MASTER NEGATIVE NO. 91-80051 MICROFILMED 1991 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES/NEW YORK as part of the "Foundations of Western Civilization Preservation Project" Funded by the NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES Reproductions may not be made without permission from Columbia University Library COPYRIGHT STATEMENT The copyright law of the United States - Title 17, United States Code - concerns the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material... Columbia University Library reserves the right to refuse to accept a copy order if, in its judgement, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of the copyright law. AUTHOR: MURRAY, JOHN TITLE: ORIGINAL VIEWS OF PASSAGES IN THE LIFE PLACE: DUBLIN DA TE : 1851 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES PRESERVATION DEPARTMENT BIBLIOGRAPHIC MICROFORM TARGET Master Negative # Original Material as Filmed - Existing Bibliographic Record •i»' ti ^^^■^■: •,)ff*V/»* xm ;: Murray, John , Original views of passages ^iiil'toe'lif^^id writings of the poet-philosopher of Venusia; wittt which is combined an illustration of the suitabil ity of the ancient epic and lyric styles to modem subjects of national and genera], interest, by John lAirray. . . Dublin, Hodges, 1851. vi, g45 p. 23-|- cm. ^*«»««r "T*«M' 8305^^ ^n a *»Ttn»n ■f^T i Restrictions on Use: TECHNICAL MICROFORM DATA REDUCTION RATIO:__ii. FILM SIZE: 35 m no IMAGE PLACEMENT: , IaT^ IB IIB DATE FILMED: 5/3 4 /?J INITIALS__J, HLMEDBY: RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS. INC WOODBRIDGE. CT % ^%^^ % %, - n% ^, >^>. ^ D Association for Information and image Management 1100 Wayne Avenue, Suite 1100 Silver Spring, Maryland 20910 301/587-8202 Centimeter 1 2 3 4 miliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiii m TTT I 5 iiiliiiiliiii 6 7 8 9 10 liiiiliiiiliiiiliiiilniiliiiiliiiiliiiiliil T^ m TTT 11 12 13 iiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiili I I I 14 u Inches 1 .0 I.I 1.25 r^ III 2.8 25 ■ 50 '" ^P' 2.2 16.3 ^ 1^ 2.0 ' IS. »i u liilau 1.8 1.4 1.6 15 mm MflNUFfiCTURED TO RUM STflNDRRDS BY APPLIED IMAGE. INC. :*> 4^ ^il Columbia (Hnitiertttp LIBRARY 3; y ^H ^^1 i [•;;,"•!.!; '*!! B?\Jlff"i" /ir.- pTs'!/. # i fl ^^^^^^1 ■ Rg? 1 I 1 ■ HI ■ ■ ■ 1 ■ ■ ■ ^^1 ^H ■ ^SMESttm ■ M oriassical ani> ^ri'enre JSoofes. \ r^ ry <\y-N y^ .-^ '> '-v /-v /-v rv SCIENCE. A TREATISE ON CONIC SECTIONS. By the Rev. G. SALnroN, A. M., F.T. C. D. Second Edition, enlarged. 12«. A TREATISE ON HEAT. Parti. The Thermometer; Dilatation ; Change of State ; Laws of Vapours. By the Rev. R. V. Dixon, A. INI., F. T. C. D., Erasmus Smith's Professor of Natural and Experimental PliiIosoi)hy. 1 vol., 8vo. cloth, with Plates, I'i*. 6d. ELEMENTS OF OPTICS. By the Rev. H. Lloyd, D.D., F. T. C. D. 1 vol. 8vo. 6s. 6d. EUCLID ; the first Six Books, with Notes. By the Rev. Tho:mas Eluington, D. D., late Lord Bishop of Ferns. Twelfth Edition, with Corrections. 8vo. boards, 7*. SELECTIONS FROM HELS HAM'S LECTURES ON HYDROSTATICS AND PNEUMATICS. 8vo. sewed, Bs. BRINKLEY'S ELEMENTS OF PLANE ASTRO- NOMY. Sixth Edition, with Notes. 8vo. cloth, 12*. INTRODUCTORY TREATISE TO PHYSICAL AS- TKONOMY. By the T^ev. T. Luby, D. D. 8vo. Iwards, 12*. ELEMENTARY TREATISE OF MECHANICAL PHILOSOPHY. By the Rev.B. Lr^vn, D. D. Second Edition. 8vo. cloth, 12*. OPTICS. — Twelve Lectures on the Wave-Theory of Lio-ht. By the Rev. H. Lloyd, F. T. C. D. 8vo. cloth, 7*. . *^ COMPENDIUM OF ALGEBRA. 8vo. boards, 5^. TRIGONOMETRY.— Compendium of Analytical Trigo- nometry. By the Rev. T. Luby, D. D. 8vo. sewed, 7s, 6d. TRIGONOMETRY.— Elementary Treatise on Plane and Spherical Trigonometry. By the Rev. T. Luby, D. D. 8vo. sewed, 10». TRIGONOMETRY.— Tlie Elements of Plane and Sphe- ncal Tngonometrj'. By Robert Simson, ]M. D. 8vo. sewed, 35. 6d. LATIN. TACITI OPERA. Edidit Jos. Stock. 4 vols. 12mo. boards, 16s. VIRGIL'S GEORGICS, with a literal Translation and English Notes. By John Walker, A. B. 8vo. boards, 6s. LIVII HISTORIARUM LIBRI QUINQUE PRIORES, e Recens. Johannis Walker, A. M. In usum Scholarum. 8vo. bds. 8*. LONDON : WHITTAKER AND CO., AVE MARIA LANE. ORIGINAL VIEAVS OF PASSAGES IN THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF THE POET-PIIILOSOPHER OF VENUSIA : WITH WHICH IS COMBINED AN ILLUSTRATION OF THE SUITABILITY OF THE ANCIENT EPIC AND LYRIC STYLES TO MODERN SUBJECTS OF NATIONAL AND GENERAL INTEREST. BY JOHN MURRAY, M. A., ROYAL GOLD MEDALLIST IN " SCIENCE AND ARTS," BY AWARD OF IIIS MA.TESTY TIIE KINC, OF I'RI'SSIA ; FIRST ICNIOR MODERATOR IN ETHICS AND LOGICS ; EX-SCIIOLAlt AND LAY RESn)ENT MASTER OF TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN. " LegitimjB inquisitioiiis vera norma est, ut nihil veniat in practicam, cnjus non fit etiam doctrina aliqua ct theoria."— Bacon, De Aug. Scien. DUBLIN: HODGES AND SMITH, GRAFTON-S TREET, BOOKSELLEKS TO THE UNIVERSITY. MDCCCH. \\ PREFACE. DUBLIN: IPrinicU at t^e ffinibcrsitB ^rcss, nV M. 11, GILL. w Is. ^ V' to 3 en It is related, I think, by Baron Holberg, in his Outlines of Universal History, that the Spanish author Sepulveda once published an antiquarian Work, apparently for the sake of in- troducing a single original notion worthy of record, namely, that of deriving the term ^ra from the initial letters of the words composing the sentence ^ Annus Erat Regnantis Au- gustV And although the derivation is about as well founded as would be that of the English term News from the initials of the names of the four cardinal points, yet Sepulveda, on the whole, * stood confest' an expert literary nomenclator, and very respectable * editor' — of results ascertained by others; his faults being confined to his originalities, and these latter being few. Now, although I feel a strong, but, I trust, moderate hope that Sepulveda's favourite ' idea' may not be deemed a fair exponent of those which I am about to submit to the ordeal of the reader's criticism, yet I would, were it practicable, most gladly avail myself of the protective advantages which every modern ' editor' of the Works of any notable ancient author may derive from blending his own remarks, however elementary, with those more recondite dicta that are already stamped by the impress of influential names. The conclu- sions, however, at which I have arrived, are so frequently 178447 VI PREFACE. \ adverse to generally received notions, that, taken apart from the arguments on which they rest, they could hope for little favour from most readers ; while the principal of these argu- ments could not possibly be embodied in a compendium of general annotations. While, therefore, I am far from affecting to depreciate that species of ' authorship,' so valuable to rudimentary education, whose end is instructive compilation, and whose operation is legitimately a kind of sartorial process exercised upon fur- nished materials, I am compelled, by the necessities of the case, to present my humble contribution to the permanent Exhibition of the Industry of all Authors, the recognised * Commissioners' of which are the successors of the Sosii, in a perfectly independent form, and one which, I fear, is ill adapted to the great majority of junior students. In another respect also I feel a disadvantage, in being unable to banish the impression that ' Dedication' suggests the notion of patronage courted, more directly than that of compliment intended. I have therefore denied my book this delicate honour. Besides, to resolve against * dedicating' altogether appeared the only feasible solution of some con- flicting difficulties, which I felt to belong to my own parti- cular case. I trust, however, that these considerations, physical and moral, may assist in conciliating indulgence ; and that I may, without presumption, even read a favourable omen in the date which happens to be proper to this publication, — a date which, the classical reader needs not to be told, was regarded as auspicious in the good old Roman commemorations. JOHN MURRAY. Chambers, 2 Trinity College, Dublin, 2\st April, 1851. VI PREFACE. \ adverse to generally received notions, that, taken apart from the arguments on which they rest, they could hope for little favour from most readers ; while the principal of these argu- ments could not possibly be embodied in a compendium of general annotations. While, therefore, I am far from affecting to depreciate that species of ' authorship,' so valuable to rudimentary education, whose end is instructive compilation, and whose operation is legitimately a kind of sartorial process exercised upon fur- nished materials, I am compelled, by the necessities of the case, to present my humble contribution to the permanent Exhibition of the Industry of all Authors, the recognised * Commissioners' of which are the successors of the Sodi, in a perfectly independent form, and one which, I fear, is ill adapted to the great majority of junior students. In another respect also I feel a disadvantage, in being unable to banish the impression that ' Dedication' suggests the notion of patronage courted, more directly than that of compliment intended. I have therefore denied my book this delicate honour. Besides, to resolve against * dedicating' altogether appeared the only feasible solution of some con- flicting difficulties, which I felt to belong to my own parti- cular case. I trust, however, that these considerations, physical and moral, may assist in conciliating indulgence ; and that I may, without presumption, even read a favourable omen in the date which happens to be proper to this publication, — a date which, the classical reader needs not to be told, was regarded as auspicious in the good old Roman commemorations. JOHN MURRAY. Chambers, 2 Trinity College, Dublin, 2\st April, 1851. COiNTENTS. I SECTION I. Introductory Observations, . . Page. 1 SECTION II. Biographical Memoir of the Bard of Venusia, ... 17 SECTION III. Detached Passages of the Satires, Lyrics, and Epis- tles of Horace examined : with preliminary and general remarks on the context, 88 SECTION IV. Trifling Propositions attributed to Roman Satirists examined, 217 SECTION V. Illustration of the suitability of the ancient Epic AND Lyric styles to modern subjects of national AND general interest, 227 1,1 / \f » ORIGINAL VIEWS, &C. (fee. if! ORIGINAL VIEWS, &C. &C. SECTION I. INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. The products of ancient classical genius, considered relatively to their matter, and independently of titles, authors, and times, may be conceived to be distri- buted over three intermixed classes. Under one class may be included those whose modes of thought and forms of expression are based on associations which have not only ceased to exist among men, but which it is now impossible for the mind adequately to re- call. Another may recognise the offspring of com- binations which, although obliterated by time, are yet fairly restorable by the imagination. A third, and the most important, will embrace such as respect those de- velopments of mental and physical agencies whose uni- form processes constitute the course of nature itself. That casual associations should be familiar at one time or place, which in a different locality or age are impracticable, or inconceivable, will not appear as- tonishing to any who reflect how much the sugges- 2 INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. tions of human invention, and even the powers of fancy, are influenced by local varieties of external nature. On the other hand, the constitution of human society and the natural laws of improvement require that the main amount of the thoughts and practices of men should originate in constant sources, should be familiar to the inteUigence of communities in general, and should be transmissible in their virtual history throucfh successive a^^jes. Hence those recesses in the extant stores of ancient literature, which time or change has locked against us, occupy but a trifling portion of the vast included space : and from almost every department of these inexhaustible resources the visitant ' bringeth forth things new and old/ 'Tis true the ^schylean and Pindaric strains awake but faint echoesin the modern mind; the choral chant of Sophocles, and even the less aspiring lay of Euri- pides, is no longer comprehensible in its primary in- tent and effect; the flash of Aristophanic wit is widely dissipated or wholly intercepted by the hazy atmos- phere which it now traverses; the written or recited period no more resembles the speaking inspiration of Demosthenes, than the music-scroll represents the performance of the piece; while the didactic truths of Aristotle ever and anon elude our apprehension, because of the apparently irremediable deficiency of our acquaintance with ancient scientific technicali- ties. Still these disappointments are happily the ex- ceptions, not the rule, belonging to our case. And from the soul-stirring heroics of Homer (the great I i INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 3 • body of whose conceptions respecting gods, heroes, armies, battles, travel, and the spiritual world, we are perhaps as competent to picture before the mind's eye as was the original auditory of the minstrel sage) to the quaint sententiousness of Tacitus, it is gene- rally the privilege of the modern scholar to commune with the worthies of olden time, with a freedom which his own will almost alone restricts, — to test the phi- losopher's theory, to scan the historian's facts, to ap- plaud the statesman's eloquence, to ponder the mo- ralist's precept, and to attune the poet's song. Among the authors whose feelings and sentiments have found a constant and cordial response in the approval of each succeeding age, the Poet-philoso- pherof Venusia holds a confessedly pre-eminent rank. Exuberant in graceful poetic imagery and terse phi- losophic sentiment, which are adapted with a rare knowledge of human nature to illustrate every pos- sible grade, condition, and circumstance of ordinary life, his Works may in this respect fiiirly assert rivalry with those of our own immortal bard of Avon : and a Latin linguist unfiimiliar with Horace stands in the same predicament as would an English literate un- versed in Shakespeare. The universal applicability, however, which renders quotation from an ancient author familiar as house- hold words, is not unattended by countervaihng dis- advantages. Mistaken notions, whether of direct or collateral import, when once received, often become inveterate by mere transmissive adoption : an inter- a2 4 INTUODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. pretation or statement which was originally a casual blunder or idle fiction maybe eventually confirmed by usage as an accredited 'acceptation' : and thus by sole force of repetition the circulation of error is assimi- lated to the currency of truth. The sanction which freneral consent sometimes bestows, merely because it is general consent, upon the most palpable distor- tions of a writer s meaning, may be instanced by a simple case, where in a very well-known quasi- proverb not only are the plain words of the author completely misstated, but sense (a usual attribute of popular sayings) is thereby neutralized. Who has not heard the following couplet quoted?— Convince a man against his will, He's of the same opinion still. But the author of Iludibras was a writer too saga- cious to indite such a contradiction in terms : and accordingly in the original the passage reads:— He that complies against his will Is of his own opinion still. A peculiar liability to mistake in our estimate of ancient popular authors may arise from the circum- stance that, when we discover a considerable coinci- dence between their modes of thought and those which we ourselves ordinarily observe, we are dis- posed to think morally of them as we do of one ano- ther; and to forget the vast disparity of the external circumstances under w^hich they wrote from those in INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. O which we read. Accordingly not only is too little of real admiration likely to accrue to sterling virtues exercised under disadvantages which we can but faintly imagine— not only is too little of extenuation admitted for apparent deficiencies or overt faults of character, but the influences which the before-men- tioned disparity may bring to bear upon the interpre- tation itself are apt to be forgotten. Again, when an author, such as Horace, accom- modates himself to conventional trifles (which, after all, constitute the principal sum of human life in ge- neral), w^e are inclined to attribute to his Works less of scientific design — less of systematic deduction — less of harmony in the parts — than may be consis- tent with the depth of root whence the whole pro- duction is confessed to spring. And thus, to a cer- tain extent, with authors, as with acquaintances, 'too much familiarity breeds contempt.' As far as such circumstances may have conduced to the origin and perpetuation of any misconception of passages in the life and writings of the bard of Ve- nusia, so far their suggestion here is relevant, as an apology for the purport of the present work. But as new comment in this province of classical literature is not generally felt to be a desideratum — as every school-boy is supposed to ' know his Horace,' and every 'lecturer' to have 'only not' contributed to edify the conversaziones of Maecenas, because of an accidental distance of time and place — the author is nuich more likelv to be regarded beforehand as an 6 INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. innovator than as a restorer: no share of that ante- cedent favour which encourages an attempt made to supply an admitted deficiency can be his: the justifi- cation of his undertaking must rest upon its perform- ance; and even here an unusual difiiculty is encoun- tered at every step, in the probabihty that the reader may feel each new proposition as an impeachment of his own individual (previous) judgment. The most general form in which the whole result contemplated could be stated is expressible in one ^Nov^— simplification: the substitution of what the author conceives to be the plain, the natural, and the sound, for the conflicting, the constrained, and the untenable. But it by no means follows that the pro- cess necessary for the attainment of this end should itself be invariably simple ; or that it ought in any instance to be such as would be devised without in- dustry, and estimated without care. But easy and difficult are often only other names for known and un- known; and the question of the present moment be- comes the axiom of the next. It is certainly not insinuated here that any argument employed in the following pages is likely to prove difficult to any one the author's hope and endeavour lie in the opposite direction : and in several cases a few passing remarks are considered adequate to compass the required pur- pose. It is merely urged that what is relied upon as the main utility of the book, and as constituting its chief claim to attention, ridimelj— simplification of result— shoiM not in any particular instance be INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. i prejudiced because the author has not been clever enough to invent a demonstration as brief as his pro- position, or because he that reads may not always run. Upon the line of proof generally adopted it should be observed by the junior reader that to argue from deference to a particular authority on one question, and against the validity of the same authority on another, however nearly similar, infers no inconsis- tency. In some practical affairs, such as the rules which govern the proceedings of courts of justice, it is convenient to restrict controversial tendencies by forbidding to go behind certain precedents : but in matters of opinion, authority is supposed to be quo- ted, neither to favour despatch, nor yet to serve the purposes of advocacy, but because the party citing such believes it, in the given instance, to be right; and it is just as competent for him to shew cause, the next moment, against the reception of the same au- thority, as it is to originate any inquiry, improvement, or discovery whatsoever. In the case, however, of verbal investigations proper to a dead language, a more than ordinary weight must certainly be due to long-established authority, as the utmost discover- able result here can never ascend higher than the ascertainment of past facts, and these are not to be arrived at by any mere process of reasoning. Still, considerable scope for inference exists in the compa- rison of testimonies, the adjustment of contradictions, and the assignment of their proper rank to authorities. But as new views of ancient compositions remarkable / 8 INTllODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. in themselves not less for versatility of style than di- versity of matter, must arise, in a peculiar degree, independently of any consecutive train of suggestion, such a uniformity of argument as would connect the parts cannot be expected in a Work introduced to the reader's notice under the present title. Indeed no species of comment can well be conceived more likely, from the nature of the case, to prove fragmen- tary in detail, and unsymmetrical as a whole. Con- tinuous deduction being thus generally out of the question, arrangement becomes not only arbitrary, but in a great degree immaterial. Two limitations only are necessary : — that the author be made as far as pos- sible his own commentator, by the placing of such pas- sages in juxtaposition as reflect mutual illustration; and that any familar order be not disturbed for the mere novelty of deviation. Illustrative coincidence, however, of original views, can be rarely expected ; and it involves at best somewhat of reciprocal as- sumption: accordingly the passages conmiented upon are taken, for the most part, indiscriminately as they occur in the order of their publication. It is scarcely necessary to remark that the term ' publication' bears a peculiar meaning in this case. Horace ' published' his writings chiefly in order that by this help, as through an instrument elegantly adapted to the mind's eye, a select intellectual /t'?/? might contrast symmetrical pictures of external na- ture, and of virtue, with correlative deformities of artificial society,— and smile: while the moral essays INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. of Lucilius and Juvenal were designed as a glaring mirror in which a corrupt public might behold its own turpitude, — and blush. It is true, the bard of Yenusia soon perceived, with a proud foresight, that the sphere of his own chosen intimates could not cir- cumscribe the diffusion of his fame — that the propa- gation of the tones of his Muse would ultimately be co-ordinate with the echo of the Koman lyre itself: but while he did not affect to shun such popularity as must follow in the course of natural consequence, this was in no degree an object of his calculation, either as an impelling or a restraining motive. The public meed of praise was a result of the merits; and is not to be regarded in defining our poet-philoso- pher's views and purposes. In short, publication was, in this case, properly irrespective o^ publicity. In the almost unqualified praise accorded in these pages to the mental dispositions and literary perform- ances of Horace, whether regarded in a poetical or in a philosopliical light, some portions of liis Works are assumed to be as virtually non-existent in fact, as they should ever be unrecognised in publication. The evil consequences of objectionable expressions, spoken or written, are often beyond the reach of repentance and reformation: but it is a concession, which the weakness of human nature not less urgently needs, than the good feeling of society is prompt to extend, that where a departure from propriety is plainly ascribable to influences, whether from within or from without, which the party yielding to them 10 INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 11 had not adequate means, from whatever cause, of viewing in their true aspect, and wlicre an assurance of any kind exists, that, had his opportunities of re- flecting and judging been larger, his conduct would have been different, the record of transgression is EXPUNGED, and the offender stands exactly as though he had not transgressed. Is this meed of equitable charity to be freely bestowed upon those who yet live to encounter, and perhaps again to fail under, probation ; and is it to be denied to the memory of those whose frailty is now beyond the reach of trial — the exact measure of whose faults is fixed ? Surely — putting aside the question, how far the practical influences of Christianity would have been likely to affect the conduct of one whose unaided light even divines themselves are proud to reflect — there lives not that scholar wdio believes that, at the lowest estimate, the judicious sagacity, the re- fined taste, the philosophic predilections of Horace, would tolerate even the momentary continuance amongst his writings of the least word which could offend the sensibilities of such society as w^ould now do him homage, could he personally visit the scenes of modern enlightenment. But, in whatever degree a coarse expression, or one offensive to morality, is found to be advisedly and unreservedly published by the poet laureate of a court, in the same degree is an afortiore proof afforded of the universal preva- lence of a vicious standard by whicli the law of pub- lic opinion w^ould be adjusted at tlie time. The sub- 1' mission yielded to this law is as implicit, as both its provisions and permissions in any society must be even inconceivable to the members of many others. Hence our surprise may in a great measure be trans- ferred from the original discovery of such passages in our author to the bad taste and even the injustice of retaining them on record. They were penned ere yet the Christian era dawned on man— they are re- called by all else that their author ever penned. Where he sinned, no chastening voice was heard — where he repents, the Graces themselves intercede. Explanation of passages, and not their translation, being the main object of this publication, the junior reader will be disappointed if he expect much assist- ance from it in the latter department. Indeed, where- ever an English version is given, it is intended merely as an easy conveyance of the meaning^ in the common language by which the author and most of his pro- bable readers speak and think. But as the facility by which a composition in one language is transmuted tastefully into the phrase of another, so as to preserve exactly the original sense, is a criterion not only of skill in both languages, but also of adequate compre- hension of the sense of the original, and as the trial of this performance is as convenient a test in the hands of the classical examiner as the accomplish- ment of it is one of the highest qualifications which the student can attain, it may be considered some sort of compensation for the barrenness of the Work in this respect, that the author should make such re- 12 INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. marks upon the acquirement in general as he thhiks likely to be useful. Besides it is a portion of his ge- neral plan to interweave throughout as much of com- bination of principles, and of reduction to class, as he considers to be compatible with his immediate sub- ject, or even to be justified by any fair excuse arising out of it. Kespecting, then, the version of the Greek and Latin languages into English, it should be borne in mind that the order of the suggestion of ideas in the former two is chiefly that which would follow from the observation of things themselves, whereas in the latter it is habitually subject to the order of ver- bal dependency. The Greeks and Romans (in differ- ent degrees certainly) thought objectivehj—\;Q think grammaticalhj. What the causes of this may be we cannot now stop to canvass: but the effect with which we have to deal is, that two antagonist principles must be reconciled almost at every iniportant step. However, that repugnant elements may be harmoni- ously blended is sufficiently exemplified in akindred department. For instance, the essence of words is separate significance ; while the tones that compose music are, apart from combination, almost wholly inexpressive. Now, if words be combined in prose their scparateness is easily preserved, and if music be produced by the notes of an instrument, or by the humming of the voice, there is nothing to fetter the continuity. But if language be set to music, then an- tagonism between two principles is at once felt, and INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 13 that singer is applauded who, while he renders duly the melody of the song, likewise conveys its words: and of the same nature is rhythm in reading or reciting written poetry.* In like manner the translator must adapt opposing materials, giving to no element an undue preponderance in the result, but producing a refined, or at least a smooth, comhination. The forms of phrase in which any given sentiment is expressible are indefinite : of these he should con- fine himself, as closely as possible, to that which the text prefers. That is, his version should be literal: otherwise he substitutes himself where he should supply his author, and this generally to the disad- vantage of both. The modes of association familiar to the original language should take precedence: and to them, as far as the genius of the modern language will permit, the new phrase should be accommodated. In other words, the order of the Greek and Latin words should be preserved in its integrity when prac- ticable. But idioms may be rendered by parallel idioms. The use of synonymes also should super- sede the terms immediately derived from the original. A syllahkally adapted translation generally betrays a scant vocabulary. Nor can the habit of * taking the words (as is the * This appears to be the true principle of the metrical ca^sura^ whose effects have been more accurately observed than their cause has been clearly stated. The ccBSura^ by slurring in some degree the necessary break between terms, effects a compromise between the two opposite elements of the verse as above specified — the musical and the sentimental. 14 INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 15 poor but appropriate phrase) in viva voce translation be too strongly discouraged. It mars the author, dulls the translator, and wastes time. It is, no doubt, a sound exercise for the student whose praxis is imperfect: and an advanced scholar who really cannot, or who obstinately will not, discard the custom, may possess attainments and qualifications beside which the best powers of translation sink into insignificance. But as well might a stiff row of separate letters in a school- boy's copy-book be called a line of running-hand, as a monotonous enumeration of the several words in a sentence of Cicero, with the * EngUsh' appended re- spectively to each, be dignified by the misnomer of a ' translation.' With regard to the employment by students, of published translations, as a means of preparation in their studies, it would appear that if the translation do not mislead, and if the student do not misuse, a considerable saving of time may be effected by his availing himself of such aid. The translation in this case should always be assumed to convey the mean- ing merely, not to specify the construction. The per- fectly just version should indeed combine both with elegance. But such are rare: and it may be better tha't the help should not be too complete: the rnor- ceaux which satisfy the epicure would stint the ope- rative. If the student, without due examination, substitutes the words of the translation for his own, he abuses it. If he employs it as an index to the meaning which he is to bring out by preserving gram- / matical and other proprieties, he uses it aright. And thus a translation somewhat resembles a guide to a dissected map. Without it, in many instances, the adapter of parts may expend more time than the ex- ercise requites; and after all may light upon the cor- rect disposition by accident, or by guess. But its presence is not designed to spare him the trouble of minutely adjusting his materials. However, the need of help in this, as in any other case, implies propor- tionate inability. Thus much the author has deemed it advisable to state on this important topic, lest his views he mis- conceived from the circumstance that he translates or paraphrases indiscriminately as may best forward explanation of his views in the following examination of texts: and also in the hope that the student may be thus better assisted to express his own * original views' by translation in general, than he would be by being furnished with a formal version of the pas- sages here brou^xht under consideration. Finally, upon the whole Work the author may ob- serve that he could sincerely desire the performance of it to have been originally unnecessary. He could wish, for the subject's sake, that Orellius — as yet the 'ultimus ille bonorum! — had really completed the task of annotation which Terentius Scaurus began ; that the elegant biography of Milman — whose Work on the whole is an honour to the age that has pro- duced it — had finally crowned the structure whose first stone was laid bv Suetonius. Britain and Ger- 16 INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 17 many — the lands of Bentley and Niebuhr — would thus have appropriately applied 'the last hand' to a notable work. But that work still remains, in both its departments, unfinished. The interpretation of Horace is not yet emancipated from the glosses which imperfect or unsound commentary has introduced in the lapse of ages — the Life of Horace still exhibits the exaggerations of fiction unrelieved by the poetry of romance. The present performance is indeed very limited in its application, and is far from assuming to be com- plete in its execution. But as, on the one hand, the author will rejoice if even the arraignment of his faults may serve the cause of classical truth, so, on the other, he trusts to classical candour in believing that, wherever a denial of his statements or inferences maybe advanced, the disproof relied upon will be likewise furnished. With reference to the closing Section, upon which must rest his own pretensions to compose in that lann-ua^^e whose use and structure he assumes tocri- ticise, it becomes him to be silent. Its annexation to the main Work must evidently appear to be very much due to circumstances of personal retrospect. He trusts, however, that it may in some degree con- tribute to relieve the prosaic details of the rest of the volume. SECTION II. BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF THE BARD OF VENUSIA. It is a development of our natural susceptibility of social impressions, that we not only desire to be in- formed of the character of those whose endowments in any department of life have won the admiration of mankind, but that we even cling with a fond at- tachment to records of their circumstances, casual habits, and personal appearance. Hence biographical sketches, and pictorial resem- blances, prefixed to the works of eminent authors, convey to the mind of the admirer of their esta- blished fame a dreamy realization of introductory acquaintance. The cold memorial of the real past becomes the vivid impersonation of the ideal pre- sent: and the reader almost shares in the romantic vision of the Scottish chieftain : " Again his soul he interchanged With friends whom death had long estranged ; As warm each hand, each brow as gay, As if they parted yesterday." We may, on this principle, fairly accord to the following lines a precedence in our examination of certain passages in the works of the poet-philosopher of Venusia. B i 18 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. Nunc ad me redeo libertino patre natum ; quem rodunt omnes libertino patre natum, Nunc quia, M^cenas, tibi sim convictor, at olim Quod mihi pareret legio Romana tribuno. See. I. vi. 45-48. No commentator or translator has heretofore ques- tioned the literal acceptation of this prominent pas- sage. That is, the author is universally under- stood here to make literal statements respecting certain relations of his (then) present and past positions in life, which are themselves as gene- rally supposed to have been literally as stated by his expositors. And hence all the biographical notices which have endeavoured to trace the poet's chequered course, from the meagre outline attri- buted to Suetonius (probably composed in the be- ginning of the second century of our Era), to the diversified and elaborate disquisition of Milman, in 1849, allege as fact that which there is no evi- dence whatsoever to attribute to any other source than the usual construction of this passage. We are of course not strictly entitled to conclude that those who suppress mention of their authorities necessarily rest on the only voucher which those who quote any do, in fact, adduce. But the nature of the case will be found to supply abundant proofs to the same virtual purport. We shall now proceed to analyze this cardinal sen- tence. For as, in the words of Milman, — "without DIVISION OF SUBJECT. 19 the biography of the poet the poetry of Horace cannot be truly appreciated, indeed, can hardly be under- stood," — so, conversely, without a sure interpretation of the writings of an author, the substantive facts of whose life are to be gleaned solely from his works, his biographer may mistake fiction for fact, or even the absurd for the actual. The statements which the commentators unani- mously attribute to Horace in the preceding passage, some by direct annotation, some by silent acquies- cence in the views of others, seem to be fairly com- prehended in the three following propositions : — 1st, — That he stood in the relation of convictor to his patron, Maecenas, at the period of writing it. 2nd, — That he had previously filled the office of Tribunus Militum. 3rd, — That he had, as such, commanded a Roman Legion. And as the fortunes of our poet ap- pear to have suffered no declension previously to his sharing in the final disaster of Marcus Junius Brutus, the last proposition virtually includes another, viz., — That he led the said legion at the great battle of Phi- lippi. Our present inquiry is intended to investigate, (with due deference to the proper claims of the argu- ment ad verecundiam), how far all this is certain or probable ; or whether Horace may have merely in- tended to instance indirectly (a form of style not unusual with him) the language of exaggerated ridi- cule, to which both his patron and himself were ex- posed from the sneers of the malevolent and the envious; as he does elsewhere directly , as, for ex- B 2 I! 20 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. PROFESSOR ZUMPT S CANON. 21 ample, — '' F or tunce films, omnes," Ser. ii., 6, 49. ''Deos quoniam j^opius contingis^^ Id. 52. — Jovis auribus ista servas, Ep. i. 19, 43. We shall, therefore, first examine the general phraseology of the passage by authorized rules of syntactical construction ; and shall, secondly, discuss the statements involved, as independent propositions. The text is undisputed, save that editions give indifferently sum and sim. The latter is admitted by all to be sustained by the greater number of MSS. ; and among the many commentators who support it are Bentley and Heindorf This reading will further, it is hoped, derive weighty confirmation from the second part of this argument, which will be found sufficiently independent to supply corroboration even of what is not denied to be essential to the first ; and most probably had Heindorf and the other advocates of sim regarded what appears to be the real import of the context as to the term convictor, they would have taken higher ground than the mere assimilation of mood to pareret supplies. And to this ground, be it particularly observed, all objections are directed ; for the counter-arguments of Orellius, Reisig, and Wiistemann amount at most to this, that the subjunctive after quia is not so necessary as after quod. But this assumes the meaning — for it may not be denied that both words, as occasion requires, qua- lify both indicative and subjunctive clauses — and therefore would be a petitio principii, did their oppo- nents occupy our present ground. Bentley's altera- tion of the order of words in line 3 {sim tibi, Mcece- nas), is quite immaterial to this argument ; and is merely noticed here, in order that nothing be held back. We are now in a position to scrutinize the con- struction : and upon this head, a law which appears applicable to the given case is laid down so fully in de- tail by Professor Zumpt, in section 549 of his Philo- sophical Grammar, that the quotation of the whole is desirable to the purposes of our argument. (The quotation is from the translation published by the learned Schmitz.) " When a proposition containing the statement of a fact, and therefore expressed by the indicative, has another dependent upon it or added to it (by a conjunction or a relative pronoun) the dependent clause is expressed by the subjunctive, provided the substance of it is alleged as the sentiment or the words of the person spoken of, and not of the speaker himself. Thus the proposition : Noster am- bulabat in publico Themistocles, quod somnum capere non posset (Cic, Tusc, iv. 19), suggests, that The- mistocles himself gave this reason for his walking at night. But I, the writer of the proposition, may ex- press the reason as my own remark, and in this case the indicative poterat is required, as well as ambulabat. Bene majores nostri accubitionem epularem amicorum^ quia vitce conjunct? onein haberet^ convivium nomina- runt, Cic, Cat Maj. 13. Socrates accusatus est, quod corrumperet juventutem et novas sxiperstitiones inducer et. Quintil., iv. 4. Aristides nonne ab eam causam ex- pidsus est patria, quod prceter modum Justus esset ? Cic, Tusc. V. 36. The clause beginning with quod 22 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. SYNTACTICAL INFERENCE. 23 in the second of these examples, contains the reasons alleged by the accusers of Socrates ; and the subjunc- tive in the last example indicates that the reason there stated was alleged by the Athenians them- selves, according to the well-known story, and it re- mains uncertain whether Aristides was really so just; but this uncertainty would not exist if the indicative had been used." It is evident from this extract that quia and quod are alike employed in linking the dependent to the absolute clause. Indeed quia is properly the old neuter plural, which afterwards migrated into the usual form quce; and, that quod was, originally, a pure relative, and derived its subjunctive separate- ness from ellipsis of its antecedent, we must be convinced with Sanctius, without, at the same time, coinciding in such extreme propositions as the fol- lowing — " Qw(?6? particula prima linguam Latinam post Ciceronis aureum saeculum ansa est deturpare. H^c Aristotelis et Platonis dialecticam, et utramque philosophiam, pessime dilaceravit." Min., iii. 14. Thus, the relation subsisting between quia and quod corresponds with that which marks the Greek are and oTi. Further upon quod we find in Wiistemann the following remarkable comment under the pas- sage in question — " Quod bezieht sich nur auf die vorstellung des Neidischen." And upon quia, Mar- tini, in the Lexicon Philologicum, observes — " Quia, oTi, aliquando servit mimesi." Now from Quintilian we collect the following definition o^ mimesis — " Imi- tatio morum alienorum — et in factis et in dictis ver- sata." But although there were no testimony to this precise effect, the argument, so far as it yet goes, needs no cumulative evidence. All that is here maintained is, that the phrase or diction, in which certain statements are couched, supplies adequate proof to show that they are intended by the writer to appear as the sayings of his enemies. How far these sayings are just and true, will depend on the nature of the case, i. e., on the matter of the propo- sitions weighed relatively to known or probable rela- tions of life. And this latter question alone remains ; for doubtless no real force would attach to the con- ceivable objection, that in the first of the examples quoted by Zumpt, the subjunctive statement was probably true; in the second, certainly so-, and in each of the other two, believed, or, at all events, alleged, to be so, by the parties to whom the writer attributes them, and who are thus entitled to be heard as wit- nesses testifying the fact to be so and so ; and that, although such testimony was afterwards disproved] in the cases of Socrates and Aristides, yet the mul- titude of witnesses in the present case (omnes) is in itself a credible voucher of matters not heretofore disputed. Any such objection is merely apparent; for it is known that parties who invent stories for purposes of malice or ridicule often really come at last to believe their own tales, while the bulk of hearers (the popular omnes) will readily adopt, and propagate as fact, a censorious or ludicrous saying, such as, suppose,—" Lo ! the son of a quondam slave chums with Mcecenas ! The profuse and pompous I 24 BIOGBAPHICAL MEMOIR. magnate must needs be king of his company, when he cannot revel in feasting without such appendages to his board r Or, again— '*Lo! a veritable specimen of Brutus' s lieutenant-generals! Foremost in the ranks at Philippi; the last man to fly, of course ! Little wonder, in good sooth, that the great regicide's* Evil Genius should have looked in upon him occasionally, if such were his general military arrangements /" We may conclude our review of the syntactical con- struction by reference to a remarkable passage in the same Sermo, where quod introduces a proposi- tion, in the subjunctive form, which is known to convey a negative implication: * * Non solicitus mihi quod eras Surgendum sit mane, obeundus Marsya,— Sebm. i. 6, 119-20. and shall next proceed to the discussion of the three component propositions, seriatim. First, Is it certain or probable that Horace really intends the term convictor to represent his social rela- tion to Maecenas ? The following quotations comprise all the instances adduced by lexicographers to illustrate the use of the term convictor in the extant memorials of Latin lite- rature. In our own author it occurs once before, Me Capitolinus convictore usus amicoque a puero est. I. Ser. iv. 96-97. In the volume of Cicero's works commonly called Epistolce ad Familiares, we find the following passage :-" Utor familiaribus et quotidianis * See Plutarch's well-known story. ETYMOLOGICAL INDUCTION. 25 convictoribusqvLOS secumMitylenis Cratippus adduxit, hominibus et doctis et illi probatissimis." — Lib. xvi. (Tironi) Ep. 21. (In the edition of Scheller, as also in that of Forcellinus, in the library of Trinity Col- lege, Dublin, the reference is erroneously to the se- cond Epistle.) Again, where the bard of Sulmo expostulates with a false friend, who had deserted him in his season of exile, he reminds him of their once domestic familiarity in these terms: — Ille ego convictor densoque domesticus usu. Ep. ex Pont. iv. 3, 15. Suetonius, in his unreserved and therefore often repulsive history of the Emperor Tiberius, having devoted a chapter to sketching the tyrant's conduct towards his '' veteres amicos ac familiares," as also to those whom he had chosen, " velut con- siliarios in negotiis publicis," opens the next chap- ter thus distinctively : — ^' Nihilo lenior in convic- tores Grceculos, quibus vel maxim e acquiescebat." Lib. iii. 56. And lastly, in the Epistles of Seneca (as the author himself styles those compositions, which Moretus regards rather as common-places), where he dwells upon the pernicious effects of bad example, we read thus :— " Unum exemplum aut luxuri^ aut avariti^ multum inali facit: Convictor delicatus paullatim enervat et emollit: malignus comes quamvis candido et simplici rubiginem suam affricuit"— Epist. ad Lucil. 7 ; a passage which, we may observe inci- dentally, as has been well remarked by Lipsius, illus- trates the '^^rugo mera'' of Horace in Serm.' i. 4 ; but he is not so correct in further stating that the 6 t/(7^o\^/xeVor of Epictetus represents such a character ->• u 26 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. as described by Horace and Seneca ; for the Greek term means begrimed by aspersion of soil, and no- thing more ; whereas both the Latin words (particu- larly that of Horace) imply additionally the notion of deletei'ious corrosiveness. From the aggregate of the above instances it is plain that convictor is never a term of dignity^ but is employed either in associations of contempt or as inti- mating a chum-like familiarity. The only passage which seems unfavourable to this view is that from the Ciceronian Epistles ; for the popular estimate of the character of Petillius neutralizes thejuxta-position of the honourable term " amicd' in the quotation re- ferring to him. But it is particularly to be noted that the twenty-first Epistle above specified (as also the twenty-fifth of the same Book), is not the composition of the great Cicero, though found only in his "Works," but of his son (and these, moreover, the only extant productions of his pen), who was at best (even with- out our giving full assent to the severe strictures pro- nounced upon his conduct by Seneca and Pliny) a vo- latile and unsteady person, not to be relied upon in any way, save as being a brave and smart military oflicer. And as these letters are penitential for past extrava- gance and dissipation, and are addressed to his father's intimate friend, Tullius Tiro, it is highly probable that, with the ardour of a new convert, or the simu- lation of a plausible roue, he may have greatly co- loured and exaggerated the terms of his intimacy with these men of learning and character; if, indeed, the term convictor ibus he not itself actually borrowed SOCIETY OF M.a:CENAS. 27 from the associations of his long-continued habits of company-keeping. For the most favourable estimate of his character see Niebuhr and Middleton. No doubt, where the principal term expresses a relation which must itself be referred principally to the same variable standard by which the particular applicability in question is to be adjusted, viz., the changeful modes of ^as^^, considerable allowance must be made for the difference of conclusion to which indi- viduals will feel themselves conducted by their re- spective estimates of proprieties ; and it is not pre- tended here that the old-established impressions can be so far unsettled as fully to establish new views. However, as in this instance the choice seems limited to two, every element of likelihood is of a double value; and therefore the following considerations are strongly recommended to the reader's attention, and are submitted without any comment, the utmost aim of which could be merely to persuade. Supposing the meaning of convictor to be as above stated, shall we believe that the poor, lowly-born, poet-philosopher, just emerging, not merely from the destitution consequent on the confiscation of his little patrimony, but also from the degradation attendant on the utter prostration of the republi- can cause (for which he had recently and openly, though constrainedly, borne arms), seriously meant to express in public, by the choice of such a term, the private character of his intercourse w^ith the first subject of the empire ? Supposing the moral and mental eclat of that celebrated statesman to 28 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. INFERENCE FROM CARDINAL DATES. 29 have reached no higher appreciable value than that assigned by Wieland or Niebuhr, shall we feel no surprise that freedom so great should characte- rise the earlier stage of our author's intimacy ? That this should be thus broadly stated in the first public announcement of that intimacy made by Horace; and in an essay which he opens by merely complimenting his patron on being too high-minded to " scorn" humble folk as such ? Or that so great confidence of tone should be assumed by a young man, as mo- dest and retiring as he was shrewd and sagacious, at the very outset of an uphill course of authorship, particularly if we suppose, with Walchnaer and other eminent moderns, that Horace had, before ac- quaintance began, satirised Maecenas himself, along with others of the Ca3sarean or Imperialist party ? It is not at all necessary to go, with Bentley, the length of maintaining that Horace wrote, as he cer- tainly published J the contents of his various books of Odes, Satires, and Epistles, separately/ and consecu- tively, in a certain order. Still less can we assent to Dr. Tate's dogma, that Horace, in Ser. i. 4, *' says, as plainly as a man can say it, that he had not then written anything which could entitle him to the name of a poet;" the confutation of which opinion is quoted by Milman, from the Classical Museum, No. v. p. 215, to the effect tliat Horace elsewhere uses si- milar language, as in Ep. ii. 1, HI, when his reputa- tion must have been well established. Besides, some specimens of his genius must have existed when Virf^il and Varius undertook to show Mascenas V/w/J esset,' or ivhat manner of man he was. But this is very certain: — First, that the first book of Satires was \i\^ first published book. Secondly, that, whatever may have been the amount of the detached pieces by which alone it is conceivable that he could then have attracted notice in any degree, and which are probably now scattered throughout his works (for we hear nothing of any works of Horace being lost), still his reputation must have been comparatively insignificant as an author, previously to the publica- tion of the very works which have immortalized his name to succeeding ages. Thirdly, that as tlie battle of Philippi was fought b. c. 42, a minimum space for the known intermediate circumstances is allowed by fixing his introduction to Maecenas at b. c. 39, and the publication in question at or about b. c. 34 or 35, and when Horace was about thirty years of age. Fourthly, that as Horace's last publication, viz., his second book of Epistles, appeared at or about b. c. 12, and the death of M^cenas happened about B. c. 7, it follows that this supposed declaration of his familiarity with the Emperor's state-adviser must have been published within the first four ji^divs of an intimacy extending over thirty years ; and in the very first old, series of publications extending over twenty-three years, and which seem necessary, according to their development, to establish the author's character. Or, finally, on the extreme supposition that the term convictor is unobjectionable, are the known social qualifications of Horace sufficient to !.'l! 30 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. justify the fact, or is the sanguineness of a young writer adequate to account for the statement, that one of the humblest and most unfavourably circumstanced men in Rome had reached his maximum intimacy with the first literary patron of the day at a period when both the length of his acquaintance with that personage, and his own public authorship, were at or near a comparative minimum ? All things considered, is the term convictor more suited to the vocabulary of the coarse and envious re- viler,or to that of him whomMilman supposes to have been the most sensible and the best informed man in the society in which he moved ? Whether more likely to be adopted as the sneer of some disappointed syco- phant, or as the suggestion of a spirit whose nobility of independence is truthfully reflected in the roman- tic pride of honest, muse-taught, Robert Burns ? Is such the adopted designation of him respecting whom the above-mentioned biographer thus justly writes: " Horace, indeed, asserted and maintained greater independence of personal character than most sub- jects of the new empire ; there is a tone of dignity and self-respect, even in the most adulatory passages of his writings ;" and again, in whom he commends deservedly a " singular tact and delicacy through which the poet preserves his freedom by never tres- passing beyond its proper bounds," and whose attach- ment to ' the glorious privilege of being indepen- dent,' in his refusal of a confidential oflSce placed at his disposal by the Emperor himself, is so elegantly WAS HORACE A MILITARY TRIBUNE ? 31 eulogised by Wieland? In another point of view, are we to suppose this hoon-fellow-like epithet to be jointly applied, in a public notification, to a patron, of whom the same polished writer remarks: '* Maece- nas in the mean time was winning, if not to the party, or to personal attachment towards Augustus, at least to contented acquiescence in his sovereignty, those who would yield to the silken charms of social en- joyment:" and again, '^ The mutual amity of all the great men of letters, in this period, gives a singu- larly pleasing picture of the society which was har- monized and kept together by the example and in- fluence of M^cenas?" Or finally, does not the im- mediate substitution of the term " amicum,'' in the expostulation with his enemies which follows this passage, seem intended as the delicate corrective of a vulgar taunt? But of the sequel to the passage more hereafter. For the present, such appear to be the questions proper to the case. 2ndly. Is it certain or probable that Horace ever was a Tribunus Militum ? If any doubt has been cast upon the aflirmative of the first proposition, this will be reflected a priori in some degree upon the second. And it is here especially to be noted t\i^t— if the present passage does not establish the fact, it is morally certain that no proof of it whatsoever exists, or ever did exist. This sentence supplies the only evidence adduced by those who supply any ; for quotations of the authority of biographers by biographers must be left out of the question. And li 32 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. FUNCTIONS OF THE MILITARY TRIBUNES. 33 it is an extreme concession to logical technicality to imaf^ine the remote possibility, that Suetonius and others may have rested their assertions on some independent testimony. Nor should we insist upon the circumstance of Suetonius being not only the earliest extant biographer of Horace, but also a writer so ancient as the beginning of the second cen- tury, to the extent of supposing that he probably therefore possessed peculiar sources of correct infor- mation above any that we, at this distance of time, can command. He lived at a period as remote from the age of Horace as the present time is from that of Dean Swift: and we are familiar with the fact that many statements confidently made by well-informed authors respecting that eminent character have been already disputed or disproved. Indeed, even the iden- tity oiihQbirth-placeoiXhe most celebrated of British Generals — the illustrious Duke of Wellington — who happily still lives to receive new and unprecedented honours — might for ever have remained a topic of dispute had not the writer of these pages discovered the fact accidentally, and published the evidence. It would be a strange assumption to suppose any reader, whose feeling of interest has led him thus far in a disputation of this nature, to be ignorant of the vast dignity and responsibility attaching to the office of a Roman Military Tribune. Every scholar knows that the command-in-chief of a Roman legion was shared by six officers so designated ; and that a Roman legion on field service mustered ordina- rily, exclusive of the auxiliary contingent, which was commanded directly by its own Pr^efecti, a force amounting to not less than from 4500 to 5000 men. Their authority is, of course, to be understood as consisting strictly in regimental command ; for a Consul, Prajtor, Legatus, or Prsefectus castrorum, would be senior in general command. But as very general terms of this class have a tendency to be ta- ken in some large indefinite sense, without much regard being paid to the complex instituted relations which their signification may include, and as a corres- ponding vagueness is likely to affect their applica- tion, many persons may have a very imperfect notion of what functions they actually suppose to have de- volved upon Horace when they assert such an im- portant fact in his biography, as that he discharged the above distinguished and onerous trust. If the entire nature of that office was as instanced in Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities, and in Riddle's Etymological Dictionary, the present question would not be worth discussion. The following is their ac- count :— " Their duties consisted in keeping order among the soldiers in the camp, in superintending their military exercises, inspecting outposts and sen- tinels, procuring provisions, settling disputes among soldiers, superintending their health, &c."— This statement would imply that they differed little from commissaries or quarter-masters. The sequel will show that the " &c. " here includes the real sub- stance of the authority belonging to this most m- c iii^i 34 BIOGRAPHICAL ME^IOIR. THE MEMORY OF THE DEAD. 35 fluential department; and that upon tlieseofficers really devolved the responsibility of the entire discipline and efficiency of the army, both in the field and in quarters. The most varied and circumstantial details on this subject will be found in the ''Dies Geniales " of Alex- ander ab Alexandre, a work whose valuable infor- mation would, if equalled by the style, render it justly a standard book. The following is a brief extract from a long chapter — " a quibus" (tribunis, sciz), sive in hostes ducere, sive castra metari, sive in prima acie et fronte locari, aut in suhsidiis poni, vel in stationes et tngilias ire convenirety tesseram milites petehant * * ♦ Milites quoque^ in conflictu prceliorum, singulos et universos liortari et monere tribuni proprium munus erat * * * — veteri institute ad trihunatum admiiti nemo poterat nisi prius alam duxisset : neque alam ducere nisi cohorti prcefuissetJ' — Lib. vi. cap. 18. One further quotation, from the terse compendium of Vegetius, will suffice for the present purpose : — " Tanta autem servahatur exercendi milites cura, ut non solum tribuni vel prcepositi contubernales sibi creditos sub oculis suis juberent quotidie meditari^ sed etiam ipsi armorum arte perjecti cceteros ad imi- tationem proprio cohortarentur exemplo!' — Lib. ii. cap. 12. Having now before us the substantive character and dignity of a Roman Military Tribune, let us next ex- amine the personal pretensions which could have so far recommended Horace to the stern regicide-chief, that he should at one step have been appointed by him to a joint-command of 5000 men. Could the fu- ture bard boast of science as a tactician? — skill as a disciplinarian? — enthusiasm as a volunteer? — hero- ism as a leader? — prowess as a man ? — or influence as a patrician ? In reply to each and all of these qualifying suppositions, truth requires that an em- phatic negative be recorded. The benign virtue of charity, which * covereth the multitude of sins' in our neighbour from the censoriously magnifying gaze of his fellow-mortal, is seldom more gracefully exercised than when a bio- graphical tribute rendered to departed worth so paints the foibles and feilings incidental even to the best combination of attributes which can con- stitute human character, that they may exhibit a tinge borrowed from the brightness of the virtuous aggregate, without imparting to it a like propor- tion of their own sombre hue. Questionable, in- deed, would be the taste which could find any relish in disturbing associations at once so credit- able and so pleasing that it is to be regretted that kindred feelings less frequently modify the strin- gent judgments which we are prone to pass on the living. It is, therefore, not intended here to de- tract from the value of arguments penned by va- rious able hands in vindication of the physical courage of Horace, and in extenuation of his own admissions on this delicate subject ; particularly in the instance familiar to every reader, where he admits that at the battle of Philippi he had acted c2 *v 36 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIH. " not well " (to use his own words) in " abandoning the shield" and betaking himself to "precipitate flight " We can permit Lessing to maintain his high position among those who hold that the poet here merely borrows a phrase from very similar incidents in the lives of his favourite Greek prototypes (as recorded of Alcaeus by Herodotus, and of Archilo- chus by himself); a probable hypothesis, but one which is liable to the danger of proving too much; for if the poet copied these humbler associations of thought, it may be held by many that a fair pro- portion of his more spirited passages is due to similar sources. Alc^us was certainly a valorous penman. But " thoughts that breathe and words that burn" evaporate occasionally in deeds that brand: and that might brand in war which would even grace in peace. The benefit of Wieland's high-wrought suppo- sition should not here be withheld.— " Horace," observes his enthusiastic advocate, '* could not have called up the remembrance of the hero (Brutus), by whom he was beloved, without reproaching himself for having yielded to the instinct of personal safety instead of dying with him ; and, according to my feeling, the non bene is a sigh of regret, which he ofiers to the memory of that great man, and an ex- pression of that shame, of which a noble spirit alone is capable,"— though it may possibly be said that such voucher of " a noble spirit " can be safely followed but a very little way in its conceivable results. We VIEWS OF LESSING AND WIELAND. 37 shall even invent a supposition in order to cover the formidable term paventem which Milman ob- jects to Wieland's theory, as being an undoubted con- fession of the poef s quaking fears, in the very next stanza ; and shall imagine the expression to be merely employed in highly poetic treatment of the feelings natural to a first aerial voyage, though un- dertaken even with the pilotage of 'Mercury,' as he elsewhere applies the same epithet to the young eagle in its earlier flights — " Insolitos docuere nisus venti paventemJ' — Carm. iv. 4, 8-9. The most ela- borate defence, however, can amount merely to this: that Horace did not yield to any extraordinary in- dividual panic : that he fled in company. But, waving arguments which rest on results and the contingencies of battle, reflection employed about the 7'eal original facts of the case seems sufficient beforehand to incumber the supposition of Horace's appointment to such high military command with considerably greater difficulties than could possibly attach to an ironical interpretation of the given pas- sage; in fact, to represent such an arrangement on the part of Brutus as perhaps the most strange and, un- der the circumstances, the most unlikely act which has ever been received as true by general consent respecting any man of like character. Milman, in- deed, in the following passage, seems strongly im- pressed with the force of the anomaly, which yet assumes a gloss as smooth as though caught from the association of pictorial embellishment. — "Horace 38 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. BATTLE-ARRAY AT PHILIPPI. 39 was at once advanced to the rank of military tribune and the command of a legion. Excepting at such critical periods," proceeds the learned apologist of a rather intractable datum, " when the ordinary course of military promotion was superseded by the exi- gencies of the times, when it was no doubt difficult for Brutus to find Roman officers for his newly- raised troops, the son of a freedman, of no very robust frame, and altogether inexperienced in war, would not have acquired that rank."— It might really be supposed from this that Brutus, while at Athens, was engaged in organizing some rabble rout to which the accession of an educated Roman youth was of such vast importance that the high- est battalion-command would be the immediate re- ward, however ridiculously palpable might be the party's incapacity ; that " his newly-raised troops" were undisciplined, raw levies, and not, as they were for the most part, the tried and hardy veterans who had fought and bled under the banners of Julius Caesar, as also of Pompey, in Gaul, in Asia, in Egypt, and at Pharsalia; and tliat the result of the battle of Philippi was a natural consequence of originally feeble and disorderly tactics, instead of being, as Niebuhr demonstrates, the fruit of pure accident partly unforeseen, partly unimproved. But let us rear facts, instead of nursing fancies. The great Historian of Bonn thus testifies of the army and its character, the battle and its antece- dent prospects : '' Nearly all the Bomans of rank and wealth were in the armies of Brutus and Cassius; for the most distinguished persons had been pro- scribed, and the greater number of these had taken refuge with Brutus and Cassius Brutus, who faced the army of Octavian, gained a victory without any difficulty Had Brutus known that his fleet had gained a complete victory on the same day on which the first battle of Philii^pi was fought, ... by making the fleet land in the re re of the hostile armies, he loould have compelled them to retreat!' — Lect. ll Indeed a finer army of 100,000 men was rarely marshalled under the Roman eagles than Brutus led almost to victory at Philippi. Nor does it appear from the statements of the Greek historians who have specifically exhibited the various phases of the civil war then raging, that Brutus, from the first moment when he openly unfurled the republican banner, laboured under any deficiency of officers, men, money, munitions, or sanction of authority from home. The learned reader shall not require to be reminded here that Roman history, properly so called, closed with the last page indited by the immortal Livy; and that the latest of his extant books reaches no farther than to about 127 years before the period to which we now refer. For further authentic information we have fortu- nately access to the works of Greek writers who adopted Roman subjects, particularly Plutarch, Appian, and Dion Cassius, who supply the inter- val, both in time and scope, between the volumi- 40 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. Horace's actual connexion with brutus? 41 nous researches of Livy and the cursory compila- tions of Florus, Orosius, Eutropius, &c. Greek ex- tracts, therefore, are not only not far-fetched, but, to a certain extent, are here unavoidable. The follow- ing is Appian's train of thought upon the might and majesty of the array at Philippi. — " OZrw ^ev 8r/ Kal- aapt re /cat Aptcdvlo)^ ha roX/irj^ t7riG(t)aXov9 kol hvoiu 'jre^ofiaxtaiv TrjKiKOvrov epyou yi/varOj oiou ov\ erepou eyevero irpo tKetuov^ ovre yap (nparo^ toctouto? y roiov- T09 t? X^^P^^ TTporepop y\Oe Fw/mai'wv kfcaTepwOeu' ov^ \mo avvra^ei ttoXitikij arparevaanevwv aXKa apiffTtp^e iTTiXeXey/jLevwp' ovh^ d7reip07ro\e/j,wv cri, dW' Ik ttoWov yeyvfxvaafjiivwv' Kal (oi/Te9) aaKtjaew^ /cat Kaprepias^ o/xot- a? IvaKaraywviaroi Trap avro yaav oKKifKoi^' ovre 6p/ifj Kal ToX/jLTf Toafjhi rive^ e^^j/aai/ro lu 7ro\e/j,(v" — De Bell. Civ. IV. 137. Indeed the supplies which poured in to Brutus and Cassius in consequence of a formal decree of the Roman Senate, passed in the very year in which Horace is chronicled as having joined the former, would far exceed the limit of quotation. Suffice it to quote from Appian the substance of this remarkable decree-of-Senate. — '' Kal y ^ovXy eyjrrf- (f)i^€TO MaA-ecoi/iu? Kal T//9 IWupt^o^ avr?]^, Kal twv Iv afi(f>oT€poi^ VTToXoiTTwu GTpaTwv '^IcLpKOv BpovToi/ apyeiv, tieyjpi KaTatnahj ra koivol . . . Torn re uXXov? oaoi rivef iBvov^ y (TTparov FwjuLaiwv ap^ovai airo rij^ lopiov OaXda- iuit libris et c«rtV-the ' statua taciturmus e^U'-oi which do they savour more-the society ot the lively class, or the solitude of the lonely closet? Do not even the active forms of speech, dignoscere and qu"W-'^ "Elements Sax ' sXel '■ '■ ''°'"''"' "" "^P^*"''"^ °^''»^-'"- " Quidquid agunt homines . . nostri est/arra^o libelU" At all events, the transference of the notion from variously assorted parcels of fruits to such desultory combinations as the earbest satirical poems presented, would appear to have been ori- ginally suggested rather by a correspondence in variety ofe^e,-nal II IS by studied diversity of verbal composUion, or, in other words hymuced ,netre,-tU., as is usually supposed, by he multuude of subjects intrinsically included. But, of course! he extension or continuation of the name to compositions of a uniform metrical aspect would imply, even afortiore, that much of heterogeneous matter lies beneath the surface. OBDEB OF PUBLICATION HOW FAR IMPOETANT. 89 The Works of Horace, (however uncertain the existing plans, or hopeless the future prospect, of assigning specific dates to their composition), are now generally allowed to have been given to (as it proved in event) the world originally in the follow- ing series: The Two Books of Satires. The Epodes. The First Three Books of Odes. The First Book of Epistles. The Secular Hymn. The Fourth Book of Odes. The Second Book of Epistles. Thus far the labour of investigation is rewarded by its profit. But whether we now have the con- tents of the separate books themselves arranged in the order in which they were written, and whether any (and if any, what) portions were probably known in Roman literary circles previous to formal publica- tion, are questions more curious than useful. Sufiice it to say, that if, with Bentley, we suppose the seve- ral species of versification to have engaged the author's attention as separately in time as the books vf eve pub- lished, we attribute to Horace an amount of system in composition which is incompatible with the natural characteristics, not alone of him, but of most genuine poets. Our postulate is independent of all contro- versy; and permits the admirer of the sparkling ec- centricities of Sanadon's Nouvelle Distribution, or even of the refined complication of arbitrary suppo- 90 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. sition Which Dr. Kirchner's Tahdn Chronohgica dis- plays to enjoy his taste as securely as the unimagina- tive follower of Zurck or Baxter. Let it be merely granted that each Satire is in itself a complete whole, beginning, continuing, and ending as we now have it and o^ task proceeds at once, with an attempt at Uamjication of these apparently desultory, if not erratic productions. The Satires of Horace, though heretofore un- classed, seem capable of being conveniently ranked according to their form, under the following desijr- nations: ■ ° ° The Discursive {belonging to both Books). The Narrative {peculiar to the First). The Dramatic {peculiar to the Second) The Discursive, which constitute the most nume- rous class, may be described as Satires in which the author chieflyaddresses observations, reflections and reasonings directly in any way. Of these there are two species, which may be called respectively Gene,'al and Personal. The former is limited to the First Three Satires of the First Book, and the Economic Percepts borrowed from Ofellus in the Second. The atter includes the Satires conversant especially about the authors personal circumstances,_namely, the Fourth of the First, and the Sixth of each Book- and the Lucilian Critique which closes the First Book and relates chiefly to the comparative merits ol individual authors. The Narrative are, of course, those wherein pas- CLASSIFICATION OF THE SATIRES. 91 sages of incident either past, or supposed to be so, are related throughout. These are, the Journey to Brundusium; The Rencontre of Rupilius and Persius; The Adventure with an Intruder; and what Swift would have called The Tale of a Scare-crow. The Dramatic lay a scene of action, by introducing parties by name to the reader, who are supposed to discourse, describe, or act, in character. With these the Second Book is chiefly occupied. Their subjects are, The Discussion with Trebatius; The Paradox- ical Illustrations of Damasippus; The Gourmanderie of Catius; The Ironical Revelations of Tiresias; The Sarcastic Brusqueries of Davus; and The Convivial Jocularities of Fundanius. The following scale will exhibit compendiously the heads to which we propose to reduce the VARIOUS FORMS OF THE HORATIAN SATIRE. I Discursive. Nakrative. Dramatic. General. * Personal. ■^ r 1. 2. 3. » . » u 2. -V- 4. 6. 10. _) 1 ^ ) 5. 7. 8. 9. 1. 3. 4. 5. 7. 8. V , i > V ' 1st Book. 2nd Book. 1st Book. 2nd Book. 1st Book. 2nd Book. A slight admixture of some of these classes with Others is occasionally found. But the boundaries of the preceding division are plainly discernible. Let us next examine whether a principle of classi- fication may not be applied with advantage to a cer- tain set of particular passages also, commencing with the opening of the First Satire. 92 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. That the very first paragraph of a composition which .8 received as the earliest known effort of the muse of Horace should, after so many centuries of comment, afford any good ground for new remark IS a statement which appears to pre-suppose some' credulity on the part of the reader. It is perhaps fortunate, therefore, that in onv first attempt to dis- cover such in it we are enabled partially to mitigate prejudication- by distributing our responsibility over two other passages taken in connexion with this. Let us then imagine the three passages included respectively within the following limits, to be now berore us: Qui FIT, M^CENAS, UT NEMO, QUAM SIBI SORTEM Pr^TEREA NE SIC UT QUI JOCULARIA R^DENS, ETC. Ser. J. I. U23. AmBUBAIARUM COLLEGIA, PHARMACOPOL^, SlQUIS NUNC QU^RAT-QUO RES HiEC PERTINEt'? ILLUC, ETC. Ser. I. II. 1-23. Omnibus hoc vitium est cantoribus, inter amicos • . . . Nunc ALiQuisDicAT MiHi— Quid Tu? etc. Ser. I. III. l_i9. The v^CMlmv parallelism of these (understood) ex- tracts has strangely escaped notice, although even an inspection of the verbal outlines drawn above mic^ht suggest it. The difficulty of establishing a con'se- cutive connexion of parts in the First Satire has been felt; but we find no attempt made to ascertain PARALLELISM OF PRELUDES. 93 by comparison whether any of the other Satires may resemble the First in structure sufficiently to furnish us with such rules of the author's practice as may assist in solving or diminishing the objection. And 3^et it is matter of common experience that things will seem easy and symmetrical when considered as parts of a scheme or system, which, in an isolated view, appear irregular or unintelligible. It has been just now laid down, that the First Three Satires belong to one and the same subdivi- sion of a separate class. This reduction may here be more strictly narrowed by observing that, as formal compositions of Horace, they properly constitute that subdivision : for of the only other production of his pen immediately associated with them in our classi- fication it is stated by himself, " nee mens hie sermo^ sed quce prceeepit — rusticus^ ahnormis sapiens ;" and we shall hereafter have occasion to inquire how far this borrowed character has been understood in a sense sufficiently literal. To these three Satires the three given extracts seem intended to stand in the relation of Preludes ; by which term is here meant — a light and easy introduction to a grave subject, less formal than a preface, and less serious than the con- text. And besides this general similarity, their paral- lelism is distinctly traceable through the following guiding points. 1st. They are nearly equal in length. 2nd. They are equally sepai^able from the sequel; for, although some commentators have assumed a desig- nation for the whole subject of the First Satire from 94 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. the opening verses, namely, ' On the Discontent of Men; yet by most the main argument is admitted to be different ; while the prelude to the Second is so independent that, the sequel being omitted, this ex- ordium, with the moral added, forms in itself a suffi- ciently complete whole; and that of the Third relates to matters which but partially concern the general disquisition which follows. 3rd. They are equally connected with the subsequent arguments ; which will more immediately appear from a review of the gene- ral plan of the whole compositions. Their subject matter may be assumed to be fairly given in the headings adopted in the Gesner-Zeu- nian Edition; thus, the First is ' in Avaros,' the Se- cond ' in 3Iwchos; the Third ^ in Obtrectatores, et supercilmm Stoicum: Now, each of these topics is alike introduced by a lively exhibition of some cog- nate folly or vice. For instance, placing in the fore- ground of the First Satire such a picture of Discon- tent, the author thence argues against Amrice. He does not maintain, as might at first appear, that mul- titudes who complain of their condition would not gladly accept the position of others— [query, are there not few who would not individually change with some one ?]— but the argument appear to be this : — * The true ground of the discontent of men who toil in the gainful or active pursuits of life is not to be sought, as they allege, m ^ reciprocal Y>xed\\Qciion for the pursuits of each other; (for as they would be found to rest as little satisfied in an exchange of lots STRUCTURE OF THE FIRST SATIRE. 95 were such a general experiment possible, the whole amount of discontent remains constant) : but it really consists in the feverish restlessness with which they all alike pursue a common object^ or, in the insatiable nature of grasping selfishness; though they excuse their felt dissatisfaction under pretence of compara- tive hardships appertaining to their own pursuits ; and their motives of eagerness in all pursuits by the plea, senes ut in otia tuta recedant! The vices and absurdities of the avaricious, (and particularly of the worst species, the miser), thus become the burden of the piece : and when the mere folly of discontent is naturally lost sight of in these, the author takes occasion to remind his readers, toward the close, that this minor trait, from the illustration of which he had diverged, is to be understood throughout as pervading the miser's character in its most aggravated forms, even so as to harass him, in addition to his peculiar solitary miseries, by an interminable contest with others* That this Satire, which the eminent modern * In connexion with the Prelude to the First Satire, we may bestow a passing glance upon the strange argument of Orellius, in reference to two remarkable counterparts of it which are found in the works of Maximus Tyrius (Diss. 5, referred to by Orellius as 2 1 ), and Himerius (Eel. 20). The points of coincidence are so strongly stamped in the former, (marking out the same characters, the same dissatisfaction, and withal, the same ultimate refusal to change), that any one might naturally conclude, unless positive cause were shown to the contrary, that the sentiments of the Latin moralist must have been borrowed by the Greek. Not so Orellius. His reasoning runs thus : " Non credibile est ab his 96 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. commentator Orellius and others have considered so fragmentary as to require the apology of being per- haps one of the author's earliest efforts in imitating the Lucilian medley, is thus easily reducible to a Sophistis unquam lectas esse Horatii Satiras; sed vel casu in eundem locum inciderunt, vel antiquius aliquod exemplar Gra- cum ante oculos habuerunt." That is, the incredibility of either Sophist having seen the works of Horace being assumed, we are left the choice indicated by the dilemma,-' either both indepen- dently chanced to fall in with nearly the same peculiar association of thought (for this must be the meaning o( eunderii locum) with Horace, or both chanced to copy the same part of some Greek mo- del which \tse\Uhanced to coincide with the Horatian argument ' A rare chapter of accidents: in which the question whether one of the Greek authors might not have borrowed from the other is put out of view. Now, Maximus Tyrius flourished about 200 years before Himerius; and, granting the latter never to have seen the Western World, it is equally asserted and doubted that the former (about A. D. 146) visited Rome. It is certain the second Antonine was a hearer of his lectures, but whether at Rome or Athens is as uncertain as it is immaterial. In either case the works of Horace would probably have become known to him, even from converse with a Latin scholar so accomplished as that Emperor. This supposition is strengthened by a similarity, apparently much greater than identity of subject would be likely to cause, in other parts of the works of Maximus, not only to particular trains of Horace's reasoning, but also to the Satires of Juvenal and Persius: (see particularly Diss. 4 and 19). On the whole, the reader is strongly recommended to receive, as an elegant Greek paraphrase of the opening lines of Horace's First Satir^ the extract which Orellius quotes, but rejects as such. Indeed, in general, how far the later Greek Moralists may have been indebted to the Roman Satirists, would be an interesting Classical inquiry. !\ STRUCTUllE OF SECOND AND THIRD SATIRES. 97 consistent whole, will further appear from its simi- larity in form to the next two. The Second Satire likewise opens with a light, graphic picture, viz., of The Extravagance of Extremes: and then proceeds to satirize a grave social vice, whose alUance with the subject of the Prelude, though less prominent than the more repulsive traits, is yet preserved throughout in nearly the same proportion as the discontent of the miser is a subordinate but still a sustained characteristic in the First. To dwell upon this Satire is unnecessary. The tissue of frivolities whose review forms the substance of the Prelude to the Third Satire, would, at first sight, seem incapable of in any way furnishing even a flimsy scaffolding (so to speak) for the solid construction of practical philosophy whose symmetry claims a universally accorded admiration for the body of this Satire. Whether the bearings of the Prelude itself have been duly estimated, and its general in- tent adequately understood, shall be considered in its examination as a separate passage. Suffice it here to say, that from a playful mood of banter the argu- ment proceeds, by an easy gradation, to combat deter- minedly the fairness of the common judgments past by men upon each other, and hence to refute the stern uncharitableness of certain dogmas of the Stoical phi- losophy; thus completing the analogy which we seek to establish in the forms presented by that class of compositions that are found in immediate succession (but although this strengthens our case, it is not G 98 THE WORKS OF HOEACE EXAMINED. I :: necessary to it) at the opening of this celebrated de- partment of ancient Roman literature _ A further instance of similarity in these Preludes :s reserved for notice, until the full analysis of the No" : h '^ '"' '''f ^°™^ "-^^^ --^^-tion Nor are other cases of marked parallelism in the works of Horace wanting, which have not heretofore been observed upon: but their citation would be un productn-e of any new result. The exhibitfon of parallel passages often proves no more than that an like hLsTlf TT ^-"™«'--. is reasona^; Ike h mself, and that the harmonist has employed some dd.gence. But as far as combination of pTts and of ?r 1 'r'' "^^ ''''-' °"^ -^'-^^ of tC and of the whole, or as far as apparent incongruities ma gn.en context may be correctly shown to be subordma;. parts of a plan, and therefore llss hki o be really abnormal, so far the utility of a true classxficatxon ,vould be fairly described by apply n! the words of the bard of Mantua (parce Lm):' Non ammum modo uti pascat prospectus inanem Sod qu.a non aliter vires dabit omnibus .quT' We shall now advance to what is properlv the rsTdethT'^^'^^'^^ -'"^^' ^^ views of detached portions of the Horation text taken m the generally admitted order of publicaS' DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE SATIRES. 99 Qui fit, Maecenas, ut nemo, quam sibi sortem Seu ratio dederit seu fors objecerit, illa CONTENTUS VIVAT ; LAUDET DIVERSA SEQUENTES ? Ser. I. I. 1-3. This passage, however trite and elementary, in- cludes two peculiarities for which the best syntac- tical authorities have not made adequate provision. The general result in such cases is, that forms of ex- pression, which might have been fairly included under original definitions, are made to stand out as anoma- hes : and thus exceptions to a rule sometimes even seem to dispute the right of ascendancy with its ex- amples ; and to affect the authority of the principle of the rule itself In the present instance, a slight extension of the compass usually assigned to tw^o Fi- gures of Speech seems much required. For instance, were some such general description of the figure Attraction adopted, as the following,—* Attraction is a principle of sympathy between a relative and its antecedent, which assimilates their case-forms; pre- dominating in proportion to the flexibility of the lan- guage, (being, for instance, more frequently met in the Greek than in the Latin language), and operating usually by accommodating the dependent term to the principal, but occasionally vice versa.' — Such expres- sions as contentus ilia quam sortem above, the urhem quam statuo vestra est of Virgil, licet esse beatis^ &c., &c., would, instead of being treated as a sort of m- pitis minor class, hold the rank simply of less ordinary g2 HI 100 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. examples of a principle whose operation is yet uni- form. The preceding definition is limited to suit re- ceived opinions ; but the question might not prove unworthy the attention of scholars— whether the effect o^ Attraction in forms of speech is not fairly comparable in principle and extent with that of ^5- sociation in modes of thinking; and whether to its influence, which is a power of Nature herself, a con- siderabl}' greater amount of the symmetry of language be not probably due than has been adequately assigned to It. If so, its efficacy in reducing apparent incon- gruities to order and harmony has been as unaccount- ably as it has been generally overlooked. However, to dilate on this subject here would be inappropriate. We shall merely add, that if any be disposed to think the term * sijmpathy an affected expression, it may be urged in extenuation that the brilliant phrase " Pa- thology of the Latin Language/' which dazzles our vision towards the close of a dark and weary journey through the defiles of Donaldson's Yarronianus, has attracted this adventurous term, by an irresistible force of fascination. The second peculiarity, namely, the action laudet being left to derive a positive agent from the nega- tive nominative of its neighbour, might, perhaps, be held to be referable to the same principle of attrac- tion, were it seemly to attempt the development of any new general influences in a work so confined as the present. We shall, therefore, merely deal with it as a case which might be easily rescued from the DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE SATIRES. 101 chaos of anomaly by a more comprehensive inclu- siveness in the definition of the figure Zeugma. And first, let us examine the accounts furnished by Zumpt and Scheller, which differ very much. That of the former is—' Zeugma is that form of ex- pression in which a verb which grammatically belongs to two or more nouns is, as to its meaning, applicable only to one.' Scheller says,—" Sometimes writers unite two substantives to one verb, or one verb to two infinitives, when properly it only applies to one." But the converse, which is the case now before us, is not at all provided for by these. From Sanctius's remark, indeed, upon Quinctilian's definition of this figure, called by him Synezeugmenon, and supposed to occur—" quoties vox posita in una oratione in cete- ris desideratur''—we might be led to suppose that the case was fully met. But from the general treatment of the subject by both, it is plain that by vox they meant constantly a verb or adjective: and to this Peri- zonius's comment subscribes. But without at all entering into the cumbrous subdivisions of Prolepsis, prozeugma, mesozeugma, hypozeugma, &c., might not the figure be briefly defined or described thus ?— ' Zeugma is a figure which assists the compendium of speech by expressing only one verb, noun, or adjec- tive, as connected with two or more clauses of a sen- tence, where the sense requires, and will easily sup- ply, a separate term of the given class to each.' The temptation is strong to add—' and is itself to be^ re- ferred to the more universal principle of 4 «racfi(?n.' lb 102 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. Finally, upon the second of the three given verses it may be observed that Horace does not necessarily intimate that either of the accounts given of the phe- nomenon is correct. But by seu-seu he rather im- plies that this point is immaterial : as if he had said, —' settle that question as you will/ The existence' of a sors humana being given, the theory of its source IS wholly irrelevant to the issue:— and these two are not the only accounts that have been given of it. HortE MOMENTO CITA MORS VENIT AUT VICTORIA L^TA. Ser. 1. 1. 7-8. The force of this statement lies in the word aut The seafaring trader's complaint is really this : that the triumphant issue of a battle may secure the sol- dier's fortunes, while the successful weatherincr of a storm (in which cita mors may be equally imminent) does but spare him (the trader) to toil anew. The interpretations given of the phrase horw mo- mento fluctuate variously between-m a moment of an hour, m a moment of time, in a brief space of time, and, in the brief space of an hour : but no case is cited which might not itself raise a question as to the ex- actness of the notion intended. This absence of un- doubted authority particularly affects the use of ^^m as a representative of time in general; the scanty (supposed) instances adduced by Riddle and others DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE SATIRES. 103 being evidently disputable. The first of the ver- sions given is a weak and frivolous expression: but, without any objection being raised against the last, may not momento here be advantageously taken in its original acceptation; and the phrase rendered— ' by the preponderating influence of a single hour (thrown into either scale) comes,' &c.? The fate oicita mors being alike contingent to each, the difference between the parties hinges chiefly on the difference of the issue consequent on escape from it : and even the impatient murmur of the mariner could hardly (in the diction of Horace) exaggerate any rapidity of victory into the result of a moment, (the phrase ' moment of victory being employed in a quite different sense): but an hour is a natural and unstrained measure of the decisive approaches ofttimes of ' Death or Glory.' VOTIS UT pr^beat aurem. Ser. I. I. 22. Votis is here constantly rendered prayers. An unu- sual meaning in Latin authors, and probably con- fined to Ovid. The interposition of the Deus, besides, was unasked : he is supposed to volunteer * En ! Ugo faciam quod vultisJ Hence, Votis should be simply translated earnest wishes, hearts-desires, as in Juvenal " usque ad delicias votorum." Sat. x. 291. 1^ 104 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. Perfidus hic caupo * • • • Ser. 1. 1. 29. The supposition of caupo representing the juris legumque peritus, under any figurative guise, is ad- verse not less to good taste than to sound Latinity However the reading is of undeniable authority' and yet an apparent interruption of continuity cer- tainly arises from the appearance of this new cha- racter. Might the restrictive term hic assist us? Might It mean the now present character : that is whose vices are henceforth to be the theme of thJ piece? Iri shon/is the caupo the Avarus f The soldier and sailor are remote characters. The /mV pentus and agri^ola, however appositely instanced as partakers of the discontent of men in active life are too generally popular to prove forcible examples' of a mean vice. But the caupo (a class which Ho- race seems to have peculiarly disliked) would pro- bably furnish as frequent and as strong an instance 01 a sordid monopolist as could be brought to illus- trate that genus. At the same time, if his trade were very prominently alluded to throughout, it might be forgotten that a general vice, and not the tendency of a particular 'calling, is the subject of exposure We have not ground for establishing such a theory to the exclusion of any other; but bearing in mind that caupo is not a vintner exclu- sively, but a retailer of victuals generally, let us here bring together some of the passages from the main detached passages of the satires. 105 argument itself, as showing the general tenor of its associations : Cum sibi sint congesta dharia — ver. 32. Non tuus hoc capiet venter plus quam meus— 46. Reticulum panis venales inter — 47. Cur tua plus laudes cumeris granaria nostris — 53. Panis ematur, olus^ vini sextarius — 74. Non . . . vappam jubeo ac nebulonem — 104. Quodque aliena capella gerat distentius uber — 110. uti conviva satur — 119. All these expressions, (particularly that in verse 74, if it be taken as part of the expostulation of the Ava- rus arguing from the uses of money in favour of its abuses), would well agree with our supposition of his avocation. However, ' hoc utcunque animadversum aut existimatum erit, baud in magno equidem ponen- dum discrimine.' quid referat intra Naturje fines viventi, jugera centum an MiLLEARTE? SeR. I. I. 49-51. The first introduction of the important term Jim's into the argument, upon which so much will be found to hinge hereafter, appears to be elegantly borrowed from the agricultural associations of the immediate context. As if it were said — ' He who lives as Na- ture's tenant within her boundaries, needs not to la- 106 TUB WOKKS OF HOEACE EXAMINED. hour beyond them.' And he evidently meant further to convey that those lines could be as little produced to enclose the jugera centum as the jugera mUle. The general doctrine here inculcated is felicitously expressed by our own poet, Goldsmith— " Man wants but little here below, nor wants that little long." H At bona pars hominum, decepta cupidine falso ' Nil satis est,' inquit, < quia tanti quantum habeas sis.' Seb. 1. 1. 61-2. This argument of the bom pars, with its suppressed t !Tf ?' ^^^^""'^ 'P^*"^""* ^°°"Sh in the dress of Ji-AE oi the first figure, thus: No gradation of favourable estimate of us in respectable society IS at any time such that we should not strive to increase it ; The amount of our property is a gradation of favourable estimate of us in respectable society ; Therefore the amount of our property^is never such that we should not strive to increase it. However, without barring either premiss by a ne- ffatur the reader will feel no difficulty in refuting the syllogism by applying to it logically the test which Horace himself supplies above. DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE SATIRES. 107 At si cognatos nullo natura labore quos tibi dat retinere velis servareque amicos, Infelix operam perdas, ut si quis asellum In CAMPO DOCEAT PARENTEM CURRERE FR.aiNIS. Ser. I. I. 88-91. Upon this passage, which exhibits a great variety of form in different editions, and has called forth several interpretations, which have each and all con- siderable claims to adoption, it is merely intended here to offer a new conjecture, without prejudice to any received opinion. Query, then, may not retinere and servare be really designed to imply coercion or restraint^ rather than, as all commentators suppose, ^^reservation ? The former certainly yields the derivative retinaculum in this sense; and the latter seems to be borrowed from the habits of the Avarus. Query, also, has the ma- nifest contrast intended between nullo labore dat in the protasis, and infelix operam perdas in the apodosis been turned to adequate account ? Now, be it ob- served, that the above extract is immediately pre- ceded by the statement, Miraris, cum tu argento post omnia ponas. Si nemo praistet quem non merearis amorem : and the following paraphrase may, perhaps, advan- tageously present itself,—' As nature bestows upon you kindred nidlo labore \tuo'], so the best offices of life must be spontaneous— \^' Kmioi quos neque armis ifi' $ 108 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINEB. cogere,neque auro parare potes; officio et fide pariun- tur." Sall.] :— if, therefore.you toil and spare, partly, as you say, ut habeasqui assideat and soforth,and thus labour to hold your friends by restraints of expec- tancy {retinere), and to keep them in reserve for mere selfish purposes, as you keep your gold {servareY the result of your laboured efforts is likely to prove as clumsy and futile, as though you should attempt to accustom to easy fleetness in harness an animal whose nature is peculiarly fitted to resist artificial training.' The advantage of this interpretation would consist in connecting the comparison by a more easy and natural association with the context, than regarding it as an arbitrary sign of mere abstract impossibility can do In the latter view, it seems far-fetched and inapposite- in the former, that is where a parallel train of ideas presents itself, our poet's simile will bear comparison with a cognate one which Homer introduces as forci- bly as unexpectedly 'Oe S' «r Svoc Trap- 5po«pav \i,v i^tii^aro na7Sac * • • • . "Qg TOT iTTHT AtavTa. K. r. A. Denique sit finis qu^rendi; '^''''^^=1 habeas PTTt. QUOQUE J ^^^^AS PLUS, Pauperiem metuas minus; et finire laborem Incipias, parto quod avebas p„„ , Ser. 1. 1. 92-4. Commentators leave it optional with readers to render the first clause here as intending either a DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE SATIRES. 109 present or a prospective ' end,' forgetting that the ad- monition, in the former sense, could not, in the na- ture of things, apply to one case out of a thousand in which the remaining clauses of the advice convey a beneficial lesson; though the whole is plainly in- tended to be equally general. In such a sense it must presuppose a similarity of circumstances in each individual addressed to those of the Avarus, (and who will suppose this in his own instance ?). In the other acceptation, it is irrespec- tive of all particular limitations, and seems merely intended to be a wholesome corrective of the previ- ous fallacy — ' Nil satis est.' But the real difficulty in the last qX^m^q— incipias finire, parto &c., has been left wholly untouched. If finire mean to end, how can a man begin (as if by a process) to end anything ? To say that the notion of etiding may naturally include the drawing toward a close is irrelevant. The Latin verb finire, when it signifies to end, means so absolutely. Again, \i finire be taken to signify to limit or circumscribe.why should one then only begin to abridge labour, when the whole object of labour shall have been gained ? A defined limit being given by the first clause, one would sup- pose that the struggle of the race should be abso- lutely commensurate with the reaching of this goal. We may safely approach a solution by rejecting the former acceptation assigned to finire altogether. To connect it with incipias in such a sense would be to adopt a phrase without meaning or parallel; for 110 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. the English oxymoron—^ the beginning of the end'— could scarcely be quoted in point. The several meanings of the verb jinio will be found to proceed from the radical notion in the fol- lowing order:— 1st. To marl out by a boundary, sim- ply. 2nd. To restrain within boundary something which has a tendency to exceed. 3rd. To limit, de- fine, or fix stationarily to small compass, or to a point 4th. To end, absolutely. Of all these the second will naturally suggest it- self as the most applicable to the practicalTearincr of the subject. The active habits are not trained to maturity to be suddenly suspended for ever in a mo- ment : the constitution of nature is opposed to this. Now, by merely erasing the comma-mark before parto, and thereby converting that word into the causal case, instead of the case absolute, the sense would run thus:-* Begin to bound and restrict your toil by (or, in proportion to) that being realized (no doubt, gradually), which you originally fixed as the amount of your desires.' Of course it would be only when danger of miscarriage in the final issue was past, and when a fair approximation was being made to the sum total, that such influence of the partum should sensibly operate. But these conditions being supposed, what can be more according to right reason than that a man should begin, with the first substantial earnest of his reward being secured, proportionately to narrow and restrict the labour of acquisition, as the mariner begins to shorten sail when within the compass of the wished-for haven? DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE SATIRES. Ill In this view the mode of expression may be com- pared with a phrase in Carm. I. xi. 6-7, — ' . . Spatio brevi spem longam reseces . .;' and even the materials of a sound aphorism may perhaps be fairly gathered in the preceding sense, — ' parto laborem finias.' Pergis pugnantia secum Frontibus adversis componere : non ego, avarum Cum veto te fieri, vappam jubeo ac nebulonem. Est inter Tanaim quiddam socerumque Viselli. Est modus in rebus ; sunt certi denique fines, Quos ULTRA citraque nequit consistere rectum. Ser. I. I. 102-7. The paraphrase of the first clause given by Orel- Yiv^^—^^ Non desinis contraria ita componere ut e regi- one sibi opposita sint!' [how otherwise could contraria be placed?], and the meaning assigned to the fourth Yerse—'' Multum inter se differebant isti duo homines,'' fully exemplify the views adopted by even the best commentators. But whether they have not diverged as far from the true mean as the interrogator in the context, who could see nothing in the case but ex- tremes, is a point awaiting the reader's decision. The minor questions, viz., the immediate connex- ion of/ron/i6w5 adversis, and the conjectured character of the difference between the two obscure nonde- scripts named in the text, about which they have all principally concerned themselves, arc utterly imma- 112 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. terial to the main argument, whose bearing they have over ooked. The author's object is simpl/and plainly to estabhsh the b^fide positive existence of a .2 between given extremes, which (to borrow a portion h nder^r "^'r "^ S^''-^''^) "-0"^ eternally hinder he approach of two" such being made, to I own e.dusu.n. Thus the expression J ,Mm Z ter^s not a mode.of conveying by ^oJthe notion rn^iturn drffemni, but is tke assertiLf this true mtn (the doubtfulness of an iUustration in no wise con' Itself Its suitability merely affects clearness): and accordingly the pretensions of the following simple paraphrase to supersede altogether, in this Instance, the received notions, is submitted with some confi- ifnothingintervened),thingswhoseincreasingproxi. mity infers an increasing [metaphorically expressed] repulsion /do not (e^o, emphatic) so advise: there m rebus. This is the same principle which he else- where enunciates thus: "Virtus est medium vitiorum et utnnque reductum.'^^Pis. I. xvm 9 In the last clause the copulative gue connects, not in the elliptical form, namely-,.,, ultrane.uit fnd guos crtra neqmt, &c, and may perhaps be rendered fixed hmits; beyond as also on the nearer side (thit DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE SATIRES. 113 is, relatively to your character) of which propriety can find no abiding place.' The locus of all mode- ration is neither ultra nor citra, but intra, fines. Com- pare ' quid referat intra naturae fines viventi, &c.' Supr. Omnibus hoc vitium est cantoribus, inter amicos Ut nunquam inducant animum cantare rogati, Injussi nunquam desistant. Sardus habebat Ille Tigellius hoc. C^sab, qui cogere posset, Si peteret per amicitiam patris atque suam, non QUIDQUAM PROFICERET : SI COLLIBUISSET, AB OVO Usque ad mala iteraret* Io Bacche, modo summa Voce, modo hac resonat qu^ chordis quatuor ima. Nil jequale homini fuit illi : sjepe velut qui Currebat fugiens hostem; pers^pe velut qui JUNONIS SACRA FERRET : ALEBAT* S^PE DUCENTOS, S^PE DECEM SERVOS : MODO REGES ATQUE TETRARCHAS, Omnia magna loquens; modo sit mihi mensa tripes, et Concha salis puri, et toga qu^ defendere frigus quamvis crassa queat. Decies centena dedisses HUIC PARCO, PAUCIS CONTENTO, QUINQUE DIEBUS Nil erat in loculis: noctes vigilabat ad ipsum Mane : diem totum stertebat. Nil fuit unquam ♦ Sic impar sibi. „ Nunc aliquis dicat mihi, * quid tu .'' Nullane habes vitia?' Immo alia et fortasse minora. Ser. I. III. 1-20. In these verses, whose bearing upon the context has been already discussed in a different relation, the * Dr. Bentley's grounds of preference for iteraret and alehcd, H 114 THE WORKS or HORACE EXAMINED. DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE SATIRES. 115 I author IS supposed, by all his expositors, actually to ridicule, (as he appears to do), certain oddities of a class in general (cantores), and of one individual espe- cially. But it may be more than suspected that the real point of ridicule lies in a different direction (while it must be admitted that Tigellius and simi- lar characters are in effect ridiculed here), and that a true vein of covert irony runs throughout this exordium. In this view it would be intended to ex- hibit indirectly a specimen of the littleness of the occa- sions which are sufficient to evoke the world's censo- rious strictures; and would correspond in rhetorical form with the well-known passage, " Sequor hunc J^ucanus an Appulus anceps," &c. Seb. If i 34.9' And as the poet, in the latter place, introduces with a sudden and informal appositeness an indirect sam- ple of certain peculiarities in the style of Lucilius so, in that now before us, he may suppose hirn^elf, in the character of a worldly backbiter, to pour forth a torrent of voluble detraction, which at length ex- hausts Itself in the ^nnl-' nil fuit unguam sic in>par siOi, )ust as now-a-dayswe often hear a tirade of gossip ending with-' Di.1 you ever in your life hear such apiece of so and so f The moral of all this however immediately follows in the sober-' Nunc ahquis dicat mihi: Quid Tu? nullane,' &c Although it does not accord with the plan of these instead of the common citaret and haheiat, are so strong that it seems strange these latter readings shonld ever again have 1 peared, at least in British editions of any note. pages that much of their space should be occupied by introduction of text, yet the foregoing long extract is given in full, in order that the reader may examine it, clause by clause, in reference to this theory, and com- pare the diflFerence of effect at each step between the former acceptation and that here proposed. It would also somewhat strengthen our position to imagine the foibles of several of his neighbours to pass in re- view through the field of the (supposed) censor's magnifier: and a consecutive review of all the clauses will enable the reader to judge whether any neces- sity exists for supposing, with the commentators, that Tigellius alone is alluded to throughout. Why should iUi in verse 9 be identical with huic in verse 16, ex- ceptionally to general usage? Or why must either represent Tigellius? On the contrary, as the analogy furnished by the Preludes of both the preceding Sa- tires largely warrants the reader in giving the bene- fit of any doubt, which he may now feel, in favour of the supposition of several characters being in- tended, the extract has been here printed in subdi- visional paragraphs. It may be further observed, that as in this light the third paragraph will close with nearly the same reflection by which the second is introduced, the awkwardness is thus avoided of applying the same sentiment twice, within such a narrow compass, to the same instance. And the chief difference between this Prelude and the two others would lie in the fact, that whereas the nature of the H 2 I 116 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. i| ! subject requires that those be understood directly the sense and point of this seem to be not only sharp-' ened but directed by an ironical acceptation But another question yet remains. Is the Sardus TrgelUus here spoken of the same with Hermogme, rigellms who occurs elsewhere? On the one hand It IS exceedingly strange that two apparently noto- rious persons should have existed at the same time so hke in name, profession, skill, general character.' and eyen particular obnoxiousness to Horace. On the other, ■ the death of the singer Tigellius' appears to be recorded in the beginning of the Second Satire, and his social freaks are spoken of in the present Pre- ludeasa thingthat ' was:' whence Sanadon, Desprez, and Kirchner, haye argued most seriously on the ne- cessity of supposing two Tigellii; and the palpable expedient of imagining one of them to haye been son adopted-son, or eyen freedman of the other, has been duly resorted to. Yet mention of Herrnogenes, as a then existing first-class singer, occurs further on in the same composition, in the informal style of allu- «.« which would naturally apply to a previously in- troduced character: and Smith's System of Classical Biography, a generally well-informed authority takes no notice of the French theory; so that its adoption IS not a. all events a matter of course, as Milman and others seem to imagine. If we can now substitute a less for a more improbable conjecture, we shall have achieved the utmost that such a case admits, or would compensate. DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE SATIRES. 117 Let us just place together the few sentences which bear upon this point: 1. Ambubaiarum collegia, pbarmacopolae, Mendici, mima^, balatrones, hoc genus omne Msestum ac soUicitum est cantoris morte Tiyelli ; Quippe benignus erat Ser. I. ii. 1-4. 2. The first pararagraph of the present heading. 3. Ut quamvis tacet Hermogenes^ cantor tamen atque Optimus est modulator Id. 1 29-30. This Hermogenes was notoriously named Tigel- lius, (" Fannius Hermogenis laedat con viva TigelliJ' Ser. I. X. 80.): and it requires no very violent strain of fancy to suppose the silence of Hermo- genes, mentioned in No. 3 above, to be in some way connected with the fitful muteness ascribed to Tigellius in the beginning of the Satire. Slighter coincidences than this have ere now helped identi- fication. Now, if Tigellius, whose eminence in the musical profession and intimacy with the two Caa- sars are allowed on all hands, should, with the capri- ciousness of a spoiled favourite, have not only been accustomed to coquet with his convivial admirers, but should also have sullenly refused for some long period to gratify the public ear, the cantor Tigellius might be humourously supposed by a humourous writer to be in one sense defunct, while in another the tacens Hermogenes was still a veritable exponent of his power. The imaginary mourning of the corps dramatique, constituting probably his stock-com- pany, whose occupation for the time was ' gone,* m i\ 118 THE WORICS OF HOKACE EXAMINED. Il and the treatment of his whimsicalities as a thina ' past and fled,' will hardly appear either veiy point'- less or impossibly outre, to any one who has read bwifts Death of Partridge: nor is every expression of a writer like Horace to be set down as spoken m sober earnest unless he himself apprizes us that he jests. But however this may be judged of, the reader will please to bear in mind, that the weight of the conjecture, if any, is on the side of simpli/ication ot a real though unimportant perplexity. In the answer which the author supposes to be rendered to the question-' Quid tu? Nullane,' &c the reading et, as distinguished from Aldus Manu- tiuss ^haud: has the unquestionable sanction of the MSS.; and yet the sentiment is enfeebled by it whe- ther we suppose the reply to proceed from Horace directly, or from the character which we have ima- gined him to assume for the moment. This may perhaps be relieved by understanding et to be taken m sole connexion with fortasse, and including both in parenthesis; when the sense would run— 'yes, others (and tis a chance if) of less magnitude.' But query without this refinement, may not minora mean more paltry, more j>etty-of a lower grade? And it must be admitted that some of the foults brought forward m the preceding verses are somewhat childish. This would certainly be an undignified confession, if understood, in the usual way, as the direct reply of him who is about to lecture so gravely upon morals, (although perhaps not more undignified than some DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE SATIRES. 119 of the previous strictures commonly attributed to Horace propria joersowa) : but taken as a suggestion of what must be the answer of the backbiter if he speaks truly, it harmonizes well with our previous theory. Aiid be it observed that Kirchner does in flict regard the sentence, not as uttered by the party in- terrogated, but as ironically suggested by the ques- tioner. This is important even although he does so evidently in order to cover the difficulty of the non- adversative et, which we have just now endeavoured to remove by a more simple process: for while the objections which Orellius makes to the extent to which he pushes his supposition are undoubtedly valid, still the name of such an acute critic as Kirch- ner must mitigate one of the counts, at all events, of the indictment for innovation which is probably by this time beginning to swell to a monster compass against us. Mbnius absentem Novium cum cAKPEitEX, ' Heus tu,' QUIDAM AIT, ' IGNORAS TE? AN UT IGNOTUM DARE NOBIS Verba put as?' ' Egomet mi ignosco,' M^nius inquit. Ser. I. III. 21-3. A VERY pointless reply of Msenius, as generally un- derstood, and irrelevant withal. But if it be true that ' gentle dulness ever loves a joke,' perhaps it will here gently permit itself to be converted into one. Let us now suppose the following dialogue:— n ' Ik 120 TUE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. Ques. ' Ignoras te?' Ans. ' Ig-nosco mV Ques. ' An ut ignotum nobis; &c. ? Ans. (may be supposed) * Ignotum est mi.' M^nius admits the soft impeach- inent of being a practical stranger to the adage * TuwOi aeavTov: in terms which imply a jestingly complacent ignoring of his own faults, ThoughV notus in the latter sense could not be applied to a Terson, (and therefore, instead of ^ Ignotus sum mi; an impersonal form is here employed, as in Ter Adel. III. 4. 2S.—^^ Ignotum est, creditum est," &c.)' yet the common participial form is used by Hirtius' (a respectable classicahvriter, and the same who even-' tually became one of the two last of the Kom an Repub- lican Consuls, properly so called), in Bell. Gall. 31 . . . "tamens£Epease(JulioCa3sare)fugatis,pulsis, perterntisque et vitam concessam, et ignota peccata;' &c. Some puns are so exceedingly bad that they amuse as much as the best; though from a different cause. And thus the jest here would inevitably re- coil upon Maenius himself, and all such characters as he represents. Nam VITUS nemo sine nascitur : optimus ille est Qui minimis urgetur Ser. I. III. 68-9. The singularly meagre sentiment which general con- sent attributes, by an unaccountable oversight, to the latter member of the above sentence, is held over for DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE SATIRES. 121 examination in Section IV., which shall be reserved exclusively for the discussion of a certain class of propositions to which this seems to belong. Lest however the reader may too hastily imagine that there cannot be anything very particular in the case, it is desirable that he should here just consider for a moment what it is that the usual version of the pas- sage exactly means—'''' He is best who is cumbered by least faults"— that is—' Every man is in propor- tion better than if he were worse.' Is this a senti- ment worthy of a Eoman poet-philosopher? At the lowest estimate, is it in keeping with the plain prac- tical good sense of Horace? It is probable, on the contrary, that there is no reader who, when his at- tention has been once called to the place, would not desire to see the sense otherwise vindicated, and par- ticularly if this can be effected without any strain of text or context. But whether such hope can be re- alized must for the present remain a depending issue. Paulum deliquit amicus, (Quod nisi concedas habeare insuavis, acerbus,) ^ (Quod nisi concedas habeare insuavis), acerbus J OdISTI et FUGIS, ut RuSONEM debitor iERIS : Ser. I. III. 84-6. While it must be granted that some of the commen- tators have much assisted an unembarrassed con- struction by suggesting the parenthetic relation of !i 122 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. the clause which is accordingly so printed here, yet a like measure of approbation is not due to their invariable exposition of its meaning, which is thus paraphrased by Orellius, speaking with the general voice—- Quod nisi condones et ignoscas, merito te omnes nominabunt intractabilem et morosum."— The phrase * to forgive a fault' is susceptible (inde- pendently of any particular language) of either a literal or a figurative acceptation. In the former sense, the relation of a 'person to (or in favour of) whom the mental action passes must, to complete the sense, be likewise expressed; and for this the Latin language has duly provided in such phrases as * con- cedere alicui peccata,' Cic. &c. : in the latter the fault Itself is (for compendium) jp^r5^n?^6?c/, and its repre- sentative word must therefore appear in the case-form of the person-word, as in the expression ' concedere peccatis: Cic. &c. This rule is not the dictum of an individual, but the sum of the principles derivable from the whole examples given in such cases ; and IS manifestly founded in most natural associations. With it, however, the preceding paraphrase of our parenthesis is wholly inconsistent. No example whatsoever occurs of the omission of the oblique case-form of the pei^son-word where the * fault' im- plied is the literal object of the action : still less, if possible, of its not assuming the person-case, (asset- tied by the rule in that instance provided), if its re- lation to the verb be figurative. Therefore, * quod concedei^e; in the sense oi to pardon which, must, in DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE SATIRES. 123 any view, be a solecism. Concedere here means sim- ply to grant : and quod plainly refers to the point raised in the preceding paulum, and which exactly involves the question in debate. The parenthesis should be translated— ('' which [that is, the possi- bility of the supposition ' paulum deliquit'] unless you grant," &c. ) Contrast the use of the given verb by our author in a passage of the next Satire: where moreover he appears to play upon different significa- tions of the word — . Hoc est medlocribus illis Ex vitils unum, cui si concedere noles, . cogemus [te] in hanc conc^^^rg turbam. 130-43. [Conspersit] lectum potus, mensave catillum EVANDRI MANIBUS TRITUM DEJECIT ; OB HANC REM, AUT POSITUM ANTE MEA QUIA PULLUM IN PARTE CATINI SUSTULIT ESURIENS, MINUS HOC JUCUNDUS AMICUS Sit mihi? quid faciam si furtum fecerit, aut si Prodiderit commissa fide, sponsumve negarit ? Ser. I. III. 90-5. Has any commentator ever seriously asked himself, whether a state of decent society is even conceivable in imagination, in which a party conducting himself as above stated should not be esteemed, at the very least, a ' minus jucundus amicus ? To such a conception we may truly say, in the words of the Satire itself, ' sen- Ill 124 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. sus moresque repugnant, atque ipsa iitilitas/ Were the expression of Horace ' mmus diledus; ' minus sincerus; &c, an intelligible, but still a very unin- structive, meaning would be supplied; hni minus ju^ cundus,~^\^s, that common sense should so easily vanish before the flourish of a copjist's pen! It will be granted that no form of clerical mark is more likely to thrust itself intrusively into MSS. than the note of interrogation. It resembles in shape both the caudal dash, ' which so gracefully curls' by rnero motu oi the ^ ornamental' penman, and the experimental crescent which he oft indites on an old or soiled mar- gin, * to prove his weapon's point.' To such origin or to some equally surreptitious title, the presence' of the former of the two marks of this kind which appear in the text would seem necessarily ascribable • for by erasure of it an argument becomes at once clear and consistent which is otherwise unnatural and ridiculous. The author had just previously laid down the doctrine that the restraint and discouraqe- mmt of the faults inherent in human nature, by pro- portionate processes, and not the chimerical project of their eradication, should be the aim of the moral reformer. In practical illustration of the different operation of the two systems he then observes to the ^^oic,—' l^ your in^n(i paulum deliquit, the conse- quence IS odisti etfugis. If mine so transgresses, (as suppose, &c.), my sentence upon him is, ^ minus noo jucundus amicus sit miki:^^hoc being the ratio of de- Imquency. But lest it should be imagined that this DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE SATIRES. 125 equable forbearance with superficial faults would have a necessary tendency to degenerate into a cri- minal weakness or complicity, he adds forcibly, if not triumphantly, the closing question, which re- quires no answer to be supplied. As if he had said — ' But in the case of moral delinquency should you not see whether I could not vindicate the dignity of (in this instance, really) outraged friendship'? One almost feels here as though an innocent prisoner had been set free, by the removal of the above crooked obstruction. There is no necessity for understanding y?J^, in the last verse, as an obsolete case-form. The phrase com- missa fide may be very well rendered—' things (of any kind) intrusted in honourable reliance' (whether positively or impliedly) to a friend's guardianship. Nam ut FERULa c^das meritum majora subire Verbera, non vereor Ser. I. III. 120-1. Any person who has not been constrained in some way by the rigour of technical requirement to wade through the intricate disquisitions which this little sentence has originated, will scarcely believe that the subjoined analysis can be either intended for, or adapted to, any purpose of simplification. But when it is stated that such names as Bauer, Jalin, Grote- ' 126 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAmNED. fend, Orellius, Heindorf, &c., figure in the contro- versy, it may be fairly granted that ' quicquid id est non temere est: The causa belli is that while the com- mentators generally maintain that the exoression * non vereor uf must, in the propriety of Latinity mean, * I do not fear you will not,' and that this is exactly the reverse of what the argument evidently requires, they hare so multiplied hazardous conjec- tures and conflicting principles, that no two of them can be found to agree as to the best mode of disen- tangling the sense. And shall it, after all, be proved that no difficulty whatsoever really exists in the case? Shall '' the curious prominence" on the shield of Dr. Cornelius, of which antiquarian decipherers doubted whether it betokened the "cuspis of a Roman sword" or the presence of " one of the Dii TermmUr be in- deed ♦' shown to be the head of a rusty nail!" The arguments, in every view, assume that if ' vereor ut facias' would mean ' I fear you may not do,' (and this must be admitted), ' non vereor ut facias' must mean ' /DONT/.ar you may not do! Now, this is by no means certain. On the contrary, the only passage which the most eminent philologists adduce of ut being so constructed with non vereol^is a case where the action depending on ut is desired by the party speaking, (and we shall see hereafter how important is this distinction),-- ne verendum qui- dem est ut tenere se possit, ut moderari, ne honoribus nostris elatus intemperantius suis opibus utatur." Cic. Phil. v. 18.— whereas, in the present case, the DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE SATIRES. 127 action denoted in ' ut ferula casdas meritum major a' cannot be so understood ; for the awarding of too licrht punishments is as adverse to the equity which is pleaded for in the context, as the infliction of too severe. Proofs of usage, and not abstract reason- ings, are the proper tests of the import of idiomatic phrases such as that before us is assumed to be. Nor will any argument founded on a true basis of verbal analogy justify the establishment of an idiom on supposition from the admitted existence of any other, however nearly approaching in diction. The very nature, and even the name of such phrases, implies that a separate especial ground of inter- pretation must be shown for the assignment of their separate significations. No one will argue from the known signification of ' juheo Chremetem^ that ' non vappam^zzko ac nebulonem' could mean ' I do not salute you as so and so.' And why ? Because, 1st, the language affords no corresponding negative idiom ; and 2nd, if it did, there is enough in the context to disprove its use in this particular instance. Now, it would be only in virtue of an idiomatic license that the phrase in our text could convey a sense so inde- pendent of the mere wording as that which the com- mentators assign to it. If, therefore, there be no independent proof of the existence of such idiom, we are at once enabled to interpret the passage by the obvious import of th^ words there employed—'/ do not ai^prehend that you may,' &c. : and it may be a question whether, even if the idiom were proved to i ! 128 THE T^ORKS OF HOHACE EXAMINED. It may be observed in generilfW, ' "" ^• - as to an event is .SZt^^Z^^TT'^' ment may refer either to the event it?!?' "^ "'^'" metuit fides," or to the probabiir '' " '"^P^" -h occurring, in whl^ n^; Ti^;^^^^^^^^ «^ event is secondary Th. , ^'''''' ''* reference to the tions through t^ Jdt TfrLirr ''^\"°- proved a fruitful source of dil n 7 ^^"g»age has gist, in the shape of n inq'^ fj"" '^' ^^^^^o- sical construction of thp v. i ^ P™?^^ ^las- With the particle: t 1^1 Tf'^'^' '''"^^' exposition isfounded o the' hope tf -f '''"^"^'"^^ to reduce the various modes o7S l •'" '""'"?' a few simple principles t^bH f ^^''^ '"^^^^^^ ^ here prove LT^t^lt / r""''''"^''' ^^ould tion for better de e wr^ * ." '° ^^^ ^ ^-"'^- -because of clearl:::--^^,-^^^^ DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE SATIBES. 129 However diflPerent may be the notions conveyed by the separate terms vereor, metuoj and timeo, as re- gards the character of the apprehension itself, the grammatical effect of each upon the sequel is the same: and they may all be fairly represented by the English term * fear.' As these verbs exceed simple anticipation in their meaning, so indifferent events are excluded: and thus another element, namely the fact of the event itself being desirable or undesirable, is proper and necessary to the case. Accordingly three notions are included in all such expressions: — 1st. — the presence or absence of fear of— 2nA — the occurrence or non-occurrence of a future event which the principal agent regards as — 3rd — desirable or unde- sirable. These notions are, of course, only limitedly compatible. But as a clear conception of the avail- able associations may be assisted by their compa- rison with those that are not so, the following synopsis gives all possible trinary combinations of arbitrary representative marks of both, which for brevity we shall call modes, noting those in which the notions could not themselves co-exist by [f], and particularizing useless modes thus [*]. In the selec- tion of corresponding verbal examples, all varieties that depend for their existence on disputed readings are omitted, as belonging to a portion of the contro- versy both uninteresting and indeterminate. And thus the reader may confine his attention to the ap- plicability of the proofs, without being embarrassed by any feeling of insecurity as to their reality. ui\ 130 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. f s. OD « a fa o ^ a O « 3 fl O ^ 03 > J :s S " S »*^ O) o o S S CO ,0 fe 2 2 .•^ ^ ^ a § "1^ (1) 0) M4 •♦* 2 ITS S S 0) m f' O O; S .St -o !X> 8 « f.s « a, a> ^^ it '•C .00 - I CO Sa •«> es Wo" •S 5( . cr «) i-H S S »: s ^«^ «'S « •« 2 ". ^ CO •3 %- w »> i § '3 > s o ". r s 4> s o o> .2 3 5 s » — . — I O TH II Oi ^ * H « 09 S ? i ^ S . ^ If I w tS ^ O OQ M 3 O 'O a . K s I H H H a. s V . , L. i (N o^ 'H 1 • ft, *6 ^0 • • a, ^6 CM T-t CO V a, es -a 3 « .a o a, 3 DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE SATIRES. 131 The junior reader may find his discrimination as- sisted by following out the subjoined easily verified results. If y be taken for the desirableness ofp OTp\ and y for the reverse, it is evident that, in the four modes which include p, y may be substituted for x^ and y' for x'^ the same character of mode being pre- served; and that a vice versa process would merely cause the modes severally to interchange places with one another, the wlwle result being as before. But where p' occurs, if we supply x by y, and x' by y\ we shall have new modes, which are all, however, reducible to previous expressions: thus — (t) (*) (^> p\ y) (»w» p\ y) (^'» p\ y) (^'» p\ y) (m, p\ x) (m, p\ x) {m\ p\ x) {m\p,x) The inverse substitution would obviously cause nothing beyond a transposition in order. Thus every possible concurrence of notions in such like case is so far provided for. And all this will hold equally good in instances of substitution of tantamount terms, such as of ut non for ne, &c., &c. From the scale exhibited on the opposite page, it would appear that Professor Zumpt's canon requires some modification. That eminent authority lays down the rule that ne should be used ** when it is wished that something should not happen ;" ut "when it is wished that something should take place;" and that " these same verbs are followed by the infinitive i2 '4l\ 132 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. when they express only a state of mind, without im- plying any wish either the one way or the other, as vereor dicere" • This last case is sufficiently noticed by mere allu- sion to it, as in page 128. Upon the other rules it must be remarked, 1st, That they leave the very question raised in this controversy wholly unprovided for, and even untouched. 2nd, That, if our present view of the given text be correct, the rule as regards ut is not universally true. 3rd, That the circum- stance of negative csises in general being no otherwise adjusted, than so far as we may infer that the " some- thing which it is wished should not happen" may itself be the non-occurrence of an event, is insufficient for purposes of clearness. 4th, Thataconsequenceof this latter defect, together with the absence of all account of the principle of the distinction specified, is, that a student might suppose it a matter of indifference in any case whether he wrote 'vereor ut liceatj or 'vereor ne non liceat; and yet in the strictest obedience to a rule oi grammar, which the professor makes manda- tory, he might violate a rule of taste, which usage stamps with a sanction equal to that of other under- stood, though undefined, verbal courtesies of life. And this brings us to the principle of the distinction between the use of ut and ne, which appears to be— that tendency to euphemism which is almost involuntary in speech. Thus, in English, we say—' I fear as to its being probable,' instead of the harsher ' I fear lest it be not probable/ But wlio shall base on this a rule DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE SATIRES. 133 of grammar ? Or how could a rule of grammar, based in any way, be brought to bear upon the proprieties of such a case ? No doubt, while correct taste would not be violated by a party saying respecting himself, * verebamini ne non id facerem quod recepissem se- mel ?' the parties addressed would be represented as expressing to him. such a fear, by ' veremur ut facias/ &c.; and again, while Horace makes the seer convey his apprehension to the person concerned by ' puer, ut sis vitalis metuo' the other might properly express the same sentiment as his own question thus, ' metuis ne non sim vitalis 7 Hence the more frequent use of ne, and ne non, with m\ Understood with these limitations the rules of Pro- fessor Zumpt are in the main included throughout the more copious particulars which the scale laid down in page 130 supplies. But it will be necessary to con- fine his canon respecting the construction of ut to certain idiomatic uses, by taking the given text out of the range of which we have reduced the meaning of the sentence to the result of the mere grammatical combination of the meanings of its actual words. It is satisfactory, in confirmation of the present view, that the fastidious Bentley found no fault in the given passage, which he must therefore have received in that simplicity of construction to which the present effort seeks to restore it: and that may be very sim- ple in itself which requires a complex vindication. fttl 134 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. NON NOSTI QUID PATER, INQUIT, Chrysippus dicat: sapiens crepidas sibi nukquam NeC SOLEAS fecit ; SUTOR TAMEN EST SAPIENS. Ser. I. III. 126-8. Not even the unstinted communicativeness of Die genes Laertius supplies us with any dogma or saying of Chrysippus which in reason could have directly provoked the preceding parody. But it may be supposed to have been to the effect, that ' although the " wise man" may have never worn a crown, nor held a sceptre, yet the " wise man" is truly a king be- cause he rules himself: This receives confirmation irom another place where our author uses the words, " Sapiens, sibi qmimperiosus:'-^ See. IL vii. 83 Plu- tarch, in his Treatise ^repl eiOvf^cd., gives incidentally a very comprehensive summary of the Stoical pre- tensions as popularly understood --"Ei./o, roi^ ^.h ^m,ov, orourac Tracpcv, Srau dKovcrwai ro, ao6u Trap' avTOijj^rj ^6,op p6v,f.ov Kal Uku^ov Kal i,vlpe?ov, ^\X^ icm prrropa Kal arpirrnov Kal Trotffryy ,al -nXomtov Kal PaacXea 'npoaayopev6fxevov, ahrov, U Trdurwu i^covai TovTwy, kRv fxrf Tvyxapwrnv, aviwvratr A brief attempt to simplify the real bearing and ongm of these extraordinary claims, and in part to vindicate Stoical principle from the misconception to which the aspirings of an ambitious but necessa- rily imperfect conformity in practice exposed it, is reserved for the next article. DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE SATIRES. 135 Vellunt tibi barbam Lascivi pueri ; Quos tu ni fuste coerces Privatusque magis vivam te rege beatus. Ser. I. III. 133-42. Where the verb carries its own subject implied in its termination, as in the first and second persons, or where the context supplies it to the third, a per- sonal pronoun is never employed by classical writers to represent the subject, save emphatically or dis- tinctively. The point (certainly a small one) which this canon here suggests is, that the phrase ' ni fuste coerced is borrowed from that which intro- duces the discussion, a mode of closing upon the original question very familiar with Horace. As if he had said jestingly—* Well, whatever be the true " regula" by which " ratio delicta coercet^' it is plain that " TU ni pueros fuste coerces^' Sic' More advan- tageous instances of the force of such use of personal pronouns by our author are furnished in the follow- ing quotations — . . . " *Non ego pauperum Sanguis parentura non ego quem vocas Dilecte Maecenas obibo ;" &c. Carm. ii. xx. 5-7. '* Non ego me claro natum patre, non ego circum Me Satureiano vectari rura caballo," &c. Ser. I. VI. 58-9. * The punctuation of this stanza is so much disputed, and is after all so purely a question of taste, and so immaterial to the purposes of the introduction of the passage here, that it is left above to the reader's discretion. 136 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. " Ilk non, inclusiis equo Minervs Sacra mentito, male feriatos Troas et Istam Priami choreis Falleret aulara." Carm. IV. vi. 13-6. Here it is well worthy the reader's attention to ob- serve how admirably the emotions oi pride, ingenu- oumess, and scorn, are respectively sustained by mere introduction of a personal pronoun, which by itself IS of course wholly wnsignificant of such feelings. In negative instances the difference caused by the relative positions of the pronoun and negative ad- verb appears to consist in this— that where the nega- tive precedes, the character of the action or event is contrasted with what it might have been supposed to be in the same subject: where the pronoun precedes the character of the agent himself or subject is con- trasted with that of another agent or subject. For instance, in the first and second of the above exam- ples, Horace contrasts a certain condition and conduct on his own part with what might otherwise be sup- posed to appertain to him: in the third Achilles is contrasted with others. And all this is done by judi- cious management of a personal pronoun combined with the common negative adverb. The last ten verses of the Third Satire (supposed to be here quoted), require some notice to connect them with the previous argument in their full signi- ficance. In these the author abandons the profess- ing Stoic to two ludicrous practical consequences of his unsocial doctrines; the scene being kid m canm- DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE SATIRES. 137 tares taken, one from the pains of life, another from its pleasures. In the former, he observes, ' vellunt tiU barbam lascivi pueri: now, these fuste coei-cere you cannot, for this would be to admit my principle ; and horribUi sedari flagello you dare not, for society will not tolerate your's: thus nature's only resource is a helpless outcry of anger and agony ! In the latter, even while enjoying one of the few poor pleasures which alone your system affords, solitude is your por- tion: for as vitiis nemo sine nascitur, and as you there- fore arnicas odisti etfugis, the limited number of the sapientes will only afford your majesty one stipator; and if he be not stultus, he is worse, i. e. ineptus !' Having now enjoyed with Horace our laugh at his fancy sketch of a moral reformer-general, as, in the ill-assorted dress of pride and poverty, he is supposed to rebuke the ancient world, it may be well to guard the junior reader against an error which is very pre- valent amongst his class, namely, that of inferring en- tire mistake in theory from such glaring practical mis- carriage, and of assuming that the Stoical principles were themselves as necessarily absurd as the conduct of their professors was avowedly eccentric. Such an estimate would ill appreciate the severe views of a Zeno, a Cleanthes, and even of Socrates himself, whose doctrines entered largely into their system. The Stoics in truth made a more approximate effort at reasoning out some of the essential truths which have since been clearly and authoritatively confirmed to us by an express revelation than any of their contem- 138 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. porary investigators of the moral phenomena of hu- man nature. And as some of the most remarkable historical facts of the primitive physical world are re- coverable from the mass of superstition which consti- tutes mythological tradition— (the record of the uni- versal Deluge, and the Dispersion from the plains of Shinar, for instance, being traceable in fabulous re- gions under the guise of * The Flood of Ogyges/ and ' The Defeat of the Titans,^)-so the true ethical history of man likewise deposited some relics in the archives of Time which were never wholly lost. Thus in the * wise man^ of the Stoics we behold p. shadowy reflection of that * finitely perfect^ being which we now know that man in fact originally was ; and in their ' ha Tpol SoDAot. 6. "On fiovog 6 (Tot^og irXovaiog. A sketch of Cicero's general view of these prin- ciples, in his own words, may fitly close the present observations. '* Ego vero ilia ipsa, quae vix in gymnasiis, et in otio Stoici probant, ludens conjeci in communes lo- cos: quaj quia sunt admirabilia contraque opinionem omnium, ab ipsis etiam Trapido^a appellantur. Ten- tare volui possentne prceferri in lucem, id est in forum; etita did ut probarmtur : an alia quajdam esset eru- dita, alia popularis oratio: eoque scripsi libentius, quod mihi ista Trapdho^a quce appellant maxime vidm- tur esse Socratica, longeque verissima:' —Far. Lib. ad M. Brut. DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE SATIRES. 141 HOC MIHI JURIS Cum venia dabis See. I. IV. 104-5. The dicta of the highest authorities tend to regard the governmental form which subjects the genitive of a substantive of any gender to an adjective or pronoun of the neuter, as convertible into a concord of the same terms, so far as the notion jointly con- veyed is concerned. Thus for instance, Professor Zumpt distinctly lays down that '' exiguum campV is equivalent to exiguus campus, *' ultimum inopice'' to ultima inopia, &c. And he thus seems to take neu- ters out of the general category which he had pre- viously established respecting partitives in general. The able adaptation of Kuhner's Work to the highest requirements of Greek scholars in these countries, known as ' Jelf 's Greek Grammar,' more philosophi- cally considers this as one of several instances in which " the substantive is put in the attributive geni- tive," thus defining the adjectival notion instead of being defined by it, as would occur in the instance of a true concord. This latter is a satisfactory account, so far as it goes : nor can any reasonable objection lie against extending to the whole class Professor Zumpt's statement of the mere syntactical qualifica- tion of neuter adjectives and pronouns for governing in this instance, viz.—" first, because in meaning they have become substantives ; second, because they ex- press a part of the whole." But with all due defe- 142 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. rence to these authorities, (and none more eminent exist in any country), they have dealt too vaguely with the principle of this construction. For this ' attributive' genitive must exercise naturally a more restrictive force upon the extension of the adjectival term taken substantively, from the circumstance of its case-form necessarily expressing inclusiveness of it, and must thus mark it out more prominently as be- ing but a part of the whole, than any defining power of the adjectival notion operating upon the substan- tival by concord could exert. Thus * exiguum cam- pi' conveys a much more specific notion than ' exiguus campus / or lest it be supposed that the latter ex- pression being equivocal may affect this more than it really does, the " Kar^ rouro Kaipod'' of Thucy- dides (vii. 2) fixes a stated ji^^^zW in time, which Kara To^op Kalpov would have left comparatively indeter- minate; the " satis eloquentias" of Sallust still inti- mates a ^ 5A(?rfcm% in the accomplishment; the I* 0«)Twi/ aexiwv iKTypia!' of Sophocles ((Ed. Col. 923) is a plea of privilege which excludes the obdurate and unbending of the ieXiot ; the ^' dfip^ Traprflho,'' of Euripides (Phoen. 1500) suggests to the imagination points of delicacy and beauty diversifying a fair sur- face; the " Lydorum quidquidJ' (Ser. I. vi. 1) of our own author is intended to imply emphatically each and every individual included in the extension of the universal term ; while the force of such forms as " opaca locorum;' ^' vilia renimr plainly lies in the selection implied. DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE SATIRES. 143 That the principle just stated is as much the true distinctive characteristic of such cases as Professor Zumpt would admit it to be in the instance of express partitives and numerals, appears to be demonstrable by a very simple proof; namely— that when the ad- jectival term taken substantively would rqyresent the ab- stract ' whole: this peculiar construction is not found, any more than if it were a summation of individuals. Accordingly such combinations as totum rnundi vir- tutis, armorum, 'nav or oXov (with or without to) to? Koa^iov, T^? aperip, twv ZitXwv, at once strike the ear and eye of the reader as unfamiliar expressions. And why? Obviously because a statement of the ' whole' including itself could not possess any distinctiveness of notion beyond what an ordinary concord would be fitted to convey. It might indeed at first sight appear that the general canon, which the before-men- tioned authorities have partially propounded, is in- consistent with the " omnibus Macedonum'' of Livy, and the '* cuncta terraruni' of our own author. But on examination it will appear that these are exceptions which truly prove the present rule in its most ex- tended sense. For by such plural forms the attention is rather distributed over the several parts, as such, that constitute the whole, than fixed upon the aggre- gate which they complete : and so " cuncta terrarum subacta, prceter atrocem animum Catonis'' (Carm. II. I. 23-4) poetically contrasts multiplied instances of (real) success with one solitary (figurative) failure; but does not extol the magnitude of their amount i 144 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. I above any smallness appertaining to the individual exception. The original adjectives and pronouns of the neuter gender that, in the Latin language, * govern the genitive/ as the scholastic phrase is, seem to be reducible to two very distinct classes. First— Those which in themselves express a relation of quantity to the whole of which they are a part, thus holding a position relatively to it somewhat resem- bling that of numerator to denominator in a proper fraction : such are rnultum, paulum, nimium, adverbs of quantity, comparatives and superlatives in general, diminutives, and the negative nihil These and all such we would naturally suppose included under Zumpt's rule as to partitives in general, were it not for his statement respecting 'exiguum campi! Second —Those which, implying still the relation of part to whole, do not in their proper signification convey any note of quantity, but nevertheless belong as strictly to the rule as the former: such are hoc, id, illud, istud, aliud, tantum and quantum with their compounds, quid and quod with compounds, and adverbs expres- sive oi points in time or space. The value of each of the former is directly as its own meaning. The lat- ter, with the exception of the last subdivision of them, depend upon the context, and may range in any de- gree between maxima and minima; thus—" Quid hoc, Tarquini, reiestr i. e. ' What is this monstrous piece' of conduct?'— Liv. I. 48. -Hoc mihi>m," &c., i. e. * You shall grant me this much (this slight boon) of DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE SATIRES. 145 privilege.' See text above. " Saguntum ut caperetur quid -per octo menses perimli, quid labor is exhaustum est?" i. e. ' What a vast amount of danger and toil?' &c.— Liv. XXI. 30. " Quid causce est merito quin illis," &c.? i. e. * What shadow of ground exists,' &c.? Ser. 1. 1. 20. In each of these instances Zumpt would evidently consider a concord form to be merely a vari- ation of expression. Of course the difference between ultima inopia and ultimum inopice^extremumpericulum and extremum periculi, is not greater than in the English language is suggested by the expressions ' utmost want or danger,' and ' extremity of want or danger.' But that philologists have overlooked the necessity of an essential difference appertaining more or less to all instances of the governmental construc- tion, would appear to derive further confirmation from the circumstance that in cases where a concord form is employed instead of it, as in ' summa domus^ i. e. 'the top of the house,' ' vere primo,' i. e. in the begin- ning 0/ spring,' &c., &c., the construction is so artifi- cial as to be regarded even as ornamental: and this mode of expression has itself, no doubt, arisen from the natural tendency to assimilation which has been elsewhere in these pages called the principle of ^5- sociation, and to which some other forms of speech are there sought to be reduced. The bearing of the Greek parallel throughout will readily suggest itself to the minds of readers. Professor Zumpt further remarks : " It is however to be observed, that these neuters are used as sub- »1 146 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. stantives only in the nominative and accusative, and that they must not be dependent upon prepositions." Also, " Only adjectives of the second declension can be treated as substantives." And again, " Poets and prose writers later than Cicero use the neuters of ad- jectives in general, both in the singular and plural, as substantives, and join them with a genitive." No disrespect towards one to whom every scholar stands deeply indebted will, it is hoped, be thought to attach to a protest against thus accumulating rules without assigning principles, and including under a common exception as well cases for which a reason may be rendered, as those that are most probably due to accidental circumstance. In the case of supposed idioms, as has been before said, the absence of proof of use is conclusive. But in what may be called open questions it is rather a slen- der foundation for peremptory rules. The limitation to the nominative and accusative cases indeed may be accounted for from the circumstance of the neuter being in these instances alone demonstrably marked out as such. And the transition of usage mentioned in the last clause may be worth knowing as a fact. But the excluding of adjectives of the third declension may, for anything that appears to the contrary, be merely tantamount to stating that such partitives as have been specified happen to belong to the second. Nor is it easy to conceive on what principle the disqualification of prepositions rests. Why should not a writer of Latin composition now-a-days express, DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE SATIRES. 147 for instance, the phrase—' after enjoying a little rest'— by ' post paulum quietis delibatum'? Or why should he not combine the words of our text, if con- venient, with a preposition, ihviS—' propter hoc juris,' suppose? Such a rule is at least contrary to analogy: nor is the instance of " ad id locormn!' in Sallust rea- dily removed by regarding with Zumpt the genitive as simply superfluous. But our pages are forgetting their subordination to the Title-page : and must be recalled to their pro- per duty, the illustration of particular Latin Text. Mali culices ran^eque palustres AVERTUNT SOMNOS; ABSENTEM UT CANTAT AMICAM MULTA PROLUTUS VAPPA NAUTA, ATQUE VIATOR Certatim: tandem fessus dormire viator InCIPIT : AC MISS^ PASTUM RETINACULA MULiE Nauta PIGER SAXO RELIGAT, STERTITQUE SUPINUS. Ser. 1. V. 1449. ''Hoc est, UT, sive dum cantat nauta, et viator arnicas,'' &c. Such is Dr. Bentley's summary mode of dis- posing of the ' difficulty' said to belong here to the construction oiut: nor does any other seem to the commentators more feasible. But fact is unyielding : and it is a fact, that either all the standard lexico- graphers are wrong in not assigning the meaning ' whUe' in any case to ut, or Bentley's view is unsound. k2 148 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. Ut, as a temporal adverb, is limited to two signifi- cations, 'when' and ' since: In these uses, its power seems to be to emphaticise rapidity, immediateness, or a coincidence of points in time; as, " Homo, iit (i. e. soon as) hoc audivit, sic exarsit," &c.— Cic. Verr. i. 25. " Nam ut numerabatur forte pecunia, (i. e. 'just as it was being/ &c.), intervenit homo ex improviso."_Adel. III. iii. 52. This latter is the soli- tary example cited by Bentley in support of his case : but the point of the expression is evidently lost by so applying it. Of the notion ' since being thus ex- pressible the following examples are given " Ut illos libros edidisti, nihil a te sane postea accepimus." —Cic. Brut. v. - Qui (dies) primus risit, dims ut Afer (s^viit)" &c.— Car. I Y. iv. 42. " Ut fluxit in terram Remi cruor," i. e. 'ever since.'— Ep. vii. 19. But of ' while' not one instance seems discoverable. But if ut be not ' while' what is it? If it be granted that a conjecture favouring simplification is entitled to more allowance than one which would be perplex- ing or idle, it may not be wholly impertinent to ask here— why should not ut imply a comparison of cases in the usual meaning of asF Horace was evidently disposed to note trivial associations of thought, and to be amused with trifles, during this famous ' Jour- ney.' Why may he not here be understood to com- pare ludicrously the annoyance felt from the croaking and buzzing of ranee and culices with that inflicted by the drunken and drowsy lays of a ' boat-man' and 'landsman'? May not the rana palustris find his DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE SATIRES. 149 parallel in the prolutus vappa nauta, and the cwZe^, or companion pest, in the ' landsman-passenger' ? With respect to the much-disputed term viator^ its acceptation in the most simple meaning, as above, seems borne out by several considerations. There is no instance of a driver of horses or mules being called viator, nor any reason why he should be : besides, icliere does he compose himself ' to sleep'? On the other hand, there is a reason why a common steerage- passenger should be so described ; for he would be just the sort of traveller who on land would be called a way-farer : and so the term is used, evidently in contradistinction to the better class of itinerants, fur- ther on, in verse 90—" Callidus ut soleat humeris portare viator!' And again—" durus vindemiator et invictus, cui saspe viator cessisset." — vii. 30. The expression also * tandem fessus dormire' seems to imply an unmoved composing of himself to natural slumber by i\\Q fessus viator even less soon than might be expected, as opposed to the irregular and improper stertit supinus of the nauta piger, who takes advantage of the unconscious state of probably the only traveller within view-distance, to unyoke his beast and steal a nap : while the circumstance of the one thus dropping asleep, and of the other making formal preparation, proves that the carriage of the boat was properly in charge of the latter. But why did not our travelling party within, one of whom at all events seems to have noted circumstantially what was passing, expostulate against this proceeding? Simply because the nauta was not in a state to ma- H 150 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. ii nage or be managed. But when, on awaking in the morning, they found matters still m statu quo, then condign punishment overtook the idlers both human and veterine, but did not reach the viator. Orellius is entirely mistaken in supposing that the passage which he gives from Varro proves that the viator was an equiso. Had he referred to the appli- cation of it made by the original quoter (Nonius Mar- cellus, De Proprietate Sermonis), he would have seen that it is adduced to prove an extended use of the term from its applicability to a totally different no- tion. Under the word Equiso, Marcellus writes thus — " Equisones non equorum tantum moderatores aut magistros, sed omnes quibus regimen conceditur cu- juslibet rei dici posse veteres probaverunt. Yarro, Marcipore : ' Hie in ambivio navem conscendimus palustrem, quam nautici equisones per viam conduce- rent loro. " In Horace's journey we have simply a 7nula in charge of a nauta, in place of these equisones nautici. . . . Prior Sarmentus: * Equi te Esse feri similem dico'— Ridemus : et ipse MeSSIUS, * ACCIPIO ;' CAPUT ET MOVET — * O TUA CORNU Nl FORET EXSECTO FRONS,' INQUIT ' QUID FACERES CUM Sic mutilus miniteris' — ? . . . Ser. I. V. 56-60. A PASSAGE occurs in Pliny's Natural History that seems capable of throwing some new light on the bearing of this comparison. A connexion between the notion implied by the ' equusferusj in the former DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE SATIRES. 151 part of Sarmentus' taunt, and that of the * comu ex- sectofrons' in the latter, has never been clearly made out: and the general tendency of comment is, by taking them separately, to add to the frivolity which must be admit ;:ed to characterize the images and al- lusions of the context. Pliny, in describing some wild sports of India, writes as follows: " Orseei Indi simias candentes toto corpore venantur : asperrimam autem feram mono- cerotem.reliquo corpore equo similem, capite cervo, pe- dibus elephanto, cauda apro, mugitu gravi, uno comu nigro media/ronjfecubitorumduumeminente. Hanc feram vivam negant capi."-N. H. viii. 31. Vid. DU- lenhurg. ad loc. We are certainly not entitled to infer that ' Equus Ferus' would be a proper technical designation for the animal known, to controversy and heraldry at least, as the Unicorn ; though perhaps it would not be more vague than ^sea-horse: &c., as applied to others: nor is it to be denied that Pliny employs the terms else- where in the common meaning of ' wild horse'; as, for instance,—' Septentrio fert et equorum greges fero- rum, sicut asinorum Asia et Africa.'— Ch. 16. But, in the absence of any stronger objections than these, the common sense of the passage before us would be apparently improved by supposing the comparison borrowed from this (real or imaginary) extravaganza of the animal tribe, as afterwards, in the ' pastorem Cyclopa saltare; we are presented with a picture of the monstrous in humanity. n 152 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. NoN QUIA, M^cENAs, Lydobum quidquid Eteuscos Incoluit fines, nemo generosior est te, Nec quod avus tibi maternus fuit atque paternus, Olim qui magnis legionibus imperitarent, Ut PLERIQUE SOLENT, NASO SUSPENDIS ADUNCO Ignotos, ut me libertino patre natum. Cum referre negas, quali sit quisque parente Natus, dum ingenuus, persuades hoc tibi verb, Ante potestatem Tulli atque ignobile regnum, Multos s^pe viros nullis majoribus ortos Et vixisse probos, amplis et honoribus auctos: Contra L^vinum, Valeri genus unde Superbus Tarquinius regno pulsus fuit, unius assis NoN unquam pretio pluris licuisse, notante JUDICE, QUO NOSTI, POPULO ; QUI STULTUS HONORES S^PE DAT INDIGNIS, ET FAM^ SERVIT INEPTUS ; Qui stupet in titulis et imaginibus. Quid oportet Nos facere, a vulgo longe lateque remotos ? Namque esto, populus living mallet honorem QuAM Decio mandare novo; censorque moveret Appius, ingenuo si NON essem patre natus ; VeL MERITO, QUONIAM in propria NON pelle quiessem. Sed fulgente trahit constrictos gloria curru NoN minus ignotos generosis. Ser. I. VI. 1-24. Were it not that promises of substituting the simple for the complex, the smooth for the rugged, naturally bespeak for themselves a favourable prepossession, the classical reader could hardly be expected even to listen to cause shown here for believing that all the learned, prolix, ingenious, and difficult reasoning detached passages of the satires. 153 that has been resorted to for connecting the line of argument throughout this exordium, and estab- lishing its exact relation to the sequel, is, according to the ancient proverbial phrase, the ' feeling for a knot in a bulrush.' Yet so little seems necessary to be said, for the purpose of making this evident, that it were to be wished the quotation of the extract in extmso could be dispensed with, as its length must contrast very disproportionately with the insignifi- cant dimensions of the comment. The preceding subdivisional arrangement by paragraphs, however, exhibiting a new and easy succession oi protasis and apodosis, could not be well left to mere imagination for evidence of its claims to adoption. Reliance being had upon the reader's memory of the points arising from the text, it may be remarked, that the controversy seems to have originated mainly in the assumption that the sentence beginning— * Namque esto : populus Laevino mallet,' &c. — is the introduction of a new protasis ; the apodosis appropri- ate to which is the principal missing link of the chain. Now, by regarding the interval from ' Namque— to quiessem,' —merely as a confirmation of the answer implied in the question—' Quid oportet nos facere a vulgo . . remotos'?— and not as requiring any de- pendent clause whatever to follow, the transition to ' Sed fulgente trahit' is perfectly unembarrassed. To show this clearly, a brief review of the heads of the introduction is alone wanting. After complimenting his patron upon his freedom 154 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. from class-prejudices, by a graceful allusion to him- self, Horace proceeds to confirm the rectitude of the general principle involved by examples taken from ex- treme and opposite political instances ; he next asks — ' What should be my conduct, (or, How much more should / acquiesce in all this ?) removed as I am ' far from the vulgar crowd's ignoble strife,' (yet destitute, as before confessed, of aristocratic preten- sions?)— that is, he professes himself to be exactly in that position which would enable him best to ap- preciate, and act upon, such principles as those stated. In immediate sequence to a vulgo longe reniotos, (and so directly depending on that notion, that the new sentence is but the exegesis of the full meaning and result of being ' a vulgo longe remotos'), he adds — * Namque esto,' &c. ; meaning, that so independent was he, in fact, of the mere worldly crowd, that if the fickle populace chose to reverse the case he had supposed, it could in no degree affect him or his judgment : he could afford to allow that the people should even prefer the worthless to the worthy, for any difference this would make against the strength of his convictions; and that the legislator should in- troduce a rank-qualification clause, which could only operate to his disadvantage when he should be caught out of his own sphere; and then he would be an in- truder with notice, and therefore punishable on the merits, which would reduce the matter to the origi- nal personal question. It is familiar with Horace to suggest an under- DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE SATIRES. 155 Stood answer rhetorically by the pungent force of a question. And if here, immediately after the query ' Quid oportetr &c., we imagine its virtual answer in- serted, the force of * Namque esto\ as introducing a confirmation of it, is apparent. Thus— Quid oportet Nos facere, a vulgo longe lateque remotos? [Nempe tuam merid normam celebrare probando. Nee moveatpopuli reeta aut sententia prava;'] Namque esto populus Lsevino mallet honorem, &c.; esto exactly meaning—* for aught / care.' * But,' he adds, * the pomp and circumstance of worldly pride is the attractive object with men in ge- neral, causing even those unknown to fame to despise their inferiors, and proving an endless source both of envy of success, and ridicule of obtrusive demerit ;' • Sed fulgente trahit . . gloria,' . . &c. : and thus the subject proceeds naturally and connectedly. How apposite (?) all this to a mushroom ex-com- mandant of a Legion, as the commentators and bio- graphers will have Horace to be ! For it is observable, that the passage which heads the ' Biographical Me- moir,' at page 18, follows immediately after this hearty and humble disavowal of an aspiring temper. Surely a strong argument in favour of the opinions there advanced is derivable from the entire tenor of the Satire, and of the introduction to it which we have just now been considering. It must not be for- gotten also that the reading of regionibus instead of ' legionihus' is purely conjectural, and supported by no higher authority than that of Wakefield and Fea. I 156 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. It will now be for the reader to say with what pos- sible consistency Horace could have either bestowed this compliment, or reasoned as in the sequel, were the commonly received account respecting himself true. Causa fuit pater his, qui macro pauper agello NOLUIT IN FlAVI LUDUM me MITTERE ; MAGNI Quo PUERI, MAGNIS E CENTURIONIBUS ORTI, L^VO SUSPENSI LOCULOS TABULAMQUE LACERTO Ibant octonis referentes Idibus ^ra ; Sed puerum est ausus Romam portare docendum Artes, quas doceat quivis eques atque senator Semet prognatos. Vestem servosque sequentes In magno ut populo si qui vidisset, avita Ex RE PRiEBERI SUMTUS MIHI CREDERET ILLOS. Ser. I. VI. 71-80. It is a much easier task here to exhibit the utterly inconclusive character of the efforts that have been made to interpret the expression—' octonis referentes Idibus* o^m'— than to supply anything that can fairly * The junior reader will be safer in understanding Idus as having been originally the contracted plural-form of Eih^^oes, oi)s— -than in taking it as a derivative of the * obsolete verb Iduo: ElSov^ means the phases of the moon, particularly her appearance at the full; hence the middle of the lunar course; and so the mid- dle of a month, even by the solar reckoning. The word— ^5-m— properly means metallic union, or the re- duction of simple metals to a compound: and so is near akin to As-sis, which was at first a Doric form of eis, one. The latter, in Roman usage, came early to signify the unit in coinage, and the former to be indiscriminately employed to mean prepared copper, brass, or bronze. DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE SATIRES. 157 pretend to supersede them. Octonce, as a general epithet of Idus, seems open to objections which none of the commentators have weighed. And these objections are three: 1st, It looks retrospectively from one given cardinal date to another (for the Ides are supposed present) ; while, as a term of reck- oning, it should be expected to follow the rule of all other such terms in the Roman notation of the days of the month. 2nd, It is not inclusive of the two days from and to which the reckoning is had, con- trary to established usage. 3rd, It even involves a contradiction of the standing designation of the day to which it is supposed to refer retrospectively: and thus the same interval is differently stated at the same time by the numerical appellatives which its boun- daries borrow from the interval itself Surely such anomalies as these would apologize even for a strained interpretation which should remove them. The context plainly contrasts the ' vestem servos- que sequentes,' which the generous ambition of our author's father afforded him, with the comparatively menial drudgery to which the sons of wealthier pa- rents were subjected, as represented in ' Lsevo sus- pensi loculos tabulamque lacerto.' This being ad- mitted, it would be likely that the course of education to which these minor details were subordinate— the * artes, quas doceat quivis eques atque senator semet prognatos'— should also find its contrast in the pre- vious picture; and when we place before us the fol- lowing sarcastic description of the prevailing princi- 158 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. pie of general school-education, in those days, and of Horace's estimate of such, Romani pueri longis rationibus assem Discunt in partes centum diducere. Dicat Filius Albini, si de quincunce remota est Uncia, quid superat? Poteras dixisse. Triens. Eu! Rem poteris servare tuam. Redit uncia, quid fit ? Semis. An, hsec animos aerugo et cura peculi Cum semel imbuerit, speramus carmina fingi Posse linenda cedro, et levi servanda cupresso ? Epis. ad Pis. 325-32, we may safely reject altogether the idea of the verse in dispute signifying the paymmt of school fees, (the introduction of the mere name of which, with- out any allusion to relative amount, could not in the least have assisted the opposition of the pictures), and may confine it to the practical course of instruc- tion supplied. The interest of money and general pecuniary cal- culations among the Romans were regulated rela- tively to the Kalends and Ides of months. In the months of March, May, July, and October, which, as with us, were months of thirty-one days each, the Ides are known to have fallen on the 15th; and ac- cordingly these months would afford little scope for the practical exercise of ingenuity, in reckoning the interest for days, &c.,&c., relatively to so nearly equal a division of time. But the case would be otherwise in the remaining eight months, in which the Ides occurred on the 13th, and the last day of the month DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE SATIRES. 159 might range anywhere from 28 to 31 inclusive (for the"" Bissextile day gave a 29th day, to all intents and purposes, to February in leap year, although there was no 29^A of February): and the adjustment of computations to meet these varying cases at sight would form a natural and useful exercise in a mere arithmetical point of view. Query, then, may the passage mean—* Computing sums by, or correspond- ingly to, the eighthly-recurring {or thirteenth-day) Ides' —as a general representative expression of minute performance in the detail of learning to keep accounts? The conjecture certainly cannot affect to rest on more substantial ground than the difference between an absolutely great and a relatively small difficulty of in- terpretation, being ruled in its favour, would afford: but, nevertheless, had it been broached by some early popular commentator, it may not be improbable that it would ere this have found numerous supporters. . . . Quid mult a? pudicum (Qui primus virtutis honos) servavit ab omni NoN solum facto, verum opprobrio quoque turpi. Ser. I. VI. 82-4. The above parenthesis is probably intended to sug- gest the same imagery as that by which honos or honor is elsewhere representative of the hloom of flowers and fruits: as, " Non semper i^emfiorihus est honor vernis."— Car. II. xi. 9-10. '' Et quoscumque 160 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. feret cultus tibi fundus honores." — Ser. II. v. 13. At least, if the reader's taste approve the suggestion, the sense of the context will not forbid his adopting it. Innocence is thus 'virtue's first bloom:' reformation cannot, at the best, be more than a second growth of the same. Carne tamen quamvis distat nihil hac magis illa, Imparibus formis deceptum te patet Ser. II. ii. 29-30. In the whole range of classical literature there is not a passage that has caused more perplexity, both to readers and writers, than that now before us. One enigmatist makes many: and accordingly we have here upwards of a dozen most ingenious puzzles con- structed out of the above apparently scanty mate- rials ; a select assortment of which, and those of the newest mould, will be found in Orellius. The old ones are as familiar as the riddle of the Sphinx. Still ' confusion worse confounded' is the aggre- gate result : and the student is fain to acquiesce at last in merely recording in memory the judgments of others, while they in effect smother his own. The slenderness of a guiding thread will not be despised by him who seeks to escape from a laby- rinth. And if, among such a crowd of theories, any of which may be false, even the least principle can be fixed which must be true, the interpreter may DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE SATIRES. 161 yet have hope. Now, the student is invited to try the validity of the following, viz.— The probability of any construction of the given passage being true must be inversely as its complexity. This would virtually put out of account all elaborate and far-fetched views— from those which derive a government for * came' from the remote ' vesceris^ or ' velis tergere palatum^' to more modern curiosities in the art of word-fencing; if, therefore, it be certainly correct, a manifest advan- tage is derivable from its use. The commentators, one and all, seem to have for- gotten who it is that speaks the original words— that he is neither a Lucretius, a Persius, nor yet Horace himself, but— the rustic Ofellus. The whole essay is, no doubt, from the pen of Horace : but he most distinctly professes to speak in the character, and in the words (nee mens hie sermo, &c., vv. 2-3) of the ' abnormis sapiens;' the only verses in which he him- self discourses j9r^/>na /j^r^ona being vv. 2, 3, 112- 15— or six out of 136. Hence a studied simplicity o{ deduction, illustration, and phraseology, consistently in keeping not less with the character of the hamlet- philosopher who speaks, than of the primitive doc- trines which he inculcates, characterize the piece throughout. Addressing his (supposed, and evidently village) audience by the homely title, * bonij he pro- ceeds to unfold probably the plainest system of admo- nitions and reasons contained in any didactic treatise of antiquity. And can it be reasonably he]d possible that any interpretation which would attribute rheto- i 1 « 162 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE SATIRES. 163 rical complication to a single passage supposed by the judicious Horace to be addressed by such a speaker to such an audience, can be a true one? Assuming then the truth ofour fundamental rule— 1st, Let us discard the notion of a double ablative in verse 29, as making a construction against which, in any view, this rule would strongly operate. 2nd, Let the materials of construction be sought exclusively from the sentence, itself, as in all the other sentences of the piece; the connexion with the previous context implied in ' hac' and ' illal being of course observed. 3rd, Let ' magis' be referred, as is most natural, to the given, the allowed, difference between the pavo and the gallina (the overlooking of which point has been the root 0/ the whole difficulty). Finally, Combine (as suggested by Matthiie) ' nihil magis' as one notion, ac- cording to the Greek analogy of olUv re /xaWo^ Thus the sentence will be found to be nothing more than a plain denial of what may be called the argumentum a visibili ad invisibile— thus— ' However, although the former (the caro pavonis) differs nothing the more (i. e. because of the given external difference) from the latter, ^tis plain you are deceived {into thinking that It does) by the external dissimilarity.' This simple theory likewise supersedes the neces- sity of supposing any question involved of the actual relative merits of the two species alluded to. This would be a matter of mere taste, and on which Ofellus would have probably seemed an incompetent autho- rity. But he merely deals with the overt fact that impar forma does not of itself infer proportionately imparem camem. Might it be that the troubled spirit of this sentence is at length laid ? . . . . TANTUM HOC EDISSERE, — QUO ME ^GROTARE PUTES ANIMI VITIO ? ACCIPE : PRIMUM, 1. ^DIFICAS; HOC EST, LONGOS IMITARIS, ETC. y Ser. II. III. 306-8. 2. Adde poemata NUNC, HOC est, oleum adde camino; 3. Non dico horrendam rabiem. Jam desine. Cultum 4. Majorem censu. Teneas, Damasippe, tuis te. 5. MiLLE puellarum . . . furores. Ibim. 321, 323-5. The ludicrous correspondence of the answers of Damasippus with the wording of certain of his own previous classifications has not been remarked. He in effect reduces the ' madness' of his disputant indiscriminately to several of the heads just before enumerated. Allowance being made for a slight dis- tortion of terms, which is quite natural to the case, the following verses will illustrate the phraseology of their numerical correlatives above with tolerable exactness. 1. JEdificante casas qui sanior? — v. 275. . . . adde cruorem 2. Stultitise, atque ignem gladio scrutare— 275-6. 3. Mille ovium insanus morti dedit . . • — 197. 4. Nunc age luxuriam et Nomentanum arripe mecum.— 224. 5. Si puerilius his ratio esse evincet amare ;— 250. l2 J 164 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. In the first two a play upon words points the deri- sion : for it is plain that the term ' cedificas' (requiring an explanation of its application, which the speaker accordingly supplies) would not naturally suggest itself in the case, but occurs fron the previous con- text; and that the ' adde cruorem stultitice atque ignem scrutare ferro' finds a ready parallel in ' addepoemata [ambitioni], hoc est, oleum adde camino\ the illustra- tion being nearly identical. In the last three a for- mal reduction to class is evident. Unde et quo Catius? etc. . Ser. II. IV. 1 to end. This is probably the most elaborate satirical produc- tion (in the modern acceptation of the term) that has descended to us from remote ages. But, from the delicate ingenuity of its irony, and the artful invo- lution of its points, it is peculiarly liable, as has been before remarked, to escape the appreciation of stu- dents. Hence the continual complaints of its insi- pidity that every lecturer has heard in his classes. It is obviously impossible here to do more justice to the composition than generally to recommend every word of its pregnant contents to the re-consideration of any who may have lightly passed them over. And this purpose may perhaps be forwarded by com- paring it with the Second Satire of this Book ('Ofelli Sermo'), which has been just now considered. DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE SATIRES. 165 The moral of these two essays is nearly identical. But a stronger contrast can scarcely be imagined than that which the different modes of conveying it re- spectively exhibit. In the Second Satire a virtue is gently impressed, in the Fourth an opposite vice is smartly ridiculed. The chief character in the one is a plain-spoken swain, in whose entire reasoning in praise of frugal fare there is tzo^ on^ ambiguity; in the other a pedantic cit is made to affect the technical abstruseness of scientific diction, while he recom- mends the receipts of cooks and gluttons. In the former, unvitiated nature is directly vindicated : in the latter, perverted art is ironically arraigned. What ridicule can be more exquisite— after the expectation of some wondrous philosophic revela- tions has been wrought up to a high pitch— than the formal precept—" Longa quibus fades ovis erit, ilia memento'' ^c? What sarcasm more pungent than the mock-contempt of—" Sunt quorum ingeniurn nova tantumcrustulaprornif'? What a hearty laugh must have been called forth by—" Est operw pretium du- plicis pernoscere juris naturam''—md—" Immane est vitium angusto vagos pisces urgere catino" ? Could the depraved folly of the gourmand be more happily ex- emplified than in—" Vinea submittit capreas non sem- per edules''? where the vine is represented as a nurse of kids for his especial gratification, the mischief done by these animals to such property being immaterial in his eyes, in comparison to the contingency of his palate being disappointed. 166 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. But we must reluctantly bid farewell to the placid Ofellus and the flippant Catius. Septimus octavo propior jam fugerit annus, Ex quo M^cenas me c(epit habere suorum In numero . . . Ser. II. VI. 40-2. It is an ungrateful, if not an ungracious, task to take exception to the only etymological remark that occurs within the compass of Milman's Life of Horace. The comment will be found in note (49), which reads as follows — " Some construe ' Septimus octavo propior jam fugerit annus,' as only six years and a half The past,/w^OTV, surely implies that the seventh year had actually elapsed, and above half a year more." Surely not; tor fugerit is not the past, but the com- mon future -perfect To admit such a position would be to abandon the fundamental distinctions recog- nised in the Latin language between the indicative and subjunctive moods. Upon particular meanings of the future-perfect tense, a few remarks are reserved for a more peculiar occasion of its occurrence. For the present it is sufficient to cite the following parallel instances of its use.—" Dum loquimur fugerit invida aetas," i. e. » while we yet speak, (or, ere we cease to speak) envious duration shall have fled'— C ah. I xi. 7-8: and again, similarly future in conception (the leading subjunctive characteristic) is the following —"Emerint sylvestrem animum"— Geor. ii. 25. DETACHED PASSAGES OE THE SATIRES. 167 It is probable that the proximity of jam may have caused the inadvertence. But a case of its unques- tioned construction with the future occurs in— '' Jam te premet nox."— Car. I. iv. 16. Indeed the imitation of the passage by Swift evidently shows that a future reference would be the plain, natural suggestion of the text — 'Tis, let me see, three years and more, October next it will be four, Since Harley bade me first attend, And chose me for an humble friend. With this note of Milman, another statement, in page 5Q, viz.—" It was in the eighth year of his fami- liarity with Maecenas that this Satire was composed" —must fall to the ground. Where we have so few direct dates furnished from the text, we should be slow to disturb those that offer. On the whole, the passage may be rendered thus—' The seventh, nearer {at it's present stage) to the eighth year {than it is to the sixth), shall presently have fled, since,^ &c. MULVIUS ET SCURRiE, TIBI NON REFERENDA PRECATI, ^^^^^^^^^ . . • • Ser. L VII. 36-7. Whence do they depart? ' From the house of Ho- race,' say all commentators. That is, any unexpected invitation from M^cenas which findsHorace Haudan- tern semrum olus' (as stated immediately before) and i 168 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. acquiescing happily in domestic retirement, at the same time obliges him to dismiss a band of jesters, that he habitually employs to amuse his solitude] when ' nusquam forte vocatus ad ccenamr Truly' Mulvius deals severely with himself in declaring at his departure— 'Fateor me ventre levem dud; nasum nidore supinor':— ehe no one would have thus inter- preted his chagrin at being disappointed of sharing in the ' securum ohs\ His likings and his loss seem both too strongly drawn for the occasion. Horace also has with a bad grace in one sense elsewhere in- stanced as a lunatic a person who was fond of being — * In vacuo Icetus sessor plausorque theatro' The reader probably by this time suspects that a departure from the house of Mcecenas is about to be suggested as being here meant: that it is to be con- sidered more appropriate to the nature of the case to suppose that when the great man alters the usual con- vivial arrangements of the evening to a tete-a-tete with a literary friend (' jusserit ad se serum convivam*), the subordinate ministers to the banquet's mirth receive an unexpected dismissal, the chief of whom vents his disappointment upon its unwitting cause, to whom he naturally attributes the same sycophantic motives that are professional with himself. It would be hardly respectful to the reader, in such a case, to do more than merely to place the hint at his disposal. DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE LYRICS. 169 The Lyrical performances of Horace, as may be naturally anticipated, aflford but little scope for new comment. Excellence in this species of composition infers characteristics most opposite to the abstruse or the equivocal: and, in a general way, it is only where the associations are obsolete, in the manner alluded to in the Introductory Observations, or the words un- certain, that we should expect to encounter difficulty of construction or uncertainty of meaning. Happily neither of these disadvantages dulls, to any appre- ciable extent, the clear-voiced lays of the Venusine bard. In these effusions, distinctness of imagery and simplicity of tone blend in unbroken harmony with rhythmical grace and metrical exactness. The reader is privileged to commune with the poet, with- out introduction from his expositors ; to perceive without effort, and to admire without reserve. Even the sober diction of commentary has often caught a relieving freshness from the associations of the theme: and from the superficial glosses of Francis to the elaborate illustrations of Mitscherlitz, the annota- tions of the learned generally impart here less of hea- viness to the reader's thoughts than when exercised on any other equal portion of ancient poesy. To the aids thus already furnished the reader may generally resort with satisfaction. It is merely intended here to submit a very few passing remarks on some ex- 170 THE WORKS OF HOBACE EXAMINED. I pressions, together with an examination of the only (two or three) admittedly difficult passages found in this department. Haud paravero Quod aut avarus ut Chremes terra premam, etc. Ep. I. 32-3. EhEU ! TRANSLATOS alio MiEREBIS AMORES : AST EGO VICISSIM RISERO. Ep. XV. 23-4. Notwithstanding the elaborate disquisitions that profess to illustrate the precise nature of the differ- ence between indicative and subjunctive enunciation, no student will be likely to reject beforehand the least particle of new theory on the ground that the sub- ject is already sufficiently intelligible : and the pre- ceding sentences are selected as affording a simple illustration of a new principle here proposed for sub- dividing the meaning of the form commonly called the future-perfect, or 'futurum exactum' It has been noticed by philologists that this tense is sometimes used where a mere indicative future misrht be ex- pected; and it is to this feature of the case that the reader's attention is now particularly requested. To speak strictly, a future act or state must be regarded, relatively to the time at which a speaker utters anything respecting it, only as a Jiiental concep- tion. Hence we should naturally expect that all fu- ture expressions would be subjunctively conveyed. In practice, however, the indicative form prevails for i DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE LYBICS. 171 the future absolute, no doubt by force of the instinc- tive argument from analogy by which we transfer the idea of certainty from the experience of the past. The reason why the expression of a purely future-perfect notion is confined to the subjunctive would appear to be, because it is, if the expression may be allowed, a conception within a conception, and therefore neces- sarily limited to the conceptive mood. But where the notion is imperfectly future, and yet conveyed by this tense, query, would it not be more philosophical, if what has been now said be true, to consider this as the strictest form of the proper expression of the future absolute; and the indicative use, however ge- neral, as a conventional tranference of the phraseo- logy of the past and present to the future, rather than as an exception unaccounted for? In this view the import of the verbal-form will appear very dif- ferent in the two sentences quoted ; and none are likely to be found which will not be reducible to either. In the former, the notion of the imperfect future is put in a rigidly conceptive form— ^ Haud paravero: i. e. ' I think I shall not; &c., or, ' If I know my own mind, I shall not; &c. In the latter the pro- per future-perfect appears in—' you shall bewail, &c., but /, in my turn, shall (previously) have enjoyed my laugh: Thus the future-proper might be as good a designation for the subjunctive tense in the former instance, as the future-perfect is universally admitted to be in cases like the latter. 172 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. Ah ! Ah ! solutus ambdlat veneficje scientioris carmine. NON USITATIS, VaRE, POTIONIBUS, (O MULTA FLETURUM CAPUT !) Ad Mfi RECURRES I NEC VOCATA MENS TUA Marsis redibit vocibus; Majus parabo, majus infundam tibi Fastidienti poculum. Ep. v. 71-8. In connexion with this passage, a modern edition of some of the Idyls of Theocritus contains the follow- ing remarks: — '* The editor avails himself of this op- portunity to suggest, that the passage preceding these lines in Horace, . . . ' Nee vocata mens tua Marsis redibit vocibus,' which appears to him to be erroneously explained by all the commentators, should be understood thus: * Nor is it by mere Marsian spells that your soul shall be recalled to me.' Thus — nee Marsis vocibus corresponds with — non usitatis potionibus, and ' re- dibit' to ' recurres' — and thus also there is an addi- tional propriety in the repetition of Majus — majus in the following verse."* It is to be feared the erroneous explanations have not been altogether removed by the comment of the learned editor. It seldom happens in such cases that * See page 108 of '* A Selection from the Remains of Theoc- ritus. By Frederick H. Ringwood, A. M." Dublin, 1846. DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE LYRICS. 173 any course is open to an objector beyond a reference to the reader's experience, and to the induction of par- ticulars which the labours of eminent lexicographers and philologists have compiled for general use. To these tests the following statement is now submitted, namely,— that whenever either Mens or Animus is said redire, the phrase intimates a return to the natural owner, or individual whose it is by nature:— Thus in Ovid " Et mens et rediit verus in ora color." — Art. ni. 730. "... Isto verbo animus mihi rediit ^ — Ter. Hec. m. 2. 12. All argument founded on the natural and general meaning of redeo, and upon the undisputed import of kindred expressions, is here dispensed with; such as * redire ad se^ whether in a good or bad sense,— " redeat in viam."— Ter. An. i. 2. 19. "... tunc mens et sonus relapsus, atque notus in vultus honor." Ep. xvii. 17-8. " Et tu, potes nam, solve me de- mentia!' —Ih. 45. (The last two passages belong to a prayer addressed to this same Canidia.) " Ani- mumque reddas."— Carm. T. xvi. 28, &c. Nor is it necessary to insist upon any exception which might be taken to the rendering of 'mens by the term ' soul' in preference to * reason^ in the translation. The classical usage of the verb in the given association is alone relied upon, together with reference to the train of ideas running through the whole context. The sting of Canidia's complaint is that the subject of her spells ' solutus amhulat veneficae scientioris carmine': and hence a double threat— 1st, That he 174 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE LYRICS. 175 shall be re-consigned to thraldom: 2nd, Thsit future escape shall, during her pleasure, be impossible, even though sought by aid of proverbially potent spells ; for that she majus parabii, &c. lo TrIUMPHE ! NEC JUGURTHINO PAREM Bello reportasti ducem, Neque Africanum, cut super Carthaginem Virtus sepulchrum condidit. Ep. IX. 23-6. The foregoing has proved a most unsatisfactory pas- sage to commentators, and therefore to readers. The objections urged by Dr. Bentley against * African^ (referred, as it must be, to bello) have been wisely allowed by most : but, on the other hand, there is an unpleasant abruptness, and a striking want of symmetrical arrangement, in the solitary word Afri- canum, understood as a proper name, following im- mediately upon the elogsint paraphrastic allusion to Marius ; and as a proper name it is invariably ren- dered. But it should be remembered that such use of an honorary appellative is more colloquial than poetical. And accordingly here, * reportasti Africa- num' is less likely to mean—' Thou didst bear back Africanus\ than — ' Thou didst bear back one (who left home without such title) as " Africanus'' ' : and the whole passage may be understood thus — * Nee {ilium) Jugurthino bello (nobilem) reportasti ducem parem (Ccesari)] neque (alterum reportando saluta- turn) " Africanum." ' As Marius (strangely enough) derived no title from his Numidian conquests, the correspondence of the clauses would be thus ren- dered as complete as circumstances would allow our author to make it. It is strange that any doubt should exist about referring this allusion to the younger Africanus : the parallelism of another passage—" Qui duxit ab op- PRESSA meritum Carthagine nomen" — Ser. II. i. ^^ appearing quite conclusive as to which of the indi- viduals bearing that name Horace (in part, perhaps, from the intimacy with Lucilius, upon which he seems to dwell with pleasure) had more habitually in view. Besides this, the balance of honourable mention in other distinguished connexions turns de- cidedly in favour of the junior of these two remark- able men. The epitomist of the forty-ninth Book of Livy thus records of him — " Quum virtutem ejus et Cato, vir promptioris ad vituperandum linguae, in senatu sic prosecutus est ut diceret, reliquos, qui in Africa mili- tarent umbras militare, Scipionem vigere ; et populus Komanus eo favore complexus, ut comitiis plurimaj eum tribus consulem scriberent, quum hoc per ajta- tem non liceret :" and this while he had as yet dis- tinguished himself no farther in war, than by retriev- ing losses incurred in the first siege of Carthage in the opening of the third Punic war, attempted by the Consuls L. Marcius and M. Manlius. 176 THE WORKS OF HOBACE EXAMINED. Again, in the DeNatura Deorum,Q,iceTo attributes to one of his dialogi personce the following notable expression «... quod, ut e patre audivi, L. Tudi- tano et M'. Aquillio* consulibus evenerat: quo qui- dem anno P. Africanus, sol alter, extinctus est."— II. V. The spirit of romance in which the exploits of Hannibal have been recounted would appear to have imparted an air of mystery and uncertainty to the history of his conqueror also, which contrast strongly with the substantial reminiscences resulting from the actual destruction of Carthage, and thus place the later hero more prominently in the fore- ground: though the tone of melancholy which softens the proud reminiscence revived in the final clause is but too appropriate to the unhappy end of each of the glorious Scipios. And here lies a deep vein of delicate compliment to Cajsar, m the inference that in a bright future also his destmies should transcend those of a Marius and a Scipio. Cffisar consolidates a kingdom,and achieves lor himself imperial prestige by Aw African (^ayn. tian) conquest; in Scipio's instance, ' Virtue reared to hira (but) a sepulchral monument' upon the ruins of a fallen state : while the eventful fate of Marius the dismemberer of his country, is merged in solenm' Silence. * This consulate exactly corresponds with the year b c 128 the date of the death of the younger Africanus. ' ' ' DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE LYRICS. 177 non incisa notis marmora publicis, Per qu^ spiritus et vita redit bonis Post mortem ducibus, non celeres fug^, REJECTiEQUE RETRORSUM HaNNIBALIS MIN^E, Non incendia Carthaginis impi^, Ejus qui domita nomen ab Africa Lucratus rediit, clarius indicant Laudes, quam Calabr^ Pierides. Carm. IV. VIII. 13-20. This much controverted passage is taken here, out of regular order, in connexion with that just now exa- mined, as deriving from it some amount of illustra- tion ; so far, at least, as fixing the identity of the younger Africanus in this place also is concerned. The Romans could not believe themselves su- perior to rivalry so long as Carthage existed; a feel- ing well instanced in the familiar * Delenda est Car- thago' of Cato. Hence, together with the considera- tion of the tremendous power evinced by that state in its final struggle, they regarded the memory of the consummator of the destruction of their dreaded an- tagonist (* homines postrema meminere,' says Julius Csesar), with a degree of admiration and gratitude, which posterity, taking the retrospect through a colder but clearer medium, may conceive more due to him who first taught the immortal Hannibal the lesson of defeat. From these circumstances, along with the cause shown in the preceding article, we shall feel little difficulty in confirming the testimony of MSS. by the nature of the case; and accordingly M ^- 178 TUE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. ii receiving ' incendia' as the true reading, may discard as cumbrous trifles the proposals of ' stipendial and ' irnpendia instead. Thus the younger Africanus is fixed not less decisively before our view in the pre- sent passage than in the former. Since the metrical irregularity, which confessedly mars the rhythm of the verse — 'Non incendia Car- thaginis impiaj' — remains unaffected by any proposed correction, and since Meinecke's ingenious surmise, to the effect that, as the number of verses in mono- strophic and distrophic odes throughout the Four Books, follows the multiple- of-four law of the tetra- strophic, two verses are probably wanting to this Ode of 34, carries no warrant, in the absence of any lacuna in MSS., that such verses would, if supplied, be likely to belong to this particular place, we shall do best in receiving the materials of construction as they lie be- fore us, and in concerning ourselves more about what is, or may be, than about what might possibly have been, but certainly is not. The diflSculties complained of are these: That the ' rejectee Hannibalis mince' cannot refer to the younger Scipio, nor the ' incendia Carthaginis' to the elder (for the suppositions of ' incendia' being figuratively ap- plied either to * slaughter^ or to the ' burning of the ships of Carthage' in the second Punic war, is almost too puerile to be recorded). Again, that the ^Calahrce Pierides' or lays of Ennius, must cause the allusion to revert to the elder Scipio, while the laws of gram- matical dependency will not admit of the reference DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE LYRICS. 179 being carried back beyond the younger, which is ab- surd. To these Orellius adds in effect — ' The theme of Ennius was itself these very " celeres fugce' and ''rejectee mince;'' nulla est ergo avrlBeai^^ quam tamen manifeste qucesivit poetaJ Now, in the first place, it is not at all necessary to confine the expression ' Calabrce Pierides' to Poems of Ennius from the circumstance that he did in fact dilate in his Annals on the subject of the second Pu- nic war. This may have combined with other con- siderations to suggest such a paraphrase for ' national Italian poetry' in general : but nothing further, if even so much, is necessary in the case. Horace is himself called * Calaber' by Martial, where he alludes to the mutual non-interference of poets with the provinces of each other — Sic Maro non Calahri tentavit carmina Flacci. Ep. VIII. 18. 5. But, allowing the phrase to apply to Ennius par- ticularly, we may find cause to believe that the com- mentators have been over-exact in requiring the apodosis to correspond with the entire jt^rofa^/^ : that the verse ^ Non incisa notis marmora publicis' (which as essentially belongs to the chain as the nearer links) leads the thoughts back indefinitely far : and that in such a series it is natural and sufiicient that the phrase of the apodosis should originate in the latter or last association. A striking instance of this kind of Zeugma (see page 101), and one even more marked from the absolute incongruity of the verbal-notion M 2 1^. 180 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE LYRICS. 181 with any but the proximate subject, is supplied in the famous Ode usually entitled — 'Drusi Laudes:' Qui primus [dies] alma risit adorea, Dirus per urbes Afer ut Italas, Ceu Jlamma per tsedas, vel Eurus Per Siculas equitavit undas. Carm. IV. IV. 41-4. Similarly here, it is evident that the poetic image in the words '•clarlus indicant' is directly suggested by the last nominative, ' incendia,' from such analogy as *' dant clara incendia lucent' — -^n. ii. 569; while by an extension of metaphor the same verbal-notion may likewise be referred to * marmord as subject, with 'honorum ducum laude^ supposed as object; and to 'fugcB rejecti£que mince! with ^ Africani Major is laudes' similarly understood: and in the same way, 'Calabrce Pierides', originating in an immediately cognate as- sociation, may answer in the apodosis supplied to each of these, without any allowance being pleaded for it, beyond the principle established respecting * clarius indicant! They both alike express associations de- rived particularly, and either applied or implied generally. The diflSculty suggested by the eminent Orellius (as stated in the preceding page) is next to be con- sidered. It has been well observed by him that in the Hncisa notis marmora,' Horace had probably in view the statues of patriotic celebrities, which Au- gustus was then setting up at Rome. And this refe- rence will derive corroboration from another place — 'si qua3ret pater urbium subscribi statuis." — Carm. III. XXIV. 27-8. Now when we consider that, in the context preceding, Horace exalts the conservative efficacy of Poetry above that both of Sculpture and Painting^ would it not be allowable to suppose that in the 'celeres fugae, Reject^eque retrorsum Hannibalis minae,' as also in the ' incendia Carthaginis,' some well-known pictures of the stirring incidents of the Punic wars may be the subject of allusion? The fa- miliarity of such associations to the Italian mind is well instanced in Wagner^s remark upon the picture of the Trojan wars which -^neas is represented as having seen at Carthage — ' poeta morem Italian suae sequitur, in qua passim visebantur porticus templo- rum pictce! The multitude of grouped figures inci- dental to such scenes would well exhibit a chief power ofpainting^ as contrasted with the solitary im- pressiveness of the 'animated bust;' and the ^avTuBeai^^ required would be fully supplied, in the assertion of the Muses' supremacy above the highest claims of the kindred Arts. In fine, two objects are aimed at in this article. 1st, To account for certain phraseology. 2nd, To argue from the principle of that account to a more general bearing of the context. If this has been satis- factorily done, the difficulties that have been urged by the commentators must appear to be fetters which they have forged for tlie author and themselves. As for the metrical exception, the license of proper names has been pleaded by competent apologists with quite sufficient force for the occasion. ? Am I 182 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE LYRICS. 183 Cras ingens iterabimus ^quor. Carm. I. VII. 32. The verbal-notion here is stronger than * traverse again.' It is borrowed from agricultural labour, as the noun also is; and both present us with an image of the sea, instead of the land, as afield of enterprise. Itero being iterum-aro, this dash of encouragement to the followers of Teucer's second tour of adventure should be boldly given — * To-morrow we shall (but) enter on a second-ploughing of the vast ocean-sur- face.' . . . DUM LOQUIMUR, FUGERIT INVIDA ^TAS. Carm. I. XI. 7-8. The above elegant example of minimum in the range of the future-perfect tense admirably sketches both the rapidity of the transition described, and the im- mediateness of the moral conviction impressed. It may be interesting to the student unacquainted with the Hebrew tongue to be informed, that the same sentiment which the poet-philosopher here so simply and briefly expresses, is the fundamental principle upon which the general verb-system of that sublime language is based. With a bold and severe exact- ness, the Hebrew language wholly ignores the notion of present time in the personal departments of any verb, and assigns the third person singular of the preterite as the root. The principle, as regards tense, is obviously this — that befcrre the thought can he fixed upon a passing i?istant, that instant has fled. The third person is probably preferred to the others, because we first obtain the notion of active and passive power, and of states of being, by observing external agencies and conditions, before we either think oi addressing ourselves, even by gesture, to any agent as such, or of reflectively referring the observed power of agency, susceptibility, or even of existence, to ourselves. In the Hebrew future (as it appears in the most ancient grammatical forms, although modern usage pleases rather to assimilate its form to that of the preterite), the rule is reversed; and we there have the persons arranged in the order gene- rally familiar in other languages ; probably because the notion of future is strictly conceptive, agreeably to what we have laid down in page 170; and such conception is originally observed as his own by the person who forms it, and is then transferred first to the nearer person. If this be so, it would afibrd a strong corroboration of the theory by which it has been proposed, in page 171, to regard the subjunctive- future when it signifies indicatively as the purest form of future expression known to classical language. Fertur Prometheus . . . insani leonis Vim stomacho adposuisse nostro. Carm I. xvi. 13, 15-6. It is idly disputed here whether stomachus means corjecur, or pectus; for ' adposuisse imjAies * addition u 184 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE LYRICS. 185 to' in a way not intelligible in any of these associations. Let us rather take it, as in the only other instance of the lyrical use of the word by Horace — " gravem Peleidae stomachum'' Carm. I. vi. 5-6 — as a meta- phorical expression for '' passionate pride!' The no- tions, 'vis leonis fastui hominis animoso adposita', if they may not constitute a mixed mode, at least may exist together in such without incoherence. Te semper anteit s^va Necessitas, Clavos trabales et cuneos manu Gestans ahena ; nec severus Uncus abest, liquidumque plumbum. Carm. I. xxxv. 17-20. Si figit adamantinos Summis verticibus dira Necessitas Clavos, non animum metu non mortis laqueis expedies caput. Carm. III. xxiv. 5-8. The former of these passages the reader will recog- nise as belonging to the noble Ode to Fortune, com- mencing,—" Diva! gratum qu^ regis Antium" : the latter is not addressed to any particular person real or supposed. Tliey are evidently suitable to purposes of mutual illustration: and the manner in which tlie commentators have dealt with both ren- ders it necessary to combine influences tending in that direction. All commentators (with the exception of Cru- quius, whose reference here to ' instruments of torture^ however, appears to be justly faulted) suppose the ap- pliances of personified Necessity, as assigned above — 'spikes' — * wedges' — 'clamps' — and 'molten lead' — to be representative of constructiveness. That is, the god- dess Fortune, whosejickleness is a universal theme, is waited upon by another allegorical personage bearing emblems of stability and firmness, although herself invariably sung of by poets, and particularly by Ho- race, as a destroyer: that other who thus ministers to the whims oi Fortune is the goddess of Fate or Destiny , to -whose decrees ancient mythology teaches us that Jove himself was subject. And all this is re- conciled on the ground that, although Fortune is in- constant, her decrees are irresistible, and hence the building apparatus which Fate keeps at her disposal ! Who has not heard of ' the poetry of architecture'? Who has not sympathized with the romantic influ- ences ascribed to ' Fate's decree'? Surely, should poetry ever unhappily bid a final adieu to earth, as Astrasa is fabled to have done, she will fix her last lingering glance upon that impressive group of fi- gures, reading them as the commentators have read! But seriously, let us inquire whether this is likely to be the imagery which Horace intended to picture; or whether the very reverse be the truth, and that in- struments o/ demolition are really here represented. And first, on what authority have the commenta- tors assumed 'trabalis' to mean ' of or belonging to beams' and so, 'uniting beams? The following in- clude instances of every association in which it is stated to occur in the Latin language; and in all it 186 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. is taken as a term of hyperbole, to signify ^as large as a heamJ Virgil uses it as an epithet of his hero's spear ^ — " teloque orantem miilta trahali . . ferit." — xii. 294-5. In Claudian's 'Rapta Proserpina' we find it applied to a sceptre^ — *' indignatusque trahali Saxa ierii sceptro^^ — ii. 172-3; and it is again employed by him in describing the. piston of the Hydraulicon, or organ played by the agency of water, which is still used in some of the rural districts of Italy, thus — ^''trahali Yecte laborantes in carmina concitet undas," — XVII. 317-18; while in the Argonautics it implies huge weapons in general — *' Jamque alii clypeos et tela trabalia dextris Expediunt." — Val. Flag. viii. 301-2. Cicero connects it with the noun itself given in our text, and manifestly in the same sense as the other authors — " Ut beneficium trahali clavo figerit." — Verr. v. 52. Now, what would be the natural meaning of a * heam-sized spike' in connexion with demolition ? Obviously that of a prizing-lever, or what we call a crow-har. Next as to ' cuneus! No one will deny that, how- ever numerous may be the metaphorical meanings of * a wedge' in classical language, it is a fit and proper emblem oi division; that as a mechanical instrument its purpose is well described by Virgil — " Quadrifi- dam quercum cuneis ut forte coactis Scindebat," — jEn. VII. 509—10; and that it is by its separating force alone that it could even be a mean of consolidation. And it is not a little remarkable that cunei is em- ployed by the great architectural authority, Vitru- vius, in relation to construction^ as coloured inlaid DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE LYRICS. 187 pieces of substance, for the purpose of ^smoothing' a surface (like our mosaic) or pictorial imitations of such; but never as tighteners or fasteners. — vii. 4, 5. The term ' uncus' is never used to signify anything like what we call a clamp or hold-fast; nor does it even approach nearer to such import than when it is applied to the anchor of a ship. It is, however, fre- quently connected with violence hy dragging^ as of criminals hauled to execution ; and in one place very remarkably, and very forcibly for our purpose, of a statue in the condition of being torn from its pedestal by popular fury and dragged through the mire. " Se- janus ducitur unco"— J\JY. x. 66. And this brings us to a point which the commentators have passed in silence, namely, the introduction of * laquei' in the second passage. Not imagining that it bears any re- lation to the previously mentioned ' clavos,' they treat it as an independent metaphor, in disregard of the incongruity thus produced between protasis and apodosis — ^Si figit verticibus clavos necessitas, non laqueis expedies caput.' Where is the sequence, real or figurative? Truly, '-mixed metaphor' is strongly in requisition. But a paraphase, by Scheller, of a passage in Pro- pertius, throws much hght here — "Cum fixum men to decusseris uncum^' — iv. 1, 141, ' i. e.' says Scheller, ' cum uno te laqueo extricaveris.' Again in Juvenal, — " descendunt statuse, restemque sequuntur," — x. 58. So here if we understand the ' clavos adaman- tinos' to be either levers of destruction applied to, or 188 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. huge spikes for the attachment of ropes fixed in, the summits of lofty constructions of any kind, when they are about to be precipitated, we shall have a plain cor- respondence between the members of the second sen- tence. It is superfluous to remark that the emblem * molten lead' is as fitted to signify ' lead dislodged hy fire' or ' old lead heing re-cast for new uses,' as to imply lead employed in original construction. On the whole the moral suggestions intended by the allegorical representations seem to be the fol- lowing: — No structure was ever raised by man, which must not, at some time^ decay or be pulled down. Fortune may build; but Fate shall assuredly level. {Fate meaning the inevitable doom of all earthly things.) Hence 'Necessity' does not wait upon, but takes precedence of Fortune^ bearing her own instru- ments of irresistible destroying force, while a gentler and more cheering group \Spes and Fides) are the immediate companions of the other, in order that men may have comfort, under adverse dispensations, from Hope within their own breasts, and Faithfulness on the part of friends. * Necessity' sure to execute all her own purposes sooner or later, merely takes them in detail as Fortune frowns on any object; and hence is attributed to Fortune herself the effect of such dis- pleasure; while she is, after all, but a secondary and temporary influence: Nullum numen habes, si sit prudentia; nos te, Nos facimus, Fortuna, deam, cceloque locamus. Juv. X. 365-6. DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE LYRICS. 189 The commentators have, no doubt rightly, sup- posed the picture to be taken from some well-known piece of statuary. It was not in our poet's power, even in compliment to a Csesar, in whose behalf the prayer of the Ode is written, to alter the established allegorical representation; and the language is ac- cordingly that oi submissive propitiation of a dreaded divinity. Finally, some expressions occur in the im- mediately preceding context which are strongly re- commended to the reader's attention, as confirmatory of the view here offered: Te Dacus asper, te profugi Scythae, Urbesquc gentesque, et Latium ferox, Regumque matres barbarorum, et Purpurei metuunt tyranni, Injurioso ne pede proruas Stantem columnam; neu populus frequens Ad arma cessantes, ad arma Concitet, imperiumque frangat, XXXV. 9-16. Fertur pudic^ conjugis osculum Farvosque natos, ut capitis minor, Ab se removisse, et virilem torvus humi posuisse vultum. Carm. III. V. 41-4. It is to be regretted that the least shade of indis- tinctness should rest upon any point of the brilliant 190 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. picture presented in this magnificent ode, of the self- sacrifice of the patriot-hero Regulus. Yet the com- mentators leave us wholly uninformed of the precise verbal analysis of the peculiar and prominent phrase, ' CAPITIS MINOR;' and contenting themselves with re- ferring us to a forensic technicality occurring in the practice of Roman jurisprudence, called ^ Capitis De- minutioj or forfeiture of civil status, they dismiss us to connect the given expression with it as best we may. *But capitis deminutid was of various degrees; and one of these — the ^ deminutio minima^ — implied no further alienation of personal rights than such as would arise, suppose, from adoption or coverture; whence the general phrase ' capitis minor,' even if an evident similarity of derivation implied a neces- sary relationship between the expressions, would be far too vague to convey that abandon (to borrow a French term) of humiliated yet obstinate pride which represents the martyr to the cause of honour and truth as proclaiming himself unworthy of re- ceiving a parting embrace from wife and children, or of elevating his manly brow amongst his fellows. It is here proposed to refer the expression to an entirely different origin, and one which will reach the root of the idiom itself The classis called ' capite censi' did not include the Servi. Although the lowest, it was still a class of Gives. Hence the words ' capite censis minor , or, as the classical expression would be likely to run, ''capitis censu minor would form a natural paraphrase detached passages of the lyrics. 191 for servus : while the transition to the elliptical form * capitis-minor would be simply due to conventional compendium sermonis; and the application here would imply that Regulus now regarded himself as * one lower than the lowest 0/ citizens.' If this account be admissible, it were superfluous to impress the con- venience of adopting it. NoN Hydra secto corpore firmior Vinci dolentem crevit in Herculem: monstrumve submisere colchi Ma J US, EcHiONi^vE Theb-^. Carm. IV. IV. 61-4. All the authorities, whether in the department of lexicography, geography, or criticism, agree in as- signing toCoLCHi the sole meaning of — ^Inhabitants of Colchis' But, waiving the incongruity of placing ^ColchV in this sense in juxta-position with 'Thebce,' may we not ask — With what possible regard to poetic or other propriety could the ^ inhabitants' of a district be said ' submittere {ava'ne^'KeLv) mons- trum;' and especially in the present case, where, in both instances alike, the earth is fabled to have yielded the formidable growth ? Now, besides several pas- sa^res in the Argonautics, in which Colchi and its in- flexions would appear to require to be understood, consistently with good taste, as a designation of the country^ not of the inhabitants (though it might be difficult actually to prove this)— two very plain in- 192 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE LYRICS. 193 Stances in point are available in Ovid's delineation of Medea's remorseful address to Jason, — Jussus inexpertam Colchos advertere pupplm, Intrasti patriae regna beata meae. Heroid. XII. 23-4. Laese pater, gaude : Colchi gaudete relicti ; Inferias umbrae fratris habete mei ! Ib. 159-60. This latter case is perfectly demonstrative; for the reception of infer ice was attributed to departed spirits and to the Earthy but not to living persons in any sense. Hence, Colchi will correspond in form with Bruttii, Locri, &c. Dive, quem proles Niobcea magn^ ViNDICEM lingua, TiTYOSQUE RAPTOR Sensit, Carm. IV. VI. 1-3. That the exact measure of Niobe's offence differed somewhat in the primitive legend from that given by amplifiers of fable, such as Ovid, whom modern my- thologists follow, will appear from a passagein the Homeric writings which is usually mistranslated : • OvveK apa Aryroi [Nio^rj] IffdcKero KaWiTrapyw. 4>^ doiw TSKeetv^ ^ h^avri] yeivaro ttoWovS' Tw d apa^ Kal hoiw irep c6i/t', ciTro Trai/ras oXeaaav. II. xxiv. 607-9. Here the latter member of the penultimate verse should be taken as explanatory of the point of the taunt insinuated in the former ; and not as Ovid seems to have understood the passage (if we may infer that he had it in view in the following coun- terpart of the usual translation given), namely, as a portion of the expression of Niobe, Ilia duobus Facta parens ; uteri pars est liaec septiraa nostri. Met. VI. III. 191-2. The original version of the legend, interpreted as here recommended, represents the dignity of the offended deities as greater, and the effrontery of the culprit as less, than the common acceptation, and so enhances the delicacy of the moral and the force of the reli- gious impression. Est mihi nonum superantis annum PlENUS AlBANI CADDS; . . . Carm. IV. xi. 1-2. Although, from the length to which these pages have already run, the conviction is pressing that an examination of the Art of Poetry will not be com- patible with the compass of the present work, while an imperfect notice would be worse than none, yet the preceding clause furnishes so easy an illustration of one cardinal sentence in that standard critique, that it is difficult to dismiss the subject of the Lyrics without alluding to it. The passage is as follows : SI QUID TAMEN OLIM SCRIPSERIS IN MjECI DESCENDAT JUDICIS AURES, Et patris, et nostras ; nonumque prematur in annum, Membranis intus positis. Ar. Poet. 386-9. N 194 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAAflNED. DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE EPISTLES. 195 Because it happens that the luckless Helvius Cin- na (lid in fact hold back a 'poem for nine years before publication, it has been supposed that the allusion is to him (a supposition which Weichert gravely un- dertakes to prove uncertain), while the allusion of ' nonum in annum is, in any view, taken as a large nu- merical expression of time; as if time in itself could produce any beneficial effect on writings; or as if the disadvantages of delay might not in many cases equal or exceed those of haste. But nothing more seems intended by the poet than figuratively to recommend that a poem should be mellowed by reflection, just as wine is improved hy time. It happens that time is generally essential to the completion of criticism; but such a term must repre- sent an indefinitely varying quantity, for one man will mentally mature more in a few hours than another could accomplish with equal diligence in any number of years. Hence the expression is to be taken as purely figurative here. This is borne out by the cor- respondence of a parallel phrase * positis intus Chii veterisque Falerni mille cadis,' with * memhranis intus positis : but in the case of writings, a detention for pur- poses of scrutiny, and not a putting out of view, must be intended, though the figure be borrowed as before. It is evident that the text implies wine exceeding average quality in point of age; and hence it is likely that the ninth year was a standard in such case: and so would be representative of perfection secured by a maturing process. Epistolary writing, so far as it is a communication between familiar parties, is a species of composition likely to be imperfectly understood by indifferent persons, almost in proportion as the allusions imply an easy conception on the part of those concerned. Indeed many expressions found in such often appear even highly ridiculous when published, which may yet have been sufficiently suitable to any purpose for which they could have been originally intended. Where, on the other hand, the epistolary style is adopted, merely in imitation of the former use, for the familiar conveyance of general sentiments, it may be expected to display much of the inartificial freedom of social converse, with as little introduction as possible of particulars not intelligible to, or appre- ciable by many. The utility and beauty which this latter mode of giving free expression to reflection is fitted to exhibit are considerable, though somewhat compromised by the modern editorial fiction of ad- dressing, as * Letters' to public bodies or individuals, compositions which are really written speeches, ad- vertisements, or notices. The Epistles of Horace include elegant specimens of both the legitimate classes above adverted to. Be- neath the smooth surface of the former there lies, no doubt, a large amount of allusion, which was strictly relevant to circumstances of the passing hour and of private associations, but which is now for ever lost: n2 \\i 196 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. while the simplicity of style equally natural to the latter would contribute as much on the other hand to dispense with the services of modern criticism in this department. A few steps therefore will conduct the reader be- yond the confines of this field of investigation. Si fortunatum species et gratia pr^stat, MeRCEMUR SERVUM, qui DICTET NOMINA, LJEVUM Qui fodicet latus, et cogat trans pondera dextram porrigere. Epis. I. VI. 49-52. It is worthy of notice that all the manifold attempts made to account for the expression ^ trans pondera poirigere^' whether passable, laughable, or deplorable, take trans in the same one (and that not the original) of its two significations. Now, instead of supposing it to mean ' across^ in connexion with motion^ let us try whether 'heyondl or * on the other side of,' in posi- tion, may not conduce to a more intelligible, or, at all events, a less frivolous interpretation than many of those resting on the other ground. In this view the language is strongly suggestive of operations in machinery, by which weights applied at one of two sides produce motion at the other, as, suppose, of an index traversing proportional spaces. The nomenclator 'Icevum fodicat latus' (the verbal- notion being perhaps borrowed from the indenting of DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE EPISTLES. 197 notches to sustain forces), and proceeds to apply his 'pondera' (a term often used metaphorically, as in ' nugis Q.Mei[:epondus\ &c.), in the suggestions, ' Hie multum in Fabia valet,' — * Cuilibet hie fasces dabit,' &c. &c., and so ' cogit dextram porrigere' at the side remote from the application of the motive power. Thus the electioneering aspirant is represented as a sort of automaton — ' ducitur ut nervis alienis mo- bile lignuin; and the phrase may be taken as a true proverbial expression introduced in progressu sen- tentice without any formal intimation of its real cha- racter; as in—" At nos virtutes ipsas invertimus, 2X(\\xe Sincerum cupimusvas incrustarer—^^^. I. ni. 55-6, &c. &c. * Quid volui?' dices, ubi quid te l^serit. Et scis In breve te cogi plenus quum languet amator. Quod si non odio peccantis desipit augur, Charus eris Rom^ donec te deseret ^tas ; Epis. I. xx. 7-10. A MISTAKE as great as it must appear, on a little re- flection, to be evident, is common to all comments on and versions of the sentence — * Et scis in breve te cogi plenus quum languet amator ; for although so plainly expressed in present time, it is constantly rendered as part and parcel of the prospect which the author foreshadows in this fanciful address to his Book. Yet throughout the entire epistle not only is the future in events appropriately described by I 198 THE WOBKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. the future in time, but these are supposed to be re- vealed to a party ignorant of consequences; whereas here we have the knowledge of that party appealed to in present time, which must therefore infer expe- rience in some way however imaginary. The solution is simply this. By 'plenus amator' Horace means himself'; just as immediately after- wards he refers to himself in the third person — * ride- bit monitor non exauditus;' and the argument is — * if such be your present treatment occasionally at the hand of your original and most interested ''amator,^ what must you expect from the caprice of strangers?' Cum tot sustineas et tanta negotia solus, Res Italas armis tuteris, moribus ornes, Legibus emendes, in publica commoda peccem, Si longo sermone morer tua tempora, Caesar. Epist. II. I. 1-4. If the correct interpretation of this highly-wrought passage, which forms the inaugural prelude to the most elaborate criticism upon the rise and progress of Roman poetry from Saturnian infancy to Augustan maturity bequeathed to us by Roman genius, shall appear to have hitherto escaped the observation of the shrewdest critics, the reflective reader will not fail to attribute such oversight to its real cause, viz. — that the gracefulness of the preface has been absorbed in the brilliancy of the sequel, — that the substance of DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE EPISTLES. 199 the treatise itself (to use a free adaptation of its own words) ' uritfulgore suo . , , artes (in this instance, artes exordium ornate concinnandi) infra se positas' In the following endeavour to show that such inad- vertence has indeed occurred here, simplicity both of process and result is relied upon to shield the effort from the supposition of assuming to accom- plish ' some great thing' in particulars where larger publications have been naturally conversant rather with generals. The assertion, however, that so many eminent men, belonging to so many different ages and countries, should aZZ have sanctioned an inadmissible idiom, and most of them incongruity of tense, in the exposition of one of the most prominent passages in the works of a notable classic author, must, at first hearing appear adventurous. In any view it is likely to create a presumption against its truth which no mere preamble can modify; and, therefore, in this as in other instances, the alternative of the great histo- rian of Patavium, in recording the substance of the Decemvir's apparently impossible decree, alone re- mains — ' id, quod constat, nudum videtur proponen- dum.' In the first place, then, the expression ' morer tem- pora' has been invariably received as conveying the notion of ' delaying timeJ But it appears to be a pro- position capable of demonstration, that pure Latinity knows no such idiom ; and that the words of the text must have impressed another and a less feeble apo- logetic sentiment upon the attention of the imperial 200 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE EPISTLES. 201 in personage to whom they were addressed. We must not here be misled by the familiarity of such phrase in our own, or in any other language; nor by its con- ventional application at present in association simi- lar to that in the instance under consideration. The question is, did the Latin tongue in fact recognise the idiom 'tempus morarV in the preceding sense ? And if it did not, it follows that the plural form Hempora! will still less admit of such construction; for it will not be supposed by any scholar whom this discussion concerns, that the author employed it merely to sub- serve metrical purposes. The general difficulty of proving a negative proposition is much reduced here, as elsewhere, by the research of able phraseologists before referred to, whose inductive authority is the highest available standard of propriety in the case; and whose works (especially that of Scheller) ex- hibit such depth and extent of varied learning, as to justify the confident assumption that any phrase or idiom not recognised in these repertories cannot be found in the whole range of Latin literature. From these accredited records, then, two conclu- sions are derivable. First, that the phrase in ques- tion is nowhere quoted or alluded to among cognate phrases. Secondly, that it is inconsistent in its na- ture with other established and undoubted classical phrases which are so quoted. The validity of the former can only be ascertained by the industry of the reader, who will find abundant instances of tenipus perdere, amitterej terere, &c. &c. ; but not one of tern- pus morari. The latter, also, must, to a certain ex- tent, require that readers shall follow in the mea- sured steps of investigation which writers have smoothed before : but the inquiry may be assisted by some collateral considerations, in the way of strength- ening a possibly incomplete induction. In each and all of the figurative applications of the verb moror adduced by the before-mentioned autho- rities, the primary and original idea of actual detention or stoppage is present and paramount, however bold may be the figure presented to the imagination. To instance this in extreme cases: — In the well-known ode where Horace, with a conception worthy of the noble Olympic lay of Pindar, which he follows as a model, describes the magic spell of the Orphean lyre, a strong example occurs: Arte materna rapidos morantem Fluminum lapsus, celeresque ventos. Carm. I. XII. 9-10. As also where, with poetic fervour, he extends such mystic influence to the lyre in general: "Tu potes . . rivos celeres morari'' — Carm. III. xi. 13-4. Again, that secondary use of moror which is farthest re- moved from the primary, appears to occur in such phrases as "• vina nihil moror!' — Hor. *' Nil moror officium." — Id. " Nee dona moror." — Vikg., &c. &c. Yet even here it is evident that it is only in virtue of the idea of detaining, stopping to question, estimate, or ^^amm^ (probably borrowed metaphorically from^er- sons in the first instance), that the word is significant. 202 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. But strictly, the idea of stopping or detaining a passing volume of air or water involves in itself no impossi- bility: the poetic marvel lay in the agency employed: while to construct moror, in the sense here maintained to be proper, with tempus in the sense which the commentators assign to it (for they treat tempora as tempus) would express, an impossibility which would be properly employed to illustrate only the impossi- hie or the absurd^ or that which is supposed to be so, whether actually or approximately. Thus *' ac, veluti stet volucris dies, parcis deripere," &c. — Carm. III. XXVIII. 6-7. Such expressions as *' volucris fati tar- davit alas," — Carm. II. xvii. 24-5, — are not in point, for it is evident that the postponement of an event or issue in time is metaphorically intended. The signi- fication of tempus morari, then, would be to stop^ the * Probably the most extreme case open to human conception of an apparent approach to suspension of the progress of Time oc- curs in connexion with a sublime passage of Holy Scripture — " Then spake Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord de- livered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon, and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood still and the moon stayed," &c. — Joshua, x. 12, 13. However duration itself (to bar which would be more than a miraculous interruption of the mere course of nature), is independent of particular appearances of anything used as a measure of it; and the appearances in this case may have been due to a miraculously increased intensity of atmospheric powers which even naturally produce very astonish- ing effects. The mountain-brow, no doubt, represents the boun- dary of the sensible (western) horizon, where the sun's altitude appeared to stay constant at a minimum for the necessary period ; DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE EPISTLES. 203 progress, or (to speak with less of popular metaphor) the continuance ^time; and would bear no affinity whatever to the English phrase to delay time. To examine the exact analysis of this latter expression^ or the precise propriety of its use, would be entirely beside the present question. It suffices if it be here established that the Latins had no such phrase as tempus morari: and that, had they had such, its sig- nification would have been wholly different from that assigned to it by the commentators in the passage un- der consideration. Having necessarily dilated in seeking confirma- tion for our first objection, we are now enabled to pursue a narrower and less rugged path in inquir- ing whether the second member of the clause — ' tem- pora' — has been rightly understood by the com- mentators. That exposition is ever the best where the author is his own expositor ; and in the present instance it will not be needful to travel beyond the Horatian page in endeavouring to develope the true Horatian sentiment. while the moon (in a favourable quarter, suppose the third) may be conceived to have operated reciprocally so as to share the re- quired agency. Thus, although, in the words of the inspired penman, " And there was no day like that before it or after it," V. 14, — yet the picture presented appears to be so far from necessarily inferring any very violent disturbance of nature, that it may be regarded as a marked instance of that accommodation of the language of Scripture to the primary and most natural conceptions of men, which, by assisting human weakness, so largely favours general apprehension. 204 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. The word ^ temporal with its inflexions, occurs in fifteen instances in the works of Horace as re- presentative of some mode of time. In none is it less specific or precise than our English term 'times,' as contradistinguished from *time/ and in most it marks particular periods, eventful seasons, or notable junctures. An examination of these refer- ences will requite the reader's patience ; but for the present purpose the quotation of a very few passages will sufiice. See, then, " orientia tempora" — Epis. IL I. 130; " tempora fastosque mundi" — Ser. I. iii. 112; " tempora quceramy^ — Ser. I. ix. 58; ^Wahiosi tempora signi^' — Ser. I. vi. 126. The emendation of Cruquius, stamped as it is by the marked sanction of Bentley, followed by (amongst many others) Orellius, Hein-t dorf, and Milman, will disentitle this last passage to absolute rank among examples; but it is of some rela- tive value as furnishing an easy introduction for the remark, that a leading and emphatic force of ' tempora^ is its application to the transitions and revolutions of the heavenly bodies. See its construction above with * moment is,^ which is itself used in this sense by our author in the only place where it again occurs, viz. — ''momenta Leonis" — Epis. I. x. 1 6 ; and * orientia tempora is probably a trope derivable from this very notion. Now, be it observed that the comparison of the emperor to a dazzling luminary^ and of the improvements, which his superintendence was intro- ducing, to the beneficial influences of a star or con- stellationj ushering in a genial season, was familiar to DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE EPISTLES. 205 the poet's mind. Thus, in the seventeenth line, we find the remarkable expression, — "Nil oriturum alias, nil ortum tale fatentes," — in reference to Cassar; and this is immediately preceded by two others which evidently coexist in the same association with it, *' Urit enimfulgore suo^' &c., and — ''extinctus amabitur idem.'' Again, whatever judgment may be formed of the opposite views of DacierandMitscherlich respect- ing the opening verse of the ode, ' Divis orte bonis,' there can be no mistake about the following passage: Lucem redde tuae. Dux bone, patriae : Instar veris enim vultus uhi tuus Affulsit populo, gratior it dies, Et soles melius nitent. Carm. IV. V. 5-8. This image is found elsewhere also in our author, as in — ''Solem Asise Brutum appellat; stellasque salu- bres comites ejus," &c. — Ser.I. vii. 24-5. Thus, then, we at length approach a full view of an entirely new meaning of our text, which it is hoped shall appear improbable to none, and morally certain to some, viz., that Horace really intends by the expression " morer tua temporal' the keeping back or retarding of the Emperor's shinings-forth before his people as a heavenly agent of national good. It were a profitless task to review, in the second instance, the multiplied discussions of the commen- tators upon the former part of the verse, viz. — " si longo sermone" — : while they strive in vain to disen- tangle the poet from difficulties in which they have f f 206 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. themselves involved him. But as the hand-book of Professor Anthon, a work whose plan amply relieves the momentary wants of the hurried or helpless stu- dent, and the abler (though more limited) manual of the acute and judicious M'Caul, as well as vari- ous other compendia, have given a fixed currency, in the schools of these countries generally, to Bishop Kurd's acceptation of ' serinone! in the sense of ''pre- face^ without at all noticing Dr. Parr's confutation of it (though they in general give his far-fetched re- mark upon * longo^ as meaning ' long relatively to the importance of the subject'), it may be as well to intro- duce a new view of the clause by a quotation from the latter writer's work, which is scarce. In a note to his ironical dedication of the Warbur- tonian Tracts to the above distinguished prelate, Dr. Parr remarks, in his usual sharp style of criticism, — *' The commentator" (meaning Dr. Hurd himself) ** ex- plains longo sermone, * a long introduction,' and in the close of his note he interweaves into the word sermone the additional meaning of * familiar conversation.' But to me, I confess, the word as used here suggests neither the one nor the other sense ; and even with the aid of the learned commentator, I am imable to see how, in one and the same place, it holds two meanings so very remote from each other. Sermo is used here in the same sense which it bears in line 5, Carmen 8, lib. 3, of the Odes, where the close of Bentley's note may illustrate this disputed passage in the Epistle to Augustus." — The note of Bentley DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE EPISTLES. 207 reads as follows. After observing with characteristic sagacity, that the expression, " Docte sermones utri- usque Z%W6^," cannot mean, as addressed toM^cenas, mere education in the Greek language (an attainment common-place in respectable ranks of societyat that period) and acquaintance with his own, the learned critic proceeds : " Enimvero aliud quid et majus hie significat sermones, nemi^e Z/Jr6>5 Tractatus, Historias, ut apud GraBCOs AOPOI, Xenophontis OIkovo^lko^ Xoyo^, &c. Inde Oratores, Philosophi, Historici Aoyoypaipoi appellati. Ita Horatius Satiras suas ser- mones, sive A6yov9 inscripsit, et Carm. III. xxi. — non ilk quamnis Socraticis madet sermonibus, &c., id est ^wKpaTLKo:^ \oYoi9."— Mitscherlitch suggests IxvBov^, which is not borne out by Passow's dicta un- der head of ^ivOo^ and \6yo^. But whatever be the Greek or English parallel, Dr. Kurd's version, " In- troduction'' is wholly without authority or precedent of any kind. The entire controversy, in which the above dispu- tants are only two in a crowd, appears to have arisen from inattention to the simple consistency of the present tense throughout the passage. This has not been re- marked upon, though it may have suggested the plain direct view of Sanadon and Orellius. Nothing can be more simple than the diction of Horace, if he will only be allowed to speak in his own words. Horace does not intend to convey in this passage that the pub- lic welfare would suffer z^;^^he to detain the emperor from imperial callings, but he confesses that he feels 208 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE EPISTLES. 209 I he is probably interfering with general interests by so detaining him. On the whole, it seems both necessary and desirable that the passage should be rendered in the following, or in any other tantamount terms : — *' Since you, Caesar, support single-handed so many and weighty functions, protect Italian interests by prowess, grace them in moral comeliness, rectify them by legislation, (I feel that) I may probably sin against the national weal, if I impede (or, in thus impeding) your beneficent public manifestations by (closeting you to peruse) a lengthy literary disquisition." The delicacy of the subjunctive verbal form throughout in the original, presenting in the several clauses not objective fact but subjective conception, seems incapable of being conveyed by any of the or- dinary English auxiliaries (of which our language avails itself as supplying the want of a subjunctive mood) without, at the same time, weakening the amount of absolute truth which such conceptions are calculated to imply : but the force of the conceptive form peccem seems adequately rendered by the ad- verb ^ probably,^ The applicability of the present subjunctive to ex- press in independent sentences a contingency which the mind of the writer subjectively regards as morally probable whether subjectively or objectively, would ap- pear to be well sustained by its use in our author's works and elsewhere. But it must not be denied that no notice of this peculiarity is taken by the eminent Professor Zumpt, whose rules are deservedly autho- ritative both in England and on the Continent. The following passages appear to supply advantageous in- stances in point: — •'* Quid statis ? Nolint,'^ — Ser. I. I. 19, — tantamount to ''the chances are, they're unwil- ling!' Again, "In primis valeas bene," — Ser. II. ii. 71, — i. e. " among tlie chief advantages, you are likely to enjoy good heaWf — a blessing which, of course, the utmost caution could not guarantee. Again, " quod non desit habentem," — Epis. II. n. 52, — i. e. "having what is not likely to fail." In the ^neid we find ex- actly the same association, — " Hoc Ithacus velit^ et magno mercentur Atreida3." — ii. 104. And finally, not to multiply instances, a strong case occurs in the (so called) Catilinarian War, — "quem neque gloria, neque pericula excitant, nequidquam hortere." — Cap. Lviii. In all these places an absolute and independent power of implying probability over and above mere conceptive contingency is observable. But, of course, the ground of such probability is inherent in the con- text, and therefore the independence here spoken of is a constructive independence, and not such as would infer that the verbal-form could be self-significant of probability. A condition must indeed be always implied more or less : and the immediate context, though not ex- pressed hypothetically, may be so resolvable; as, for instance, the last example quoted above is tantamount to — [si ali-]'quem neque gloria, neque pericula ex- citant, [sequitur ut eum] nequidquam hortere.' o 210 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE EPISTLES. 211 *( Prjesenti tibi maturos largimur honores, jurandasque tuum per nomen ponimus aras. Epis. II. I. 15-6. The commentators have permitted two apparent mis- conceptions to mar this passage : one both of mean- ing and construction; the other of meaning only. With regard to the former, they all confound ' juran- das tuum per nomen' above, with the expression 'ju- rare per aliquid^ and they accumulate instances of this use of ' per\ as if any scholar could doubt the fact that it may be, and commonly is, so used. But if such be its signification here, what is the mean- ing of 'jiirandas' ? If it be supposed that the word can signify ' to be sworn at, beside, or before,' the answer is simple — that such is not consistent with the fact of classical usage. No meaning can be extracted from the Yerhjuro but that assigned by Ovid in a parallel phrase — ''diis juranda palus," — Met. ii. 21,— i. e. 'to be sworn by.' But it is asserted, as if in explanation, that the party would hold the altar while he swore. Probably so : but this does not prove that « jurare aram can mean ' to hold by an altar, while you swear by something else.* The apparent difficulty is easily removed. * Per' must here imply not ' bij but * through'. And the poet intimates that altars would derive their sacred- ness as objects of adjuration— they would become arce jurandce—in virtue of the Emperor's name, to which they would be solemnly dedicated. But has not the delicacy oi the future notion im- plied in 'jurandas ' been also overlooked, although the admitted fact that Augustus, probably from mo- tives of state policy, rigidly forbade the practice here alluded to, might have suggested it ? — *' Templa quamvis sciret etiam proconsulibus decerni solere, in nulla tamen provincia nisi com muni suo Romaeque nomine recepit; nam in Urbe quidem pertinacissime abstinuit hoc hon ore."— Suet. Vit. Oct. lii. This is the point then which the poet seems to guard; the language being, in all probability, purely figurative: as if he had said — ' the materiel for the rendering of divine honours is ready prepared : its application to the purpose is merely a question oi future time! Si, quia Graiorum sunt antiquissima qu^equ^ scripta vel optima, romani pensantur eadem scriptores trutina, non est quod multa loquamur ; Nil intra est oleam, nil extra est in nuce duri ; VeNIMUS ad SUMMUM FORTUNiE, PINGIMUS ATQUE PSALLIMUS ET LUCTAMUR AcHIVIS DOCTIUS UNCTIS. Epis. II. I. 28-33. The elaborate disquisitions of Bishop Ilurd and others, upon the reasoning here employed, while they would represent its general tenor as very intricate, leave its literal forms and their connexion wholly unexplained. Let us just view the condition, and the inference o2 212 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. which it involves, disentangled from subordinate details. ' If,' says Horace, ' because the several most ancient extant productions of Greek writers are even (i. e. fully granting the fact) the best, Roman writers are therefore weighed in the same scale — [it follows that]— we Romans paint, perform musical pieces, and conduct athletic sports, more scientifically than the Greeks' Why so? Where exactly lies the vis consequentice? It is generally supposed that the consequent here merely conveys a general instance to the effect — ' any absurdity may be as well main- tained:' or, as Bishop Hurd paraphrases this senti- ment — " There was no reasoning with persons ca- pable of such extravagant positions r Horace seems to have thought otherwise. According to him there was no need of much reasoning with them — ' non est quod multa loquarum' — but there was need of some; although much less, and of a simpler kind, than the learned prelate himself and others have expended upon the subject. What has added not a little to the embarrassment here felt is, that the exact application of the verse — * Nil intra est oleam^ &c.— is disputed. Most persons take it as a kind of duplicate phrase to imply ' absur- dity': this is an easy generality. Orellius, more inge- niously observes — *' verum potius est tvBviuiixa con- tractum et implicatum ex his: 1.) Oliva et nux similes sunt fructus, quoniam ex utraque oleum ex- primitur ; 2.) Nihil duri est intra nucem; ergo neque intra olivam; 3.) Nihil duri est extra olivam; ergo ne- DETACHED PASSAGES OF THE EPISTLES. 213 que extra nucem." And he apologizes for the intro- duction of such a puerility by Horace on the ground that it may be borrowed from the quibbles of the schools. But to return to the argument — which, after all, may truly be said (if the reader will not suspect a jest) to ' lie in a nutshell.' Horace's plea for modern, in comparison with an- cient, Roman poets, as developed in the seventy-five verses — from v. 18 to 92 — over which it extends, rests on two positions, a negative and a positive : — 1st, That priority in time gives no warrant of superiority in merit. 2nd, That the ancients are in fact inferior. The root of complication in the present instance seems to lie in the circumstance of the commentators having universally supposed what is the proper con- clusion of the first part, as here stated, to be identical with the conclusion of a merely subsidiary argument. In the passage before us Horace draws no compari- son between ancient and modern Roman writers. He merely denies the case of the most ancient extant Greek wTiters to be parallel to that of the Roman: and his statement of the case appears tantamount to the following — ' If we compare ancient Grecian with ancient Roman poetry on the one hand, and modern Grecian with modern Roman proficiency in arts on the other, we shall have as undoubted a contrast be- tween the refined and the rough in the former case as must be admitted to exist in the latter, although it be less universally evident; just as in the instance of an olive and a nut, the unseen stone of the former is as 214 THE WORKS OF HORACE EXAMINED. certainly present as the outward shell of the latter; and he who denies the existence of the former might as well maintain the external covering of the latter fruit to be the softer part. Thus as well might it be asserted that we now paint, &c., " Achivis doctius^' as that our ancient performances are not relatively to the ancient Greek, as the stone of an olive to the esculent part/ Thus the much disputed bearing of the simile of the ' nut' and ' olive,' would appear to be neither a mere form for expressing ' the absurd,' nor yet a scho- lastic quibble; but a natural illustration of a given reciprocal position. Adjecere bon^ paullo plus artis Athene, Scilicet ut possem curvo dignoscere rectum, AtQUE inter SYLVAS AcADEMI QUiERERE VERUM. Epist. II. II. 43-5. The principle that right and icrong mutually exhibit each the other is so essential a component of every argument, and is so plainly reduced to a proverbial form by Greek writers, that it seems strange that no one should have recognised it in the Latin dress which it wears in the second of the preceding verses. In Sophocles we have a very striking parallel — FvaJjurjC TTOVJjpac KavoGiv avafitTpovfjievog "loTO) TO