Part 9

Not for yourselves, ye birds, your nests ye build; Not for yourselves, ye sheep, your fleece ye yield; Not for yourselves, ye bees, your cells ye fill; Not for yourselves, ye beeves, ye plough and till.

The expedient immediately evinced him to be the author of the distich, and Bathyllus became the theme of public ridicule.

When at any time Virgil came to Rome, if the people, as was commonly the case, crowded to gaze upon him, or pointed at him with the finger in admiration, he blushed, and stole away (173) from them; frequently taking refuge in some shop. When he went to the theatre, the audience universally rose up at his entrance, as they did to Augustus, and received him with the loudest plaudits; a compliment which, however highly honourable, he would gladly have declined. When such was the just respect which they paid to the author of the Bucolics and Georgics, how would they have expressed their esteem, had they beheld him in the effulgence of epic renown! In the beautiful episode of the Elysian fields, in the Aeneid, where he dexterously introduced a glorious display of their country, he had touched the most elastic springs of Roman enthusiasm. The passion would have rebounded upon himself, and they would, in the heat of admiration, have idolized him.

HORACE was born at Venusia, on the tenth of December, in the consulship of L. Cotta and L. Torquatus. According to his own acknowledgment, his father was a freedman; by some it is said that he was a collector of the revenue, and by others, a fishmonger, or a dealer in salted meat. Whatever he was, he paid particular attention to the education of his son, for, after receiving instruction from the best masters in Rome, he sent him to Athens to study philosophy. From this place, Horace followed Brutus, in the quality of a military tribune, to the battle of Philippi, where, by his own confession, being seized with timidity, he abandoned the profession of a soldier, and returning to Rome, applied himself to the cultivation of poetry. In a short time he acquired the friendship of Virgil and Valerius, whom he mentions in his Satires, in terms of the most tender affection.

Postera lux oritur multo gratissima: namque Plotius et Varius Sinuessae, Virgiliusque, Occurrunt; animae, quales neque candidiores Terra tulit, neque queis me sit devinctior alter. O qui complexus, et gaudia quanta fuerunt! Nil ego contulerim jucundo sanus amico.--Sat. I. 5.

Next rising morn with double joy we greet, For Plotius, Varius, Virgil, here we meet: Pure spirits these; the world no purer knows, For none my heart with more affection glows: How oft did we embrace, our joys how great! For sure no blessing in the power of fate Can be compared, in sanity of mind, To friends of such companionable kind.--Francis.

By the two friends above mentioned, he was recommended to the patronage not only of Mecaenas, but of Augustus, with whom he, as well as Virgil, lived on a footing of the greatest intimacy. Satisfied with the luxury which he enjoyed at the first tables in (174) Rome, he was so unambitious of any public employment, that when the emperor offered him the place of his secretary, he declined it. But as he lived in an elegant manner, having, besides his house in town, a cottage on his Sabine farm, and a villa at Tibur, near the falls of the Anio, he enjoyed, beyond all doubt. a handsome establishment, from the liberality of Augustus. He indulged himself in indolence and social pleasure, but was at the same time much devoted to reading; and enjoyed a tolerable good state of health, although often incommoded with a fluxion of rheum upon the eyes.

Horace, in the ardour of youth, and when his bosom beat high with the raptures of fancy, had, in the pursuit of Grecian literature, drunk largely, at the source, of the delicious springs of Castalia; and it seems to have been ever after his chief ambition, to transplant into the plains of Latium the palm of lyric poetry. Nor did he fail of success:

Exegi monumentum aere perennius.--Carm. iii. 30. More durable than brass a monument I've raised.

In Greece, and other countries, the Ode appears to have been the most ancient, as well as the most popular species of literary production. Warm in expression, and short in extent, it concentrates in narrow bounds the fire of poetical transport: on which account, it has been generally employed to celebrate the fervours of piety, the raptures of love, the enthusiasm of praise; and to animate warriors to glorious exertions of valour:

Musa dedit fidibus Divos, puerosque Deorum, Et pugilem victorem, et equum certamine primnm, Et juvenum curas, et libera vina referre.--Hor. De Arte Poet.

The Muse to nobler subjects tunes her lyre; Gods, and the sons of Gods, her song inspire; Wrestler and steed, who gained the Olympic prize, Love's pleasing cares, and wine's unbounded joys.--Francis.

Misenum Aeoliden, quo non praestantior alter Aere ciere viros, Martemque accendere cnatu. Virgil, Aeneid, vi. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Sed tum forte cava dum personat aequora concha Demens, et canto vocat in certamina Divos.--Ibid.

Misenus, son of Oeolus, renowned The warrior trumpet in the field to sound; With breathing brass to kindle fierce alarms, And rouse to dare their fate in honourable arms.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

(175) Swollen with applause, and aiming still at more, He now provokes the sea-gods from the shore.--Dryden

There arose in this department, among the Greeks, nine eminent poets, viz. Alcaeus, Alcman, Anacreon, Bacchylides, Ibicus, Sappho, Stesichorus, Simonides, and Pindar. The greater number of this distinguished class are now known only by name. They seem all to have differed from one another, no less in the kind of measure which they chiefly or solely employed, than in the strength or softness, the beauty or grandeur, the animated rapidity or the graceful ease of their various compositions. Of the amorous effusions of the lyre, we yet have examples in the odes of Anacreon, and the incomparable ode of Sappho: the lyric strains which animated to battle, have sunk into oblivion; but the victors in the public games of Greece have their fame perpetuated in the admirable productions of Pindar.

Horace, by adopting, in the multiplicity of his subjects, almost all the various measures of the different Greek poets, and frequently combining different measures in the same composition, has compensated for the dialects of that tongue, so happily suited to poetry, and given to a language less distinguished for soft inflexions, all the tender and delicate modulations of the Eastern song. While he moves in the measures of the Greeks with an ease and gracefulness which rivals their own acknowledged excellence, he has enriched the fund of lyric harmony with a stanza peculiar to himself. In the artificial construction of the Ode, he may justly be regarded as the first of lyric poets. In beautiful imagery, he is inferior to none: in variety of sentiment and felicity of expression, superior to every existing competitor in Greek or Roman poetry. He is elegant without affectation; and what is more remarkable, in the midst of gaiety he is moral. We seldom meet in his Odes with the abrupt apostrophes of passionate excursion; but his transitions are conducted with ease, and every subject introduced with propriety.

The Carmen Seculare was written at the express desire of Augustus, for the celebration of the Secular Games, performed once in a hundred years, and which continued during three days and three nights, whilst all Rome resounded with the mingled effusions of choral addresses to gods and goddesses, and of festive joy. An occasion which so much interested the ambition of the poet, called into exertion the most vigorous efforts of his genius. More concise in mythological attributes than the hymns ascribed to Homer, this beautiful production, in variety and grandeur of invocation, and in pomp of numbers, surpasses all that Greece, (176) melodious but simple in the service of the altar, ever poured forth from her vocal groves in solemn adoration. By the force of native genius, the ancients elevated their heroes to a pitch of sublimity that excites admiration, but to soar beyond which they could derive no aid from mythology; and it was reserved for a bard, inspired with nobler sentiments than the Muses could supply, to sing the praises of that Being whose ineffable perfections transcend all human imagination. Of the praises of gods and heroes, there is not now extant a more beautiful composition, than the 12th Ode of the first book of Horace:

Quem virum aut heroa lyra vel acri Tibia sumes celebrare, Clio? Quem Deum? cujus recinet jocosa Nomen imago, Aut in umbrosis Heliconis oris, etc.

What man, what hero, on the tuneful lyre, Or sharp-toned flute, will Clio choose to raise, Deathless, to fame? What God? whose hallowed name The sportive image of the voice Shall in the shades of Helicon repeat, etc.

The Satires of Horace are far from being remarkable for poetical harmony, as he himself acknowledges. Indeed, according to the plan upon which several of them are written, it could scarcely be otherwise. They are frequently colloquial, sometimes interrogatory, the transitions quick, and the apostrophes abrupt. It was not his object in those compositions, to soothe the ear with the melody of polished numbers, but to rally the frailties of the heart, to convince the understanding by argument, and thence to put to shame both the vices and follies of mankind. Satire is a species of composition, of which the Greeks furnished no model; and the preceding Roman writers of this class, though they had much improved it from its original rudeness and licentiousness, had still not brought it to that degree of perfection which might answer the purpose of moral reform in a polished state of society. It received the most essential improvement from Horace, who has dexterously combined wit and argument, raillery and sarcasm, on the side of morality and virtue, of happiness and truth.

The Epistles of this author may be reckoned amongst the most valuable productions of antiquity. Except those of the second book, and one or two in the first, they are in general of the familiar kind; abounding in moral sentiments, and judicious observations on life and manners.

The poem De Arte Poetica comprises a system of criticism, in justness of principle and extent of application, correspondent to the various exertions of genius on subjects of invention and taste. (177) That in composing this excellent production, he availed himself of the most approved works of Grecian original, we may conclude from the advice which he there recommends:

------------Vos exemplaria Graeca Nocturna versate manu, versate diurna.

Make the Greek authors your supreme delight; Read them by day, and study them by night.--Francis.

In the writings of Horace there appears a fund of good sense, enlivened with pleasantry, and refined by philosophical reflection. He had cultivated his judgment with great application, and his taste was guided by intuitive perception of moral beauty, aptitude, and propriety. The few instances of indelicacy which occur in his compositions, we may ascribe rather to the manners of the times, than to any blameable propensity in the author. Horace died in the fifty-seventh year of his age, surviving his beloved Mecaenas only three weeks; a circumstance which, added to the declaration in an ode to that personage, supposed to have been written in Mecaenas's last illness, has given rise to a conjecture, that Horace ended his days by a violent death, to accompany his friend. But it is more natural to conclude that he died of excessive grief, as, had he literally adhered to the affirmation contained in the ode, he would have followed his patron more closely. This seems to be confirmed by a fact immediately preceding his death; for though he declared Augustus heir to his whole estate, he was not able, on account of weakness, to put his signature to the will; a failure which it is probable that he would have taken care to obviate, had his death been premeditated. He was interred, at his own desire, near the tomb of Mecaenas.----