinus. Just send a line to say whom you would +like to have besides. Bring friends if you choose, but the weather is +hot, and we must not overcrowd the rooms." It all sounds delightful, +except perhaps the mess of greens; but a good Italian cook can make +vegetables tempting down to the present day. I think we should all have +loved to be there, as at the neat repast of Attic taste with wine, which +tempted virtuous Laurence to sup with Milton. So should we like to know +what called forth this pretty piece of moralizing, addressed to the +poet Tibullus (Ep. I, iv). He was handsome, prosperous, popular, yet +melancholy. Horace affectionately reproves him. "Dear Albius," he says, +using the intimate fore-name, "Dear Albius, tell me what you are about +in your pretty villa: writing delicate verses, strolling in your forest +glades, with thoughts and fancies I am sure all that a good man's should +be? What can you want besides the beauty, wealth, full purse, and seemly + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page42" name="page42"></a>[42]</span> + + household which the gods have given you? Dear friend, I tell you what +you want, contentment with the present hour. Try and imagine that each +day which dawns upon you is your last; then each succeeding day will +come unexpected and delightful. I practise what I preach: come and take +a look at me; you will find me contented, sleek, and plump, 'the fattest +little pig in Epicurus' sty.'" And he impresses the same lesson on +another friend, Bullatius, who was for some reason restless at home and +sought relief in travel. "What ails you to scamper over Asia or voyage +among the Isles of Greece? Sick men travel for health, but you are well. +Sad men travel for change, but change diverts not sadness, yachts and +chaises bring no happiness; their skies they change, but not their souls +who cross the sea. Enjoy the to-day, dear friend, which God has given +you, the place where God has placed you: a Little Pedlington is cheerful +if the mind be free from care" (Ep. I, xi). +</p> +<p> +His great friend Fuscus twits him, as Will Honeycomb twitted Mr. +Spectator, with his passion for a country life (Ep. I, x). "You are a +Stoic," Horace says, "your creed is to live according to Nature. Do you +expect to find her in the town or in the country? whether of the two +yields more peaceful nights and sweeter sleep? is a marble floor more +refreshing to the eyes than a green meadow? water poured through leaden +pipes purer than the crystal spring? Even amid your Corinthian columns +you plant trees and shrubs; though you drive out Nature she will + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page43" name="page43"></a>[43]</span> + + silently +return and supplant your fond caprices. Do interpose a little ease and +recreation amid the money-grubbing which confines you to the town. Money +should be the servant, not the queen, the captive, not the conqueror. +If you want to see a happy man, come to me in the country. I have only +one thing wanting to perfect happiness, my desire for your society." +Two longer letters are written to his young friend Lollius (Ep. I, ii, +xviii). The first is a study of Homer, which he has been reading in the +country. In the "Iliad" he is disgusted by the reckless selfishness of +the leaders; in the hero of the "Odyssey" he sees a model of patient, +wise endurance, and impresses the example on his friend. It is curious +that the great poet of one age, reading the greater poet of another, +should fasten his attention, not on the poetry, but on the ethics of his +predecessor. The remaining letter is called out by Lollius' appointment +as confidential secretary to some man of great consequence; an office +such as Horace himself declined when offered by Augustus. The post, +he says, is full of difficulty, and endangering to self-respect: the +servility it exacts will be intolerable to a man so truthful, frank, and +independent as his friend. Let him decline it; or, if committed, get out +of it as soon as possible. +</p> +<p> +Epistles there are without a moral purpose, called forth by some +special occasion. He sends his "Odes" by one Asella for presentation +to Augustus, punning on the name, as representing an Ass laden with +manuscripts (Ep. I, xiii). The + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page44" name="page44"></a>[44]</span> + + fancy was carried out by Pope in his +frontispiece to the "Dunciad." Then his doctor tells him to forsake +Baiae as a winter health resort, and he writes to one Vala, who lives in +southern Italy, inquiring as to the watering places lower down the coast +(Ep. I, xv). He must have a place where the bread is good and the water +pure; the wine generous and mellow; in the market wild boars and hares, +sea-urchins and fine fish. He can live simply at home, but is sick +now and wants cherishing, that he may come back fat as one of the +Phaeacians—luxurious subjects, we remember, of King Alcinous in the +"Odyssey," +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> Good food we love, and music, and the dance,</p> +<p class="i2"> Garments oft changed, warm baths, and restful beds.</p> + +<p class="i22"> Odyssey, viii, 248.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p> +Julius Florus, poet and orator, presses him to write more lyrics +(Ep. II, ii). For many reasons, no, he answers. I no longer want money. +I am getting old. Lyrics are out of fashion. No one can write in Rome. +I have become fastidious. His sketch of the ideal poet is believed to +portray the writings of his friend Virgil. It is nobly paraphrased +by Pope: +</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> But how severely with themselves proceed </p> +<p class="i2"> The men, who write such verse as we can read! </p> +<p class="i2"> Their own strict judges, not a word they spare, </p> +<p class="i2"> That wants or force, or light, or weight, or care; </p> +<p class="i2"> Pour the full tide of eloquence along, </p> +<p class="i2"> Serenely pure, and yet divinely strong; </p> +<p class="i2"> Prune the luxuriant, the uncouth refine, </p> +<p class="i2"> But show no mercy to an empty line; </p> + +<!--Actual location of page break 45--> + +<p class="i2"> Then polish all with so much life and ease, </p> +<p class="i2"> You think 'tis nature, and a knack to please; </p> +<p class="i2"> But ease in writing flows from art, not chance, </p> +<p class="i2"> As those move easiest who have learned to dance. </p> +</div> +</div> + +<!--Page break relocated down from above poem--> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page45" name="page45"></a>[45]</span></p> + +<p> +The "Epistle to Augustus" (Ep. II, i) was written (page 28) at the +Emperor's request. After some conventional compliments it passes to a +criticism of Latin poetry past and present; comparing, like Swift's +"Battle of the Books," the merits of the contemporary and of the older +masters. There is a foolish mania just now, he says, for admiring our +older poets, not because they are good, but because they are old. The +origin and development of Roman poetry made it certain that perfection +must come late. He assumes that Augustus champions the moderns, and +compliments him on the discernment which preferred a Virgil and a Varius +(and so, by implication, a Horace) to the Plautuses and Terences of the +past. +</p> +<p> +The "Art of Poetry" is thought to be an unfinished work. Unmethodical +and without proportion, it may have been either compiled clumsily +after the poet's death, or put together carelessly by himself amid the +indolence which grows sometimes upon old age. It declares the essentials +of poetry to be unity of conception and ingenuity of diction, urges +that mechanical correctness must be inspired by depth of feeling, gives +technical rules of dramatic action, of the chorus, of metre. For matter +such as this a Horace was not needed, but the felicity of its handling +has made it to many Horatian students + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page46" name="page46"></a>[46]</span> + + the most popular of his +conversational works. It abounds in passages of finished beauty; such +as his comparison of verbal novelties imported into a literature with +the changing forest leaves; his four ages of humanity—the childish, +the adolescent, the manly, the senile—borrowed from Aristotle, expanded +by Shakespeare, and taken up by Keats; his comparison of Poetry to +Painting; his delineation of an honest critic. Brief phrases which +have become classical abound. The "purple patch" sewn on to a sober +narrative; the wine jar turning to a pitcher as the potter's wheel +revolves; the injunction to keep a book ten years before you publish +it; the near kinship of terseness to obscurity; the laughable outcome +of a mountain's labour; the warning to be chary of bringing gods upon +the stage; the occasional nod of Homer;—are commonplace citations so +crisp and so exhaustive in their Latin garb, that even the unlettered +scientist imports them into his treatises, sometimes with curious +effect. +</p> + +<a name="image-0007"><!--IMG--></a> +<div class="figure"> +<a href="images/illus-06.jpg"><img src="images/illus-06.png" width="342" height="500" +alt="AUGUSTUS." /></a> +<br /> +<p class="left"><i>Alinari photo.</i>]</p> +<p class="right">[<i>Uffizi Gallery, Florence.</i></p> +<p class="center">AUGUSTUS.</p> +</div> + +<p> +If for a full appreciation of these minor beauties a knowledge of the +Latin text is necessary, the more abounding charm of both Satires and +Epistles is accessible to the Latinless reader. For the bursts of poetry +are brief and rare, issuing from amid what Horace often reminds us are +essentially plain prose essays in conversational form, their hexametral +garb an unpoetical accident. Two versions present themselves to the +unclassical student. The first is Conington's scholarly rendering, +hampered sometimes rather than adorned by its metrical shape; the other +is + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page47" name="page47"></a>[47]</span> + + the more recent construe of Dean Wickham, clear, flowing, readable, +stamping with the translator's high authority many a disputed passage. +Both set temptingly before English readers the Rome of Horace's day, +and promote them to an intimacy with his own mind, character, history. +Preferable to both, no doubt, are the "Imitations" of Pope, which do +not aim at literal transference, but work, as does his yet more famous +Homer, by melting down the original, and pouring the fused mass into +an English mould. Their background is Twit'nam and the Mall instead of +Tibur and the Forum; their Maecenas St. John, their Trebatius Fortescue, +their Numicius Murray. Where Horace appeals to Ennius and Attius, +they cite Shakespeare and Cowley; while the forgotten wits, worthies, +courtiers, spendthrifts of Horatian Rome reappear as Lord Hervey or Lady +Mary, as Shippen, Chartres, Oldfield, Darteneuf; and Horace's delicate +flattery of a Roman Emperor is travestied with diabolical cleverness +into bitter mockery of an English king. In these easy and polished +metamorphoses we have Pope at his very best; like Horace, an epitome +of his time, bearing the same relation, as patriot, scholar, worldling, +epicurean, poet, satirist, to the London of Queen Anne, which Horace +bore to the Augustan capital; and so reproducing in an English garb +something at any rate of the exotic flavour of his original. In an age +when Pope is undeservedly and disastrously neglected, I shall do well +to present some few Horatian samples from the + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page48" name="page48"></a>[48]</span> + + king-poet of his +century; by whose wit and finish, unsurpassed if not unequalled in our +literature, the taste of my own contemporaries was formed; and to whom +a public which decries or ignores him pays homage every day, by quoting +from him unconsciously oftener than from anyone except Shakespeare. +</p> +<p> +Here is a specimen from the Satires, heightening our interest in +Horace's picture by its adaptation to familiar English characters. Great +Scipio and Laelius, says Horace (Sat. II, i, 72), could unbend their +dignity to trifle and even to romp with Lucilius. Says Pope of his own +Twickenham home: +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> Know, all the distant din that world can keep </p> +<p class="i2"> Rolls o'er my Grotto, and but sooths my sleep. </p> +<p class="i2"> There my retreat the best Companions grace, </p> +<p class="i2"> Chiefs out of war, and Statesmen out of place. </p> +<p class="i2"> There St. John mingles with my friendly bowl </p> +<p class="i2"> The feast of reason and the flow of soul: </p> +<p class="i2"> And he, whose lightning pierced the Iberian lines, </p> +<p class="i2"> Now forms my Quincunx and now ranks my vines, </p> +<p class="i2"> Or tames the genius of the stubborn plain, </p> +<p class="i2"> Almost as quickly as he conquered Spain. </p> +</div> +</div> + +<p> +That Naevius is no longer read (Ep. II, i, 53) affects us slightly, for +of Naevius we know nothing; Pope substitutes a writer known and admired +still: +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> Who now reads Cowley? if he pleases yet, </p> +<p class="i2"> His moral pleases, not his pointed wit; </p> +<p class="i2"> Forget his Epic, nay, Pindaric art, </p> +<p class="i2"> But still I love the language of his heart. </p> +</div> +</div> + +<p> +Horace tells how the old rough Saturnian measure gave way to later +elegance (Ep. II, i, + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page49" name="page49"></a>[49]</span> + + 157). Pope aptly introduces these fine resonant +lines: +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> Waller's was smooth; but Dryden taught to join</p> +<p class="i2"> The varying verse, the full resounding line,</p> +<p class="i2"> The long majestic march, and energy divine.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p> +Horace claims for poetry that it lifts the mind from the coarse and +sensual to the imaginative and pure (Ep. II, i, 128). Pope illustrates +by a delightful compliment to moral Addison, with just one little flick +of the lash to show that he remembered their old quarrel: +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> In our own day (excuse some courtly stains), </p> +<p class="i2"> No whiter page than Addison's remains. </p> +<p class="i2"> He from the taste obscene reclaims our youth, </p> +<p class="i2"> And sets the passions on the side of Truth; </p> +<p class="i2"> Forms the soft bosom with the gentlest art, </p> +<p class="i2"> And pours each human virtue in the heart. </p> +</div> +</div> + +<p> +Horace, speaking of an old comic poet, Livius (Ep. II, i, 69), whom he +had been compelled to read at school, is indignant that a single neat +line or happy phrase should preserve an otherwise contemptible +composition. This is Pope's expansion: +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> But, for the wits of either Charles' days, </p> +<p class="i2"> The mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease, </p> +<p class="i2"> Sprat, Carew, Sedley, and a hundred more, </p> +<p class="i2"> Like twinkling stars the Miscellanies o'er, </p> +<p class="i2"> One simile, that solitary shines </p> +<p class="i2"> In the dry desert of a thousand lines, </p> +<p class="i2"> Or lengthened thought that gleams through many a page, </p> +<p class="i2"> Has sanctified whole poems for an age. </p> +</div> +</div> + +<p> +Horace paints the University don as he had + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page50" name="page50"></a>[50]</span> + + seen him emerging from his +studious seclusion to walk the streets of Athens, absent, meditative, +moving the passers-by to laughter (Ep. II, ii, 81). Pope carries him +to Oxford: +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> The man, who, stretched in Isis' calm retreat, </p> +<p class="i2"> To books and study gives seven years complete; </p> +<p class="i2"> See, strowed with learned dust, his nightcap on, </p> +<p class="i2"> He walks, an object new beneath the sun. </p> +<p class="i2"> The boys flock round him, and the people stare; </p> +<p class="i2"> So stiff, so mute! some statue you would swear, </p> +<p class="i2"> Stept from its pedestal to take the air. </p> +</div> +</div> + +<p> +Finally, Horace extols the poet as distinct from the mere versifier +(Ep. II, i, 210). Pope's rendering ought to dispel the plea of an +unfeelingness sometimes lightly urged against him: +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> Let me for once presume to instruct the times </p> +<p class="i2"> To know the Poet from the Man of Rhymes: </p> +<p class="i2"> 'Tis he, who gives my breast a thousand pains, </p> +<p class="i2"> Can make me feel each passion that he feigns, </p> +<p class="i2"> Enrage, compose, with more than magic art, </p> +<p class="i2"> With pity and with terror tear my heart; </p> +<p class="i2"> And snatch me o'er the earth or through the air, </p> +<p class="i2"> To Thebes, to Athens, when he will, and where. </p> +</div> +</div> + +<p> +If only he had handled more! but of the forty-one Conversations Pope +imitated only seven. And so to assimilate those remaining we must +descend from the heights of poetry to the cool sequestered vale of +literal masquerade. To a lady wintering in Rome who consulted me lately +as to guide-books, I ventured to recommend Hawthorne's "Transformation," +Marion Crawford's "Ave Roma," and Dean Wickham's translation of the +Satires and Epistles. +</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<a name="note-1"><!--Note--></a> +<p class="foot"> +(<a href="#noteref-1">1</a>) +May the writer ask indulgence while he recalls how, +exactly fifty-eight years ago, as senior boy at Winchester, +he recited this Satire publicly, receiving in recompense at +Warden Barter's hands the Queen's silver medal for elocution. +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page51" name="page51"></a>[51]</span></p> + +<a name="h2H_4_0008" id="h2H_4_0008"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + ODES AND EPODES +</h2> +<p> +I have tried to interpret in some degree the teaching of the Satires +and Epistles. Yet had the author's genius found expression in these +Conversations only, he would not have become through nineteen centuries +the best beloved of Latin poets: beloved in his own time alike by the +weary Atlas Augustus and the refined sensualist Maecenas; "playing round +the heartstrings" of the stern censor Persius; endowed by Petronius and +Quintilian with the prize of incommunicable felicity; the darling of +Dante, Montaigne, Voltaire, Chesterfield; the "old popular Horace" of +Tennyson; the Horace whose "sad earnestness and vivid exactness" pierced +the soul and brain of aged John Henry Newman. "His poems," says a great +French critic (St. Beuve, "Horace"), "form a manual of good taste, of +poetic feeling, of practical and worldly wisdom. The Christian has his +Bible; the scholar his Homer; Port Royal lived on St. Augustine; an +earlier philosophy on Montaigne; Horace comes within the range of all: +in reading him we break not in any way with modernity, yet retain our +hold upon antiquity. I know nothing more delightful as one grows in +years, when the + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page52" name="page52"></a>[52]</span> + + mind retains its subtlety, but is conscious of increasing +languor, than to test the one and brace the other by companionship +with a book familiar and frequently re-read: we walk thereby with a +supporting staff, stroll leaning upon a friendly arm. This is what +Horace does for us: coming back to him in our old age, we recover our +youthful selves, and are relieved to learn while we appreciate afresh +his well-remembered lines, that if our minds have become more inert, +they are also more feeling, than of yore." +</p> +<p> +For full justification of these graceful amenities we must turn to the +lyrical poems. The Satires and Epistles, as their author frequently +reminds us, were in prose: the revealed Horatian secret, the condensed +expression of the Horatian charm, demanded musical verse; and this we +have in the Odes and Epodes. The word Ode is Greek for a Song; Epode was +merely a metrical term to express an ode which alternated in longer and +shorter lines, and we may treat them all alike as Odes. The Epodes are +amongst his earliest publications, and bear signs of a 'prentice hand. +"Iambi," he calls them, a Greek word meaning "lampoons"; and six of them +are bitter personal attacks on individuals, foreign to the good breeding +and urbanity which distinguish his later writings. More of the same +class he is believed to have suppressed, retaining these as specimens +of that earlier style, and because, though inchoate, they won the +admiration of Virgil, and preferred their author to the patronage of +Maecenas. One of the finer Epodes (Epod. ix) + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page53" name="page53"></a>[53]</span> + + has peculiar interest, as +written probably on the deck of Maecenas' galley during or immediately +after the battle of Actium; and is in that case the sole extant +contemporary record of the engagement. It reflects the loathing kindled +in Roman breasts by Antony's emasculate subjugation to his paramour; +imagines with horror a dissolute Egyptian harlot triumphant and supreme +in Rome, with her mosquito-curtained beds and litters, and her train of +wrinkled eunuchs. It describes with a spectator's accuracy the desertion +of the Gallic contingent during the battle, the leftward flight of +Antony's fleet: then, with his favourite device of lapsing from +high-wrought passion into comedy, Horace bewails his own sea-sickness +when the excitement of the fight is over, and calls for cups of wine to +quell it. In another Epode (Epod. ii) he recalls his boyish memories in +praise of country life: the vines wedded to poplars in the early spring, +after that the sheepshearing, later still the grape-gathering and honey +harvest; when winter comes, the hunting of the boar by day, at night the +cheery meal with wife and children upon olives, sorrel, mallows, beside +the crackling log-piled hearth. Even here he is not weaned from the +tricks of mocking irony manifest in his early writings and born perhaps +of his early struggles; for he puts this delicious pastoral, which +tinkles through the page like Milton's "L'Allegro," into the mouth of a +Roman capitalist, who, bitten by transient passion for a country life, +calls in all his money that he may buy a farm, pines in country + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page54" name="page54"></a>[54]</span> + + retirement for the Stock Exchange, sells his estate in quick disgust, +and returns to city life: +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> So said old Ten-per-cent, when he </p> +<p class="i2"> A jolly farmer fain would be. </p> +<p class="i2"> His moneys he called in amain— </p> +<p class="i2"> Next week he put them out again. </p> +</div> +</div> + +<p style="text-indent: 0;"> +is the spirited rendering of Mr. Goldwin Smith. +</p> +<p> +In his remaining Epodes we may trace the germ of his later written +Odes. We have the affectionate addresses to Maecenas, the disgust at +civil discords, the cheery invitations to the wine cup, the wooing +of some coy damsel. By and by Maecenas presses him to bring them out +completed in a volume, and he pleads a fugitive amour in excuse for his +delay. Published, however, they were, notwithstanding the distractions +of Neaera; went, neatly written out in red-lined columns, to the +brothers Sosii in the street called Argiletum, to be multiplied by the +librarian's scribes on well-bleached Egyptian papyrus, bound in pumiced +parchment, stored in metal boxes on the bookseller's shelves within, +while the names of the author and his work were inscribed upon a pillar +outside the shop, as a guide to intending purchasers. Copies were sold, +probably, for a few denarii each; what would we not give for one of them +to-day? Let us hope that their author was well paid. +</p> +<p> +Horace was now thirty-five years old: the Epodes had taught him his +power over lyric verse. He had imitated at first the older Roman +satirists; here by Maecenas' advice he copied + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page55" name="page55"></a>[55]</span> + + from Greek models, from +Alcaeus and Sappho, claiming ever afterwards with pride that he was +the first amongst Roman poets to wed Aeolian lays to notes of Italy +(Od. III, xxx, 13). He spent seven years in composing the first three +Books of the Odes, which appeared in a single volume about <span class="sc">B.C.</span> 23. +More than any of his poems they contain the essence of his indefinable +magic art. They deal apparently with dull truisms and stale moralities, +avowals of simple joys and simple sorrows. They tell us that life is +brief and death is sure, that light loves and ancient wines are good, +that riches are burdensome, and enough is better than a feast, that +country life is delightful, that old age comes on us apace, that our +friends leave us sorrowing and our sorrow does not bring them back. +Trite sayings no doubt; but embellished one and all with an adorable +force and novelty at once sadly earnest and vividly exact; not too +simple for the profound and not too artful for the shallow; consecrated +by the verbal felicity which belongs only to an age of peculiar +intellectual refinement, and which flashed diamond-like from the facets +of his own highly polished mind. "He is the Breviary of the natural man, +his poetry is the Imitation not of Christ but of Epicurus." +</p> +<p> +His Odes may be roughly classified as Religious, Moral, Philosophical, +Personal, Amatory. +</p> +<p> +1. <span class="sc">Religious.</span> Between the classic and the Christian hymn, as Matthew +Arnold has reminded us, there is a great gulf fixed. The Latin +conception of the gods was civic; they were + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page56" name="page56"></a>[56]</span> + + superior heads of the +Republic; the Roman church was the invisible Roman state; religion was +merely exalted patriotism. So Horace's addresses to the deities for +the most part remind them of their coronation oaths, of the terms on +which they were worshipped, their share in the bargain with humanity, +a bargain to be kept on their side if they expected tribute of lambs and +piglings, of hallowed cakes and vervain wreaths. Very little of what we +call devotion seasons them. In two Odes (I, ii, xii), from a mere litany +of Olympian names he passes to a much more earnest deification of +Augustus. Another (III, xix) is a grace to Bacchus after a wine-bout. +Or Faunus is bidden to leave pursuing the nymphs (we think of Elijah's +sneer at Baal) and to attend to his duties on the Sabine farm, of +blessing the soil and protecting the lambs (III, xviii). The hymn to +Mercury recounts mythical exploits of the winged god, his infantile +thefts from Apollo, his guiding Priam through the Grecian camp, his +gift of speech to men, his shepherding souls to Hades (I, x). Venus is +invoked in a dainty prayer to visit the chapel which Glycera is building +for her (I, xxx): +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> O come, and with thee bring thy glowing boy,</p> +<p class="i4"> The Graces all, with kirtles flowing free,</p> +<p class="i2"> Youth, that without thee knows but little joy,</p> +<p class="i4"> The jocund nymphs and blithesome Mercury.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p> +The doctrine of an overruling Providence Horace had expressly rejected +in the Satires (Sat. iv, 101), holding that the gods are too happy and +too + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page57" name="page57"></a>[57]</span> + + careless in their superior aloof security to plague themselves with +the affairs of mortals. But he felt sometimes, as all men feel, the need +of a supreme celestial Guide: in the noble Ode which Ruskin loved he +seems to find it in Necessity or Fortune (Od. I, xxxv); and once, when +scared by thunder resounding in a cloudless sky, recants what he calls +his "irrational rationalism," and admits that God may, if He will, put +down the mighty and exalt the low (I, xxxiv). So again in his hymn for +the dedication of Apollo's Temple on the Palatine (I, xxxi) a serious +note is struck. He will not ask the God for rich cornfields and fat +meadow land, for wines of Cales proffered in a golden cup. A higher boon +than these his prayer demands: +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> O grant me, Phoebus, calm content,</p> +<p class="i4"> Strength unimpaired, a mind entire,</p> +<p class="i2"> Old age without dishonour spent,</p> +<p class="i4"> Nor unbefriended of the lyre.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p> +On the other hand, his Ode to Melpomene (IV, iii), written in the +consciousness of accepted eminence as the national poet, "harpist of the +Roman lyre," breathes a sentiment of gratitude to Divinity far above the +typical poetic cant of homage to the Muse. And his fine Secular Hymn, +composed by Augustus's request for the great Century Games, strikes a +note of patriotic aspiration and of moral earnestness, not unworthy to +compare with King Solomon's Dedication Prayer; and is such as, with some +modernization of the Deities invoked, would hardly misbecome a national +religious + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page58" name="page58"></a>[58]</span> + + festival to-day. It was sung by twenty-seven noble boys and as +many high-born maidens, now in antiphon, now in chorus, to Apollo and +Diana, as representing all the gods. Apollo, bless our city! say the +boys. Dian, bless our women and our children, say the girls, and guard +the sanctity of our marriage laws. Bring forth Earth's genial fruits, +say both; give purity to youth and peace to age. Bring back the lapsed +virtues of the Golden Age; Faith, Honour, antique Shame-fastness and +Worth, and Plenty with her teeming horn. Hear, God! hear, Goddess! Yes, +we feel our prayers are heard— +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> Now homeward we repair,</p> +<p class="i4"> Full of the blessed hope which will not fail,</p> +<p class="i4"> That Jove and all the gods have heard our prayer,</p> +<p class="i2"> And with approving smiles our homage hail:</p> +<p class="i4"> We, skilled in choral harmonies to raise</p> +<p class="i4"> The hymn to Phoebus and Diana's praise.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p> +Of course in all this there is no touch of ecstasy; no spark of the +inspiration which in a St. Francis, a St. Teresa, or a Charles Wesley, +scales the heights of hymnody. And, as the unimaginative Roman +temperament lacked the instinct of adoration, so was it deficient in +that other constituent of supernatural faith, the belief in immortality. +There might be a shadowy world—the poets said so—Odysseus visited its +depths and brought back its report—but it was a gloomy place at best. +Horace alludes to it always in the tone of the Hebrew Psalmists, or of +Hezekiah sick to death, utilizing Minos and Cerberus and Tantalus and +Sisyphus for poetic effect, yet ever with + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page59" name="page59"></a>[59]</span> + + an undertone of sadness and +alarm. Not Orpheus' self, he says (I, xxiv, 13), in his exquisite lament +for dead Quinctilius, can bring back life-blood to the phantom pale who +has joined the spectral band that voyage to Styx: the gods are +pitiless—we can only bear bereavements patiently (II, iii). You must +leave, my Dellius, your pleasant groves and your cottage upon Tiber's +banks, since Orcus, ruthless king, swoops equally on all: +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> Land, home, and winsome wife must all be left;</p> +<p class="i4"> And cypresses abhorred,</p> +<p class="i4"> Alone of all the trees</p> +<p class="i4"> That now your fancy please,</p> +<p class="i2"> Shall shade his dust who was awhile their lord.</p> + +<p class="i22"> (II, xiv, 21.)</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p> +2. <span class="sc">Moral.</span> But if the gods are beyond our ken, and if the world to come +is misty, we still have this world with us; a world not always to be +daffed aside with love and wine and comradeship, since behind its frolic +wantonness lie the ennobling claims of duty and of conscience. As with +Fielding, as with Thackeray, the light current tone of sportiveness or +irony heightens the rare solemnity of didactic moral earnestness. Of all +the Latin poets, says Sir Richard Fanshaw, Horace is the fullest fraught +with excellent morality. In the six stately Odes which open the third +book, together with a later Ode (xxiv) which closes the series and ought +never to have been severed from it, Horatian poetry rises to its +greatest height of ethical impressiveness. Ushered in with the solemn +words of a hierophant bidding + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page60" name="page60"></a>[60]</span> + + the uninitiated avaunt at the commencement +of a religious ceremony (III, i, 1-2), delivered with official +assumption in the fine frenzy of a muse-inspired priest, their unity +of purpose and of style makes them virtually a continuous poem. It +lashes the vices and the short-sighted folly of society; with the Sword +of Damocles above his head the rich man sits at a luxurious board +(III, i, 17); sails in his bronzed galley, lolls in his lordly chariot, +with black Care ever at the helm or on the box (III, i, 40). By +hardihood in the field and cheerful poverty at home Rome became great +of yore; such should be the virtues of to-day. Let men be <i>moral</i>; it +was immorality that ruined Troy; <i>heroic</i>—read the tale of Regulus; +<i>courageous</i>, but with courage ordered, disciplined, controlled (III, +iii; v; iv, 65). Brute force without mind, he says almost in Milton's +words, falls by its own strength, as the giants fell encountering the +gods: +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> For what is strength without a double share</p> +<p class="i2"> Of wisdom? vast, unwieldy, burdensome;</p> +<p class="i2"> Proudly secure, yet liable to fall</p> +<p class="i2"> By weakest subtleties, not made to rule,</p> +<p class="i2"> But to subserve where wisdom bears command.</p> + +<p class="i22"> ("Samson Ag.," 53.)</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p> +Self-discipline, he reminds his audience, need not be sullen and +austere; in regenerated Rome the Muses still may rule. Mild thoughts +they plant, and they joy to see mild thoughts take root; refinement +of manners and of mind, and the gladsomeness of literary culture +(III, iv, 41). +</p> +<p> +He turns to reprove the ostentation of the + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page61" name="page61"></a>[61]</span> + + rich; their adding field to +field, poor families evicted from farmstead and cottage to make way for +spreading parks and ponds and gardens; +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i22"> driven from home</p> +<p class="i2"> Both wife and husband forth must roam,</p> +<p class="i2"> Bearing their household gods close pressed,</p> +<p class="i2"> With squalid babes, upon their breast.</p> + +<p class="i22"> (II, xviii, 23.)</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p> +Not thus was it in the good old times. Then rich men lavished marble on +the temples of the gods, roofed their own cottages with chance-cut turf +(II, xv, 13). And to what end all this splendour? Behind your palace +walls lurks the grim architect of a narrower home; the path of glory +leads but to the grave (II, xviii, 17). And as on the men, so on the +women of Rome his solemn warnings are let fall. Theirs is the task to +maintain the sacred family bond, the purity of marriage life. Let them +emulate the matrons of the past, severe mothers of gallant sons (III, +vi, 37). Let men and women join to stay the degeneracy which has begun +to set in, and which, unchecked, will grow deadlier with each generation +as it succeeds. +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> How Time doth in its flight debase </p> +<p class="i2"> Whate'er it finds? our fathers' race, </p> +<p class="i4"> More deeply versed in ill </p> +<p class="i2"> Than were their sires, hath born us yet </p> +<p class="i2"> More wicked, destined to beget </p> +<p class="i4"> A race more vicious still. </p> + +<p class="i22"> (III, vi, 45.) </p> +</div> +</div> + +<p> +3. <span class="sc">Philosophical.</span> "How charming is divine philosophy?" said the meek +younger brother in + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page62" name="page62"></a>[62]</span> + + "Comus" to his instructive senior. Speaking as one +of the profane, I find not less charming the humanist philosophy of +Horace. Be content! be moderate! seize the present! are his maxims. +</p> +<p> +<i>Be content!</i> A mind without anxiety is the highest good (II, xvi). +Great desires imply great wants (III, xvi, 42). 'Tis well when prayer +seeks and obtains no more than life requires. +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i8"> Happy he, </p> +<p class="i2"> Self-centred, who each night can say, </p> +<p class="i2"> "My life is lived": the morn may see </p> +<p class="i2"> A clouded or a sunny day: </p> +<p class="i2"> That rests with Jove; but what is gone </p> +<p class="i2"> He will not, can not, turn to nought, </p> +<p class="i2"> Nor cancel as a thing undone </p> +<p class="i2"> What once the flying hour has brought. </p> + +<p class="i22"> (III, xxix, 41.) </p> +</div> +</div> + +<p> +<i>Be moderate!</i> He that denies himself shall gain the more (III, xvi, +21). He that ruleth his spirit is better than the lord of Carthage. +Hold fast the golden mean (II, x, 5). The poor man's supper, spare +but neat and free from care, with no state upon the board except his +heirloom silver saltcellar, is better than a stalled ox and care +therewith (II, xvi, 13). And he practised what he preached, refusing +still fresh bounties which Maecenas pressed upon him. What more want +I than I have? he says: +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i4"> Truth is mine with genius mixed, </p> +<p class="i2"> The rich man comes and knocks at my poor gate. </p> +<p class="i4"> Favoured thus I ne'er repine, </p> +<p class="i2"> Nor weary Heaven for more, nor to the great </p> +<p class="i4"> For larger bounty pray, </p> +<p class="i2"> My Sabine farm my one sufficient boon. </p> + +<p class="i22"> (II, xviii, 9.) </p> +</div> +</div> + + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page63" name="page63"></a>[63]</span></p> + +<p> +<i>Seize the Present!</i> <i>Now</i> bind the brow with late roses and with myrtle +crowns; now drown your cares in wine, counting as gain each day that +Chance may give (I, vii, 31; I, ix, 14). Pale Death will be here anon; +even while I speak time slips away: seize to-day, trust nothing to the +morrow. +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> Ah, my Beloved, fill the cup that clears</p> +<p class="i2"> <i>To-day</i> of past regrets and future fears:</p> +<p class="i2"> <i>To-morrow?</i> why to-morrow I may be</p> +<p class="i2"> Myself with yesterday's seven thousand years.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p> +What more commonplace than this saying that we all must die? but he +brings it home to us ever and again with pathetic tearful fascinating +force. Each time we read him, his sweet sad pagan music chants its ashes +to ashes, dust to dust, and we hear the earth fall upon the coffin lid +amongst the flowers. +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> Ah, Postumus, they fleet away </p> +<p class="i4"> Our years, nor piety one hour </p> +<p class="i2"> Can win from wrinkles, and decay, </p> +<p class="i4"> And death's indomitable power; </p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> Not though three hundred steers you heap </p> +<p class="i4"> Each day, to glut the tearless eyes </p> +<p class="i2"> Of Him, who guards in moated keep </p> +<p class="i4"> Tityos, and Geryon's triple size: </p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> All, all, alas! that watery bound </p> +<p class="i4"> Who eat the fruits that Nature yields, </p> +<p class="i2"> Must traverse, be we monarchs crowned, </p> +<p class="i4"> Or humblest tillers of the fields. </p> + +<p class="i22"> (II, xiv.) </p> +</div> +</div> + +<p> +The antipathy is not confined to heathenism; we distrust the Christian +who professes to ignore + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page64" name="page64"></a>[64]</span> + + it; many of us felt drawn by a brotherhood of +humanity to the late scholarly Pope, when we learned that, as death +looked him in the face, he clung to Pagan Horace as a truthful and +sympathetic oracle. "And we all go to-day to this singer of the ancient +world for guidance in the deceptions of life, and for steadfastness in +the face of death." +</p> + +<a name="image-0008"><!--IMG--></a> +<div class="figure"> +<a href="images/illus-07.jpg"><img src="images/illus-07.png" width="340" height="500" +alt="VIRGIL." /></a> +<br /> +<p class="left"><i>Alinari photo.</i>]</p> +<p class="right">[<i>Capitol Museum, Rome.</i></p> +<p class="center">VIRGIL.</p> +</div> + +<p> +4. <span class="sc">Personal.</span> Something, but not very much, we learn of Horace's intimates +from this class of Odes. Closest to him in affection and oftenest +addressed is Maecenas. The opening Ode pays homage to him in words +closely imitated by Allan Ramsay in addressing the chief of his clan: +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> Dalhousie of an auld descent, </p> +<p class="i2"> My chief, my stoup, my ornament; </p> +</div> +</div> + +<p style="text-indent: 0;"> +and at the end of the volume the poet repeats his dedication (III, +xxix). Twice he invites his patron to a feast; to drink wine bottled on +the day some years before when entering the theatre after an illness +he was received with cheers by the assembled multitude (I, xx); again +on March 1st, kept as the festal anniversary of his own escape from a +falling tree (III, viii). To a querulous letter from his friend written +when sick and dreading death, he sends the tender consolation and +remonstrance of which we spoke before (p. 29). In a very different tone +he sings the praises of Licymnia (II, xii), supposed to be Terentia, +Maecenas' newly-wedded wife, sweet voiced, witty, loving, of whom her +husband was at the + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page65" name="page65"></a>[65]</span> + + time passionately enamoured. He recounts finally, with +that delicate respectful gratitude which never lapses into servility, +his lifelong obligation, lauding gratefully the still removed place which +his friend's bounty has bestowed: +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> A clear fresh stream, a little field, o'ergrown</p> +<p class="i2"> With shady trees, a crop that ne'er deceives.</p> + +<p class="i22"> (III, xvi, 29.)</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p> +Not less tenderly affectionate is the exquisite Ode to Virgil on the +death of Quinctilius. +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> By many a good man wept Quinctilius dies,</p> +<p class="i2"> By none than you, my Virgil, trulier wept;</p> + +<p class="i22"> (I, xxiv.)</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p style="text-indent: 0;"> +or to his devoted young friend Septimius (p. 39) (II, vi), who would +travel with him to the ends of the world, to Moorish or Cantabrian +wilds. Not so far afield need they go; but when age steals on they will +journey to Tarentum, sweetest spot on earth: +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> That spot, those happy heights, desire </p> +<p class="i4"> Our sojourn; there, when life shall end, </p> +<p class="i2"> Your tear shall dew my yet warm pyre, </p> +<p class="i4"> Your bard and friend. </p> +</div> +</div> + +<p> +To the great general Agrippa (I, vi), rival of Maecenas in the good +graces of Augustus, he sends a tribute complimentary, yet somewhat +stiffly and officially conceived; lines much more cordial to the +high-born Aelius Lamia (III, 17), whose statue stands to-day amid the +pale immortalities of the Capitoline Museum. We have a note of tonic +banter to Tibullus, "jilted by a + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page66" name="page66"></a>[66]</span> + + fickle Glycera," and "droning piteous +elegies" (I, xxxiii); a merry riotous impersonation of an imaginary +symposium in honour of the newly-made augur Murena (III, 19), with +toasts and tipsiness and noisy Bacchanalian songs and rose-wreaths flung +about the board; a delicious mockery of reassurance to one Xanthias (II, +iv), who has married a maidservant and is ashamed of it. He may yet find +out that though fallen into obscurity she is in truth high-born and +noble, and will present him with a patrician mother-in-law. +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> For aught that you know now, fair Phyllis may be</p> +<p class="i4"> The shoot of some highly respectable stem;</p> +<p class="i2"> Nay, she counts, I'll be sworn, a few kings in her tree,</p> +<p class="i4"> And laments the lost acres once lorded by them.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> Never think that a creature so exquisite grew</p> +<p class="i4"> In the haunts where but vice and dishonour are known,</p> +<p class="i2"> Nor deem that a girl so unselfish, so true,</p> +<p class="i4"> Had a mother 'twould shame thee to take for thine own.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p> +Several of his correspondents we can only name; the poet Valgius, +the tragedians Pollio and Fuscus; Sallust, grandson of the historian; +Pompeius, his old comrade in the Brutus wars; Lollius, defeated in +battle and returning home in disgrace. Nor need we labour to identify a +host of others; Iccius, Grosphus, Dellius; who figure as mere dedicatory +names; nor persons mentioned casually, such as Telephus of the rosy neck +and clustering hair (I, xiii; III, xix), whom Bulwer Lytton, with fine +memories of his own ambrosial petted youth, calls a "typical beautyman + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page67" name="page67"></a>[67]</span> + + and lady-killer." The Horatian personages, remarks Dean Milman, would +contain almost every famous name of the Augustan age. +</p> +<p> +5. <span class="sc">Amatory.</span> "Speak'st thou of nothing but ladies?" says Feste the Jester +to poor Malvolio. He might have said the same to Horace; for of the Odes +in the first three Books one third part is addressed to or concerned +with women. How many of the pretty female names which musicalize his +love songs, in syllables that breathe of the sweet south and melt like +kisses in the utterance, are representative of real girls, we cannot +guess; with none of them except perhaps one, who died young, does he +seem to have been really in love. He was forty years old when most +of his amorous Odes were written; an age at which, as George Eliot +has reminded us, the baptism of passion is by aspersion rather than +immersion. Something he must have known of love, or he could not write +as he has done; but it is the superficial gallantry of a flirt rather +than the impassioned self-surrender of a lover; of a gay bachelor, with +roving critical eye, heart whole yet fancy free, too practised a judge +of beauty to become its slave. Without emotion, without reverence, but +with keen relishing appreciation, he versifies Pyrrha's golden curls, +and Lycoris' low forehead—feminine beauties both to a Roman eye—and +Phyllis' tapering arms and shapely ankles, and Chia's dimpled cheek, +and the tangles of Neaera's hair, and the gadabout baggage Lyde, and +Glycera's dazzling complexion that blinds the gazer's eye (I, v, xix, +xxxiii; II, iv, 21; III, xiv, + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page68" name="page68"></a>[68]</span> + + 21). They are all inconstant +good-for-noughts, he knows; but so are men, and so is he; keep up the +pleasant give-and-take, the quarrels and the reconciliations. All the +youths of Rome are in love with a beautiful Ninon D'Enclos named +Barine—Matthew Arnold declared this to be the finest of all the Odes +(II, viii)—she perjures herself with every one in turn. But it seems to +answer; she shines forth lovelier than ever. Venus and the nymphs only +laugh, and her lovers, young and old, continue to hug their chains. +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> New captives fill the nets you weave;</p> +<p class="i4"> New slaves are bred; and those before,</p> +<p class="i2"> Though oft they threaten, never leave</p> +<p class="i4"> Your perjured door.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p> +Sometimes he plays the monitor. Asterie's husband is laid up in Greece +by contrary winds: he is faithful to his wife, though his hostess tempts +him: let the wife be on her guard against her handsome neighbour Enipeus +(III, vii). His own charmers are sometimes obdurate: Chloe and Lyde run +away from him like fawns (I, xxiii): that is because they are young; he +can wait till they are older; they will come to him then of themselves: +"they always come," says Disraeli in "Henrietta Temple." He has +quarrelled with an old flame (I, xvi), whom he had affronted by some +libellous verses. He entreats her pardon; was young and angry when he +wrote; will burn the offending lines, or fling them into the sea: +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> Come, let me change my sour for sweet, </p> +<p class="i4"> And smile complacent as before; </p> +<!--Actual page break 69 occurs here--> +<p class="i2"> Hear me my palinode repeat, </p> +<p class="i4"> And give me back your heart once more. </p> +</div> +</div> + +<!--Page break relocated down from above--> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page69" name="page69"></a>[69]</span></p> + +<p> +He professes bitter jealousy of a handsome stripling whose beauty Lydia +praises (I, xiii). She is wasting her admiration; she will find him +unfaithful; Horace knows him well: +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> Oh, trebly blest, and blest for ever, </p> +<p class="i4"> Are they, whom true affection binds, </p> +<p class="i2"> In whom no doubts nor janglings sever </p> +<p class="i4"> The union of their constant minds; </p> +<p class="i2"> But life in blended current flows, </p> +<p class="i4"> Serene and sunny to the close. </p> +</div> +</div> + +<p> +If anyone now reads "Lalla Rookh," he will recall an exquisite rendering +of these lines from the lips of veiled Nourmahal: +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> There's a bliss beyond all that the minstrel has told, </p> +<p class="i4"> When two, that are linked in one heavenly tie, </p> +<p class="i2"> With heart never changing and brow never cold, </p> +<p class="i4"> Love on through all ills, and love on till they die. </p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> One hour of a passion so sacred is worth </p> +<p class="i4"> Whole ages of heartless and wandering bliss; </p> +<p class="i2"> And oh! if there be an Elysium on earth, </p> +<p class="i6"> It is this, it is this! </p> +</div> +</div> + +<p> +But, perhaps, if a jury of scholars could be polled as to the most +enchanting amongst all Horace's lovesongs, the highest vote would be +cast in favour of the famous "Reconciliation" of the roving poet with +this or with some other Lydia (III, ix). The pair of former lovers, +mutually faithless, exchange defiant experience of their several +infidelities; then, the old affection reviving through the contact of +their altercation, + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page70" name="page70"></a>[70]</span> + + agree to discard their intervening paramours, and +return to their first allegiance. +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i8"> <i>He.</i> </p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> Whilst I was dear and thou wert kind, </p> +<p class="i4"> And I, and I alone, might lie </p> +<p class="i2"> Upon thy snowy breast reclined, </p> +<p class="i4"> Not Persia's king so blest as I. </p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i8"> <i>She.</i> </p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> Whilst I to thee was all in all, </p> +<p class="i4"> Nor Chloe might with Lydia vie, </p> +<p class="i2"> Renowned in ode or madrigal, </p> +<p class="i4"> Not Roman Ilia famed as I. </p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i8"> <i>He.</i> </p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> I now am Thracian Chloe's slave, </p> +<p class="i4"> With hand and voice that charms the air, </p> +<p class="i2"> For whom even death itself I'd brave, </p> +<p class="i4"> So fate the darling girl would spare. </p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i8"> <i>She.</i> </p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> I dote on Calais; and I </p> +<p class="i4"> Am all his passion, all his care, </p> +<p class="i2"> For whom a double death I'd die, </p> +<p class="i4"> So fate the darling boy would spare. </p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i8"> <i>He.</i> </p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> What if our ancient love return, </p> +<p class="i4"> And bind us with a closer tie, </p> +<p class="i2"> If I the fair-haired Chloe spurn, </p> +<p class="i4"> And, as of old, for Lydia sigh? </p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i8"> <i>She.</i> </p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> Though lovelier than yon star is he, </p> +<p class="i4"> Thou fickle as an April sky, </p> +<p class="i2"> More churlish too than Adria's sea, </p> +<p class="i4"> With thee I'd live, with thee I'd die. </p> +</div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page71" name="page71"></a>[71]</span></p> + +<p style="text-indent: 0;"> +The austere Scaliger used to say that he would rather have written this +ode than be King of Spain and the Indies: Milton's Eve expresses her +devotion to Adam in an apostrophe paraphrased from its closing lines. +</p> +<p> +Observe, too, how we find in all the Odes as we read them, not only a +gallery of historical pictures, nor only an unconscious revelation of +the poet's self, of, that is, the least subjective among poets, ever, as +says Sir Stephen De Vere, looking outward, never looking in; but they +incidentally paint for us in vivid and familiarizing tints the intimate +daily life of that far-off ancient queen of cities. We walk with them +the streets of Rome. We watch the connoisseurs gazing into the curiosity +shops and fingering the bronzes or the silver statuettes; the naughty +boys jeering the solemn Stoic as he walks along, staid, superior, +absent; the good boys coming home from school with well-thumbed lesson +books; the lovers in the cookshops or restaurants shooting apple pips +from between finger and thumb, rejoicing in the good omen if they strike +the ceiling; the stores of Sulpicius the wine merchant and of Sosius the +bookseller; the great white Latian ox, exactly such as you see to-day, +driven towards the market, with a bunch of hay upon his horns to warn +pedestrians that he is dangerous; the coarse drawings in chalk or +colours on the wall advertising some famous gladiator; at dusk the +whispering lovers in the Campus, or the romping hide-and-seek of lads +and lasses at the corners of the streets or squares, + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page72" name="page72"></a>[72]</span> + + just as you may +watch them to-day on spring or winter evenings amongst the lower arches +of the Colosseum;—it is a microcosm, a cameo, of that old-world life. +Horace knew, and feared not to say, that in his poems, in his Odes +especially, he bequeathed a deathless legacy to mankind, while setting +up a lasting monument to himself. One thing he could not know, that when +near two thousand years had passed, a race of which he had barely heard +by name as dwelling "quite beyond the confines of the world," would +cherish his name and read his writings with a grateful appreciation +even surpassing that of his contemporary Romans. +</p> +<p> +A few Odes remain, too casual to be classified; rejoicings over the +vanishing of winter and the return of spring (I, iv); praises of the +Tibur streams, of Tarentum (II, vi) which he loved only less than Tibur, +of the Lucretilis Groves (I, xvii) which overhung his Sabine valley, +of the Bandusian spring beside which he played in boyhood. We have the +Pindaric or historic Odes, with tales of Troy, of the Danaid brides, +of Regulus, of Europa (III, iii, v, xi, xvii); the dramatic address to +Archytas (I, xxviii), which soothed the last moments of Mark Pattison; +the fine epilogue which ends the book, composed in the serenity of +gained renown; +</p> + +<!--Page break relocated upwards from below--> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page73" name="page73"></a>[73]</span></p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> And now 'tis done: more durable than brass </p> +<p class="i4"> My monument shall be, and raise its head </p> +<p class="i2"> O'er royal pyramids: it shall not dread </p> +<p class="i2"> Corroding rain or angry Boreas, </p> +<p class="i2"> Nor the long lapse of immemorial time. </p> +<!--Actual page break 73 occurs here--> +<p class="i4"> I shall not wholly die; large residue </p> +<p class="i4"> Shall 'scape the Queen of funerals. Ever new </p> +<p class="i2"> My after fame shall grow, while pontiffs climb </p> +<p class="i2"> With silent maids the Capitolian height. </p> +<p class="i4"> "Born," men will say, "where Aufidus is loved, </p> +<p class="i2"> Where Danaus scant of streams beneath him bowed </p> +<p class="i2"> The rustic tribes, from dimness he waxed bright, </p> +<p class="i2"> First of his race to wed the Aeolian lay </p> +<p class="i4"> To notes of Italy." Put glory on, </p> +<p class="i4"> My own Melpomene, by genius won, </p> +<p class="i2"> And crown me of thy grace with Delphic bay. </p> +</div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page74" name="page74"></a>[74]</span></p> + +<a name="h2H_4_0009" id="h2H_4_0009"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + SWAN SONG +</h2> +<p> +When a well-graced actor has left the stage amid trumpeted farewells +from an admiring but regretful audience, we somewhat resent his +occasional later reappearance. So, when a poet's last word has been +spoken, and spoken emotionally, an Afterword is apt to offend: and we +may wish that the fine poem just quoted had been reserved as finish to +the volume yet to come, which lacks a closing note, or even that the +volume itself had not been published. The fourth Book of the Odes was +written nearly ten years after the other three, and Horace wrote it not +as Poet but as Laureate. His Secular Hymn appeared in <span class="sc">B.C.</span> 17, when +he was forty-eight years old; and after it Augustus pressed him to +celebrate the victories of his two stepsons, Drusus and Tiberius, over +the tribes of the Eastern Alps. If he wrote unwillingly, his hand had +not lost its cunning. The sentiment is paler and more artificial, but +the old condensation and felicity remain. He begins with rather sad +reluctance. He is old; the one woman whom he loved is dead; his lyric +raptures and his love campaignings are at an end; he is tired of +flattering hopes, of noisy revels, of flower garlands fresh with dew. + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page75" name="page75"></a>[75]</span> + + Or are they war songs, not love songs, that are wanted? There he is +more helpless still. It needs a Pindar worthily to extol a Caesar: he is +no Pindar; and so we have an ode in honour of the Theban bard. And yet, +as chosen lyrist of the Roman race, he cannot altogether refuse the +call. Melpomene, who from his cradle marked him for her own, can still +shed on him if she will the power to charm, can inspire in him "music of +the swan." So, slowly, the wasting lyric fire revives; we get the +martial odes to conquering Drusus and to Lollius, the panegyrics on +Augustus and Tiberius, all breathing proud consciousness that "the Muse +opens the good man's grave and lifts him to the gods"; that immortality +can be won only by the poet's pen, and that it is in his own power to +confer it. +</p> + +<a name="image-0009"><!--IMG--></a> +<div class="figure"> +<a href="images/illus-08.jpg"><img src="images/illus-08.png" width="500" height="334" +alt="THE FORUM RESTORED AS IN A.D. 80. (Reproduced by special permission.)" /></a> +<br /> +<p class="left"><i>Becchetti photo.</i>]</p> +<br /> +<p class="center" style="clear: both;"> +THE FORUM RESTORED AS IN A.D. 80. +<br /> +(Reproduced by special permission.) +</p> + +</div> + +<p> +The remaining poems are in the old spirit, but are somewhat mournful +echoes of the past. They remind us of the robin's winter song—"Hark to +him weeping," say the country folk, as they listen to the music which +retains the sweetness but has lost what Wordsworth calls the gushes of +the summer strains. There is still an ode to Venus; its prayer not now +"come to bless thy worshipper"; but "leave an old heart made callous by +fifty years, and seek some younger votary." There is an ode to Spring. +Spring brought down from heaven his earliest Muse; it came to him +charged with youthful ardours, expectations, joys; now its only message +is that change and death attend all human hopes and cares. Like an army +defeated, the snow has + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page76" name="page76"></a>[76]</span> + + retreated; the Graces and the Nymphs can dance +unclad in the soft warm air. But summer will thrust out spring, autumn +summer, then dull winter will come again; will come to the year, will +come to you and me. Not birth nor eloquence nor virtue can save from +Minos' judgement seat; like Aeneas, Tullus, Ancus, like all the great +ones of the earth, we shall soon be nameless shades and a poor pinch of +dust. More of the old buoyant glee comes back in a festal invitation +to one Virgilius, not the poet. There is a ring of Tom Moore in Sir +Theodore Martin's rendering of it. +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> + +<p class="i8"> * * * * *</p> + +<p class="i2"> On the young grass reclined, near the murmur of fountains,</p> +<p class="i4"> The shepherds are piping the song of the plains,</p> +<p class="i2"> And the god who loves Arcady's purple-hued mountains,</p> +<p class="i4"> The god of the flocks, is entranced by their strains.</p> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> + +<p class="i8"> * * * * *</p> + +<p class="i2"> To the winds with base lucre and pale melancholy!</p> +<p class="i4"> In the flames of the pyre these, alas! will be vain;</p> +<p class="i2"> Mix your sage ruminations with glimpses of folly,</p> +<p class="i4"> 'Tis delightful at times to be somewhat insane!</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p> +There follows a savage assault on one Lyce, an ancient beauty who had +lost her youthful charms, but kept up her youthful airs: +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> Where now that beauty? where those movements? where </p> +<p class="i4"> That colour? what of her, of her is left, </p> +<p class="i6"> Who, breathing Love's own air, </p> +<p class="i8"> Me of myself bereft! </p> +<p class="i2"> Poor Lyce! spared to raven's length of days; </p> +<p class="i4"> That youth may see, with laughter and disgust, </p> +<p class="i6"> A firebrand, once ablaze, </p> +<p class="i8"> Now smouldering in grey dust. </p> +</div> +</div> + +<p> +Poor Lyce indeed! what had she done to be + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page77" name="page77"></a>[77]</span> + + so scourged? One address we +miss: there is no ode in this book to Maecenas, who was out of favour +with Augustus, and had lost all political influence. But the friend is +not sunk in the courtier. The Ides or 13th of April is his old patron's +birthday—a nativity, says Horace, dearer to him almost than his own, +and he keeps it always as a feast. With a somewhat ghostly resurrection +of voluptuousness dead and gone he bids Phyllis come and keep it with +him. All things are ready, a cask of Alban nine years old is broached, +the servants are in a stir, the altar wreathed for sacrifice, the flames +curling up the kitchen chimney, ivy and parsley gathered to make a +wreath for Phyllis' hair. Come then, sweet girl, last of my loves; for +never again shall this heart take fire at a woman's face—come, and +learn of me a tune to sing with that dear voice, and drive away dull +care. I am told that every man in making love assures the charmer that +no woman shall ever succeed her in his regards; but this is probably +a veritable amorous swan-song. He was older than are most men at +fifty-two. Years as they pass, he sadly says, bereave us one by one +of all our precious things; of mirth, of loves, of banquets; at last +the Muse herself spreads wings to follow them. "You have sported long +enough," she says, "with Amaryllis in the shade, you have eaten and +drunk your fill, it is time for you to quit the scene." And so the +curtain falls. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +To our great loss there is no contemporary + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page78" name="page78"></a>[78]</span> + + portrait of Horace. He +tells us himself (Ep. II, ii, 214; I, xx, 29) that he was short of +stature, his hair black but early tinged with grey; that he loved to +bask in sunshine, that his temper was irascible but easily appeased. +In advanced life he became fat; Augustus jests with him rather coarsely +on his protuberant figure. The portrait prefixed to this volume is +from a Contorniate, or bronze medallion of the time of Constantine, +representing the poet's likeness as traditionally preserved amongst +his countrymen three hundred years after his death. +</p> +<p> +The oldest extant manuscript of his works is probably that in the public +library of Berne, and dates from the ninth century. The earliest printed +edition, bearing neither date nor printer's name, is supposed to have +been published at Milan in 1470. Editions were also printed at Florence +and at Venice in 1482, and a third at Venice in 1492. An illustrated +edition on vellum was brought out by Aldus in 1501, and reissued in +1509, 1514, 1519. The Florence Press of the Giunti produced splendid +specimens in 1503, 1514, 1519. Between this date and the end of the +century seven more came forth from famous presses. Of modern editions +we may notice the vellum Bodoni folio of 1791, and the matchless Didot +of 1799 with its exquisite copperplate vignettes. Fortunate is the +collector who possesses the genuine first edition of Pine's "Horace," +1733. It is known by an error in the text, corrected in the subsequent +and less bibliographically valuable impression of the same + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page79" name="page79"></a>[79]</span> + + year. +A beautifully pictorial book is Dean Milman's; the student will prefer +Orelli, Macleane, Yonge, Munro and King, or Dean Wickham's scholarly +volumes. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +In composing this modest little book I have had in view principally +readers altogether ignorant of Latin, but wishing to know something of +a writer lauded enthusiastically by all classical scholars: they will +observe that I have not introduced into its pages a single Latin word. +I have nourished also the hope that it might be serviceable to those +who have forgotten, but would like to recover, the Horace which they +learned at school; and to them I would venture to recommend the little +copy of the Latin text with Conington's version attached, in "Bell's +Pocket Classics." Latinless readers of course must read him in English +or not at all. No translation can quite convey the cryptic charm of +any original, whether poetry or prose. "Only a bishop," said Lord +Chesterfield, "is improved by translation." But prose is far easier to +render faithfully than verse; and I have said that either Conington's +or Dean Wickham's version of the Satires and Epistles, which are both +virtually in prose, will tell them what Horace said, and sometimes +very nearly how he said it. On the Odes a host of English writers have +experimented. Milton tried his hand on one, with a result reflecting +neither Milton nor Horace. Dryden has shown what he could have done but +would not do in his tantalising fragment of the Ode to Fortune. Pope + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page80" name="page80"></a>[80]</span> + + transformed the later Ode to Venus into a purely English poem, with a +gracefully artificial mechanism quite unlike the natural flow of the +original. Marvell's noble "Horatian Ode," with its superb stanzas on +the death of Charles I, shows what he might have achieved, but did +not attempt. Francis' rendering of 1765 is generally respectable, +and in default of a better was universally read and quoted by his +contemporaries: once, in the Ode to Pyrrhus (III, xx) he attains +singular grace of phrase and metre. Cowper translated two Odes and +imitated two more, not without happy touches, but with insertions +and omissions that lower poetry into commonplace. Of Calverley's few +attempts three are notably good; a resounding line in his "Leuconoe" +(I, xi): +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> Which flings now the flagging sea-wave on the obstinate sandstone reef,</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p style="text-indent: 0;"> +is at once Horatian and Tennysonian; and his "Oh! where is all thy +loveliness?" in the later Ode to Lyce has caught marvellously the minor +key of tender memory which relieves the brutality of that ruthless +flagellation. Mr. Goldwin Smith's more numerous "Bay Leaves" are +fashioned all in goodly measure; and his "Blest man who far from care +and strife" well transfers to English the breathlessness of Horace's +sham pastoral ecstasy. Of more ambitious translators Bulwer Lytton +catches now and then the careless rapture of his original; Sir Theodore +Martin is always musical and flowing, sometimes miraculously fortunate +in his metres, but intentionally + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page81" name="page81"></a>[81]</span> + + unliteral and free. Conington is +rigidly faithful, oftentimes tersely forcible; but misses lyrical +sweetness. Perhaps, if Marvell, Herrick, Cowley, Prior, the now +forgotten William Spencer, Tom Moore, Thackeray, could be alchemized +into one, they might combine to yield an English Horace. Until eclectic +nature, emulating the Grecian sculptor, shall fashion an archetype from +these seven models, the vernacular student, with his Martin and his +Conington, sipping from each alternately, like Horace's Matine bee +(IV, ii, 27), the terseness of the professor and the sweetness of the +poet, may find in them some echo from the ever-shifting tonality of the +Odes, something of their verbal felicity, something of their thrilling +wistfulness; may strive not quite unsuccessfully, in the words of +Tennyson's "Timbuctoo," to attain by shadowing forth the unattainable. +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page82" name="page82"></a>[82]</span></p> + +<a name="h2H_4_0010" id="h2H_4_0010"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + ON THE "WINES" OF HORACE'S POETRY +</h2> +<p> +The wines whose historic names sparkle through the pages of Horace +have become classical commonplaces in English literature. "Well, my +young friend, we must for once prefer the Falernian to the <i>vile +Sabinum?</i>" says Monkbarns to Lovel when the landlord of the Hawes Inn +at Queensferry brings them claret instead of port. It may be well +that we should know somewhat of them. +</p> +<p> +The choicest of the Italian wines was <i>Caecuban</i>, from the +poplar-trained vines grown amongst the swamps of Amyclae in Campania. +It was a heady, generous wine, and required long keeping; so we find +Horace speaking of it as ranged in the farthest cellar end, or "stored +still in our grandsire's binns"(III, xxviii, 2, 3; I, xxxvii, 6); it was +reserved for great banquets, kept carefully under lock and key: "your +heir shall drain the Caecuban you hoarded under a hundred padlocks" +(II, xiv, 25). It was beyond Horace's means, and only rich men could +afford to drink it; we hear of it at Maecenas' table and on board his +galley (I, xx, 9); and it appeared at the costly banquet of Nasidienus +(page 27). With the Caecuban he couples the <i>Formian</i> (I, xx, 11), and +<i>Falernian</i> (I, xx, 10), grown on the southern + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page83" name="page83"></a>[83]</span> + + slopes of the hills +dividing Campania from Latium. "In grassy nook your spirit cheer with +old Falernian vintage," he says to his friend Dellius (II, iii, 6). +He calls it fierce, rough, fiery; recommends mixing it with Chian +wine, or with wine from Surrentum (Sat. II, iv, 55), or sweetening and +diluting it with honey from Mount Hymettus (Sat. II, ii, 15). From +the same district came the <i>Massic</i> wine, also strong and fiery. "It +breeds forgetfulness" (II, vii, 21), he says; advises that it should +be softened by exposure to the open sky (Sat. II, iv, 51). He had a +small supply of it, which he kept for a "happy day" (III, xxi, 6). The +<i>Calenian</i> wine, from Cales near Falernum, was of similar character. +He classes it with Caecuban as being too costly for a poor man's purse +(I, xx, 10): writing late in life to a friend, promises to find him +some, but says that his visitor must bring in exchange an alabaster box +of precious spikenard (IV, xii, 17). Next after these Campanian vintages +came the <i>Alban</i>. He tells Phyllis that he will broach for her a cask +of it nine years old (IV, xi, 1). It was offered, too, at Nasidienus' +dinner as an alternative to Caecuban; and Horace praises the raisins +made from its berries (Sat. II, iv, 72). Of the <i>Sabine</i>, poorest of +Italian wines, we have spoken (page 23). +</p> +<p> +The finest Greek wine was <i>Chian</i>, thick and luscious; he couples it +in the Epode to Maecenas (IX, 34) with <i>Lesbian</i> which he elsewhere +(I, xvii, 21) calls "innocent" or mild. <i>Coan</i> wine he mentions twice, +commending its medicinal value (Sat. II, iv, 29; II, viii, 9). +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page84" name="page84"></a>[84]</span></p> + +<p> +In justice to Horace and his friends, it is right to observe that +connoisseurship in wine must not be confounded with inebriety. They +drank to exhilarate, not to stupefy themselves, to make them what +Mr. Bradwardine called <i>ebrioli</i> not <i>ebrii</i>; and he repeatedly warns +against excess. The vine was to him "a sacred tree," its god, Bacchus, +a gentle, gracious deity (I, xviii, 1): +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> 'Tis thine the drooping heart to heal, </p> +<p class="i4"> Thy strength uplifts the poor man's horn; </p> +<p class="i2"> Inspired by thee, the soldier's steel, </p> +<p class="i4"> The monarch's crown, he laughs to scorn. </p> + +<p class="i22"> III, xxi, 17. </p> +</div> +</div> + +<p> +"To total abstainers," he says, "heaven makes all things hard" +(I, xviii, 3); so let us drink, but drink with moderate wisdom, leave +quarrelsomeness in our cups to barbarous Scythians, to brute Centaurs +and Lapithae: let riot never profane our worship of the kindly god. We +must again remember that they did not drink wine neat, as we do, but +always mixed with water. Come, he says to his slave as they sit down, +quench the fire of the wine from the spring which babbles by (II, xi, +19). The common mixture was two of water to one of wine; sometimes nine +of water to three of wine, the Muses to the Graces; very rarely nine of +wine to three of water. +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i6"> Who the uneven Muses loves, </p> +<p class="i2"> Will fire his dizzy brain with three times three. </p> +<p class="i6"> Three once told the Grace approves; </p> +<p class="i2"> She with her two bright sisters, gay and free, </p> +<p class="i6"> Hates lawless strife, loves decent glee. </p> + +<p class="i22"> III, xix, 11. </p> +</div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page85" name="page85"></a>[85]</span></p> + +<a name="h2H_4_0011" id="h2H_4_0011"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + CHRONOLOGY OF HORACE'S LIFE AND WORKS +</h2> + +<table border="0" align="center" summary="Chronology of Horace's life and works"> + +<tr><td> B.C. </td><td>AGE. </td></tr> + +<tr><td> 65 </td><td> </td><td> Born December 8th. </td></tr> +<tr><td> 44 </td><td>21 </td><td> Entered as student at Athens. </td></tr> +<tr><td> 43 </td><td>22 </td><td> In Brutus' army. </td></tr> +<tr><td> 41 </td><td>24 <span style="font-size: 200%;">{</span> </td><td> Philippi.<br />Return to Rome. </td></tr> +<tr><td> 38 </td><td>27 </td><td> Introduced to Maecenas. </td></tr> +<tr><td> 35 </td><td>30 </td><td> Satires, Book I. </td></tr> +<tr><td> 30 </td><td>35 </td><td> Satires, Book II, and Epodes. </td></tr> +<tr><td> 23 </td><td>42 </td><td> Odes I–III. </td></tr> +<tr><td> 20 </td><td>45 </td><td> Epistles, Book I. </td></tr> +<tr><td> 19 </td><td>46 </td><td> Epistles, Book II, ii. </td></tr> +<tr><td> 17 </td><td>48 </td><td> The Century Hymn. </td></tr> +<tr><td> 13 </td><td>52 </td><td> Odes, Book IV. </td></tr> +<tr><td> 13 </td><td>52 </td><td> Epistle to Augustus. </td></tr> +<tr><td> 10? </td><td>55? </td><td> Art of Poetry. </td></tr> +<tr><td> 8 </td><td>57 </td><td> Died November 17th. </td></tr> +</table> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page86" name="page86"></a>[86]</span></p> + +<p> <!--[Blank Page]--></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page87" name="page87"></a>[87]</span></p> + +<a name="h2H_4_0012" id="h2H_4_0012"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + INDEX +</h2> + + +<ul> +<li>Actium, <a href="#page53">53</a>.</li> +<li>Addison, <a href="#page37">37</a>, <a href="#page49">49</a>.</li> +<li>Aelius, Lamia, <a href="#page65">65</a>.</li> +<li>Agrippa, <a href="#page65">65</a>.</li> +<li>Anio, <a href="#page19">19</a>–<a href="#page21">21</a>.</li> +<li>Antony, <a href="#page26">26</a>.</li> +<li>Archilochus, <a href="#page13">13</a>, <a href="#page19">19</a>.</li> +<li>Argiletum, <a href="#page54">54</a>.</li> +<li>Aristius, Fuscus, <a href="#page21">21</a>, <a href="#page36">36</a>, <a href="#page42">42</a>, <a href="#page61">61</a>, <a href="#page66">66</a>.</li> +<li>Arnold, Matthew, <a href="#page55">55</a>, <a href="#page68">68</a>.</li> +<li>Asella, <a href="#page43">43</a>.</li> +<li>Asterie, <a href="#page68">68</a>.</li> +<li>Athens, <a href="#page11">11</a>, <a href="#page50">50</a>.</li> +<li>Aufidus, <a href="#page9">9</a>, <a href="#page73">73</a>.</li> +<li>Augustus, <a href="#page15">15</a>, <a href="#page28">28</a>, <a href="#page29">29</a>, <a href="#page45">45</a>, <a href="#page51">51</a>, <a href="#page56">56</a>, <a href="#page57">57</a>, <a href="#page65">65</a>, <a href="#page75">75</a>, <a href="#page77">77</a>, <a href="#page78">78</a>.</li> +</ul> + +<ul> +<li>Bandusia, <a href="#page10">10</a>, <a href="#page72">72</a>.</li> +<li>Barine, <a href="#page68">68</a>.</li> +<li>Brundusium, <a href="#page17">17</a>.</li> +<li>Brutus, <a href="#page12">12</a>, <a href="#page13">13</a>.</li> +</ul> + +<ul> +<li>Calverley, <a href="#page80">80</a>.</li> +<li>Capitoline Hill, <a href="#page16">16</a>, <a href="#page24">24</a>–<a href="#page26">26</a>, <a href="#page65">65</a>.</li> +<li>Chesterfield, <a href="#page79">79</a>.</li> +<li>Clients, <a href="#page17">17</a>.</li> +<li>Conington, <a href="#page46">46</a>, <a href="#page81">81</a>.</li> +<li>Coverley, <a href="#page11">11</a>.</li> +<li>Cowper, <a href="#page80">80</a>.</li> +</ul> + +<ul> +<li>De Vere, Sir Stephen, <a href="#page71">71</a>.</li> +<li>Digentia, <a href="#page21">21</a>.</li> +<li>Dryden, <a href="#page79">79</a>.</li> +</ul> + +<ul> +<li>Eliot, G., <a href="#page67">67</a>.</li> +<li>Enipeus, <a href="#page68">68</a>.</li> +<li>Epicureans, <a href="#page11">11</a>.</li> +<li>Epicurus, <a href="#page55">55</a>.</li> +</ul> + +<ul> +<li>Fanshaw, Sir R., <a href="#page59">59</a>.</li> +<li>Florac, <a href="#page23">23</a>, <a href="#page44">44</a>.</li> +<li>Florus, <a href="#page40">40</a>, <a href="#page44">44</a>.</li> +<li>Fonteius Capito, <a href="#page16">16</a>.</li> +<li>Forum, <a href="#page24">24</a>, etc.</li> +<li>Fufius, <a href="#page34">34</a>.</li> +</ul> + +<ul> +<li>Gallio, <a href="#page36">36</a>.</li> +<li>Goldwin Smith, <a href="#page54">54</a>, <a href="#page80">80</a>.</li> +</ul> + +<ul> +<li>Homer: Iliad, <a href="#page11">11</a>, <a href="#page37">37</a>, <a href="#page43">43</a>;</li> +<li> + <ul> + <li> Odyssey, <a href="#page44">44</a>.</li> + </ul> +</li> +<li>Horace: childhood, <a href="#page10">10</a>;</li> +<li> + <ul> + <li> studies at Athens, <a href="#page11">11</a>;</li> + <li> influence of Brutus, <a href="#page12">12</a>;</li> + <li> Philippi, <a href="#page13">13</a>;</li> + <li> struggle at Rome, <a href="#page13">13</a>;</li> + <li> introduction to Maecenas, <a href="#page14">14</a>;</li> + <li> Sabine farm, <a href="#page19">19</a>;</li> + <li> publishes Satires, <a href="#page30">30</a>;</li> + <li> Epistles, <a href="#page37">37</a>;</li> + <li> Epodes, <a href="#page52">52</a>;</li> + <li> Odes, <a href="#page55">55</a>;</li> + <li> Swan Song, <a href="#page74">74</a>;</li> + <li> his death, <a href="#page29">29</a>, <a href="#page77">77</a>;</li> + <li> editions + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page88" name="page88"></a>[88]</span> + + of his works, <a href="#page78">78</a>;</li> + <li> his "wines," <a href="#page82">82</a>;</li> + <li> bibliography, <a href="#page85">85</a>.</li> +</ul> +</li> +</ul> + +<ul> +<li>Jews in Rome, <a href="#page36">36</a>.</li> +<li>Juvenal, <a href="#page17">17</a>, <a href="#page23">23</a>, <a href="#page31">31</a>.</li> +</ul> + +<ul> +<li>Lalla Rookh, <a href="#page69">69</a>.</li> +<li>Lanciani, Professor, <a href="#page25">25</a>.</li> +<li>Lollius, <a href="#page43">43</a>, <a href="#page66">66</a>.</li> +<li>Lucilius, <a href="#page13">13</a>, <a href="#page31">31</a>, <a href="#page48">48</a>.</li> +<li>Lyce, <a href="#page80">80</a>.</li> +<li>Lydia, <a href="#page69">69</a>, <a href="#page70">70</a>.</li> +<li>Lytton, E. B., <a href="#page66">66</a>, <a href="#page80">80</a>.</li> +</ul> + +<ul> +<li>Maecenas, <a href="#page14">14</a>, <a href="#page17">17</a>, <a href="#page27">27</a>–<a href="#page29">29</a>, <a href="#page38">38</a>, <a href="#page51">51</a>–<a href="#page54">54</a>, <a href="#page62">62</a>, <a href="#page64">64</a>.</li> +<li>Martin, Sir Theodore, <a href="#page76">76</a>, <a href="#page80">80</a>.</li> +<li>Marvell, <a href="#page80">80</a>, <a href="#page81">81</a>.</li> +<li>Milman, <a href="#page38">38</a>.</li> +<li>Milton, <a href="#page41">41</a>, <a href="#page53">53</a>, <a href="#page60">60</a>–<a href="#page62">62</a>, <a href="#page71">71</a>, <a href="#page79">79</a>.</li> +<li>Murena, <a href="#page66">66</a>.</li> +</ul> + +<ul> +<li>Newman, Cardinal, <a href="#page51">51</a>.</li> +</ul> + +<ul> +<li>Ofellus, <a href="#page32">32</a>.</li> +<li>Omar Khayyám, <a href="#page23">23</a>, <a href="#page63">63</a>.</li> +<li>Orbilius, <a href="#page11">11</a>.</li> +</ul> + +<ul> +<li>Pattison, Mark, <a href="#page72">72</a>.</li> +<li>Philippi, <a href="#page13">13</a>, <a href="#page32">32</a>.</li> +<li>Philippus, <a href="#page34">34</a>.</li> +<li>Phyllis, <a href="#page66">66</a>, <a href="#page67">67</a>, <a href="#page77">77</a>.</li> +<li>Pindar, <a href="#page75">75</a>.</li> +<li>Polemon, <a href="#page35">35</a>.</li> +<li>Pope, <a href="#page27">27</a>, <a href="#page41">41</a>, <a href="#page44">44</a>, <a href="#page47">47</a>–<a href="#page50">50</a>, <a href="#page79">79</a>.</li> +<li>Pope Leo XIII, <a href="#page64">64</a>.</li> +<li>Postumus, <a href="#page63">63</a>.</li> +</ul> + +<ul> +<li>Sabine farm, <a href="#page17">17</a>–<a href="#page19">19</a>, etc.</li> +<li>Satire, origin of, <a href="#page30">30</a>.</li> +<li>Scaliger, <a href="#page71">71</a>.</li> +<li>Scott, <a href="#page22">22</a>, <a href="#page82">82</a>, <a href="#page84">84</a>.</li> +<li>Secular hymn, <a href="#page57">57</a>, <a href="#page74">74</a>.</li> +<li>Seneca, <a href="#page16">16</a>.</li> +<li>Septimius, <a href="#page28">28</a>, <a href="#page39">39</a>, <a href="#page41">41</a>, <a href="#page65">65</a>.</li> +<li>Sewell, R. C., <a href="#page20">20</a>.</li> +<li>Shakespeare, <a href="#page13">13</a>.</li> +<li>Sosii, <a href="#page54">54</a>, <a href="#page71">71</a>.</li> +<li>Steele, <a href="#page37">37</a>, <a href="#page39">39</a>.</li> +<li>Stoics, <a href="#page11">11</a>.</li> +<li>St. Beuve, <a href="#page51">51</a>.</li> +</ul> + +<ul> +<li>Tarentum, <a href="#page24">24</a>, <a href="#page65">65</a>, <a href="#page72">72</a>.</li> +<li>Telephus, <a href="#page66">66</a>.</li> +<li>Tennyson, <a href="#page9">9</a>, <a href="#page51">51</a>, <a href="#page80">80</a>, <a href="#page81">81</a>.</li> +<li>Terentia, <a href="#page15">15</a>, <a href="#page64">64</a>.</li> +<li>Thackeray, <a href="#page37">37</a>, <a href="#page59">59</a>, <a href="#page81">81</a>.</li> +<li>Tiberius Nero, <a href="#page39">39</a>, <a href="#page74">74</a>, <a href="#page75">75</a>.</li> +<li>Tibullus, <a href="#page28">28</a>, <a href="#page41">41</a>, <a href="#page65">65</a>.</li> +<li>Tibur, <a href="#page17">17</a>, <a href="#page19">19</a>, <a href="#page20">20</a>, <a href="#page72">72</a>.</li> +</ul> + +<ul> +<li>Vacuna, <a href="#page21">21</a>.</li> +<li>Varius, <a href="#page14">14</a>, <a href="#page27">27</a>.</li> +<li>Varus, <a href="#page20">20</a>.</li> +<li>Via Sacra, <a href="#page25">25</a>, <a href="#page26">26</a>.</li> +<li>Virgil, <a href="#page14">14</a>, <a href="#page28">28</a>, <a href="#page38">38</a>, <a href="#page44">44</a>.</li> +</ul> + +<ul> +<li>Wickham, Dean, <a href="#page47">47</a>, <a href="#page79">79</a>.</li> +<li>Wordsworth, <a href="#page22">22</a>, <a href="#page24">24</a>, <a href="#page75">75</a>.</li> +</ul> + +<ul> +<li>Xanthius, <a href="#page66">66</a>.</li> +</ul> + +<hr /> + +<p class="center"> +<small>CHISWICK PRESS: PRINTED BY CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.<br /> +TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.</small> +</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<div style="height: 6em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> +<i>Messrs. 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HEATH ROBINSON.</li> + <li>With an Introduction by H. <span class="sc">Noel Williams</span>.</li> + <li><i>Second Edition, post 8vo, 6s.</i></li></ul></li> + +</ul> + +<hr class="full" /> + + +<h3> +Bell's Miniature Series of Painters. +</h3> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Pott 8vo, dainty Cloth covers, with 8 Illustrations, 1s. net each, or +in limp leather, with Photogravure Frontispiece, 2s. net.</i> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Now Ready.</i> +</p> + +<table border="0" align="center" summary="list of book titles"> +<tr><td> +<ul> +<li>ALMA TADEMA.</li> +<li>ROSA BONHEUR.</li> +<li>BURNE-JONES.</li> +<li>CONSTABLE.</li> +<li>CORREGGIO.</li> +<li>FRA ANGELICO.</li> +<li>GAINSBOROUGH.</li> +<li>GREUZE.</li> +<li>HOGARTH.</li> +<li>HOLBEIN.</li> +<li>HOLMAN HUNT.</li> +<li>LANDSEER.</li> +<li>LEIGHTON.</li> +</ul> +</td><td> +<ul> +<li>MICHELANGELO.</li> +<li>MILLAIS.</li> +<li>MILLET.</li> +<li>MURILLO.</li> +<li>RAPHAEL.</li> +<li>REMBRANDT.</li> +<li>REYNOLDS.</li> +<li>ROMNEY.</li> +<li>TURNER.</li> +<li>VELAZQUEZ.</li> +<li>WATTEAU.</li> +<li>WATTS.</li> +<li>WHISTLER.</li> +</ul> +</td></tr></table> + +<p class="quote"> + "Highly satisfactory from every point of view."—<i>Westminster Budget</i>. +</p> +<p class="quote"> + "The illustrations are uniformly excellent. If art is to be made + popular, this assuredly is the way to do it."—<i>Pall Mall Gazette</i>. +</p> +<p class="quote"> + "They are clearly and intelligibly written and are just the thing + for the amateur art student."—<i>Literature</i>. +</p> +<p class="quote"> + "Exquisite little volumes."—<i>Black and White</i>. +</p> +<p class="quote"> + "Eminently tasteful."—<i>Globe</i>. +</p> +<p class="quote"> + "A delightful little edition."—<i>Western Morning News</i>. +</p> +<p class="quote"> + "Exceedingly handy and pretty."—<i>Outlook</i>. +</p> + + +<hr class="full" /> + + +<h3> +Bell's Miniature Series of Great Writers. +</h3> + +<p class="center"> +A NEW SERIES DEALING WITH THE LIFE AND WORK OF THE GREAT WRITERS +OF ALL COUNTRIES. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +<small>UNIFORM WITH THE</small> +<br /> +Miniature Series of Painters, etc. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Pott 8vo, Illustrated, cloth, 1s. net; or in limp leather, with +Photogravure Frontispiece, 2s. net.</i> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Now Ready.</i> +</p> + +<ul> +<li>BROWNING. By <span class="sc">Sir Frank T. Marzials</span>, C.B.</li> +<li>CHAUCER. By <span class="sc">Rev. W. Tuckwell</span>.</li> +<li>COLERIDGE. By <span class="sc">Dr. Garnett</span>, C.B.</li> +<li>DEFOE. By A. <span class="sc">Wherry</span>.</li> +<li>DE QUINCEY. By <span class="sc">Henry S. Salt</span>.</li> +<li>DICKENS. By W. <span class="sc">Teignmouth Shore</span>.</li> +<li>HORACE. By <span class="sc">Rev. W. Tuckwell</span>.</li> +<li>JOHNSON. By <span class="sc">John Dennis</span>.</li> +<li>LAMB. By <span class="sc">Douglas Jerrold</span>.</li> +<li>MILTON. By <span class="sc">Dr. Williamson</span>.</li> +<li>SHAKESPEARE. By <span class="sc">Alfred Ewen</span>.</li> +</ul> + +<p class="center"> +<i>In Preparation.</i> +</p> + +<ul> +<li>CARLYLE. By <span class="sc">Prof. Richard Jones, Ph.D.</span></li> +<li>GOLDSMITH. By <span class="sc">E. Lang Buckland</span>.</li> +<li>MACAULAY. By <span class="sc">Dr. Garnett</span>, C.B.</li> +<li>MOLIERE. By <span class="sc">Sir Frank T. Marzials, C.B.</span></li> +<li>TENNYSON. By <span class="sc">Dr. Williamson</span>.</li> +<li>XENOPHON. By <span class="sc">E. C. Marchant, M.A.</span></li> +</ul> + +<p class="quote"> + "This charming and artistic little series—the illustrations of + which would be well worth the price asked for each book."—<i>Academy</i>. +</p> + + +<hr class="full" /> + + +<h3> +Bell's Miniature Series of Musicians. +</h3> + +<p class="center"> +<small>A COMPANION SERIES TO</small> +<br /> +Bell's Miniature Series of Painters. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Pott 8vo, Illustrated, cloth, 1s. net; or in limp leather, +with Photogravure Frontispiece, 2s. net.</i> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Now Ready.</i> +</p> + +<ul> +<li>BACH. By <span class="sc">E. H. Thorne</span>.</li> +<li>BEETHOVEN. By <span class="sc">J. S. Shedlock</span>.</li> +<li>BRAHMS. By <span class="sc">Herbert Antcliffe</span>.</li> +<li>CHOPIN. By <span class="sc">E. J. Oldmeadow</span>.</li> +<li>GOUNOD. By <span class="sc">Henry Tolhurst</span>.</li> +<li>HANDEL. By <span class="sc">William H. Cummings</span>, Mus.D., Principal of the +Guildhall School of Music.</li> +<li>MENDELSSOHN. By <span class="sc">Vernon Blackburn</span>.</li> +<li>MOZART. By Prof. <span class="sc">Ebenezer Prout</span>, B.A., Mus.D.</li> +<li>ROSSINI. BY <span class="sc">W. A. Bevan</span>.</li> +<li>SCHUMANN. By <span class="sc">E. J. Oldmeadow</span>.</li> +<li>SULLIVAN. By <span class="sc">H. Saxe-Wyndham</span>, Secretary of the Guildhall School +of Music.</li> +<li>VERDI. By <span class="sc">Signor Vizetti</span>.</li> +<li>WAGNER. By <span class="sc">John F. Runciman</span>.</li> +</ul> + +<p class="center"> +<i>In Preparation.</i> +</p> + +<ul> +<li>HAYDN. By <span class="sc">John F. Runciman</span>.</li> +<li>SCHUBERT. By <span class="sc">Wakeling Dry</span>.</li> +<li>TSCHAIKOVSKI. By <span class="sc">E. Markham Lee, M.A.</span>, Mus. Doc.</li> +</ul> + +<p class="quote"> + "'Bell's Miniature Series of Musicians' are well known and highly + appreciated as a handy and useful series of concise and critical + biographies."—<i>St. James's Gazette</i>. +</p> +<p class="quote"> + "These handy little books, in addition to being illustrated, + contain an amazing deal of information."—<i>Musical Times</i>. +</p> + + +<hr class="full" /> + + +<h3> +The York Library. +</h3> + +<h4> +A NEW SERIES OF REPRINTS ON THIN PAPER. +</h4> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Foolscap 8vo, cloth, 2s. net; leather, 3s. net.</i> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +<i>The following volumes are now ready:</i> +</p> + +<ul> +<li> +BURNEY'S EVELINA. Edited, with an Introduction and Notes, by <span class="sc">Annie +Raine Ellis</span>. +</li> +<li> +BURNEY'S CECILIA. Edited by <span class="sc">Annie Raine Ellis</span>. 2 vols. +</li> +<li> +BURTON'S ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY. Edited by the <span class="sc">Rev. A. R. Shilleto, +M.A.</span>, with Introduction by <span class="sc">A. H. Bullen</span>. 3 vols. +</li> +<li> +CERVANTES' DON QUIXOTE. <span class="sc">Motteux's</span> Translation, revised. With +<span class="sc">Lockhart's</span> Life and Notes. 2 vols. +</li> +<li> +COLERIDGE'S AIDS TO REFLECTION, and the Confessions of an Inquiring +Spirit. +</li> +<li> +COLERIDGE'S FRIEND. A series of Essays on Morals, Politics, and +Religion. +</li> +<li> +COLERIDGE'S TABLE TALK AND OMNIANA. Arranged and Edited by <span class="sc">T. Ashe, +B.A.</span> +</li> +<li> +DRAPER'S HISTORY OF THE INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT OF EUROPE. 2 vols. +</li> +<li> +EMERSON'S WORKS. A new edition in 5 volumes, with the Text edited and +collated by <span class="sc">George Sampson</span>. +</li> +<li> +GOETHE'S FAUST. Translated by <span class="sc">Anna Swanwick</span>, LL.D. Revised +edition, with an Introduction and Bibliography by <span class="sc">Karl Breul</span>, +Litt.D., Ph.D. +</li> +<li> +JAMESON'S SHAKESPEARE'S HEROINES. +</li> +<li> +LAMB'S ESSAYS. Including the Essays of Elia, Last Essays of Elia, and +Eliana. +</li> +</ul> + + +<hr class="full" /> + + +<h4> +The York Library—<i>continued</i>. +</h4> + +<ul> +<li> +MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS, THE THOUGHTS OF. Translated by <span class="sc">George +Long</span>, M.A. With an Essay on Marcus Aurelius by <span class="sc">Matthew +Arnold</span>. +</li> +<li> +MOTLEY'S RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. With a Biographical Introduction by +<span class="sc">Moncure D. Conway</span>. 3 vols. +</li> +<li> +PASCAL'S THOUGHTS. Translated by <span class="sc">C. Kegan Paul</span>. +</li> +<li> +SWIFT'S GULLIVER'S TRAVELS. Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by +<span class="sc">G. R. Dennis</span>, with facsimiles of the original illustrations. +</li> +<li> +SWIFT'S JOURNAL TO STELLA. Edited by <span class="sc">Frederick Ryland</span>, M.A. +</li> +<li> +ARTHUR YOUNG'S TRAVELS IN FRANCE. Edited by <span class="sc">Miss +Betham-Edwards</span>. +</li> +</ul> + +<p class="center"> +<i>The following volumes are in preparation:</i> +</p> + +<ul> +<li> +FIELDING'S TOM JONES. 2 vols. +</li> +<li> +GESTA ROMANORUM, or Entertaining Moral Stories invented by the Monks. +Translated from the Latin, with Preliminary Observations and Copious +Notes, by the <span class="sc">Rev. Charles Swan</span>, late of Catharine Hall +Cambridge. Revised edition by <span class="sc">Wynnard Hooper</span>, B.A., Clare +College, Cambridge. +</li> +<li> +MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. Cotton's translation. Revised by <span class="sc">W. C. +Hazlitt</span>. 3 vols. +</li> +<li> +MORE'S UTOPIA. With the Life of Sir Thomas More, by William Roper, and +his Letters to Margaret Roper and others. Edited, with Introduction and +Notes, by <span class="sc">George Sampson</span>. +</li> +<li> +PLUTARCH'S LIVES. Translated, with Notes and a Life by <span class="sc">Aubrey +Stewart</span>, M.A., and <span class="sc">George Long</span>, M.A. 4 vols. +</li> +</ul> + +<hr class="full" /> + + +<h2> +<i>THE POCKET HORACE.</i> +</h2> + +<h3> +HORACE +</h3> + +<p class="center"> +THE LATIN TEXT, WITH CONINGTON'S<br /> TRANSLATION ON OPPOSITE PAGES. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Complete in one volume. Printed on thin paper for the pocket. +Bound in stamped sheepskin. 5s. net; or limp cloth, 4s. net.</i> +</p> +<p> +⁂<!--Asterism--> Also in two Parts: "THE ODES and CARMEN SECULARE." Cloth, 1s. 6d. +net; limp leather, cut flush, 2s. net. "THE SATIRES, EPISTLES, and ART +OF POETRY." Cloth, 2s. net; limp leather, cut flush, 2s. 6d. net. +</p> +<p class="quote"> + "A delightful little volume, that scholars and many who have + forgotten their scholarship will be glad to put in a corner of + their valise when starting for their holidays. Take it all round + no translation can rival Conington's."—<i>Journal of Education.</i> +</p> +<p class="quote"> + "An enchanting and scholarly volume is this, just small enough + to be carried in the waistcoat pocket, and exquisite in paper, + print, and binding."—<i>Notes and Queries.</i> +</p> +<p class="quote"> + "A delightful pocket companion for those who do not disdain good + English verse alongside the immortal Latin."—<i>Evening Standard.</i> +</p> +<p class="quote"> + "All lovers of Horace should get this book. The get-up is worthy + of the subject; it is clearly printed on thin paper, and daintily + bound in limp leather, a delightful companion for the traveller, + small enough for the cyclist's pocket, not too heavy for the + pedestrian's knapsack, full of a charm which will outlive all the + literature on a railway book-stall."—<i>School World.</i> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +<span class="sc">London</span>: GEORGE BELL AND SONS. +</p> + + +<hr class="full" /> + + +<h3> +Miniature Series of Great Writers +</h3> + +<p class="center"> +Edited by <span class="sc">G. C. Williamson</span>, Litt.D. +</p> +<p class="center"> +Pott 8vo, <i>Illustrated, to be had in cloth or limp leather</i>. +</p> + +<ul> +<li>BROWNING. By <span class="sc">Sir Frank T. Marzials</span>, C.B.</li> +<li>CHAUCER. By <span class="sc">Rev. W. Tuckwell</span>, M.A.</li> +<li>COLERIDGE. By <span class="sc">Richard Garnett</span>, C.B., LL.D.</li> +<li>DEFOE. By <span class="sc">A. Wherry</span>.</li> +<li>DE QUINCEY. By <span class="sc">Henry S. Salt</span>.</li> +<li>DICKENS. By <span class="sc">W. Teignmouth Shore</span>.</li> +<li>JOHNSON. By <span class="sc">John Dennis</span>.</li> +<li>LAMB. By <span class="sc">Walter Jerrold</span>.</li> +<li>MILTON. By <span class="sc">G. C. Williamson</span>, Litt.D.</li> +<li>SHAKESPEARE. By <span class="sc">Alfred Ewen</span>.</li> +</ul> + +<p class="center"> +<i>In Preparation.</i> +</p> + +<ul> +<li>SCOTT. BY <span class="sc">J. H. W. Laing</span>, M.B.</li> +<li>GOLDSMITH. By <span class="sc">Ernest Lang Buckland</span>, M.A.</li> +<li>MACAULAY. By <span class="sc">Richard Garnett</span>, C.B., LL.D.</li> +<li>MOLIČRE. By <span class="sc">Sir Frank T. Marzials</span>, C.B.</li> +<li>TENNYSON. By <span class="sc">G. C. Williamson</span>, Litt.D.</li> +<li>CARLYLE. By <span class="sc">Prof. Richard Jones</span>, Ph.D.</li> +</ul> + +<h3> +The Ancient Classics +</h3> + +<ul> +<li>HORACE. By <span class="sc">Rev. W. Tuckwell</span>, M.A.</li> +<li>XENOPHON. By <span class="sc">E. C. Marchant</span>, M.A. [<i>In Preparation.</i></li> +</ul> + +<p class="center"> +LONDON: GEORGE BELL & SONS. +</p> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> + +<p class="noindent">Transcriber's note:<br /> +<br /> +The last two advertising pages shown above have been moved down +from the front of the book so as to not interfere with the presentation of the front +matter.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="pg" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HORACE***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 25563-h.txt or 25563-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/5/5/6/25563">http://www.gutenberg.org/2/5/5/6/25563</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Horace + + +Author: William Tuckwell + + + +Release Date: May 22, 2008 [eBook #25563] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HORACE*** + + +E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, David Garcia, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 25563-h.htm or 25563-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/5/5/6/25563/25563-h/25563-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/5/5/6/25563/25563-h.zip) + + + + + +HORACE + +[Illustration: [_Bib. Nat., Paris._ +HORACE. +From a bronze medallion of the period of Constantine.] + +Bell's Miniature Series of Great Writers + +HORACE + +by + +REV. W. TUCKWELL, M.A. +Author of "Chaucer," Etc. + + + + + + + +[Illustration] + +London +George Bell & Sons +1905 + +Chiswick Press: Charles Whittingham and Co. +Tooks Court, Chancery Lane, London. + + + + +TABLE OF CONTENTS + + PAGE + + Struggle 9 + Success 19 + Satires and Epistles 30 + Odes and Epodes 51 + Swan-Song 74 + The Wines of Horace 82 + Chronology 85 + Index 87 + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + TO FACE PAGE + + Horace, from a Bronze Medallion _Frontispiece_ + Brutus 12 + Maecenas 16 + The Site of Horace's Villa 22 + The Roman Forum 26 + Augustus 46 + Virgil 64 + The Forum Restored, as in A.D. 80 74 + + + + +THE LIFE OF HORACE + + + + +STRUGGLE + + +Quintus Horatius Flaccus, the "old popular Horace" of Tennyson, petted +and loved, by Frenchmen and Englishmen especially, above all the poets +of antiquity, was born on 8th December, B.C. 65. He calls himself in his +poems by the three names indifferently, but to us he is known only by +the affectionate diminutive of his second or gentile name, borne by his +father, according to the fashion of the time, as slave to some member +of the noble Horatian family. A slave the father unquestionably had +been: meanness of origin was a taunt often levelled against his son, +and encountered by him with magnanimous indifference; but long before +Horace's birth the older Horatius had obtained his freedom, had gained +sufficient money to retire from business, and to become owner of the +small estate at Venusia on the borders of Apulia, where the poet was +born and spent his childhood. He repeatedly alludes to this loved early +home, speaks affectionately of its surrounding scenery, of the dashing +river Aufidus, now Ofanto, of the neighbouring towns, Acherontia, +Bantia, Forentum, discoverable in modern maps as Acerenza, Vanzi, +Forenza, of the crystal Bandusian spring, at whose identity we can only +guess. Here he tells us how, wandering in the forest when a child and +falling asleep under the trees, he woke to find himself covered up by +woodpigeons with leaves, and alludes to a prevailing rural belief that +he was specially favoured by the gods. Long afterwards, too, when +travelling across Italy with Maecenas, he records with delight his +passing glimpse of the familiar wind-swept Apulian hills. + +Of his father he speaks ever with deep respect. "Ashamed of him?" he +says, "because he was a freedman? whatever moral virtue, whatever charm +of character, is mine, that I owe to him. Poor man though he was, he +would not send me to the village school frequented by peasant children, +but carried me to Rome, that I might be educated with sons of knights +and senators. He pinched himself to dress me well, himself attended me +to all my lecture-rooms, preserved me pure and modest, fenced me from +evil knowledge and from dangerous contact. Of such a sire how should I +be ashamed? how say, as I have heard some say, that the fault of a man's +low birth is Nature's, not his own? Why, were I to begin my life again, +with permission from the gods to select my parents from the greatest of +mankind, I would be content, and more than content, with those I had." +The whole self-respect and nobleness of the man shines out in these +generous lines. (Sat. I, vi, 89.) + +Twice in his old age Horace alludes rather disparagingly to his +schooldays in Rome: he was taught, he says, out of a translation from +Homer by an inferior Latin writer (Ep. II, i, 62, 69), and his master, +a retired soldier, one Orbilius, was "fond of the rod" (Ep. II, i, 71). +I observe that the sympathies of Horatian editors and commentators, +themselves mostly schoolmasters, are with Orbilius as a much enduring +paedagogue rather than with his exasperated pupil. We know from other +sources that the teacher was a good scholar and a noted teacher, and +that, dying in his hundredth year, he was honoured by a marble statue in +his native town of Beneventum; but like our English Orbilius, Dr. Busby, +he is known to most men only through Horace's resentful epithet;--"a +great man," said Sir Roger de Coverley, "a great man; he whipped my +grandfather, a very great man!" + +The young Englishman on leaving school goes to Oxford or to Cambridge: +the young Roman went to Athens. There we find Horace at about nineteen +years of age, learning Greek, and attending the schools of the +philosophers; those same Stoics and Epicureans whom a few years later +the first great Christian Sophist was to harangue on Mars' Hill. These +taught from their several points of view the basis of happiness and the +aim of life. Each in turn impressed him: for a time he agreed with Stoic +Zeno that active duty is the highest good; then lapsed into the easy +doctrine of Epicurean Aristippus that subjective pleasure is the only +happiness. His philosophy was never very strenuous, always more practical +than speculative; he played with his teachers' systems, mocked at their +fallacies, assimilated their serious lessons. + +[Illustration: _Alinari photo._] [_Palace of the Conservators, Rome._ + +BRUTUS.] + +Then into his life at this time came an influence which helped to shape +his character, but had nearly wrecked his fortunes. Brutus, fresh from +Caesar's murder, was at Athens, residing, as we should say, in his old +University, and drawing to himself the passionate admiration of its most +brilliant undergraduates; among the rest, of the younger Cicero and of +Horace. Few characters in history are more pathetically interesting than +his. High born, yet disdainful of ambitious aims, irreproachable in an +age of almost universal profligacy, the one pure member of a grossly +licentious family, modest and unobtrusive although steeped in all the +learning of old Greece, strong of will yet tolerant and gentle, his +austerity so tempered by humanism that he won not only respect but love; +he had been adored by the gay young patricians, who paid homage to the +virtue which they did not rouse themselves to imitate, honoured as an +equal by men far older than himself, by Cicero, by Atticus, by Caesar. +As we stand before the bust in the Palace of the Conservators which +preserves his mobile features, in that face at once sweet and sad, at +once young and old, as are the faces not unfrequently of men whose +temperaments were never young--already, at thirty-one years old, stamped +with the lineaments of a grand but fatal destiny--we seem to penetrate +the character of the man whom Dante placed in hell, whom Shakespeare, +with sounder and more catholic insight, proclaimed to be the noblest +Roman of them all: + + His life was gentle, and the elements + So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up, + And say to all the world, _This was a man._ + + +Quitting Athens after a time to take command of the army which had been +raised against Antony, Brutus carried Horace in his company with the +rank of military tribune. He followed his patron into Asia; one of his +early poems humorously describes a scene which he witnessed in the law +courts at Clazomenae. (Sat. I, vii, 5.) He was several times in action; +served finally at Philippi, sharing the headlong rout which followed +on Brutus' death; returned to Rome "humbled and with clipped wings." +(Od. II, vii, 10; Ep. II, ii, 50.) His father was dead, his property +confiscated in the proscription following on the defeat, he had to begin +the world again at twenty-four years old. He obtained some sort of +clerkship in a public office, and to eke out its slender emoluments he +began to write. What were his earliest efforts we cannot certainly say, +or whether any of them survive among the poems recognized as his. He +tells us that his first literary model was Archilochus (Ep. I, xix, 24), +a Greek poet of 700 B.C., believed to have been the inventor of personal +satire, whose stinging pen is said to have sometimes driven its victims +to suicide. For a time also he imitated a much more recent satirist, +Lucilius, whom he rejected later, as disliking both the harshness of his +style and the scurrilous character of his verses. (Sat. I, x.) It has +been conjectured therefore that his earliest compositions were severe +personal lampoons, written for money and to order, which his maturer +taste destroyed. In any case his writings found admirers. About three +years after his return to Rome his friends Varius and Virgil praised him +to Maecenas; the great man read the young poet's verses, and desired to +see him. (Sat. I, vi, 54.) + +It is as an enlightened and munificent patron of letters that Maecenas +holds his place in popular estimation, but he was much more than this. +He had been since Caesar's death the trusty agent and the intimate +adviser of Augustus; a hidden hand, directing the most delicate +manoeuvres of his master. In adroit resource and suppleness no +diplomatist could match him. His acute prevision of events and his +penetrating insight into character enabled him to create the +circumstances and to mould the men whose combination was necessary to +his aims. By the tact and moderation of his address, the honied words +which averted anger, the dexterous reticence which disarmed suspicion, +he reconciled opposing factions, veiled arbitrary measures, impressed +alike on nobles and on populace the beneficence of imperial despotism, +while he kept its harshness out of sight. Far from parading his +extensive powers, he masked them by ostentatious humility, refusing +official promotion, contented with the inferior rank of "Knight," +sitting in theatre and circus below men whom his own hand had raised +to station higher than his own. Absorbed in unsleeping political toil, +he wore the outward garb of a careless, trifling voluptuary. It was +difficult to believe that this apparently effeminate lounger, foppish in +dress, with curled and scented hair, luxuriating in the novel refinement +of the warm bath, an epicure in food and drink, patronizing actors, +lolling in his litter amid a train of parasites, could be the man on +whom, as Horace tells us, civic anxieties and foreign dangers pressed +a ceaseless load. He had built himself a palace and laid out noble +gardens, the remains of which still exist, at the foot of the Esquiline +hill. It had been the foulest and most disreputable slum in Rome, given +up to the burial of paupers, the execution of criminals, the obscene +rites of witches, a haunt of dogs and vultures. He made it healthy +and beautiful; Horace celebrates its salubrity, and Augustus, when +an invalid, came thither to breathe its air. (Sat. I, viii, 8, 14.) +There Maecenas set out his books and his gems and his Etruscan ware, +entertained his literary and high born friends, poured forth his +priceless Caecuban and Chian wines. There were drops of bitter in these +cups. His beautiful wife Terentia tormented him by her temper and her +infidelities; he put her away repeatedly, as often received her back. +It was said of him that he had been married a hundred times, though only +to a single wife: "What is the latest conjugal news?" men asked as his +sumptuous litter passed by, "is it a marriage or a divorce?" And he was +haunted by terror of death. "Prolong my life," was his prayer, in words +which Seneca has ridiculed and La Fontaine translated finely, yet +missing the terseness of the original, "life amid tortures, life even +on a cross, only life!" + + Qu'on me rend impotent, + Cul-de-jatte, goutteux, manchot, pourvu qu'en somme + Je vive, c'est assez; je suis plus que content. + + +His patronage of intellectual men was due to policy as well as +inclination. Himself a cultured literary critic, foreseeing the +full-winged soar of writers still half-fledged--the "Aeneid" in Virgil's +"Eclogues," the "Odes" of Horace in his "Epodes"--he would not only +gather round his board the men whom we know to have been his equals, +whose wit and wisdom Horace has embalmed in an epithet, a line, an ode; +Varius, and Sulpicius, and Plotius, and Fonteius Capito, and Viscus; +but he saw also and utilized for himself and for his master the social +influence which a rising poet might wield, the effect with which a bold +epigram might catch the public ear, a well-conceived eulogy minister to +imperial popularity, an eloquent sermon, as in the noble opening odes of +Horace's third book, put vice out of countenance and raise the tone of +a decadent community. + +[Illustration: _Alinari photo._] [_Palace of the Conservators, Rome._ + +MAECENAS.] + +To Horace, then, now twenty-seven years old, these imposing doors were +opened. The first interview was unsatisfactory; the young poet was +tongue-tied and stammering, the great man reserved and haughty: they +parted mutually dissatisfied. Nine months later Maecenas sent for him +again, received him warmly, enrolled him formally amongst his friends. +(Sat. I, vi, 61.) Horace himself tells the story: he explains neither +the first coldness, the long pause, nor the later cordiality. But he +rose rapidly in his patron's favour; a year afterwards we find him +invited to join Maecenas on a journey to Brundusium, of which he has +left us an amusing journal (Sat. I, v); and about three years later +still was presented by him with a country house and farm amongst the +Sabine hills, a few miles to the east of Tibur, or, as it is now +called, Tivoli. + +With this a new chapter in his life begins. During six years he had +lived in Rome, first as an impecunious clerk, then as a client of +Maecenas. To all Roman homes of quality and consequence clients were a +necessary adjunct: men for the most part humble and needy, who attended +to welcome the patron when issuing from his chamber in the morning, +preceded and surrounded his litter in the streets, clearing a way for +it through the crowd; formed, in short, his court, rewarded by a daily +basket of victuals or a small sum of money. If a client was involved in +litigation, his patron would plead his cause in person or by deputy; he +was sometimes asked to dinner, where his solecisms in good breeding and +his unfashionable dress, the rustic cut of his beard, thick shoes, gown +clumsily draped, made him the butt of the higher guests. Juvenal, in a +biting satire, describes the humiliation of a poor client at a rich +man's table. "The host," he says, "drinks old beeswinged Setian wine, +served to him in a gold goblet by a beautiful boy; to you a coarse black +slave brings in a cracked cup wine too foul even to foment a bruise. +His bread is pure and white, yours brown and mouldy; before him is +a huge lobster, before you a lean shore-crab; his fish is a barbel or +a lamprey, yours an eel:--and, if you choose to put up with it, you +are rightly served." The relation, though not held to be disgraceful, +involved sometimes bitter mortifications, and seems to us inconsistent +with self-respect. We remember how it was resented in modern times, +though in a much milder form, by Edmund Spenser, Dr. Johnson, and the +poet Crabbe. Even between a Horace and a Maecenas it must have caused +occasional embarrassment: we find the former, for instance, dedicating +poems to men whose character he could not respect, but to whom, as his +patron's associates, he was bound to render homage; while his supposed +intimacy with the all-powerful minister exposed him to tedious +solicitants, who waylaid him in his daily walks. He had become sick of +"the smoke and the grandeur and the roar of Rome" (Od. III, 29, 12); his +Sabine retreat would be an asylum and a haven; would "give him back to +himself"; would endow him with competence, leisure, freedom; he hailed +it as the mouse in his delightful apologue craved refuge in the country +from the splendour and the perils of the town: + + Give me again my hollow tree, + A crust of bread--and liberty. + + (Sat. II, 6, fin.) + + + + +SUCCESS + + +Horace's Sabine farm ranks high among the holy places of the classic +world; and through the labours of successive travellers, guided by the +scattered indications in his poems, its site is tolerably certain. It +was about thirty-two miles from Rome, reached in a couple of hours by +pilgrims of the present time; to Horace, who never allowed himself to be +hurried, the journey of a full day, or of a leisurely day and a half. +Let us follow him as he rides thither on his bob-tailed mule (Sat. I, +vi, 104), the heavy saddlebags across its loins stored with scrolls of +Plato, of the philosopher Menander, Eupolis the comedian, Archilochus +the lyric poet. His road lies along the Valerian Way, portions of whose +ancient pavement still remain, beside the swift waters of the Anio, amid +steep hills crowned with small villages whose inmates, like the Kenites +of Balaam's rhapsody, put their nests in rocks. A ride of twenty-seven +miles would bring him to Tivoli, or Tibur, where he stopped to rest, +sometimes to pass the night, possessing very probably a cottage in the +little town. No place outside his home appealed to him like this. Nine +times he mentions it, nearly always with a caressing epithet. It is +green Tibur, dew-fed Tibur, Tibur never arid, leisurely Tibur, breezy +Tibur, Tibur sloping to the sun. He bids his friend Varus plant vines in +the moist soil of his own Tiburtine patrimony there; prays that when the +sands of his life run low, he may there end his days; enumerates, in a +noble ode (Od. I, 7), the loveliest spots on earth, preferring before +them all the headlong Anio, Tibur's groves, its orchards saturated with +shifting streams. + + The dark pine waves on Tibur's classic steep, + From rock to rock the headlong waters leap, + Tossing their foam on high, till leaf and flower + Glitter like emeralds in the sparkling shower. + Lovely--but lovelier from the charms that glow + Where Latium spreads her purple vales below; + The olive, smiling on the sunny hill, + The golden orchard, and the ductile rill, + The spring clear-bubbling in its rocky fount, + The mossgrown cave, the Naiad's fabled haunt, + And, far as eye can strain, yon shadowy dome, + The glory of the earth, Eternal Rome. + + +No picture of the spot can be more graphic than are these noble lines. +They open a Newdigate Prize Poem of just eighty years ago, written, says +tradition, by its brilliant author in a single night. (R. C. Sewell, +Magdalen College, 1825.) Tivoli he had never visited; but those who +stand to-day beside the Temple of the Sibyl on the edge of its ravine, +who enjoy the fair beauty of the headlong Anio and the lesser +Cascatelle, of the ruined Temple of Tiburtus, the Grottos of the Sirens +and of Neptune, understand how a poet's genius can, as Shakespeare +tells us, shadow forth things unseen, and give them local habitation. + +From Tibur, still beside the Anio, we drive for about seven miles, until +we reach the ancient Varia, now Vico Varo, mentioned by Horace as the +small market town to which his five tenant-farmers were wont to repair +for agricultural or municipal business. (Ep. I, xiv, 3.) Here, then, we +are in the poet's country, and must be guided by the landmarks in his +verse. Just beyond Vico Varo the Anio is joined by the Licenza. This is +Horace's Digentia, the stream he calls it whose icy waters freshen him, +the stream of which Mandela drinks. (Ep. I, xviii, 104-105.) And there, +on its opposite bank, is the modern village Bardela, identified with +Mandela by a sepulchral inscription recently dug up. We turn northward, +following the stream; the road becomes distressingly steep, recalling +a line in which the poet speaks of returning homeward "to his mountain +stronghold." (Sat. II, vi, 16.) Soon we reach a village, Roccagiovine, +whose central square is named Piazza Vacuna. Vacuna was the ancient name +for the goddess Victory; and against the wall is fixed an exhumed tablet +telling how the Emperor Vespasian here restored an ancient Temple of +Victory. One more echo this name wakes in Horatian ears--he dates a +letter to his friend Aristius Fuscus as written "behind the crumbling +shrine of Vacuna." (Ep. I, x, 49.) Clearly we are near him now; he +would not carry his writing tablets far away from his door. Yet another +verification we require. He speaks of a spring just beside his home, cool +and fine, medicinal to head and stomach. (Ep. I, xvi, 12.) Here it is, +hard by, called to-day Fonte d'Oratini, a survival, we should like to +believe, of the name Horatius. Somewhere close at hand must have been +the villa, on one side or the other of a small hill now called Monte +Rotondo. We may take our Horace from our pocket, and feel, as with our +Wordsworth at Dove Cottage, with our Scott at Ashestiel, that we are +gazing on the hills, the streams, and valleys, which received the primal +outpourings of their muse, and are for ever vocal with its memories. + +[Illustration: THE SITE OF HORACE'S VILLA.] + +From M. Rotondo, eastward to the Licenza, and southward to the +high ground of Roccogiovine, stretched apparently the poet's not +inconsiderable demesne. Part of it he let off to five peasants on the +_metayage_ system; the rest he cultivated himself, employing eight +slaves superintended by a bailiff. The house, he tells us, was simple, +with no marble pillars or gilded cornices (Od. II, xviii), but spacious +enough to receive and entertain a guest from town, and to welcome +occasionally his neighbours to a cheerful evening meal--"nights and +suppers as of gods" (Sat. II, vi, 65), he calls them; where the talk +was unfashionably clean and sensible, the fare beans and bacon, garden +stuff and chicory and mallows. Around the villa was a garden, not filled +with flowers, of which in one of his odes he expresses dislike as +unremunerative (Od. II, xv, 6), but laid out in small parallelograms +of grass, edged with box and planted with clipped hornbeam. The house +was shaded from above by a grove of ilexes and oaks; lower down were +orchards of olives, wild plums, cornels, apples. In the richer soil of +the valley he grew corn, whose harvests never failed him, and, like Eve +in Eden, led the vine to wed her elm. Against this last experiment his +bailiff grumbled, saying that the soil would grow spice and pepper as +soon as ripen grapes (Ep. I, xiv, 23); but his master persisted, and +succeeded. Inviting Maecenas to supper, he offers Sabine wine from his +own estate (Od. I, xx, 1); and visitors to-day, drinking the juice of +the native grape at the little Roccogiovine inn, will be of opinion with +M. de Florac, that "this little wine of the country has a most agreeable +smack." Here he sauntered day by day, watched his labourers, working +sometimes, like Ruskin at Hincksey, awkwardly to their amusement with +his own hands; strayed now and then into the lichened rocks and forest +wilds beyond his farm, surprised there one day by a huge wolf, who +luckily fled from his presence (Od. I, xxii, 9); or--most enjoyable of +all--lay beside spring or river with a book or friend of either sex. + + A book of verses underneath the bough, + A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou + Beside me singing in the wilderness, + Oh, wilderness were Paradise enow! + + +So roll to each other across the ages and the continents echoes of the +Persian and the Roman bards. + +Of the _beauty_ of his home he speaks always modestly; it may not +compare with Praeneste, Tarentum, Baiae; its _charm_ he is never weary +of extolling. Nowhere, he says, is the air sweeter and more balmy, in +summer temperate, warm in winter; but beyond all this it yielded calm, +tranquillity, repose, making, as Wordsworth says, the very thought of +country life a thought of refuge; and that was what, so long in populous +city pent, he longed to find, and found. It was his _home_, where he +could possess his soul, could be self-centred and serene. "This," says +Ruskin, "is the true nature of Home; it is the Place of Peace." + +He loved the country, yet he was no hermit. When sickened of town life +he could apostrophize the country in the beautiful lines which many a +jaded Londoner has echoed (Sat. II, vi, 60); but after some months of +its placid joys the active social side of him would re-assert itself: +the welcoming friends of the great city, its brilliant talk, its rush of +busy life, recovered their attractiveness, and for short intervals, in +the healthy season of the year, he would return to Rome. There it is +less easy to image him than in his rustic home. Nature, if spared by +man, remains unaltered; the heights and recesses of the Digentian valley +meet our eye to-day scarce changed in twenty centuries, but the busy, +crowded Rome of Horace is now only a desolate excavation. We stand upon +the "Rock of Triumph," the Capitoline Hill, looking down upon the Forum: +it lies like a stonemason's yard: stumps of pillars, fragments of brick +or marble, overthrown entablatures, pillars, altars, tangles of +staircases and enclosures, interspersed with poppies, wild oats, +trefoils, confuse and crowd it: + + Cypress and ivy, weed and wallflower grow + Matted and massed together, hillocks heaped + On what were chambers; arch crushed, columns strown + In fragments; choked up vaults, where the owl peeped, + Deeming it midnight. + + +But patient, daily survey, educated by the restorations of a Lanciani, +enables us to piece together these encumbering ruins, until with +tolerable clearness we can follow Horace in his walk along the Via Sacra +towards Caesar's gardens, and can fairly reconstruct the objects which +must have met his view. Everywhere is haunted ground: there is the +bronze wolf of the Capitol, "thunder-stricken nurse of Rome," and the +Tarpeian rock, from which "the Traitor's leap cured all ambition." +There is the mythical gulf of Curtius, and the Mamertine prison where +the Catiline conspirators were strangled, with its vault into which +Jugurtha, after gracing the triumph of Marius, was hurled to die. +Maiden-hair fern grows profusely in the crevices of Juturna's well, +hard by the spring where the great twin brethren gave their horses drink +after the battle of the Lake Regillus. Half covered with a mass of green +acanthus is the base of Vesta's Temple, adjoining the atrium of the +Virgins' house surrounded with their portrait statues: their names are +engraved on each pedestal, but one is carefully erased, its original +having, it is supposed, violated her vestal vow. We pause upon the spot +where Caesar's body was burned, and beside the rostra whence Cicero +thundered, and Antony spoke his "Friends, Romans, countrymen"; return +finally to the Capitoline Museum, nucleus and centre of the ancient +mistress of the world, to gaze upon gods, senators, emperors, shining +still in undiminished majesty; on the Antinous, the Amazon, the Juno, +the Dying Gladiator, and the Grecian masterpiece of Praxiteles. + +[Illustration: _Alinari photo._ + +THE ROMAN FORUM.] + +Of his life in Rome Horace has given us a minute account (Sat. I, vi, +110, etc.). "Waking usually about six, I lie in bed or on my sofa, +reading and writing, till nearly ten o'clock; anoint myself, go to the +Campus for a game at ball, return home to a light luncheon. Then perhaps +I amuse myself at home, perhaps saunter about the town; look in at the +Circus and gossip with the fortune-tellers who swarm there when the +games are over; walk through the market, inquiring the price of garden +stuff and grain. Towards evening I come home to my supper of leeks and +pulse and fritters, served by my three slave-boys on a white marble +slab, which holds besides two drinking cups and ladle, a saltcellar +shaped like a sea-urchin, an oil flask, and a saucer of cheap Campanian +ware; and so at last I go to bed, not harassed by the thought that I +need rise at day-break." Sometimes, to his great annoyance, he would be +roused early to become sponsor in the law courts for a friend; shivering +in the morning cold, pelted by falling hailstones, abused by the crowd +through which he had to force his way. Or he would accompany Maecenas +on a drive, their talk of matters trivial--the time of day, the early +frosts, the merits of popular gladiators. We remember how delightfully +Pope has adapted the passage to his own relation with Harley. (Imitation +of Sat. II, vi.) Often he dined with Maecenas or his friends, and one +such dinner he has described, at the house of a rich, vulgar epicure +(Sat. II, viii). The guests were nine in number, including Maecenas, +Varius, and Viscus: they lay on couches at maplewood tables arranged +in three sides of a square. The first course was a Lucanian wild boar +garnished with salads; when that was removed, servants wiped the board +with purple napkins. Then a procession of slaves brought in Caecuban and +Chian wines, accompanied with cheesecakes, fish, and apples. The second +course was a vast lamprey, prawns swimming in its sauce; the third an +olio of crane, hare, goose's liver, blackbirds, and wood-pigeons. +A sumptuous meal, but spoiled by the host's tedious disquisitions on +each dish as it appeared. Of social gatherings in their higher aspect, +of the feasts of reason which he must have often shared at his patron's +board, we long to know, but Horace is discreet; for him the rose of +Harpocrates was suspended over every caenobium, and he would not profane +its sacrament. He sat there as an equal, we know; his attitude towards +those above him had in it no tinge of servility. That he was, and meant +to be, independent they were fairly warned; when Maecenas wished to heap +on him further benefits, he refused: "What I have is enough and more +than enough," he said, "nay, should fortune shake her wings and leave +me, I know how to resign her gifts" (Od. III, xxix, 53). And if not +to Maecenas, so neither to Maecenas' master, would he sacrifice his +freedom. The emperor sought his friendship, writes caressingly to +Maecenas of "this most lovable little bit of a man," wished to make him +his secretary, showed no offence at his refusal. His letters use the +freedom of an intimate. "Septimius will tell you how highly I regard +you. I happened to speak of you in his presence; if you disdain my +friendship, I shall not disdain in return."--"I wish your little book +were bigger; you seem to fear lest your books should be bigger than +yourself."--"I am vexed with you, that you have never addressed one of +your Epistles to myself; are you afraid that to have appeared as my +friend will hurt you with posterity?" Such royal solicitations are a +command, and Horace responded by the longest and one amongst the most +admired of his Epistles (Ep. II, i). This was his final effort, unless +the fragmentary essay on criticism, known as the "Art of Poetry," +belongs to these last years; if that be so, his closing written words +were a humorous disparagement of the "homely slighted shepherd's trade" +(A. P. 470-476). + +His life was drawing to a close; his friends were falling round him like +leaves in wintry weather. Tibullus was dead, and so was Virgil, dearest +and whitest-souled of men (Sat. I, v, 41); Maecenas was in failing +health and out of favour. Old age had come to himself before its time; +love, and wine, and festal crown of flowers had lost their zest: + + Soon palls the taste for noise and fray, + When hair is white and leaves are sere. + + +But he rallies his life-long philosophy to meet the change; patience +lightens the inevitable; while each single day is his he will spend and +enjoy it in such fashion that he may say at its conclusion, "I have +lived" (Od. III, xxix, 41). His health had never been good, undermined, +he believed, by the hardships of his campaign with Brutus; all the +care of Augustus' skilful physician, Antonius Musa, failed to prolong +his days. He passed away on the 17th of November, B.C. 8, in his +fifty-seventh year; was buried on the Esquiline Hill, in a grave near +to the sepulchre of Maecenas, who had died only a few days before; +fulfilling the promise of an early ode, shaped almost in the words of +Moabitish Ruth, that he would not survive his friend. + + The self-same day + Shall crush us twain; no idle oath + Has Horace sworn; where'er you go, + We both will travel, travel both + The last dark journey down below. + + Od. II, xvii. + + + + +THE SATIRES AND EPISTLES + + +Horace's poems are of two kinds; of one kind the Satires and Epistles, +of another the Odes and Epodes. Their order and dates of publication are +shown in the following table: + + B.C. + 35. First Book of Satires. + 30. Second Book of Satires, and Epodes. + 23. First three Books of Odes. + 20. First Book of Epistles. + 19. Epistle to Florus. + 17. The Century Hymn. + about 13. Fourth Book of the Odes. + 13. Epistle to Augustus. + (?) 10. The Art of Poetry. + + +Let us examine first the Satires and Epistles. The word "Satire" meant +originally a _farrago_, a medley of various topics in various styles and +metres. But all early writings of this kind have perished; and the first +extant Latin satirist, Lucilius, who lived in the second century B.C., +devoted his pen to castigating the vices of contemporary society +and of living individuals. This style of writing, together with his +six-foot measure, called hexameter, was adopted by the ethical writers +who followed him, Horace, Persius, Juvenal; and so gave to the word +satire a meaning which it retains to-day. In more than one passage +Horace recognizes Lucilius as his master, and imitates him in what is +probably the earliest, certainly the coarsest and least artistic of his +poems; but maturer judgement, revolting later against the censorious +spirit and bad taste of the older writer, led him to abandon his model. +For good taste is the characteristic of these poems; they form a comedy +of manners, shooting as it flies the folly rather than the wickedness of +vice: not wounding with a red-hot iron, but "just flicking with uplifted +lash," Horace stands to Juvenal as Chaucer stands to Langland, as Dante +to Boccaccio. His theme is life and conduct, the true path to happiness +and goodness. I write sermons in sport, he says; but sermons by a +fellow-sinner, not by a dogmatic pulpiteer, not by a censor or a cynic. +"Conversations" we may rather call them; the polished talk of a +well-bred, cultured, practised worldling, lightening while they point +the moral which he ever keeps in view, by transitions, personalities, +ironies, anecdotes; by perfect literary grace, by the underlying +sympathy whereby wit is sublimed and softened into humour. + +So he tells stories; often trivial, but redeemed by the lightness of +his touch, the avoidance of redundancy, the inevitable epithets, the +culminating point and finish. He illustrates the extravagance of the day +by the spendthrift Clodius, who dissolved in vinegar a pearl taken from +the ear of beautiful Metella (Sat. II, iii, 239), that he might enjoy +drinking at one draught a million sesterces, near a thousand pounds. +More than once he returns to castigation of the gluttony, which, though +not yet risen to the monstrosity described by Juvenal, was invading the +houses of the wealthy. He tells of two brothers--"a precious pair"--who +used to breakfast daily upon nightingales: of one Maenius, who ruined +himself in fieldfares (Ep. I, xv, 41). In a paper on the "Art of Dining" +he accumulates ironical gastronomic maxims (Sat. II, iv): as that oblong +eggs are to be preferred to round; that cabbages should be reared in dry +soil; that the forelegs of a doe-hare are choice titbits; that to make a +fowl tender you must plunge it alive into boiling wine and water; that +oysters are best at the new moon; that prawns and snails give zest to +wine; that olive oil should be mixed with pickled tunny roe, chopped +herbs, and saffron. If these prescriptions are observed, he says, +travestying a fine Lucretian line, the diner-out may draw near to and +drink deep from the well-spring of a happy life. By contrast he paints +the character of Ofellus, a farmer, whom he had known when a boy on the +Apulian hills, and had visited in his old age (Sat. II, ii). Deprived of +his estate after Philippi, Ofellus had rented it from its new master, +working on as tenant where he had formerly been lord. "How are we worse +off now?" says the gallant old fellow to his sons. "When I was rich, we +lived on smoked bacon and cabbages, with perhaps a pullet or a kid if +a friend dropped in; our dessert of split figs and raisins grown upon +the farm. Well, we have just the same to-day. What matter that they +called me 'owner' then, that a stranger is called owner now? There is no +such thing as 'owner.' This man turned us out, someone else may turn him +out to-morrow; his heir will do so at any rate when he dies. The farm +was called mine once, it is called his to-day; it can never 'belong' to +anyone except the man who works and uses it. So, my boys, keep stout +hearts, and be ready to meet adversity bravely when it comes." + +He lashes the legacy-hunters, who, in a time when disinclination to +marriage had multiplied the number of childless old men, were becoming a +curse to society; gives rules with affected seriousness for angling in a +senior's hoards (Sat. II, v). Be sure you send him game, tell him often +how you love him, address him by his first, what we should call his +Christian, name--that tickles sensitive ears. If he offers you his will, +refuse to read it, but glance sidelong at the line where the names of +legatees are written. Praise his bad verses, shoulder a way for him in +the streets, entreat him to cover up from cold his dear old head, make +up to his housekeeper, flatter him till he bids you stop. Then when he +is dead and you find yourself his heir, shed tears, spend money on his +funeral, bear your honours meekly--and go on to practise upon someone +else. And he throws in a sly story of a testatrix who bequeathed her +money on condition that the heir should carry to the grave upon his +naked shoulders her body oiled all over; he had stuck to her all her +life, and she hoped to shake him off for a moment after death. He +enforces the virtue of moderation and contentment from Aesop's fables, +of the frog, of the daw with borrowed plumage, of the lean weasel who +squeezed himself into a granary through a tiny hole, and grew so fat +that he could not return; from the story of Philippus, who amused +himself by enriching a poor man to the ruin of his victim's peace and +happiness (Ep. I, vii, 46); and from the delightful apologue of the +City and the Country Mouse (Sat. II, vi). He denounces the folly of +miserliness from the example of the ant, provident in amassing store, +but restful in fruition of it when amassed; reproves ill-natured +judgement of one's neighbours almost in the words of Prior, bidding +us be to their faults a little blind and to their virtues very kind, +softening their moral blemishes as lovers and mothers euphemize a dear +one's physical defects. (Sat. I, iii) "You will not listen to me?" he +stops now and then to say; "I shall continue to cry on all the same +until I rouse you, as the audience in the theatre did the other day" +(Sat. II, iii, 60). For it seems that one Fufius, a popular actor, +assumed in a tragedy the part of Trojan Ilione, whose cue was to fall +asleep upon the stage until roused with a whisper of "Mother awake!" +by the ghost of her dead son Deiphilus. Poor Fufius was tipsy, fell +asleep in earnest, and was insensible to the ghost's appeal, until +the audience, entering into the fun, unanimously shouted, "Wake up, +Mother!" Some of you, I know, he goes on, will listen, even as Polemon +did (Sat. II, iii, 254). Returning from a debauch, the young profligate +passed the Academy where Xenocrates was lecturing, and burst riotously +in. Presently, instead of scoffing, he began to hearken; was touched +and moved and saddened, tore off conscience-stricken his effeminate +ornaments, long sleeves, purple leggings, cravat, the garland from his +head, the necklace from his throat; came away an altered and converted +man. One thinks of a poem by Rossetti, and of something further back +than that; for did we not hear the story from sage Mr. Barlow's lips, +in our Sandford and Merton salad days? + +In the earlier Satires his personalities are sometimes gross: +chatterbox Fabius, scattercash Nomentanus, blear-eyed Crispinus, +Hermogenes the fop, Pantolabus the trencherman, Gorgonius the +goat-scented, Rufillus the pastille-perfumed, were derisive sobriquets, +which, while ministering to the censoriousness of readers by names +genuine or well understood, must have bitterly offended the men thus +stigmatized or transparently indicated. This he admits regretfully in +his later Satires, throwing some blame on a practice of his father, who +when cautioning him against vice, always pointed the warning by some +example from among their acquaintance. So, leaving personal satire, he +turns to other topics; relates divertingly the annoyances of a journey; +the mosquitoes, the frogs which croaked all night (Sat. I, v), the bad +water and the ill-baked bread. Or he paints the slummy quarter of the +city in which the witches held their horrible rites, and describes their +cruel orgies as he peeped at them through the trees one night. Or he +girds, facetiously and without the bitterness of Persius or Juvenal, +at the Jews (Sat. I, v, 100), whose stern exclusiveness of faith was +beginning to excite in Rome the horror vigorously expressed by Gallio +in M. Anatole France's recent brilliant work. Or he delineates, on a +full canvas and with the modernity which is amongst his most endearing +characteristics, the "Bore" of the Augustan age. He starts on a summer +morning, light-hearted and thinking of nothing at all, for a pleasant +stroll along the Sacred Way (Sat. I, ix).[1] A man whom he hardly knew +accosts him, ignores a stiff response, clings to him, refuses to be +shaken off, sings his own praises as poet, musician, dancer, presses +impertinent questions as to the household and habits of Maecenas. +Horace's friend Fuscus meets them; the poet nods and winks, imploring +him to interpose a rescue. Cruel Fuscus sees it all, mischievously +apologizes, will not help, and the shy, amiable poet walks on with his +tormentor, "his ears dropped like those of an overladen ass." At last +one of the bore's creditors comes up, collars him with threats, hales +him to the law courts, while the relieved poet quotes in his joy from +the rescue of Hector in the Iliad, "Thus Apollo bore me from the fray." +In this Satire, which was admirably imitated by Swift, it always seems +to me that we get Horace at his very best, his dry quaintness and his +inoffensive fun. The _delicacy_ of Roman satire died with him; to +reappear in our own Augustan age with Addison and Steele, to find faint +echo in the gentle preachments of Cowper, to impress itself in every +page on the lambent humour, the self-accusing tolerance, the penetrative +yet benignant wit of Thackeray. + +[Footnote 1: May the writer ask indulgence while he recalls how, +exactly fifty-eight years ago, as senior boy at Winchester, +he recited this Satire publicly, receiving in recompense at +Warden Barter's hands the Queen's silver medal for elocution.] + + * * * * * + +Between the latest of the Satires and the earliest of the Epistles, we +have to reckon an interval of something like ten years, during which had +been published the Epodes and the majority of the Odes. "Epistles" his +editors have agreed to entitle them; but not all of them are genuine +Letters. Some are rather dedicated than written to the persons whose +names they bear; some are thrown for literary purposes into epistolary +form; some again are definitely and personally addressed to friends. +"Sermons" he calls them himself as he called the Satires, and their +motive is mostly the same; like those, they are Conversations, only with +absent correspondents instead of with present interlocutors, real or +imagined. He follows in them the old theme, the art of living, the +happiness of moderation and contentment; preaching easily as from +Rabelais' easy chair, with all the Frenchman's wit, without his +grossness. And, as we read, we feel how the ten years of experience, of +thought, of study, have matured his views of life, how again the labour +spent during their progress on lyrical composition, with perhaps the +increasing influence over his taste of Virgil's poetry, have trained his +ear, mellowed and refined his style. "The Epistles of Horace," says Dean +Milman, "are, with the Poem of Lucretius, the Georgics of Virgil, and +perhaps the Satires of Juvenal, the most perfect and most original form +of Roman verse." + +Of the three letters to Maecenas, one, like the Ode we have before +quoted on p. 28, is a vigorous assertion of independence. The great +man, sorely sick and longing for his friend, had written peevishly +(Ep. I, vii), "You said you should be absent five days only, and you +stay away the whole of August." "Well--I went away because I was ill, +and I remain away because in this 'undertakers' month,' as you call +it in Rome, I am afraid of being worse if I go back. When cold weather +comes I shall go down to the sea; then, with the first swallow, dear +friend, your poet will revisit you. I love you fondly; am grateful to +you every hour of my life; but if you want to keep me always by your +side, you must restore to me the tender grace of vanished youth; strong +lungs, thick black hair, musical voice and ringing laughter; with our +common love for pretty Cinara now dead and gone." A positive sturdy +refusal, not without hints that if the patron repents his benefactions +or demands sacrifice of freedom in exchange for them, he had better take +them back: yet a remonstrance so disarming, infused with such a blend of +respect and playfulness, such wealth of witty anecdote and classical +allusion, that we imagine the fretfulness of the appeased protector +evaporating in admiration as he reads, the answer of affectionate +apology and acceptance dictated in his pacified response. + +In another inimitable letter (Ep. I, 9), as brief as this is long, he +recommends his friend Septimius to Tiberius Claudius Nero, stepson of +Augustus, a young man of reserved unpleasant manners, and difficult to +approach. The suasive grace with which it disclaims presumption, yet +pleads his own merits as a petitioner and his friend's as a candidate +for favour, with its dignified deference, implied not fulsome, to the +young prince's rank, have caused it to be compared with that masterpiece +of delicate solicitation, St. Paul's Epistle to Philemon. It is cited by +Steele in the "Spectator" as a model of epistolary tact ("Spectator," +No. 493); we cannot improve upon his translation: + + "Septimius, who waits on you with this, is clearly well acquainted + with the place you are pleased to allow me in your friendship. + For when he beseeches me to recommend him to your notice in such + a manner as to be received by you, who are delicate in the choice + of your friends and domestics, he knows our intimacy and understands + my ability to serve him better than I do myself. I have defended + myself against his ambition to be yours as long as I possibly + could; but fearing the imputation of hiding my influence with you + out of mean and selfish considerations, I am at last prevailed + upon to give you this trouble. Thus, to avoid the appearance + of a greater fault, I have put on this confidence. If you can + forgive such transgression of modesty in behalf of a friend, + receive this gentleman into your interests and friendship, and + take it from me that he is a brave and honest man." + + +An epistle written and sent about the same time, possibly by the same +bearer, shows Horace in an amiable light as kindly Mentor to the young +Telemachi of rank who were serving on Tiberius' staff (Ep. I, iii). +"Tell me, Florus, whereabouts you are just now, in snowy Thrace or +genial Asia? which of you poets is writing the exploits of Augustus? how +does Titius get on with his Latin rendering of Pindar? my dear friend +Celsus, what is he at work upon? his own ideas, I hope, not cribs from +library books. And you? are you abandoning all other allurements for +the charms of divine philosophy? Tell me, too, if you have made up your +quarrel with Munatius. To break the tie of brotherhood is a crime: +please, please be friends with him again, and bring him with you when +next you come to see me. I am fattening a calf to feast you both." Here +is a dinner invitation (Ep. I, v.): "If you can put up with deal tables +and a mess of greens served in a common dish, with wine five years old +and not at all bad, come and sup with me, Torquatus, at sunset. We have +swept up the hearth and cleaned the furniture; you may see your face +reflected in cup and platter. We will have a long summer evening of +talk, and you can sleep afterwards as late as you like, for to morrow is +Augustus' birthday, and there will be no business in the courts. I told +you the wine is good, and there is nothing like good drink. It unlocks +reticence, unloads hearts, encourages the shy, makes the tongue-tied +eloquent and the poor opulent. I have chosen my company well: there will +be no blab to repeat our conversation out of doors. Butra and Septimius +are coming, and I hope Sabinus. Just send a line to say whom you would +like to have besides. Bring friends if you choose, but the weather is +hot, and we must not overcrowd the rooms." It all sounds delightful, +except perhaps the mess of greens; but a good Italian cook can make +vegetables tempting down to the present day. I think we should all have +loved to be there, as at the neat repast of Attic taste with wine, which +tempted virtuous Laurence to sup with Milton. So should we like to know +what called forth this pretty piece of moralizing, addressed to the +poet Tibullus (Ep. I, iv). He was handsome, prosperous, popular, yet +melancholy. Horace affectionately reproves him. "Dear Albius," he says, +using the intimate fore-name, "Dear Albius, tell me what you are about +in your pretty villa: writing delicate verses, strolling in your forest +glades, with thoughts and fancies I am sure all that a good man's should +be? What can you want besides the beauty, wealth, full purse, and seemly +household which the gods have given you? Dear friend, I tell you what +you want, contentment with the present hour. Try and imagine that each +day which dawns upon you is your last; then each succeeding day will +come unexpected and delightful. I practise what I preach: come and take +a look at me; you will find me contented, sleek, and plump, 'the fattest +little pig in Epicurus' sty.'" And he impresses the same lesson on +another friend, Bullatius, who was for some reason restless at home and +sought relief in travel. "What ails you to scamper over Asia or voyage +among the Isles of Greece? Sick men travel for health, but you are well. +Sad men travel for change, but change diverts not sadness, yachts and +chaises bring no happiness; their skies they change, but not their souls +who cross the sea. Enjoy the to-day, dear friend, which God has given +you, the place where God has placed you: a Little Pedlington is cheerful +if the mind be free from care" (Ep. I, xi). + +His great friend Fuscus twits him, as Will Honeycomb twitted Mr. +Spectator, with his passion for a country life (Ep. I, x). "You are a +Stoic," Horace says, "your creed is to live according to Nature. Do you +expect to find her in the town or in the country? whether of the two +yields more peaceful nights and sweeter sleep? is a marble floor more +refreshing to the eyes than a green meadow? water poured through leaden +pipes purer than the crystal spring? Even amid your Corinthian columns +you plant trees and shrubs; though you drive out Nature she will silently +return and supplant your fond caprices. Do interpose a little ease and +recreation amid the money-grubbing which confines you to the town. Money +should be the servant, not the queen, the captive, not the conqueror. +If you want to see a happy man, come to me in the country. I have only +one thing wanting to perfect happiness, my desire for your society." +Two longer letters are written to his young friend Lollius (Ep. I, ii, +xviii). The first is a study of Homer, which he has been reading in the +country. In the "Iliad" he is disgusted by the reckless selfishness of +the leaders; in the hero of the "Odyssey" he sees a model of patient, +wise endurance, and impresses the example on his friend. It is curious +that the great poet of one age, reading the greater poet of another, +should fasten his attention, not on the poetry, but on the ethics of his +predecessor. The remaining letter is called out by Lollius' appointment +as confidential secretary to some man of great consequence; an office +such as Horace himself declined when offered by Augustus. The post, +he says, is full of difficulty, and endangering to self-respect: the +servility it exacts will be intolerable to a man so truthful, frank, and +independent as his friend. Let him decline it; or, if committed, get out +of it as soon as possible. + +Epistles there are without a moral purpose, called forth by some +special occasion. He sends his "Odes" by one Asella for presentation +to Augustus, punning on the name, as representing an Ass laden with +manuscripts (Ep. I, xiii). The fancy was carried out by Pope in his +frontispiece to the "Dunciad." Then his doctor tells him to forsake +Baiae as a winter health resort, and he writes to one Vala, who lives in +southern Italy, inquiring as to the watering places lower down the coast +(Ep. I, xv). He must have a place where the bread is good and the water +pure; the wine generous and mellow; in the market wild boars and hares, +sea-urchins and fine fish. He can live simply at home, but is sick +now and wants cherishing, that he may come back fat as one of the +Phaeacians--luxurious subjects, we remember, of King Alcinous in the +"Odyssey," + + Good food we love, and music, and the dance, + Garments oft changed, warm baths, and restful beds. + + Odyssey, viii, 248. + + +Julius Florus, poet and orator, presses him to write more lyrics +(Ep. II, ii). For many reasons, no, he answers. I no longer want money. +I am getting old. Lyrics are out of fashion. No one can write in Rome. +I have become fastidious. His sketch of the ideal poet is believed to +portray the writings of his friend Virgil. It is nobly paraphrased +by Pope: + + But how severely with themselves proceed + The men, who write such verse as we can read! + Their own strict judges, not a word they spare, + That wants or force, or light, or weight, or care; + Pour the full tide of eloquence along, + Serenely pure, and yet divinely strong; + Prune the luxuriant, the uncouth refine, + But show no mercy to an empty line; + Then polish all with so much life and ease, + You think 'tis nature, and a knack to please; + But ease in writing flows from art, not chance, + As those move easiest who have learned to dance. + + +The "Epistle to Augustus" (Ep. II, i) was written (page 28) at the +Emperor's request. After some conventional compliments it passes to a +criticism of Latin poetry past and present; comparing, like Swift's +"Battle of the Books," the merits of the contemporary and of the older +masters. There is a foolish mania just now, he says, for admiring our +older poets, not because they are good, but because they are old. The +origin and development of Roman poetry made it certain that perfection +must come late. He assumes that Augustus champions the moderns, and +compliments him on the discernment which preferred a Virgil and a Varius +(and so, by implication, a Horace) to the Plautuses and Terences of the +past. + +The "Art of Poetry" is thought to be an unfinished work. Unmethodical +and without proportion, it may have been either compiled clumsily +after the poet's death, or put together carelessly by himself amid +the indolence which grows sometimes upon old age. It declares the +essentials of poetry to be unity of conception and ingenuity of diction, +urges that mechanical correctness must be inspired by depth of feeling, +gives technical rules of dramatic action, of the chorus, of metre. +For matter such as this a Horace was not needed, but the felicity of +its handling has made it to many Horatian students the most popular of +his conversational works. It abounds in passages of finished beauty; such +as his comparison of verbal novelties imported into a literature with +the changing forest leaves; his four ages of humanity--the childish, +the adolescent, the manly, the senile--borrowed from Aristotle, expanded +by Shakespeare, and taken up by Keats; his comparison of Poetry to +Painting; his delineation of an honest critic. Brief phrases which +have become classical abound. The "purple patch" sewn on to a sober +narrative; the wine jar turning to a pitcher as the potter's wheel +revolves; the injunction to keep a book ten years before you publish +it; the near kinship of terseness to obscurity; the laughable outcome +of a mountain's labour; the warning to be chary of bringing gods upon +the stage; the occasional nod of Homer;--are commonplace citations so +crisp and so exhaustive in their Latin garb, that even the unlettered +scientist imports them into his treatises, sometimes with curious +effect. + +[Illustration: _Alinari photo._] [_Uffizi Gallery, Florence._ + +AUGUSTUS.] + +If for a full appreciation of these minor beauties a knowledge of the +Latin text is necessary, the more abounding charm of both Satires and +Epistles is accessible to the Latinless reader. For the bursts of poetry +are brief and rare, issuing from amid what Horace often reminds us are +essentially plain prose essays in conversational form, their hexametral +garb an unpoetical accident. Two versions present themselves to the +unclassical student. The first is Conington's scholarly rendering, +hampered sometimes rather than adorned by its metrical shape; the other +is the more recent construe of Dean Wickham, clear, flowing, readable, +stamping with the translator's high authority many a disputed passage. +Both set temptingly before English readers the Rome of Horace's day, +and promote them to an intimacy with his own mind, character, history. +Preferable to both, no doubt, are the "Imitations" of Pope, which do +not aim at literal transference, but work, as does his yet more famous +Homer, by melting down the original, and pouring the fused mass into +an English mould. Their background is Twit'nam and the Mall instead of +Tibur and the Forum; their Maecenas St. John, their Trebatius Fortescue, +their Numicius Murray. Where Horace appeals to Ennius and Attius, +they cite Shakespeare and Cowley; while the forgotten wits, worthies, +courtiers, spendthrifts of Horatian Rome reappear as Lord Hervey or Lady +Mary, as Shippen, Chartres, Oldfield, Darteneuf; and Horace's delicate +flattery of a Roman Emperor is travestied with diabolical cleverness +into bitter mockery of an English king. In these easy and polished +metamorphoses we have Pope at his very best; like Horace, an epitome +of his time, bearing the same relation, as patriot, scholar, worldling, +epicurean, poet, satirist, to the London of Queen Anne, which Horace +bore to the Augustan capital; and so reproducing in an English garb +something at any rate of the exotic flavour of his original. In an +age when Pope is undeservedly and disastrously neglected, I shall do +well to present some few Horatian samples from the king-poet of his +century; by whose wit and finish, unsurpassed if not unequalled in our +literature, the taste of my own contemporaries was formed; and to whom +a public which decries or ignores him pays homage every day, by quoting +from him unconsciously oftener than from anyone except Shakespeare. + +Here is a specimen from the Satires, heightening our interest in +Horace's picture by its adaptation to familiar English characters. Great +Scipio and Laelius, says Horace (Sat. II, i, 72), could unbend their +dignity to trifle and even to romp with Lucilius. Says Pope of his own +Twickenham home: + + Know, all the distant din that world can keep + Rolls o'er my Grotto, and but sooths my sleep. + There my retreat the best Companions grace, + Chiefs out of war, and Statesmen out of place. + There St. John mingles with my friendly bowl + The feast of reason and the flow of soul: + And he, whose lightning pierced the Iberian lines, + Now forms my Quincunx and now ranks my vines, + Or tames the genius of the stubborn plain, + Almost as quickly as he conquered Spain. + + +That Naevius is no longer read (Ep. II, i, 53) affects us slightly, for +of Naevius we know nothing; Pope substitutes a writer known and admired +still: + + Who now reads Cowley? if he pleases yet, + His moral pleases, not his pointed wit; + Forget his Epic, nay, Pindaric art, + But still I love the language of his heart. + + +Horace tells how the old rough Saturnian measure gave way to later +elegance (Ep. II, i, 157). Pope aptly introduces these fine resonant +lines: + + Waller's was smooth; but Dryden taught to join + The varying verse, the full resounding line, + The long majestic march, and energy divine. + + +Horace claims for poetry that it lifts the mind from the coarse and +sensual to the imaginative and pure (Ep. II, i, 128). Pope illustrates +by a delightful compliment to moral Addison, with just one little flick +of the lash to show that he remembered their old quarrel: + + In our own day (excuse some courtly stains), + No whiter page than Addison's remains. + He from the taste obscene reclaims our youth, + And sets the passions on the side of Truth; + Forms the soft bosom with the gentlest art, + And pours each human virtue in the heart. + + +Horace, speaking of an old comic poet, Livius (Ep. II, i, 69), whom he +had been compelled to read at school, is indignant that a single neat +line or happy phrase should preserve an otherwise contemptible +composition. This is Pope's expansion: + + But, for the wits of either Charles' days, + The mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease, + Sprat, Carew, Sedley, and a hundred more, + Like twinkling stars the Miscellanies o'er, + One simile, that solitary shines + In the dry desert of a thousand lines, + Or lengthened thought that gleams through many a page, + Has sanctified whole poems for an age. + + +Horace paints the University don as he had seen him emerging from his +studious seclusion to walk the streets of Athens, absent, meditative, +moving the passers-by to laughter (Ep. II, ii, 81). Pope carries him +to Oxford: + + The man, who, stretched in Isis' calm retreat, + To books and study gives seven years complete; + See, strowed with learned dust, his nightcap on, + He walks, an object new beneath the sun. + The boys flock round him, and the people stare; + So stiff, so mute! some statue you would swear, + Stept from its pedestal to take the air. + + +Finally, Horace extols the poet as distinct from the mere versifier +(Ep. II, i, 210). Pope's rendering ought to dispel the plea of an +unfeelingness sometimes lightly urged against him: + + Let me for once presume to instruct the times + To know the Poet from the Man of Rhymes: + 'Tis he, who gives my breast a thousand pains, + Can make me feel each passion that he feigns, + Enrage, compose, with more than magic art, + With pity and with terror tear my heart; + And snatch me o'er the earth or through the air, + To Thebes, to Athens, when he will, and where. + + +If only he had handled more! but of the forty-one Conversations Pope +imitated only seven. And so to assimilate those remaining we must +descend from the heights of poetry to the cool sequestered vale of +literal masquerade. To a lady wintering in Rome who consulted me lately +as to guide-books, I ventured to recommend Hawthorne's "Transformation," +Marion Crawford's "Ave Roma," and Dean Wickham's translation of the +Satires and Epistles. + + + + +ODES AND EPODES + + +I have tried to interpret in some degree the teaching of the Satires +and Epistles. Yet had the author's genius found expression in these +Conversations only, he would not have become through nineteen centuries +the best beloved of Latin poets: beloved in his own time alike by the +weary Atlas Augustus and the refined sensualist Maecenas; "playing round +the heartstrings" of the stern censor Persius; endowed by Petronius and +Quintilian with the prize of incommunicable felicity; the darling of +Dante, Montaigne, Voltaire, Chesterfield; the "old popular Horace" of +Tennyson; the Horace whose "sad earnestness and vivid exactness" pierced +the soul and brain of aged John Henry Newman. "His poems," says a great +French critic (St. Beuve, "Horace"), "form a manual of good taste, of +poetic feeling, of practical and worldly wisdom. The Christian has his +Bible; the scholar his Homer; Port Royal lived on St. Augustine; an +earlier philosophy on Montaigne; Horace comes within the range of all: +in reading him we break not in any way with modernity, yet retain our +hold upon antiquity. I know nothing more delightful as one grows in +years, when the mind retains its subtlety, but is conscious of increasing +languor, than to test the one and brace the other by companionship +with a book familiar and frequently re-read: we walk thereby with a +supporting staff, stroll leaning upon a friendly arm. This is what +Horace does for us: coming back to him in our old age, we recover our +youthful selves, and are relieved to learn while we appreciate afresh +his well-remembered lines, that if our minds have become more inert, +they are also more feeling, than of yore." + +For full justification of these graceful amenities we must turn to the +lyrical poems. The Satires and Epistles, as their author frequently +reminds us, were in prose: the revealed Horatian secret, the condensed +expression of the Horatian charm, demanded musical verse; and this we +have in the Odes and Epodes. The word Ode is Greek for a Song; Epode was +merely a metrical term to express an ode which alternated in longer and +shorter lines, and we may treat them all alike as Odes. The Epodes are +amongst his earliest publications, and bear signs of a 'prentice hand. +"Iambi," he calls them, a Greek word meaning "lampoons"; and six of them +are bitter personal attacks on individuals, foreign to the good breeding +and urbanity which distinguish his later writings. More of the same +class he is believed to have suppressed, retaining these as specimens +of that earlier style, and because, though inchoate, they won the +admiration of Virgil, and preferred their author to the patronage of +Maecenas. One of the finer Epodes (Epod. ix) has peculiar interest, as +written probably on the deck of Maecenas' galley during or immediately +after the battle of Actium; and is in that case the sole extant +contemporary record of the engagement. It reflects the loathing kindled +in Roman breasts by Antony's emasculate subjugation to his paramour; +imagines with horror a dissolute Egyptian harlot triumphant and supreme +in Rome, with her mosquito-curtained beds and litters, and her train of +wrinkled eunuchs. It describes with a spectator's accuracy the desertion +of the Gallic contingent during the battle, the leftward flight of +Antony's fleet: then, with his favourite device of lapsing from +high-wrought passion into comedy, Horace bewails his own sea-sickness +when the excitement of the fight is over, and calls for cups of wine to +quell it. In another Epode (Epod. ii) he recalls his boyish memories in +praise of country life: the vines wedded to poplars in the early spring, +after that the sheepshearing, later still the grape-gathering and honey +harvest; when winter comes, the hunting of the boar by day, at night the +cheery meal with wife and children upon olives, sorrel, mallows, beside +the crackling log-piled hearth. Even here he is not weaned from the +tricks of mocking irony manifest in his early writings and born perhaps +of his early struggles; for he puts this delicious pastoral, which +tinkles through the page like Milton's "L'Allegro," into the mouth of a +Roman capitalist, who, bitten by transient passion for a country life, +calls in all his money that he may buy a farm, pines in country +retirement for the Stock Exchange, sells his estate in quick disgust, +and returns to city life: + + So said old Ten-per-cent, when he + A jolly farmer fain would be. + His moneys he called in amain-- + Next week he put them out again. + + +is the spirited rendering of Mr. Goldwin Smith. + +In his remaining Epodes we may trace the germ of his later written +Odes. We have the affectionate addresses to Maecenas, the disgust at +civil discords, the cheery invitations to the wine cup, the wooing +of some coy damsel. By and by Maecenas presses him to bring them out +completed in a volume, and he pleads a fugitive amour in excuse for his +delay. Published, however, they were, notwithstanding the distractions +of Neaera; went, neatly written out in red-lined columns, to the +brothers Sosii in the street called Argiletum, to be multiplied by the +librarian's scribes on well-bleached Egyptian papyrus, bound in pumiced +parchment, stored in metal boxes on the bookseller's shelves within, +while the names of the author and his work were inscribed upon a pillar +outside the shop, as a guide to intending purchasers. Copies were sold, +probably, for a few denarii each; what would we not give for one of them +to-day? Let us hope that their author was well paid. + +Horace was now thirty-five years old: the Epodes had taught him his +power over lyric verse. He had imitated at first the older Roman +satirists; here by Maecenas' advice he copied from Greek models, from +Alcaeus and Sappho, claiming ever afterwards with pride that he was +the first amongst Roman poets to wed Aeolian lays to notes of Italy +(Od. III, xxx, 13). He spent seven years in composing the first three +Books of the Odes, which appeared in a single volume about B.C. 23. +More than any of his poems they contain the essence of his indefinable +magic art. They deal apparently with dull truisms and stale moralities, +avowals of simple joys and simple sorrows. They tell us that life is +brief and death is sure, that light loves and ancient wines are good, +that riches are burdensome, and enough is better than a feast, that +country life is delightful, that old age comes on us apace, that our +friends leave us sorrowing and our sorrow does not bring them back. +Trite sayings no doubt; but embellished one and all with an adorable +force and novelty at once sadly earnest and vividly exact; not too +simple for the profound and not too artful for the shallow; consecrated +by the verbal felicity which belongs only to an age of peculiar +intellectual refinement, and which flashed diamond-like from the facets +of his own highly polished mind. "He is the Breviary of the natural man, +his poetry is the Imitation not of Christ but of Epicurus." + +His Odes may be roughly classified as Religious, Moral, Philosophical, +Personal, Amatory. + +1. RELIGIOUS. Between the classic and the Christian hymn, as Matthew +Arnold has reminded us, there is a great gulf fixed. The Latin +conception of the gods was civic; they were superior heads of the +Republic; the Roman church was the invisible Roman state; religion was +merely exalted patriotism. So Horace's addresses to the deities for +the most part remind them of their coronation oaths, of the terms on +which they were worshipped, their share in the bargain with humanity, +a bargain to be kept on their side if they expected tribute of lambs and +piglings, of hallowed cakes and vervain wreaths. Very little of what we +call devotion seasons them. In two Odes (I, ii, xii), from a mere litany +of Olympian names he passes to a much more earnest deification of +Augustus. Another (III, xix) is a grace to Bacchus after a wine-bout. +Or Faunus is bidden to leave pursuing the nymphs (we think of Elijah's +sneer at Baal) and to attend to his duties on the Sabine farm, of +blessing the soil and protecting the lambs (III, xviii). The hymn to +Mercury recounts mythical exploits of the winged god, his infantile +thefts from Apollo, his guiding Priam through the Grecian camp, his +gift of speech to men, his shepherding souls to Hades (I, x). Venus is +invoked in a dainty prayer to visit the chapel which Glycera is building +for her (I, xxx): + + O come, and with thee bring thy glowing boy, + The Graces all, with kirtles flowing free, + Youth, that without thee knows but little joy, + The jocund nymphs and blithesome Mercury. + + +The doctrine of an overruling Providence Horace had expressly rejected +in the Satires (Sat. iv, 101), holding that the gods are too happy and +too careless in their superior aloof security to plague themselves with +the affairs of mortals. But he felt sometimes, as all men feel, the need +of a supreme celestial Guide: in the noble Ode which Ruskin loved he +seems to find it in Necessity or Fortune (Od. I, xxxv); and once, when +scared by thunder resounding in a cloudless sky, recants what he calls +his "irrational rationalism," and admits that God may, if He will, put +down the mighty and exalt the low (I, xxxiv). So again in his hymn for +the dedication of Apollo's Temple on the Palatine (I, xxxi) a serious +note is struck. He will not ask the God for rich cornfields and fat +meadow land, for wines of Cales proffered in a golden cup. A higher boon +than these his prayer demands: + + O grant me, Phoebus, calm content, + Strength unimpaired, a mind entire, + Old age without dishonour spent, + Nor unbefriended of the lyre. + + +On the other hand, his Ode to Melpomene (IV, iii), written in the +consciousness of accepted eminence as the national poet, "harpist of the +Roman lyre," breathes a sentiment of gratitude to Divinity far above the +typical poetic cant of homage to the Muse. And his fine Secular Hymn, +composed by Augustus's request for the great Century Games, strikes a +note of patriotic aspiration and of moral earnestness, not unworthy to +compare with King Solomon's Dedication Prayer; and is such as, with some +modernization of the Deities invoked, would hardly misbecome a national +religious festival to-day. It was sung by twenty-seven noble boys and as +many high-born maidens, now in antiphon, now in chorus, to Apollo and +Diana, as representing all the gods. Apollo, bless our city! say the +boys. Dian, bless our women and our children, say the girls, and guard +the sanctity of our marriage laws. Bring forth Earth's genial fruits, +say both; give purity to youth and peace to age. Bring back the lapsed +virtues of the Golden Age; Faith, Honour, antique Shame-fastness and +Worth, and Plenty with her teeming horn. Hear, God! hear, Goddess! Yes, +we feel our prayers are heard-- + + Now homeward we repair, + Full of the blessed hope which will not fail, + That Jove and all the gods have heard our prayer, + And with approving smiles our homage hail: + We, skilled in choral harmonies to raise + The hymn to Phoebus and Diana's praise. + + +Of course in all this there is no touch of ecstasy; no spark of the +inspiration which in a St. Francis, a St. Teresa, or a Charles Wesley, +scales the heights of hymnody. And, as the unimaginative Roman +temperament lacked the instinct of adoration, so was it deficient in +that other constituent of supernatural faith, the belief in immortality. +There might be a shadowy world--the poets said so--Odysseus visited its +depths and brought back its report--but it was a gloomy place at best. +Horace alludes to it always in the tone of the Hebrew Psalmists, or of +Hezekiah sick to death, utilizing Minos and Cerberus and Tantalus and +Sisyphus for poetic effect, yet ever with an undertone of sadness and +alarm. Not Orpheus' self, he says (I, xxiv, 13), in his exquisite lament +for dead Quinctilius, can bring back life-blood to the phantom pale +who has joined the spectral band that voyage to Styx: the gods are +pitiless--we can only bear bereavements patiently (II, iii). You must +leave, my Dellius, your pleasant groves and your cottage upon Tiber's +banks, since Orcus, ruthless king, swoops equally on all: + + Land, home, and winsome wife must all be left; + And cypresses abhorred, + Alone of all the trees + That now your fancy please, + Shall shade his dust who was awhile their lord. + + (II, xiv, 21.) + + +2. MORAL. But if the gods are beyond our ken, and if the world to come +is misty, we still have this world with us; a world not always to be +daffed aside with love and wine and comradeship, since behind its frolic +wantonness lie the ennobling claims of duty and of conscience. As with +Fielding, as with Thackeray, the light current tone of sportiveness or +irony heightens the rare solemnity of didactic moral earnestness. Of all +the Latin poets, says Sir Richard Fanshaw, Horace is the fullest fraught +with excellent morality. In the six stately Odes which open the third +book, together with a later Ode (xxiv) which closes the series and ought +never to have been severed from it, Horatian poetry rises to its +greatest height of ethical impressiveness. Ushered in with the solemn +words of a hierophant bidding the uninitiated avaunt at the commencement +of a religious ceremony (III, i, 1-2), delivered with official +assumption in the fine frenzy of a muse-inspired priest, their unity +of purpose and of style makes them virtually a continuous poem. It +lashes the vices and the short-sighted folly of society; with the Sword +of Damocles above his head the rich man sits at a luxurious board +(III, i, 17); sails in his bronzed galley, lolls in his lordly chariot, +with black Care ever at the helm or on the box (III, i, 40). By +hardihood in the field and cheerful poverty at home Rome became great +of yore; such should be the virtues of to-day. Let men be _moral_; it +was immorality that ruined Troy; _heroic_--read the tale of Regulus; +_courageous_, but with courage ordered, disciplined, controlled (III, +iii; v; iv, 65). Brute force without mind, he says almost in Milton's +words, falls by its own strength, as the giants fell encountering the +gods: + + For what is strength without a double share + Of wisdom? vast, unwieldy, burdensome; + Proudly secure, yet liable to fall + By weakest subtleties, not made to rule, + But to subserve where wisdom bears command. + + ("Samson Ag.," 53.) + + +Self-discipline, he reminds his audience, need not be sullen and +austere; in regenerated Rome the Muses still may rule. Mild thoughts +they plant, and they joy to see mild thoughts take root; refinement +of manners and of mind, and the gladsomeness of literary culture +(III, iv, 41). + +He turns to reprove the ostentation of the rich; their adding field to +field, poor families evicted from farmstead and cottage to make way for +spreading parks and ponds and gardens; + + driven from home + Both wife and husband forth must roam, + Bearing their household gods close pressed, + With squalid babes, upon their breast. + + (II, xviii, 23.) + + +Not thus was it in the good old times. Then rich men lavished marble on +the temples of the gods, roofed their own cottages with chance-cut turf +(II, xv, 13). And to what end all this splendour? Behind your palace +walls lurks the grim architect of a narrower home; the path of glory +leads but to the grave (II, xviii, 17). And as on the men, so on the +women of Rome his solemn warnings are let fall. Theirs is the task to +maintain the sacred family bond, the purity of marriage life. Let them +emulate the matrons of the past, severe mothers of gallant sons (III, +vi, 37). Let men and women join to stay the degeneracy which has begun +to set in, and which, unchecked, will grow deadlier with each generation +as it succeeds. + + How Time doth in its flight debase + Whate'er it finds? our fathers' race, + More deeply versed in ill + Than were their sires, hath born us yet + More wicked, destined to beget + A race more vicious still. + + (III, vi, 45.) + + +3. PHILOSOPHICAL. "How charming is divine philosophy?" said the meek +younger brother in "Comus" to his instructive senior. Speaking as one +of the profane, I find not less charming the humanist philosophy of +Horace. Be content! be moderate! seize the present! are his maxims. + +_Be content!_ A mind without anxiety is the highest good (II, xvi). +Great desires imply great wants (III, xvi, 42). 'Tis well when prayer +seeks and obtains no more than life requires. + + Happy he, + Self-centred, who each night can say, + "My life is lived": the morn may see + A clouded or a sunny day: + That rests with Jove; but what is gone + He will not, can not, turn to nought, + Nor cancel as a thing undone + What once the flying hour has brought. + + (III, xxix, 41.) + + +_Be moderate!_ He that denies himself shall gain the more (III, xvi, +21). He that ruleth his spirit is better than the lord of Carthage. +Hold fast the golden mean (II, x, 5). The poor man's supper, spare +but neat and free from care, with no state upon the board except his +heirloom silver saltcellar, is better than a stalled ox and care +therewith (II, xvi, 13). And he practised what he preached, refusing +still fresh bounties which Maecenas pressed upon him. What more want +I than I have? he says: + + Truth is mine with genius mixed, + The rich man comes and knocks at my poor gate. + Favoured thus I ne'er repine, + Nor weary Heaven for more, nor to the great + For larger bounty pray, + My Sabine farm my one sufficient boon. + +(II, xviii, 9.) + + +_Seize the Present!_ _Now_ bind the brow with late roses and with myrtle +crowns; now drown your cares in wine, counting as gain each day that +Chance may give (I, vii, 31; I, ix, 14). Pale Death will be here anon; +even while I speak time slips away: seize to-day, trust nothing to the +morrow. + + Ah, my Beloved, fill the cup that clears + _To-day_ of past regrets and future fears: + _To-morrow?_ why to-morrow I may be + Myself with yesterday's seven thousand years. + + +What more commonplace than this saying that we all must die? but he +brings it home to us ever and again with pathetic tearful fascinating +force. Each time we read him, his sweet sad pagan music chants its ashes +to ashes, dust to dust, and we hear the earth fall upon the coffin lid +amongst the flowers. + + Ah, Postumus, they fleet away + Our years, nor piety one hour + Can win from wrinkles, and decay, + And death's indomitable power; + + Not though three hundred steers you heap + Each day, to glut the tearless eyes + Of Him, who guards in moated keep + Tityos, and Geryon's triple size: + + All, all, alas! that watery bound + Who eat the fruits that Nature yields, + Must traverse, be we monarchs crowned, + Or humblest tillers of the fields. + + (II, xiv.) + + +The antipathy is not confined to heathenism; we distrust the Christian +who professes to ignore it; many of us felt drawn by a brotherhood of +humanity to the late scholarly Pope, when we learned that, as death +looked him in the face, he clung to Pagan Horace as a truthful and +sympathetic oracle. "And we all go to-day to this singer of the ancient +world for guidance in the deceptions of life, and for steadfastness in +the face of death." + +[Illustration: _Alinari photo._] + +[_Capitol Museum, Rome._ + +VIRGIL.] + +4. PERSONAL. Something, but not very much, we learn of Horace's intimates +from this class of Odes. Closest to him in affection and oftenest +addressed is Maecenas. The opening Ode pays homage to him in words +closely imitated by Allan Ramsay in addressing the chief of his clan: + + Dalhousie of an auld descent, + My chief, my stoup, my ornament; + + +and at the end of the volume the poet repeats his dedication (III, +xxix). Twice he invites his patron to a feast; to drink wine bottled on +the day some years before when entering the theatre after an illness +he was received with cheers by the assembled multitude (I, xx); again +on March 1st, kept as the festal anniversary of his own escape from a +falling tree (III, viii). To a querulous letter from his friend written +when sick and dreading death, he sends the tender consolation and +remonstrance of which we spoke before (p. 29). In a very different tone +he sings the praises of Licymnia (II, xii), supposed to be Terentia, +Maecenas' newly-wedded wife, sweet voiced, witty, loving, of whom her +husband was at the time passionately enamoured. He recounts finally, with +that delicate respectful gratitude which never lapses into servility, +his lifelong obligation, lauding gratefully the still removed place which +his friend's bounty has bestowed: + + A clear fresh stream, a little field, o'ergrown + With shady trees, a crop that ne'er deceives. + + (III, xvi, 29.) + + +Not less tenderly affectionate is the exquisite Ode to Virgil on the +death of Quinctilius. + + By many a good man wept Quinctilius dies, + By none than you, my Virgil, trulier wept; + + (I, xxiv.) + + +or to his devoted young friend Septimius (p. 39) (II, vi), who would +travel with him to the ends of the world, to Moorish or Cantabrian +wilds. Not so far afield need they go; but when age steals on they will +journey to Tarentum, sweetest spot on earth: + + That spot, those happy heights, desire + Our sojourn; there, when life shall end, + Your tear shall dew my yet warm pyre, + Your bard and friend. + + +To the great general Agrippa (I, vi), rival of Maecenas in the good +graces of Augustus, he sends a tribute complimentary, yet somewhat +stiffly and officially conceived; lines much more cordial to the +high-born Aelius Lamia (III, 17), whose statue stands to-day amid the +pale immortalities of the Capitoline Museum. We have a note of tonic +banter to Tibullus, "jilted by a fickle Glycera," and "droning piteous +elegies" (I, xxxiii); a merry riotous impersonation of an imaginary +symposium in honour of the newly-made augur Murena (III, 19), with +toasts and tipsiness and noisy Bacchanalian songs and rose-wreaths flung +about the board; a delicious mockery of reassurance to one Xanthias (II, +iv), who has married a maidservant and is ashamed of it. He may yet find +out that though fallen into obscurity she is in truth high-born and +noble, and will present him with a patrician mother-in-law. + + For aught that you know now, fair Phyllis may be + The shoot of some highly respectable stem; + Nay, she counts, I'll be sworn, a few 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. + + +Several of his correspondents we can only name; the poet Valgius, +the tragedians Pollio and Fuscus; Sallust, grandson of the historian; +Pompeius, his old comrade in the Brutus wars; Lollius, defeated in +battle and returning home in disgrace. Nor need we labour to identify a +host of others; Iccius, Grosphus, Dellius; who figure as mere dedicatory +names; nor persons mentioned casually, such as Telephus of the rosy neck +and clustering hair (I, xiii; III, xix), whom Bulwer Lytton, with fine +memories of his own ambrosial petted youth, calls a "typical beautyman +and lady-killer." The Horatian personages, remarks Dean Milman, would +contain almost every famous name of the Augustan age. + +5. AMATORY. "Speak'st thou of nothing but ladies?" says Feste the Jester +to poor Malvolio. He might have said the same to Horace; for of the Odes +in the first three Books one third part is addressed to or concerned +with women. How many of the pretty female names which musicalize his +love songs, in syllables that breathe of the sweet south and melt like +kisses in the utterance, are representative of real girls, we cannot +guess; with none of them except perhaps one, who died young, does he +seem to have been really in love. He was forty years old when most +of his amorous Odes were written; an age at which, as George Eliot +has reminded us, the baptism of passion is by aspersion rather than +immersion. Something he must have known of love, or he could not write +as he has done; but it is the superficial gallantry of a flirt rather +than the impassioned self-surrender of a lover; of a gay bachelor, with +roving critical eye, heart whole yet fancy free, too practised a judge +of beauty to become its slave. Without emotion, without reverence, but +with keen relishing appreciation, he versifies Pyrrha's golden curls, +and Lycoris' low forehead--feminine beauties both to a Roman eye--and +Phyllis' tapering arms and shapely ankles, and Chia's dimpled cheek, +and the tangles of Neaera's hair, and the gadabout baggage Lyde, +and Glycera's dazzling complexion that blinds the gazer's eye +(I, v, xix, xxxiii; II, iv, 21; III, xiv, 21). They are all inconstant +good-for-noughts, he knows; but so are men, and so is he; keep up the +pleasant give-and-take, the quarrels and the reconciliations. All the +youths of Rome are in love with a beautiful Ninon D'Enclos named +Barine--Matthew Arnold declared this to be the finest of all the Odes +(II, viii)--she perjures herself with every one in turn. But it seems to +answer; she shines forth lovelier than ever. Venus and the nymphs only +laugh, and her lovers, young and old, continue to hug their chains. + + New captives fill the nets you weave; + New slaves are bred; and those before, + Though oft they threaten, never leave + Your perjured door. + + +Sometimes he plays the monitor. Asterie's husband is laid up in Greece +by contrary winds: he is faithful to his wife, though his hostess tempts +him: let the wife be on her guard against her handsome neighbour Enipeus +(III, vii). His own charmers are sometimes obdurate: Chloe and Lyde run +away from him like fawns (I, xxiii): that is because they are young; he +can wait till they are older; they will come to him then of themselves: +"they always come," says Disraeli in "Henrietta Temple." He has +quarrelled with an old flame (I, xvi), whom he had affronted by some +libellous verses. He entreats her pardon; was young and angry when he +wrote; will burn the offending lines, or fling them into the sea: + + Come, let me change my sour for sweet, + And smile complacent as before; + Hear me my palinode repeat, + And give me back your heart once more. + + +He professes bitter jealousy of a handsome stripling whose beauty Lydia +praises (I, xiii). She is wasting her admiration; she will find him +unfaithful; Horace knows him well: + + Oh, trebly blest, and blest for ever, + Are they, whom true affection binds, + In whom no doubts nor janglings sever + The union of their constant minds; + But life in blended current flows, + Serene and sunny to the close. + + +If anyone now reads "Lalla Rookh," he will recall an exquisite rendering +of these lines from the lips of veiled Nourmahal: + + 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 passion 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! + + +But, perhaps, if a jury of scholars could be polled as to the most +enchanting amongst all Horace's lovesongs, the highest vote would be +cast in favour of the famous "Reconciliation" of the roving poet with +this or with some other Lydia (III, ix). The pair of former lovers, +mutually faithless, exchange defiant experience of their several +infidelities; then, the old affection reviving through the contact of +their altercation, agree to discard their intervening paramours, and +return to their first allegiance. + + _He._ + + Whilst I was dear 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 Chloe might with Lydia vie, + Renowned in ode or madrigal, + Not Roman Ilia famed as I. + + _He._ + + 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. + + _She._ + + I dote on Calais; and I + Am all his passion, all his care, + For whom a double death I'd die, + So fate the darling boy would spare. + + _He._ + + What if our 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 yon star is he, + Thou fickle as an April sky, + More churlish too than Adria's sea, + With thee I'd live, with thee I'd die. + + +The austere Scaliger used to say that he would rather have written this +ode than be King of Spain and the Indies: Milton's Eve expresses her +devotion to Adam in an apostrophe paraphrased from its closing lines. + +Observe, too, how we find in all the Odes as we read them, not only a +gallery of historical pictures, nor only an unconscious revelation of +the poet's self, of, that is, the least subjective among poets, ever, as +says Sir Stephen De Vere, looking outward, never looking in; but they +incidentally paint for us in vivid and familiarizing tints the intimate +daily life of that far-off ancient queen of cities. We walk with them +the streets of Rome. We watch the connoisseurs gazing into the curiosity +shops and fingering the bronzes or the silver statuettes; the naughty +boys jeering the solemn Stoic as he walks along, staid, superior, +absent; the good boys coming home from school with well-thumbed lesson +books; the lovers in the cookshops or restaurants shooting apple pips +from between finger and thumb, rejoicing in the good omen if they strike +the ceiling; the stores of Sulpicius the wine merchant and of Sosius the +bookseller; the great white Latian ox, exactly such as you see to-day, +driven towards the market, with a bunch of hay upon his horns to warn +pedestrians that he is dangerous; the coarse drawings in chalk or +colours on the wall advertising some famous gladiator; at dusk the +whispering lovers in the Campus, or the romping hide-and-seek of lads +and lasses at the corners of the streets or squares, just as you may +watch them to-day on spring or winter evenings amongst the lower arches +of the Colosseum;--it is a microcosm, a cameo, of that old-world life. +Horace knew, and feared not to say, that in his poems, in his Odes +especially, he bequeathed a deathless legacy to mankind, while setting +up a lasting monument to himself. One thing he could not know, that when +near two thousand years had passed, a race of which he had barely heard +by name as dwelling "quite beyond the confines of the world," would +cherish his name and read his writings with a grateful appreciation +even surpassing that of his contemporary Romans. + +A few Odes remain, too casual to be classified; rejoicings over the +vanishing of winter and the return of spring (I, iv); praises of the +Tibur streams, of Tarentum (II, vi) which he loved only less than Tibur, +of the Lucretilis Groves (I, xvii) which overhung his Sabine valley, +of the Bandusian spring beside which he played in boyhood. We have the +Pindaric or historic Odes, with tales of Troy, of the Danaid brides, +of Regulus, of Europa (III, iii, v, xi, xvii); the dramatic address to +Archytas (I, xxviii), which soothed the last moments of Mark Pattison; +the fine epilogue which ends the book, composed in the serenity of +gained renown; + + And now 'tis done: more durable than brass + My monument shall be, and raise its head + O'er royal pyramids: it shall not dread + Corroding rain or angry Boreas, + Nor the long lapse of immemorial time. + I shall not wholly die; large residue + Shall 'scape the Queen of funerals. Ever new + My after fame shall grow, while pontiffs climb + With silent maids the Capitolian height. + "Born," men will say, "where Aufidus is loved, + Where Danaus scant of streams beneath him bowed + The rustic tribes, from dimness he waxed bright, + First of his race to wed the Aeolian lay + To notes of Italy." Put glory on, + My own Melpomene, by genius won, + And crown me of thy grace with Delphic bay. + + + + +SWAN SONG + + +When a well-graced actor has left the stage amid trumpeted farewells +from an admiring but regretful audience, we somewhat resent his +occasional later reappearance. So, when a poet's last word has been +spoken, and spoken emotionally, an Afterword is apt to offend: and we +may wish that the fine poem just quoted had been reserved as finish to +the volume yet to come, which lacks a closing note, or even that the +volume itself had not been published. The fourth Book of the Odes was +written nearly ten years after the other three, and Horace wrote it not +as Poet but as Laureate. His Secular Hymn appeared in B.C. 17, when +he was forty-eight years old; and after it Augustus pressed him to +celebrate the victories of his two stepsons, Drusus and Tiberius, over +the tribes of the Eastern Alps. If he wrote unwillingly, his hand had +not lost its cunning. The sentiment is paler and more artificial, but +the old condensation and felicity remain. He begins with rather sad +reluctance. He is old; the one woman whom he loved is dead; his lyric +raptures and his love campaignings are at an end; he is tired of +flattering hopes, of noisy revels, of flower garlands fresh with dew. +Or are they war songs, not love songs, that are wanted? There he is +more helpless still. It needs a Pindar worthily to extol a Caesar: he is +no Pindar; and so we have an ode in honour of the Theban bard. And yet, +as chosen lyrist of the Roman race, he cannot altogether refuse the +call. Melpomene, who from his cradle marked him for her own, can still +shed on him if she will the power to charm, can inspire in him "music of +the swan." So, slowly, the wasting lyric fire revives; we get the +martial odes to conquering Drusus and to Lollius, the panegyrics on +Augustus and Tiberius, all breathing proud consciousness that "the Muse +opens the good man's grave and lifts him to the gods"; that immortality +can be won only by the poet's pen, and that it is in his own power to +confer it. + +[Illustration: _Becchetti photo._ + +THE FORUM RESTORED AS IN A.D. 80. + +(Reproduced by special permission.)] + +The remaining poems are in the old spirit, but are somewhat mournful +echoes of the past. They remind us of the robin's winter song--"Hark to +him weeping," say the country folk, as they listen to the music which +retains the sweetness but has lost what Wordsworth calls the gushes of +the summer strains. There is still an ode to Venus; its prayer not now +"come to bless thy worshipper"; but "leave an old heart made callous by +fifty years, and seek some younger votary." There is an ode to Spring. +Spring brought down from heaven his earliest Muse; it came to him +charged with youthful ardours, expectations, joys; now its only message +is that change and death attend all human hopes and cares. Like an army +defeated, the snow has retreated; the Graces and the Nymphs can dance +unclad in the soft warm air. But summer will thrust out spring, autumn +summer, then dull winter will come again; will come to the year, will +come to you and me. Not birth nor eloquence nor virtue can save from +Minos' judgement seat; like Aeneas, Tullus, Ancus, like all the great +ones of the earth, we shall soon be nameless shades and a poor pinch of +dust. More of the old buoyant glee comes back in a festal invitation +to one Virgilius, not the poet. There is a ring of Tom Moore in Sir +Theodore Martin's rendering of it. + + * * * * * + + On the young grass reclined, near the murmur of fountains, + The shepherds are piping the song of the plains, + And the god who loves Arcady's purple-hued mountains, + The god of the flocks, is entranced by their strains. + + * * * * * + + To the winds with base lucre and pale melancholy! + In the flames of the pyre these, alas! will be vain; + Mix your sage ruminations with glimpses of folly, + 'Tis delightful at times to be somewhat insane! + + +There follows a savage assault on one Lyce, an ancient beauty who had +lost her youthful charms, but kept up her youthful airs: + + Where now that beauty? where those movements? where + That colour? what of her, of her is left, + Who, breathing Love's own air, + Me of myself bereft! + Poor 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. + + +Poor Lyce indeed! what had she done to be so scourged? One address we +miss: there is no ode in this book to Maecenas, who was out of favour +with Augustus, and had lost all political influence. But the friend is +not sunk in the courtier. The Ides or 13th of April is his old patron's +birthday--a nativity, says Horace, dearer to him almost than his own, +and he keeps it always as a feast. With a somewhat ghostly resurrection +of voluptuousness dead and gone he bids Phyllis come and keep it with +him. All things are ready, a cask of Alban nine years old is broached, +the servants are in a stir, the altar wreathed for sacrifice, the flames +curling up the kitchen chimney, ivy and parsley gathered to make a +wreath for Phyllis' hair. Come then, sweet girl, last of my loves; for +never again shall this heart take fire at a woman's face--come, and +learn of me a tune to sing with that dear voice, and drive away dull +care. I am told that every man in making love assures the charmer that +no woman shall ever succeed her in his regards; but this is probably +a veritable amorous swan-song. He was older than are most men at +fifty-two. Years as they pass, he sadly says, bereave us one by one +of all our precious things; of mirth, of loves, of banquets; at last +the Muse herself spreads wings to follow them. "You have sported long +enough," she says, "with Amaryllis in the shade, you have eaten and +drunk your fill, it is time for you to quit the scene." And so the +curtain falls. + + * * * * * + +To our great loss there is no contemporary portrait of Horace. He +tells us himself (Ep. II, ii, 214; I, xx, 29) that he was short of +stature, his hair black but early tinged with grey; that he loved to +bask in sunshine, that his temper was irascible but easily appeased. +In advanced life he became fat; Augustus jests with him rather coarsely +on his protuberant figure. The portrait prefixed to this volume is +from a Contorniate, or bronze medallion of the time of Constantine, +representing the poet's likeness as traditionally preserved amongst +his countrymen three hundred years after his death. + +The oldest extant manuscript of his works is probably that in the public +library of Berne, and dates from the ninth century. The earliest printed +edition, bearing neither date nor printer's name, is supposed to have +been published at Milan in 1470. Editions were also printed at Florence +and at Venice in 1482, and a third at Venice in 1492. An illustrated +edition on vellum was brought out by Aldus in 1501, and reissued in +1509, 1514, 1519. The Florence Press of the Giunti produced splendid +specimens in 1503, 1514, 1519. Between this date and the end of the +century seven more came forth from famous presses. Of modern editions +we may notice the vellum Bodoni folio of 1791, and the matchless Didot +of 1799 with its exquisite copperplate vignettes. Fortunate is the +collector who possesses the genuine first edition of Pine's "Horace," +1733. It is known by an error in the text, corrected in the subsequent +and less bibliographically valuable impression of the same year. +A beautifully pictorial book is Dean Milman's; the student will prefer +Orelli, Macleane, Yonge, Munro and King, or Dean Wickham's scholarly +volumes. + + * * * * * + +In composing this modest little book I have had in view principally +readers altogether ignorant of Latin, but wishing to know something of +a writer lauded enthusiastically by all classical scholars: they will +observe that I have not introduced into its pages a single Latin word. +I have nourished also the hope that it might be serviceable to those +who have forgotten, but would like to recover, the Horace which they +learned at school; and to them I would venture to recommend the little +copy of the Latin text with Conington's version attached, in "Bell's +Pocket Classics." Latinless readers of course must read him in English +or not at all. No translation can quite convey the cryptic charm of +any original, whether poetry or prose. "Only a bishop," said Lord +Chesterfield, "is improved by translation." But prose is far easier to +render faithfully than verse; and I have said that either Conington's +or Dean Wickham's version of the Satires and Epistles, which are both +virtually in prose, will tell them what Horace said, and sometimes +very nearly how he said it. On the Odes a host of English writers have +experimented. Milton tried his hand on one, with a result reflecting +neither Milton nor Horace. Dryden has shown what he could have done but +would not do in his tantalising fragment of the Ode to Fortune. Pope +transformed the later Ode to Venus into a purely English poem, with a +gracefully artificial mechanism quite unlike the natural flow of the +original. Marvell's noble "Horatian Ode," with its superb stanzas on +the death of Charles I, shows what he might have achieved, but did +not attempt. Francis' rendering of 1765 is generally respectable, +and in default of a better was universally read and quoted by his +contemporaries: once, in the Ode to Pyrrhus (III, xx) he attains +singular grace of phrase and metre. Cowper translated two Odes and +imitated two more, not without happy touches, but with insertions +and omissions that lower poetry into commonplace. Of Calverley's few +attempts three are notably good; a resounding line in his "Leuconoe" +(I, xi): + + Which flings now the flagging sea-wave on the obstinate sandstone reef, + + +is at once Horatian and Tennysonian; and his "Oh! where is all thy +loveliness?" in the later Ode to Lyce has caught marvellously the minor +key of tender memory which relieves the brutality of that ruthless +flagellation. Mr. Goldwin Smith's more numerous "Bay Leaves" are +fashioned all in goodly measure; and his "Blest man who far from care +and strife" well transfers to English the breathlessness of Horace's +sham pastoral ecstasy. Of more ambitious translators Bulwer Lytton +catches now and then the careless rapture of his original; Sir Theodore +Martin is always musical and flowing, sometimes miraculously fortunate +in his metres, but intentionally unliteral and free. Conington is +rigidly faithful, oftentimes tersely forcible; but misses lyrical +sweetness. Perhaps, if Marvell, Herrick, Cowley, Prior, the now +forgotten William Spencer, Tom Moore, Thackeray, could be alchemized +into one, they might combine to yield an English Horace. Until eclectic +nature, emulating the Grecian sculptor, shall fashion an archetype from +these seven models, the vernacular student, with his Martin and his +Conington, sipping from each alternately, like Horace's Matine bee +(IV, ii, 27), the terseness of the professor and the sweetness of the +poet, may find in them some echo from the ever-shifting tonality of the +Odes, something of their verbal felicity, something of their thrilling +wistfulness; may strive not quite unsuccessfully, in the words of +Tennyson's "Timbuctoo," to attain by shadowing forth the unattainable. + + + + +ON THE "WINES" OF HORACE'S POETRY + + +The wines whose historic names sparkle through the pages of Horace +have become classical commonplaces in English literature. "Well, my +young friend, we must for once prefer the Falernian to the _vile +Sabinum?_" says Monkbarns to Lovel when the landlord of the Hawes Inn +at Queensferry brings them claret instead of port. It may be well +that we should know somewhat of them. + +The choicest of the Italian wines was _Caecuban_, from the +poplar-trained vines grown amongst the swamps of Amyclae in Campania. +It was a heady, generous wine, and required long keeping; so we find +Horace speaking of it as ranged in the farthest cellar end, or "stored +still in our grandsire's binns"(III, xxviii, 2, 3; I, xxxvii, 6); it was +reserved for great banquets, kept carefully under lock and key: "your +heir shall drain the Caecuban you hoarded under a hundred padlocks" +(II, xiv, 25). It was beyond Horace's means, and only rich men could +afford to drink it; we hear of it at Maecenas' table and on board his +galley (I, xx, 9); and it appeared at the costly banquet of Nasidienus +(page 27). With the Caecuban he couples the _Formian_ (I, xx, 11), and +_Falernian_ (I, xx, 10), grown on the southern slopes of the hills +dividing Campania from Latium. "In grassy nook your spirit cheer with +old Falernian vintage," he says to his friend Dellius (II, iii, 6). +He calls it fierce, rough, fiery; recommends mixing it with Chian +wine, or with wine from Surrentum (Sat. II, iv, 55), or sweetening and +diluting it with honey from Mount Hymettus (Sat. II, ii, 15). From +the same district came the _Massic_ wine, also strong and fiery. "It +breeds forgetfulness" (II, vii, 21), he says; advises that it should +be softened by exposure to the open sky (Sat. II, iv, 51). He had a +small supply of it, which he kept for a "happy day" (III, xxi, 6). The +_Calenian_ wine, from Cales near Falernum, was of similar character. +He classes it with Caecuban as being too costly for a poor man's purse +(I, xx, 10): writing late in life to a friend, promises to find him +some, but says that his visitor must bring in exchange an alabaster box +of precious spikenard (IV, xii, 17). Next after these Campanian vintages +came the _Alban_. He tells Phyllis that he will broach for her a cask +of it nine years old (IV, xi, 1). It was offered, too, at Nasidienus' +dinner as an alternative to Caecuban; and Horace praises the raisins +made from its berries (Sat. II, iv, 72). Of the _Sabine_, poorest of +Italian wines, we have spoken (page 23). + +The finest Greek wine was _Chian_, thick and luscious; he couples it +in the Epode to Maecenas (IX, 34) with _Lesbian_ which he elsewhere +(I, xvii, 21) calls "innocent" or mild. _Coan_ wine he mentions twice, +commending its medicinal value (Sat. II, iv, 29; II, viii, 9). + +In justice to Horace and his friends, it is right to observe that +connoisseurship in wine must not be confounded with inebriety. They +drank to exhilarate, not to stupefy themselves, to make them what +Mr. Bradwardine called _ebrioli_ not _ebrii_; and he repeatedly warns +against excess. The vine was to him "a sacred tree," its god, Bacchus, +a gentle, gracious deity (I, xviii, 1): + + 'Tis thine the drooping heart to heal, + Thy strength uplifts the poor man's horn; + Inspired by thee, the soldier's steel, + The monarch's crown, he laughs to scorn. + + III, xxi, 17. + + +"To total abstainers," he says, "heaven makes all things hard" +(I, xviii, 3); so let us drink, but drink with moderate wisdom, leave +quarrelsomeness in our cups to barbarous Scythians, to brute Centaurs +and Lapithae: let riot never profane our worship of the kindly god. We +must again remember that they did not drink wine neat, as we do, but +always mixed with water. Come, he says to his slave as they sit down, +quench the fire of the wine from the spring which babbles by (II, xi, +19). The common mixture was two of water to one of wine; sometimes nine +of water to three of wine, the Muses to the Graces; very rarely nine of +wine to three of water. + + Who the uneven Muses loves, + Will fire his dizzy brain with three times three. + Three once told the Grace approves; + She with her two bright sisters, gay and free, + Hates lawless strife, loves decent glee. + + III, xix, 11. + + + + +CHRONOLOGY OF HORACE'S LIFE AND WORKS + + + =========================================== + B.C. AGE. + + 65 Born December 8th. + + 44 21 Entered as student at Athens. + + 43 22 In Brutus' army. + + { Philippi. + 41 24 { + { Return to Rome. + + 38 27 Introduced to Maecenas. + + 35 30 Satires, Book I. + + 30 35 Satires, Book II, and Epodes. + + 23 42 Odes I-III. + + 20 45 Epistles, Book I. + + 19 46 Epistles, Book II, ii. + + 17 48 The Century Hymn. + + 13 52 Odes, Book IV. + + 13 52 Epistle to Augustus. + + 10? 55? Art of Poetry. + + 8 57 Died November 17th. + =========================================== + + + + +INDEX + + +Actium, 53. + +Addison, 37, 49. + +Aelius, Lamia, 65. + +Agrippa, 65. + +Anio, 19-21. + +Antony, 26. + +Archilochus, 13, 19. + +Argiletum, 54. + +Aristius, Fuscus, 21, 36, 42, 61, 66. + +Arnold, Matthew, 55, 68. + +Asella, 43. + +Asterie, 68. + +Athens, 11, 50. + +Aufidus, 9, 73. + +Augustus, 15, 28, 29, 45, 51, 56, 57, 65, 75, 77, 78. + + +Bandusia, 10, 72. + +Barine, 68. + +Brundusium, 17. + +Brutus, 12, 13. + + +Calverley, 80. + +Capitoline Hill, 16, 24-26, 65. + +Chesterfield, 79. + +Clients, 17. + +Conington, 46, 81. + +Coverley, 11. + +Cowper, 80. + + +De Vere, Sir Stephen, 71. + +Digentia, 21. + +Dryden, 79. + + +Eliot, G., 67. + +Enipeus, 68. + +Epicureans, 11. + +Epicurus, 55. + + +Fanshaw, Sir R., 59. + +Florac, 23, 44. + +Florus, 40, 44. + +Fonteius Capito, 16. + +Forum, 24, etc. + +Fufius, 34. + + +Gallio, 36. + +Goldwin Smith, 54, 80. + + +Homer: Iliad, 11, 37, 43; + Odyssey, 44. + +Horace: childhood, 10; + studies at Athens, 11; + influence of Brutus, 12; + Philippi, 13; + struggle at Rome, 13; + introduction to Maecenas, 14; + Sabine farm, 19; + publishes Satires, 30; + Epistles, 37; + Epodes, 52; + Odes, 55; + Swan Song, 74; + his death, 29, 77; + editions of his works, 78; + his "wines," 82; + bibliography, 85. + + +Jews in Rome, 36. + +Juvenal, 17, 23, 31. + + +Lalla Rookh, 69. + +Lanciani, Professor, 25. + +Lollius, 43, 66. + +Lucilius, 13, 31, 48. + +Lyce, 80. + +Lydia, 69, 70. + +Lytton, E. B., 66, 80. + + +Maecenas, 14, 17, 27-29, 38, 51-54, 62, 64. + +Martin, Sir Theodore, 76, 80. + +Marvell, 80, 81. + +Milman, 38. + +Milton, 41, 53, 60-62, 71, 79. + +Murena, 66. + + +Newman, Cardinal, 51. + + +Ofellus, 32. + +Omar Khayyam, 23, 63. + +Orbilius, 11. + + +Pattison, Mark, 72. + +Philippi, 13, 32. + +Philippus, 34. + +Phyllis, 66, 67, 77. + +Pindar, 75. + +Polemon, 35. + +Pope, 27, 41, 44, 47-50, 79. + +Pope Leo XIII, 64. + +Postumus, 63. + + +Sabine farm, 17-19, etc. + +Satire, origin of, 30. + +Scaliger, 71. + +Scott, 22, 82, 84. + +Secular hymn, 57, 74. + +Seneca, 16. + +Septimius, 28, 39, 41, 65. + +Sewell, R. C., 20. + +Shakespeare, 13. + +Sosii, 54, 71. + +Steele, 37, 39. + +Stoics, 11. + +St. Beuve, 51. + + +Tarentum, 24, 65, 72. + +Telephus, 66. + +Tennyson, 9, 51, 80, 81. + +Terentia, 15, 64. + +Thackeray, 37, 59, 81. + +Tiberius Nero, 39, 74, 75. + +Tibullus, 28, 41, 65. + +Tibur, 17, 19, 20, 72. + + +Vacuna, 21. + +Varius, 14, 27. + +Varus, 20. + +Via Sacra, 25, 26. + +Virgil, 14, 28, 38, 44. + + +Wickham, Dean, 47, 79. + +Wordsworth, 22, 24, 75. + + +Xanthius, 66. + + + + CHISWICK PRESS: PRINTED BY CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO. + TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON. + + + * * * * * + + +_Messrs. Bell's Books for Presents & Prizes_ + +The British Artists Series. + +_Large post 8vo, in special bindings, with 90 to 100 Illustrations, +7s. 6d. net each._ + + + Sir Edward Burne-Jones, Bart. + By MALCOLM BELL. + + Dante Gabriel Rossetti. + By H. C. MARILLIER. + + Sir J. E. Millais, Bart. + By A. 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CHARLES SWAN, late of Catharine Hall Cambridge. +Revised edition by WYNNARD HOOPER, B.A., Clare College, Cambridge. + +MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. Cotton's translation. Revised by W. C. HAZLITT. +3 vols. + +MORE'S UTOPIA. With the Life of Sir Thomas More, by William Roper, and +his Letters to Margaret Roper and others. Edited, with Introduction and +Notes, by GEORGE SAMPSON. + +PLUTARCH'S LIVES. Translated, with Notes and a Life by AUBREY STEWART, +M.A., and GEORGE LONG, M.A. 4 vols. + + + * * * * * + + +_THE POCKET HORACE._ + +HORACE + +THE LATIN TEXT, WITH CONINGTON'S TRANSLATION ON OPPOSITE PAGES. + +_Complete in one volume. Printed on thin paper for the pocket. Bound in +stamped sheepskin. 5s. net; or limp cloth, 4s. net._ + +[...] Also in two Parts: "THE ODES and CARMEN SECULARE." Cloth, 1s. 6d. +net; limp leather, cut flush, 2s. net. "THE SATIRES, EPISTLES, and ART +OF POETRY." Cloth, 2s. net; limp leather, cut flush, 2s. 6d. net. + + "A delightful little volume, that scholars and many who have + forgotten their scholarship will be glad to put in a corner of + their valise when starting for their holidays. Take it all round + no translation can rival Conington's."--_Journal of Education._ + + "An enchanting and scholarly volume is this, just small enough + to be carried in the waistcoat pocket, and exquisite in paper, + print, and binding."--_Notes and Queries._ + + "A delightful pocket companion for those who do not disdain good + English verse alongside the immortal Latin."--_Evening Standard._ + + "All lovers of Horace should get this book. The get-up is worthy + of the subject; it is clearly printed on thin paper, and daintily + bound in limp leather, a delightful companion for the traveller, + small enough for the cyclist's pocket, not too heavy for the + pedestrian's knapsack, full of a charm which will outlive all the + literature on a railway book-stall."--_School World._ + +London: GEORGE BELL AND SONS. + + + * * * * * + + +Miniature Series of Great Writers + +Edited by G. C. WILLIAMSON, Litt.D. + + +Pott 8vo, _Illustrated, to be had in cloth or limp leather_. + + BROWNING. By SIR FRANK T. MARZIALS, C.B. + CHAUCER. By REV. W. TUCKWELL, M.A. + COLERIDGE. By RICHARD GARNETT, C.B., LL.D. + DEFOE. By A. WHERRY. + DE QUINCEY. By HENRY S. SALT. + DICKENS. By W. TEIGNMOUTH SHORE. + JOHNSON. By JOHN DENNIS. + LAMB. By WALTER JERROLD. + MILTON. By G. C. WILLIAMSON, Litt.D. + SHAKESPEARE. By ALFRED EWEN. + + +_In Preparation._ + + SCOTT. BY J. H. W. LAING, M.B. + GOLDSMITH. By ERNEST LANG BUCKLAND, M.A. + MACAULAY. 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