share. He was somewhat of a bon vivant; an epicure, as well as an Epicurean; rather more fond of ease and indulgence, of perfumes, wine, and wreaths, than it behoves a Christian apostle or martyr to be; exorbitantly amorous, moreover, if his own account of himself in this respect is to be literally interpreted. In the proper sense of these terms, however, he was not a glutton, a drunkard, or a libertine, but in the full significance of the word, a Roman gentleman, possessing in unequalled perfection, fancy, wit, humour, observation, taste, and learning; but not less exemplary for depth and delicacy of feeling, for warmth and constancy of affection, for manly independence both of sentiment and of conduct. 1 In regard to his personnel, we are told by himself that he was of short stature; and we learn from a letter of Augustus to him, preserved by Suetonius, that, in his declining years, he became corpulent. His hair, originally black, was soon mingled with gray." He also suffered much from a weakness in his eyes, which seemed to have been a kind of defluxion. While a youth he may have been foppish in his dress; but in maturer age he was more probably a sloven.3 The only remaining tribute that we owe to the memory and the merits of this great poet, is to offer a few remarks concerning the order and characteristics of his writings. Horace commenced his poetical career with the composition of separate or isolated Satires, the first book of which may be dated B. C. 41-34; and the second B. C. 35-30. It is generally Characteristics of Writings. agreed, moreover, that the book of Epodes was written within the same term of years (B. C. 41); but a very con siderable time elapsed before the author was induced to collect into volumes those single pieces which, owing to the severity of their ridicule and invective, had caused so much terror and obloquy. When his inclination and his independence induced him to abandon this field, he tried his strength in Lyrics. On these he concentrated his poetical powers; and the subsequently collected volume of Odes, the first three books of which may be dated B. C. 30-24, the fourth book B. c. 17-13, and the Carmen Seculare in B. C. 17, became the wrestlingplace for his formal or artistic talent, while, at the same time, he evolved the dogmatic portion of his practical ethics in his first book of Epistles, B. C. 24-20. During the transition to those forms of poetry which were more appropriate to his genius, his largest by-work (ápepyov), the Letter to the Pisos, or the Ars Poetica, was written. The fourth book of the Odes and the second of the Epistles were his latest works, and with these the exercise of his productive talent ended. Among all the poets of the Augustan age, none approached him in the power of exerting personal influence through tact and wit; he commanded the esteem of the court and of statesmen; and he displayed equal skill in mediating between the pride of the aristocracy and the ambition of scholars. He asserted the dignity of literature and the prerogative of poetry with such dexterity and effect, as to create a strong sentiment in favour of both among the courtiers of that day; and moulded the opinions of Augustus, Maecenas, and Pollio, not less ably than those of Munatius Plancus, and of Dellius. Accordingly, from the peculiar structure and variety of his poetical faculties, he at once became the favourite poet of all intelligent and educated men, whether engaged in literary or in practical pursuits; his Satires and Odes soon found their way to the provinces; a col lection of his entire poems into the schools of antiquity, and of the middle ages. He was more than Virgil the common property of European civilization, and down to the present time tradition has only enhanced the estimation in which he was originally held. Profound knowledge of the world, and a fine talent for observation, joined to Socratic irony, gave an objective value to his thoughts, while the perfect clearness and matchless elegance of his language made it as comprehensible as it was charming. The education and studies, the art and poetical activity, the style and versification of Horace, accurately correspond with that comprehensiveness and thoughtful power, which can effect much with small means. The key-note of all his descriptions is pure taste, nurtured by deep study of the Greeks, whom no one more earnestly recommends to the Romans as eternal examples, and trained by severe criticism to a precision and succinctness of expression, which is adapted to his thoughts like a well-made garment. The special value of his poetical development consists in the elevation and refinement of his taste and style, and not in that richness of mythical lore, or redundancy of abstruse knowledge, with which most of his contemporaries decked their ideas, and coloured their phrases. Horace does not parade the brilliancy of his Greek learning; he does not care to revel in myths, least of all in mystical ones; but he rules the flower garden of the ancient poets and philosophers as his own domain, and only employs a selected erudition to give point, grace, emphasis, and variety to his language. He uses his Graecism in a similar way. Far from tincturing his diction with Greek forms and images as others did, he adopted them sparingly as abbreviative means, and as a corrective of his native tongue; the further he proceeds, the less perceptibly the foreign idiom enters into the spirit of his choice Latinity. His versification, which has enriched Roman poetry with the most beautiful rythms, especially the Aeolian Melic, is not less distinguished for its euphony than for its rigid technicality, which includes, with artistic skill, the Iambic and Lyric, and especially the Choriambic system, as well as those careless hexameters, which in their cadence resemble prose. Horace has not yet found a competent translator into any language of modern Europe. The English poetical version of his entire writings by Francis is worse than the schoolboy-prose rendering by Smart, as it betrays a greater exemption from the semblance of poetic spirit, literary taste, and critical accuracy. Milton tried his prentice-hand in the poetic craft on a closely-imitative version of the fifth Ode of the first book; Dryden paraphrased the third and ninth Odes of the first book, and the second Epode, in three poems of wonderful spirit and felicity, which nowise resemble their professed originals; while the twenty-ninth Ode of the third book, addressed to Maecenas, has suggested to the same great master of English verse a moral lyric, which, in force of thought, richness of diction, and harmony of numbers, is perhaps unsurpassed in the whole range of poetical literature, but which is stamped throughout with the imprint, not of Horace's genius, but of Dryden's. Pope has turned the fourth, and part of the ninth Ode of the fourth book, and Cowper the ninth and thirty-seventh Odes of the first book, as well as the tenth and sixteenth of the second, into English measures of rare simplicity, grace, and vigour; but all later attempts of the same kind have signally failed. Pope has imitated the first and second Satires of the second book, the first, sixth, and seventh Epistles of the first book, and the first and second Epistles of the second book, as well as the "Ars Poetica” in his "Essay on Criticism," with great point and bril liancy of language, singular truth and elevation of sentiment, and extraordinary power of English versification; while his friend Swift has transfused the spirit of the sixth Satire of book second into an English form with amazing dexterity and effect. But masterly as all these essays may be, they fail to preserve the true aroma of the Horatian wine, which, to be duly relished, must be drunk fresh and undiluted from the ancient jar, fashioned in the consulship of Manlius. It then resembles that timemellowed juice of rare vintage for which Keats so passionately longed: "O for a draught of vintage, that hath been Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth, Dance, and Italian song, and sun-burnt mirth: O for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, Pope and Byron have dedicated some of their own finest lines to the subject of Horace and his poetry. In the "Temple of Fame" and the "Essay on Criticism," the former has thus paid homage to the prince of Roman lyrists, satirists, and wits: Here happy Horace tuned the Ausonian lyre TEMPLE OF FAME. Horace still charms with graceful negligence, The truest notions in the easiest way. |