- pose to serve, to show up the absurdities | epistles contain much. They are letters and falsehoods current in Roman society which a highly cultivated and accomplished about Mæcenas's "set," as they are cur- man of the world, whose vocation was rent in all societies about similar exclusive literature and whose tastes led him towards circles. The street Arab in "Sybil " who ethics, might be expected to write to conprofessed to tell his pal what the "nobs" genial spirits, whether statesmen, lawyers, had for supper was not wider of the mark or men of letters. But his philosophy is than the gossips who swarmed at Rome the practical philosophy which lies upon just as they now swarm in London. The the surface, which most men who combine bore in Lucilius may have suggested to intellectual power with common sense are him a very good way of carrying this pur- prepared to follow, and which has little to pose into effect. But why linger over this do with the learning of the schools. Sir kind of criticism? Did Addison ever see George Trevelyan says that his uncle, Will Wimble, or that excellent inn-keeper Lord Macaulay, was fond of pacing the who was three yards in girth and the best cloisters of Trinity discoursing "The Church of England man on the road? picturesque but somewhat esoteric philosDid either Dick Ivy or Lord Potato ever ophy, which it pleased him to call by the dine with Smollett? name of metaphysics." We should say that if we substitute moral philosophy for metaphysics this was what Horace was fond of doing. ical system which could never be recalled, and which it is not certain that it was desirable to recall. He must have seen that the two great parties into which the Republic was divided, and which in its better days kept the balance between order and liberty, had gradually degenerated into selfish factions with scarcely the semblance of a principle between them. Was it really the part of a patriot to hope for the restoration of senatorial or parliamen It is sometimes asked whether Horace was sincere in his satire, in his patriotism, in his amatory poems, and in his professed love of nature and the country. As for Horace's patriotism was also of the his satire he was as sincere as a gentle- common-sense species. If he could not man need be. He had not the sæva in- have the Republic he would make the best dignatio of Carlyle, or Swift, or Juvenal. of the Empire. He was no irreconcilable. How could he have? He could not break He would not waste his life in sighing butterflies on wheels. But he was as sin-like Lucan over a fallen cause and a polit cere as Addison. In his "Meditations in Westminster Abbey" Addison says that when he meets with the grief of parents on a tombstone his heart melts with compassion. It did not melt very much, Thackeray thought, and we perfectly agree with him. Are we to suppose that Thackeray himself was inspired by any burning wrath when he drew his pen upon the snobs? Horace had probably just as much and just as little real anger in his heart when he laughed at Catius and Ti-tary government? Was not an enlightened gellinus. He was sincere enough in ridiculing whatever was ridiculous; and in the satires at all events he aimed at nothing more than this. Mr. Sellar thinks that in the epistles we see Horace in the character of a moral teacher. But we should question whether this object stood first with him in the composition of his letters. Horace had a turn for moralizing. We see it everywhere; and the savoir vivre and savoir faire are what he was specially fond of dwelling upon. He gives excellent advice to young men, and is evidently rather vain of his own knowl: edge of society, and of the way to succeed in it. Quo tandem pacto deceat majoribus uti. This is the burden of his song, and whenever he recurs to it his name is Horatius, and his foot is on his native heath. But of moral philosophy in the stricter sense of the term we do not see that the despotism a good exchange for Marius and Sulla? Whether any such thoughts passed through Horace's mind or not, he accepted the defeat of his own party as an accomplished fact and with considerable equanimity, and was quite ready to pray for Augustus as the saviour of society. The feeling which must have been entertained by many educated and thoughtful Romans, if not by the whole upper and middle class who had gone through a century of revolutions, is expressed in the words of Virgil: Di patrii, Indigetes, et Romule Vestaque ma ter, Quæ Tuscum Tiberim et Romana Palatia Clari Giganteo triumpho (iii. 1). It is the supremacy of order in the world of nature and human affairs which the imagina tion of Horace sees personified in that Jove, Qui terram inertem, qui mare temperat Ventosum, et urbes, regnaque tristia, Divosque mortalesque turbas Imperio regit unus æquo (iii. 4). Augustus is regarded as the minister and viceregent on earth of this supreme power, Te minor laetum reget æquus orbemand it is on this ground that a divine function is attributed to him. If it was the popular belief that great heroes and statesmen were admitted to the company of the gods after death, it was a very short step from this belief to the conception of the head of the Roman empire, the ruler of the modern world, as a god designate, and entitled therefore even before death to some kind of worship. Professor Sellar divides Horace's odes into (1) the national, religious, and ethical odes; (2) the lighter poems in the Greek measure, ¿pwriά, and ovμñoτiká, and (3) the occasional poems of Horace's own life and experience. The national odes express the sentiments referred to in the above paragraph. But Mr. Sellar does not bestow unqualified commendation on them. He thinks that the dulcedo otii spoken of by Tacitus carried Horace and other honest Imperialists a little too far. In the second ode of the fourth book he detects the first notes of that servile adulation "which was the bane of the next century." Of course we must all admit Of Horace's own religious belief he that settled order, security for life and makes no secret. He was at heart a Luproperty, all the conditions in fact un-cretian. But he looked on the poetical der which alone the ordinary business of superstitions of the pagan world with the civilized communities can be conducted, eye of a man of taste; much as many men have sometimes to be purchased at a at the present day may regard the saints great price. And so it was at Rome. and angels of the Romish Church, which The defence of those who paid it is that bring mankind into such close communion nothing else was possible. The mischief with another world and appeal so powerwas already done. The Roman aristocracy fully to the imagination. Horace could and the Roman populace between them not have been insensible to the charm. had made free institutions unworkable. He did not fail, says Mr. Sellar, Cicero pinned all his hopes on the equestrian order, much as Sir Robert Peel did afterwards on the middle classes. But it was too late at Rome. Public spirit and political faith were dead, drowned in the sea of blood which the great factions had poured out. There was no help for it. Concurrently with this revolution began the decay of Roman character, and the so-called "adulation" which has been so much complained of by modern writers was only what might have been expected. Moreover, a great part of it was purely formal, and meant no more than the words in the liturgy, "Our most religious and gracious sovereign," while part of it was legitimately based upon an article in the pagan creed which even Tacitus did not entirely reject. It seems to us that Mr. Sellar's use of the word "adulation " is a little inconsistent with what he says else where of the deification of the emperor. It is in the Odes expressive of national and imperial sentiment, that we seem to find most of real meaning in the religious language of Horace. The analogy between Jove in Heaven and Augustus on Earth is often hinted at; and the ground of this analogy is indicated by the emphatic stress laid on the triumph of Jove over the Giants, liefs of the past a salutary power to heal some To recognize in the religious forms and beof the evils of the present, and also a material by which his lyrical art could move the deeper sympathies and charm the fancy of his contemporaries. Nor need we suppose the feeling out of which his world of supernatural beings and agencies is recreated altogether insincere. Though the actual course of his life may be regulated in accordance with the negative conclusions of the understanding, the tius is moved to the recognition of some tranimagination of a poet like Horace and Lucrescendent power and agency, hidden in the world and yet sometimes apparent on the surface, which it associates with some concern for the course of nature and human affairs, and even of individual destiny. It is natural for the poet or artist to embody the suggestion of this mysterious feeling which gives its transcendent quality to his poetry or art, in the forms of traditional belief into which he breathes new life. Horace might have been conscious of some such feeling as is so beautifully expressed in these well-known lines: The intelligible forms of ancient poets, The fair humanities of old religion, The power, the beauty, and the majesty, That had their haunts in dale, or piny moun tain, Yonder they move, from yonder visible sky Shoot influence down; and even at this day 'Tis Jupiter that brings whate'er is great, And Venus who brings everything that's fair. Along with the apology for the Empire which the literature of the day was called on to supply was the further object of reviving a belief in the old Italian religion and the old Latin deities. How exquisitely Virgil performed his share of the task no scholar requires to be told. But he was less under the influence of Greek ideas than Horace. And there is a reality and "a reverential piety "in his treatment of the subject, which we miss in the lyric poet, who "surrounds the gods and god. desses of Italy with the associations of Greek art in poetry." It was because he found these divinities in his favorite Greek authors that he was willing to people the groves and valleys of Italy with the same order of beings. Mr. Sellar is seen at his best in this part of his subject. Horace's poetical conscience - if we may use the phrase-held him clear of all blame in writing as he did of the nymphs and the fauns, of Pan and Bacchus. He lived, we may believe, like many other eminent men of letters, two lives. Walking about the streets of Rome, playing at ball, looking on at the jugglers, or dining with Mæcenas, he was the shrewd man of the world, the Epicurean sceptic to whom the creed of his ancestors was foolishness. Far away amid the solitary scenes of nature, other thoughts and other ideas may have taken possession of him. He may have asked himself whether the old mythology was not, after all, something more than a beautiful dream; whether the forces of nature might not sometimes assume the shapes which religion had assigned to them; and whether such a belief was not more soothing to the human spirit than the cold negations of the atheistic philosophy. Then it is that, as he strolls along the Sabine valley or approaches the Bandusian fountain, the genius loci casts its spell upon him, and he hears the reed of Faunus piping in the distant hills and catches a glimpse of the Naiad as she rises from the sacred spring. Or, if It is not difficult to believe that Horace may at times have projected himself into the past with sufficient force of imaginaof the old faith, and to prevent his recogtion to bring himself under the influence nition of the pagan deities from being open to any charge of insincerity. we reject this hypothesis, there is nothing discreditable to Horace in supposing that he merely took up the rural traditions where he found them, and used their more picturesque and graceful elements as materials for poetry. He must have known that whatever he wrote in this manner would be read by the light of bis avowed scepticism, and that, as nobody could be deceived by it, so nobody would suspect him of hypocrisy. We should prefer to believe, however, that Horace was at times accessible to the reflection that there might be more things in the world than were dreamed of in his philosophy, and that however much he may have disbelieved in the intelligible forms of old religion, he may not have been entirely devoid of some sympathy with the religion of nature. The amatory and convivial poems of Horace speak for themselves. Nobody ever supposed that in writing of the Lalages, Neæras, and Glyceras, who were asked to the elegant little supper-parties given by the Roman men of wit and pleasure, Horace was using the language of real passion, which he was probably incapable of feeling. But Mr. Sellar scouts the notion that these poems were merely literary studies addressed to imaginary personages. He thinks that some of them, like the scenes and characters in the satires, may be generalized from Horace's experience not to represent individuals. But he believes that many of them were well known to the poet, though his relations with them may have been Platonic. He goes further than this and thinks that the women themselves "were refined and accomplished ladies leading a somewhat independent but quite decorous life." What then made them so difficult of access? Why do we hear so much of the janitors, and the bolts and bars, and the windows? That many of them were educated and refined women and capable of inspiring gentlemen and scholars with the most ardent affection we may learn from Catullus and Tibullus. But there is never any talk of marriage with them. No; it is pretty clear to what class they belonged, and Horace was not the man to break his heart for any dozen such. Women in his eyes were playthings, and no sensible man ought to give himself a moment's uneasi- | reverse; it was a satire upon the sham ness about the best of them. For good admiration of it, prompted by an outrage wine he had a much more sincere respect. on the real. He held with Cratinus that no waterdrinker could write poetry. He resembles Addison again in both these particulars; in his high opinion of the flask and his low opinion of the sex. But he does not resemble him at all in another characteristic which Mr. Sellar thinks is one of his most strongly marked traits; his love of nature and of country life, "The dream of Roman poets," as Newman says, " from Virgil to Juvenal, and the reward of Roman statesmen from Cincinnatus to Pliny." But whatever difference of opinion may exist with regard to Horace's originality and sincerity little or none is to be found on the question of his style. In his satires and epistles he did for Latin verse composition what Addison did for English prose composition. This is Mr. Sellar's dictum. "It was as great a triumph of art to bend the stately Latin hexameter into a flexible instrument for the use of his musa pedestris as to have been the inventor of a prose style equal to that of Addison or How any doubt can have arisen with Montaigne. The metrical success which regard to Horace's sincerity when he Horace obtained in an attempt in which writes on these subjects passes our com- Lucilius absolutely failed is almost as reprehension. A man who only pretends to markable as that obtained in his lyrical be a lover of the country never ventures metres." Here then at all events Horace beyond safe generalities. Horace speci- has an indisputable claim to originality. fies each tree, streamlet, and hill with the At the same time it must be remembered touch of one who knew them intimately; that Horace had greater difficulties to he had a Roman's eye for the picturesque, contend with in bringing down verse than and reproduces it in his verse with an Addison experienced in bringing down easy accuracy which nothing but long and prose to the level of "refined and lively loving contemplation could have enabled conversation." He could not get rid of him to attain. He differs from Virgil no metrical conditions, and the consequence doubt to this extent and it is a very is that he is more frequently guilty of important difference that while Hor- what Conington calls "the besetting sin of ace loved the beauties of nature, Virgil the Augustan poets," that is, excessive loved nature herself. Virgil loved the condensation, than any one of his contemcountry like Wordsworth, Horace like poraries. Horace was conscious of it himThomson. There is nothing to show that self; Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio. In Horace took the same pleasure as Virgil endeavoring to avoid what Pattison calls did in natural history, or in contemplat- the "diffuse prodigality" of an earlier ing the operations of husbandry. But he school Horace fell into the opposite exnever pretends that he does. In the sec. treme, and omitted what was necessary to ond epode he is not laughing at such connect one train of thought with another. tastes; he seems simply to be illustrat- This was not the result of any indifference ing the ruling passion exemplified prob to the thought. The theory, which we ably in the behavior of some well-known have seen advanced, that Horace in his character at Rome, who was perhaps just odes was contented with writing somethen the subject of conversation in Hor- thing like nonsense verses, and let the ace's set. The sincerest lover of coun- meaning take care of itself so long as he try life would be the first to ridicule was satisfied with the music, is contrathis affected enthusiasm. The genuine dicted by the fact that we have just the worshipper of the rural gods would be same condensation and obscurity in the irritated and disgusted by this desecration satires and epistles, where Horace was of his idol; he would feel his sanctuary certainly not aiming at perfection of sound polluted and vulgarized by the intrusive or metre. We find also precisely the same admiration of this cockney tradesman fault in Pope, proceeding from the same thinking it a fine thing to prate about the cause. Take one instance: pleasures of the country and especially In hearts of Kings or arms of Queens who about country sports. This no doubt was lay, the offence of which Adolphus had been How happy those to ruin, these betray. LIVING AGE. And scores of such examples might be quoted. The most conspicuous instance of this defect in Horace is briefly referred to by Mr. Sellar, who however offers no explanation of it. It occurs in the "Ode to Fortune" (O Diva, gratum quæ regis Te Spes et albo rara Fides colit Veste domos inimica linquis. Now if Loyalty clings to a falling house when Fortune has deserted it, how can Loyalty be said to follow Fortune? If she accompanies Fortune and deserts those whom the goddess deserts, how can she be called Loyalty? We all know what Horace means, of course. Hope and Loyalty continue to wait on Fortune whether she smiles or frowns; whichever side of her face she turns towards their friends, Hope and Loyalty are constant to them. But the word linquis implies that Fortune flies away, and nec comitem abnegat that Loyalty goes with her. But there is no other passage in Horace so unmanageable as this; though his meaning is often packed so closely in such a very small parcel that it takes some time to find it out. has produced. The Sapphic is equally his own property, and occasionally equals the Alcaic in the mellowness of its tones; but its general effect is that of liveliness and vivacity, though it sometimes rises to the majestic also; it is to the Alcaic what the fife is to the flute. Horace broke them both as he was laid on the Esquiline Hill beside the bones of his patron, and no man was heir to that matchless gift, the like of which only appears at rare intervals in the history of literature. Objection has been taken to the desigGeorgian epoch as the Augustan age of nation of Queen Anne's and the early England. But in one respect it is apt enough. What Pope was to the poets of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, that were Horace and Virgil to the poets of the Republic. If in many respects nature and moderation - Horace resemin the quality of his satire, in his goodbled Addison, in his metrical capacity and in his methods also he resembled Pope. Hear Thackeray again. "He [Pope] polished, he refined, he thought; he took thoughts from other works to adorn and Quintilian says that there are some pas complete his own; borrowing an idea or sages in Horace which he would rather a cadence from another poet as he would not try to explain. But that Horace habita figure or a simile from a flower or a ually sacrificed sense to sound is a prop-river or any object which struck him in osition which can hardly be accepted on his walk or contemplation of nature." the strength only of such passages as we Are we reading of the English or the Rohave seen brought forward in support of man poet, of the reign of Augustus or the it. As, however, we do not profess to understand Latin better than Horace did reign of Anne? Is not this Horace himself, the very man? himself, we shall say no more about it. But of the exquisite melody and perfect the two periods is the demand which arose Another point of resemblance between finish which he imparted to his lyric in both for the political support of literametres we may perhaps speak with less presumption. Horace's chief claim to the ture. As Horace and Virgil were called homage of posterity rests on his position Rome, so Addison and Steele were called upon to uphold the new government at as one of the great literary artists of the world. Here he stands alone; nobody upon to uphold the new government in England. We cannot indeed compare else has been able to play upon that instru-The Campaign" or "The Freeholder" ment; as Munro has well said, the secret of its music was lost with its inventor. Non bene conveniunt nec in una sede mo rantur Majestas et amor, says Ovid; and these two qualities, so rarely united, Horace has combined in perfection. The Alcaic ode with its combination of strength and beauty is Horace, and Horace is the Alcaic ode. The rise and fall of the metre, culminating in the third line on which the whole stanza seems as it were balanced or supported, and then falling away in the more rapid and dactylic, but less emphatic movement of the fourth, is one of the greatest triamphs of the metrical art which Doetry with the "Qua cura Patrum" or "Divis orte bonis," which last reminds us more of Shakespeare's compliment to Queen Elizabeth; but both had their origin in similar political exigencies, and in each case alike the champions of the existing order were liberally rewarded. But besides the imperishable specimens of literary art which he has left behind him, Horace has other claims on our respect which many readers may think of equal value. A man may be a great poet without being a man of letters, as he may certainly be a man of letters without being a great poet. Horace was both. He was deeply read in all the literature then extant; and next to the woods and the hills |