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which he loved so well, his daily delight | bookshelves - ducere sollicite jucunda was in his library. The picture which oblivia vita. It is probable that at one he draws of himself in his country home affords us a delightful glimpse of such literary leisure as is only possible in the golden days of good Haroun Alraschid. Horace goes to bed and gets up when he likes; there is no one to drag him down to the law courts the first thing in the morning, to remind him of any important engagement with his brother scribes, to solicit his interest with Mæcenas, or to tease him about public affairs and the latest news from abroad. He can bury himself in his Greek authors, or ramble through the woody glens which lay at the foot of Mount Ustica, without a thought of business or a feeling that he ought to be otherwise employed. In the evening he returns to his own fireside, to his dinner of beans and bacon and the company of his country neighbors, who were men of education and intelligence, competent to bear their part in the conversation of which he was so fond, concerning the good of life, the value of riches, and the motives of friendship. The entertainment, we may presume, was not always on so very moderate a scale. The dinner-table of Ofellus (Satire ii. 2) was probably more like Horace's when he entertained a friend from town, or a country acquaintance who had dropped in for shelter from the rain. The olus and perna, corresponding perhaps to our ham and peas, or else the faba Pythagora and the uncta oluscula lardo seem to have been standing dishes at the tables of the yeoman and smaller gentry of Horace's time when they were alone and on ordinary days. But on festive occasions a joint of lamb and a roast fowl could be added to it, with a dessert of nuts, grapes, and figs, at which they sat pretty late over their wine. How modern it all seems! Pope had no difficulty in turning the menu of Ofellus into a dinner given by himself at Twickenham, with hardly the alteration of a word.

time he was something of a sportsman, and varied his researches into what was even then called ancient literature, with the occasional pursuit of stag, hare, or boar. He was unmarried, it is true; but if he lacked the happiness which springs from the affections he probably did not miss it, and he escaped its concomitant anxieties. Yet with everything else to cheer him, with every elegant enjoyment at his command, with no taste ungratified and no ambition disappointed, we still see that Horace was subject to that undefinable melancholy which the sceptical philosophy grafted on to the poetical temperament can hardly fail to engender. In the linquenda tellus, and the æternum exilium he is not merely converting to poetical uses feelings which are common to mankind in all ages of the world. The same reflection recurs too often to allow of our doubting that it was habitual, and that it colored all his views of life. The frequency of suicide among the ancients had its origin in an intensified form of this despondency. Horace doubtless did not experience it in its severest shape; he was too well fitted by nature for the enjoyment of life and society to give way to any deep or permanent depression. But it forced its way on his mind at intervals, and is a haunting presence in many of his writings when there is no open expression of it. As has been said of great wealth so we may say of such a life as Horace's, that it was calculated to make a deathbed very painful. Modern scepticism for the most part contents itself with asserting that we have no evidence to justify belief in a future state, but each man may think what he likes about the immortality of the soul. Horace was scarcely at liberty to do this. He must have looked on death as annihilation. The question may be asked whether if he had believed in a future state of rewards and punishments, he would have been any the happier. It is a question beyond the scope of this paper. But Newman has a passage in the "Office and Work of Universities " not altogether remote from it, and so singularly applicable to the life of Horace that we cannot do better than close our own remarks with one of the most charming specimens even of Newman's style that can be found :

It is difficult to imagine any life more delightful than was led by this accomplished man for nearly thirty years; in easy circumstances, with all that fame could give, admitted to the closest intimacy with the high-born and highly cultivated society which formed the court of Augustus, and which has been equalled only at a few choice epochs of the world's history; free to employ himself as he Easy circumstances, books, friends, literpleased, to enjoy all the luxuries, and all ary connections, the fine arts, presents from the intellectual intercourse of a great cap- abroad, foreign correspondents, handsome apital, or to retire, as he chose, to his beau-pointments, elegant simplicity, gravel walks, tiful rural home and his well-stocked lawns, flower-beds, trees, and shrubberies,

double tent pitched, and everything in order, on our arrival at the camp.

summer-houses, strawberry-beds, a greenhouse, a wall for peaches, hoc erat in votis; nothing out of the way, no hot-houses, grap- I was riding Sultan, my own confideneries, pineries - Persicos odi, puer, apparatus tial and quite good-looking barb; Violet -no mansions, no parks, no deer, no pre- another; and on a strong mule, which we serves; these things are not worth the cost, had been advised to add to our stud, in they involve the bother of dependants, they interfere with enjoyment. One or two faith-case of anything befalling our two horses, ful servants, who last on as the trees do, and was perched Mahomed, our Moorish sercannot change their place; the ancients had vant, whom I had been told I might find slaves, a sort of dumb waiter, and the real useful in camp life. I do not know that I article; alas! they are impossible now. We did find him especially so, but still he must have no one with claims upon us, or certainly brushed our riding-skirts, and with rights; no incumbrances; no wife and removed the mud from our boots. It had children; they would hurt our dignity. We been arranged that every one should join must have acquaintances within reach, yet not the camp at the hour that best suited themin the way; ready, not troublesome or intru- selves. So with Violet and myself went sive. We must have something of name, or of rank, or of ancestry, or of past official life, the charming Duc de Frias, of the Spanish to raise us from the dead level of mankind, to Legation, and the head and manager of the afford food for the imagination of our neigh-expedition, who had undertaken to show bors. . . . To a life such as this a man is more attached the longer he lives; and he would be more and more happy in it too, were it not for the memento within him, that books and gardens do not make a man immortal; that though they do not leave him, he at least must leave them, all but "the hateful cypresses," and must go where the only book is the book of doom, and the only garden the Paradise of the Just.

From The Nineteenth Century. CAMP LIFE AND PIG-STICKING IN MOROCCO.

THE sun was shining down brightly upon us, as we left the hotel that stands outside the walls of white Tangier, and rode along the stony pathway that would take us up to the pig-sticking camp, some sixteen or seventeen miles away.

For fully three weeks past this pig-sticking expedition had been discussed and arranged and re-arranged, while for the last few days it had become a perfectly absorbing topic, to the exclusion of every thing else. Who was going? and with what horses? Were Bruzeaud's or Ansaldo's tents to be used? What luggage would be allowed, and what had it best consist of? These and many other small particulars became burning questions, and had been discussed unweariedly, backwards and forwards; indeed, there had been so much indecision that at one moment I foresaw the ghastly possibility of finding myself provided with a double set of tents, and having to pay both Bruzeaud and Ansaldo. But all this had at last been satisfactorily settled; so far as we were concerned, Ansaldo had undertaken us; and we were promised to find our

us the road; M. Bosch, also of the Spanish Legation. Mrs. J, widow of a well-known African explorer, with a girl she was chaperoning, and two officers of the 60th Rifles stationed at Gibraltar, made up our party.

The stony pathway very soon came to an end, and we were on one of the usual roads in Morocco, merely a broad track of mud, or, where not mud, a track of deep, heavy earth, going up and down across the open country; now over a hill, now along a ravine, now across a stream, now over a plain; no trees anywhere to be seen, but here and there on the hillside, a brown village, with its blue-green hedge of prickly pears and aloes, its dogs that barked loudly as we passed, and strangelooking figures sitting and lying about, draped in dirty white garments or in brown hooded cloaks. Every now and then we meet a few loaded mules, or some solemn-looking camels, always with the inevitable bare-legged Arab in his brown hooded cloak or dull white draperies. The young green corn was springing up all over the country, and quantities of magnificent purple íris, striped with orange, gave a delightful bit of color.

But the horses wearily pulled their feet out of the heavy ground, and both riders and horses were slowly picking their way, striving to choose those parts of the track where sticking fast seemed less probable. Scarcely ever was there the chance of a trot, and the sun beat down hot and glaring over the treeless country. All this pointed to luncheon, and at a nice green spot we joyfully dismounted; the mule with the luncheon was called up, and we established ourselves for a delightful rest of an hour. When we started again, the character of the country began to change,

and became more varied. We passed occasionally through straggling cork woods, and came on large lakes, along the shores of which we cantered gaily, till we came in sight of the sea; no longer the Mediterranean with the Spanish coast clearly in sight- we had left all that behind at Tangier; this was the open Atlantic, looking now calm and smooth enough. The sun was getting lower and lower-it was certainly a long ride to Isawara, and our camp. At last we came in sight of a hill crowned with tiny brown native houses and the inevitable prickly pear, over the brow of which we were told we should | find our camp, and we rode in among its little white tents, just as the sun was setting.

There must have been sixteen or seventeen tents of varying shapes and sizes, and there was a perfect labyrinth of tent-ropes and tent-pegs; all traps for the unwary, who, in a hurried moment, might wish to strike out a short cut to any particular tent; trouble was sure to follow-especially after dark. In the middle was the dining-tent for Ansaldo's party, which was much too small for the number who had to dine in it much grumbling ensued in consequence. Several of the old stagers at pig-sticking had brought their own tents; some of these messed with Ansaldo, while others had brought their own cooking arrangements. Violet and I were enchanted with our little tent, which had a double covering and wings, so as to be waterproof. We had heard such tales of tiny tents that you could barely stand up. right in, that ours seemed, in comparison, quite a vast and well-furnished apartment. Two little trestle beds, a bright colored rug on the ground between them, a table at the head with a candle lamp, brightcolored Moorish blankets on the beds; at the foot of one bed, our portmanteau; at the foot of the other, our carpet bag; outside a rickety stand, with a waterproof bag as basin, made up our tent furniture. That stand with waterproof bag I cannot call a success; it had a habit of collapsing on no sort of pretext, and deluging the place with water; after it had done this twice, we bore the thing a bitter and permanent hatred. When we had done a little unpacking we went out into the camp again. There was a lovely crescent moon and the stars were coming out fast; a few lanterns were lit here and there. We wandered about paying visits to the other tents, watching the fresh arrivals, seeing that our horses were properly looked after, pitying them for being hobbled -pitying

them more, probably, than they pitied themselves, as they took to it very quietly and as to the manner born; no doubt it reminded them of olden days before they belonged to these fair-skinned people from the north.

Then at seven o'clock came dinner, fifteen of us sitting down at a long table in the narrow dining-tent; a polyglot assemblage of hungry people: America, England, France, Spain, Austria, and Switzerland all represented. There were the Duc de Frias and M. Bosch, of the Spanish Legation; M. Seigué, of the French; Baron Pereira, of the Austrian ; two American ladies, a Swiss baron and two ladies, and six English people; truly they made the veriest Babel! After dinner we gathered round the big camp fire and were joined by those from the other tents, making up our numbers to twentyfour, twelve being ladies! Every now and then the flames burst out afresh with a blaze and a roar; the ladies sat around toasting themselves, the men came and went with cups of coffee in the glow, every one talking and arranging for the next day; and there were wonderful tales of former hunts, of charging boars, of wounded men or horses, and of hairbreadth escapes. By degrees the company round the fire grew fewer and fewer; one by one they said good-night, and disappeared out of the firelight into the darkness; lanterns were moving about the camp, the tents were lighting up; and we, too, judged it best to remember our early rise and to try how we liked our tent beds. With the lamp lighted, our tent looked almost cosy; it felt rather like a cabin on board ship, only with no terrible screw thumping away incessantly and with no dread of waking to find a rough sea on. Among other evils we had been warned of, was the cold in a tent, but I cannot say we suffered from it; perhaps we were too well provided with rugs, or perhaps it was our hot-water bottles, which were simply invaluable. So we crept into our narrow little beds, really not at all bad ones, and lay comfortably talking to each other and listening to the wind in the trees, to the distant sea, and to all the unaccustomed noises of the camp. By degrees silence fell more and more; only the dogs kept up their snarling and barking, and the curious guttural talk of the Moors seemed never to cease. It was all very odd and weird, and there was a delightful feeling of airiness without being cold; presently our remarks grew fewer and fewer, and soon we too were asleep.

At 6.30 we woke with a start, a dim light was in the tent, and a voice outside asked if we were awake, and promised to send us hot water. Dressing in a narrow space with none of one's usual comforts is never an exhilarating process, and I don't know that it was pleasanter in our tent than elsewhere; still we got through with it, and were ready for breakfast at a quarter to eight, while the start for pigsticking was to be at 8.30. Then came the preparations and stir at starting, every one looking to their girths and saddles, the men hunting for their spears, the ladies looking for chairs or big stones to mount by; and then in good time we were off. The ladies, and three of the men not hunting that day, were stationed near the top of a hill, overlooking the ground to be beaten; five hunters went with the beat ers, and four (in case the boars broke back) were placed in pairs at the foot of the hill on which we were. We could see the whole hunt beautifully. We had dismounted, and our horses were led round the hill out of sight, and we ourselves were told to hide away among the bushes as much as possible. We could see the long line of beaters forcing their way through the bushes, and could hear their wild cries; every now and then there was a puff of smoke, followed by a sharp report this meant that a pig had been sighted; but no pig broke back, so that our four hunters stationed below perforce remained as idle as ourselves. At last a pig did break cover. A black object came out of the wood and adventured itself on the sandy swamp below; great excitement among us on the brow of the hill, especially as the hunters below evidently did not see the animal. But the pig did not appear to like the look of the swamp, as presently it turned itself round and toddled gently back into the wood.

Another long wait; the clouds were gathering and over the sea it looked terribly disagreeable and threatening. But now, again, a black object appeared below, and this time it kept steadily on across the sand, evidently making for our hills; this time, too, the horsemen below saw it, and prepared themselves to give chase; two of them getting lower down, ready to start across the sand, when the boar should be near enough for them to show themselves. Steadily the boar came on and was now half-way across; then the two horsemen, lance in hand, spurred on to meet it as fast as might be across the sand; the animal saw them and turnedit was a race now as to which should reach

the wood first; the sand seemed heavy and the horses labored, but they gained on the pig. Now one was up with it and the pig turned; the second horse reared and plunged it would not face the beast; and then, for a few minutes, there was a wild skurrying backwards and forwards; the pig charging at the horses, and the horses backing and plunging, and then again pursuing. And then presently it was all over, and a black object lay still on the sands; and the rain that had been threatening for the last hour came down in perfect sheets. There was nothing for it but to get back to the camp; there would assuredly be no more pig-sticking that day unless the weather changed. The horses were brought up, mackintoshes and umbrellas produced, and a bedraggled and damp company started back for the tents. To speak of personal experience, my mackintosh was a delusion; it was of a shape invented by myself for the occasion, by way of keeping my skirt dry, and it entirely declined to do anything of the kind. The flap intended for that purpose waved gaily in the wind, leaving my skirt to get drenched through and through, while it undertook to blow about and scare my horse with its playful vagaries. I was reduced to holding it quiet with one hand, which was also struggling with an umbrella, while with the other I tried to guide my horse over the rough, stony ground and through the bushes and undergrowth-altogether sadly uncomfortable and inconvenient. What with wind, rain, umbrella, mackintosh, and wet reins, I was heartily glad when I bumped slowly at a heavy trot into the camp.

And now the next few hours, I must allow, had their drawbacks. It rained hard and steadily, only occasionally varying the monotony by coming down in a solid sheet; the camp became a swamp, and the move from one tent to another anything but pleasant. We gathered together in the dining-tent, and had luncheon. By degrees the other men arrived, who had been in the detachment with the beaters; they, too, wanted luncheon, and we heard how two pigs had been killed by them, and who had got the first spear, and who the second; and from that we got to other pig-sticking expeditions, and then to other subjects, and so the afternoon wore on. And towards sunset the sky cleared up in a half-hearted kind of way; glimpses of sunshine, and a rainbow, and a golden, though watery-looking, sunset. Then we paddled out to look after the horses; fed them with bread and sugar, got the Moors

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The Arabs kept a very good line, shouting all the time their strange, quavering Arab cry, encouraging the dogs, adjuring the pigs - we on horseback following as well as the stones and bushes would allow ; but no pigs showed themselves. Every. where we came upon traces of the pigs having recently turned up the ground in search of roots — but there it ended. All the morning it was the same thing. - the day was beautiful, the ride delightful, but no pigs. By luncheon time only one pig had been found; it was very disheartening.

to wipe the wet from their heads and ears; | would be well; and he bade them depart unhobbled my dear Sultan and had him and begin. And once more they all cried led off for a walk. Then we looked in on Amen; and the dogs sprang to their feet, our neighbors; heard into whose tents the the men gathered up guns and sticks, and rain had made its way; found a fire on we were all ready for the fray. which cooking was going on, and rushed off to fetch some of the wettest and most essential of our wet garments, to see if we could dry them. And so the sunset faded away and night came on, with all the usual difficulties of avoiding ropes and pegs, to which were now added mud and puddles. Then there was dinner, and, joy of joys, the rain still kept off, and we were able to have our camp fire and rejoice in a thorough toast; it seemed to me I had never really enjoyed a fire before. All through that night we could hear, at intervals, heavy showers of rain beating down on our tent, and felt sadly anxious about the weather for next day; but at 6.30, when the camp began to bestir itself, although the day looked doubtful, no rain was falling; and by breakfast time we began to hope the weather would hold up. It looked still so unsettled, though, that six of the ladies and several men decided to return to Tangier; the rest of us made up our minds to stay another night.

By nine o'clock, when we were all in the saddle ready for the start, the day had cleared up and the sun was out. Í and another woman and two men were sent with the beaters, while the others cantered on to take up positions ahead, where it was supposed likely that the pigs would break over. Down the hill, therefore, I rode with the motley assemblage of Arabs and dogs, till we came to a strip of shrubs growing in detached clumps (rather like rhododendrons) along the seashore; here we found more beaters waiting with their dogs, and the sheik mounted on a raggedlooking mule. And now came the oddest sight I had yet seen in this queer land of surprises. The Arabs gathered together in a semicircle with their dogs at their feet, and the sheik rode forward to address them. With much gesture, and in a loud, clear voice, he prayed in his strange, guttural language that Allah would bless the sultan, and all the men piously touched their fingers together and cried Amen; then that he would give them fine weather and good crops, and again they cried Amen; that he would bless their sport and give them many pigs and again Amen and then he exhorted them to beat well, and not to quarrel, but to be peaceable and friendly, and that Allah then would bless them, and their crops, and their families, and their sport, and all

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After luncheon we started afresh, still with the same result; and I began to think the pig must have become a very rare animal. We had now gone over a good deal of ground; it was three o'clock, and we had reached a cork wood with thinly scattered trees, many low shrubs, and a quantity of something like our broom in glorious flower. Suddenly one of the beaters fired his gun - he had seen a pig! Then another and another fired; it was going along the line; it was breaking back! Away past me through the bushes spurred the Duc de Frias, shouting to me to follow. Other horsemen, spears in hand, dashed past; the Arabs yelled, the dogs gave tongue; it was a wild skurry, every one choosing that path through the bushes that seemed best and safest; Sultan, to my utter dismay, now clearing a bush, now skipping a bit of morass, very much guiding himself at his own sweet will, and quite determined not to be out of it. Then presently the sounds died away; and shortly, one by one, the hunters returned; the pig had been lost, had got into some bog or impenetrable bush, and we were all to rejoin the beaters as fast as we could. I turned my horse and, rather breathless from my unaccustomed exertions, trotted quietly after the others, meditative about many things, and settling that I would now quietly stick with the beaters, and have no more wild gallops. But before I had reached that would-be haven, there was again the report of a gun and wild yells from the Arabs, and then, straight through the bushes, about twenty yards ahead, on the rising ground in front, came bursting a huge, unwieldy, black thing, jumping from tussock to tussock, looking to me more the size of a cow (I should like to

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