The second of these _Epithalamia_ is, if not translated, certainly

modelled from the Greek, and in its imagery reminds us of Sappho. It is

less ardent and more studied than the first, and though its tone is far

less elevated, it gains a special charm from its calm, almost statuesque

language. [129] The _Nuptials of Peleus and Thetis_ is a miniature epic,

[130] such as were often written by the Alexandrian poets. Short as it is,

it contains two plots, one within the other. The story of Peleus's

marriage is made the occasion for describing the scene embroidered on the

coverlet or cushion of the marriage bed. This contains the loves of

Theseus and Ariadne, the Minotaur, the Labyrinth, the return of Theseus,

his desertion of Ariadne, and her reception into the stars by Iacchus. The

poem is unequal in execution; the finest passages are the lament of

Ariadne, which Virgil has imitated in that of Dido, and the song of the

Fates, which gives the first instances of those refrains taken from the

Greek pastoral, which please so much in the Eclogues, and in Tennyson's

_May Queen._ The _Atys_ or _Attis_ stands alone among the poet's works.

Its subject is the self-mutilation of a noble youth out of zeal for

Cybele's worship, and is probably a study from the Greek, though of what

period it would be hard to say. A theme so unnatural would have found

little favour with the Attic poets; the subject is more likely to have

been approached by the Alexandrian writers, whom Catullus often copies.

But these tame and pedantic versifiers could have given no precedent for

the wild inspiration of this strange poem, which clothes in the music of

finished art bursts of savage emotion. The metre is galliambic, a rhythm

proper to the hymns of Cybele, but of which no primitive Greek example

remains. The poem cannot be perused with pleasure, but must excite

astonishment at the power it displays. The language is tinged with

archaisms, especially compounds like _hederigera, silvicultrix_. In

general Catullus writes in the plain unaffected language of daily life.

His effects are produced by the freshness rather than the choiceness of

his terms, and by his truth to nature and good taste. His construction of

sentences, like that of Lucretius, becomes at times prosaic, from the

effort to avoid all ambiguity. If the first forty lines of his _Epistle to

Mallius_ [131] be studied and compared with any of Ovid's _Epistles from

Pontus_, the great difference in this respect will at once be seen. Later

writers leave most of the particles of transition to be supplied by the

reader's intelligence: Catullus, like Sophocles, indicates the sequence of

thought. Nevertheless poetry lost more than it gained by the want of

grammatical connection between successive passages, which, while it adds

point, detracts from clearness, and makes the interpretation, for example,

of Persius and Juvenal very much less satisfactory than that of Lucretius

or Horace.

The genius of Catullus met with early recognition. Cornelius Nepos, in his

life of Atticus (ch. xii.), couples him with Lucretius as the first poet

of the age (_nostra aetas_), and his popularity, though obscured during

the Augustan period, soon revived, and remained undiminished until the

close of Latin literature. During the Middle Ages Catullus was nearly

being lost to us; he is preserved in but one manuscript discovered in the

fourteenth century. [132]

Catullus is the last of the Republican poets. Separated by but a few years

from the _Eclogues_ of Virgil, a totally different spirit pervades the

works of the two writers; while Catullus is free, unblushing, and

fearless, owing allegiance to no man, Virgil is already guarded,

restrained, and diffident of himself, trusting to Pollio or Augustus to

perfect his muse, and guide it to its proper sphere. In point of language

the two periods show no break: in point of feeling they are altogether

different. A few survived from the one into the other, but as a rule they

relapsed into silence, or indulged merely in declamation. We feel that

Catullus was fortunate in dying before the battle of Aetium; had he lived

into the Augustan age, it is difficult to see how he could have found a

place there. He is a fitting close to this passionate and stormy period, a

youth in whom all its qualities for good and evil have their fullest

embodiment.

APPENDIX.

NOTE I.--_On the Use of Alliteration in Latin Poetry._

It is impossible to read the earlier Latin poets, or even Virgil, without

seeing that they abound in repetitions of the same letter or sound, either

intentionally introduced or unconsciously presenting themselves owing to

constant habit. Alliteration and assonance are the natural ornaments of

poetry in a rude age. In Anglo-Saxon literature alliteration is one of the

chief ways of distinguishing poetry from prose. But when a strict prosody

is formed, it is no longer needed. Thus in almost all civilised poetry, it

has been discarded, except as an occasional and appropriate ornament for a

special purpose. Greek poetry gives few instances. The art of Homer has

long passed the stage at which such an aid to effect is sought for. The

cadence of the Greek hexameter would be marred by so inartistic a device.

The dramatists resort to it now and then, _e.g._ Oedipus, in his blind

rage, thus taunts Tiresias:

_tuphlos ta t' ota ton te noun ta t' ommat' ei._

But here the alliteration is as true to nature as it is artistically

effective. For it is known that violent emotion irresistibly compels us to

heap together similar sounds. Several subtle and probably unconscious

instances of it are given by Peile from the Idyllic poets; but as a rule

it is true of Greek as it is of English, French, and Italian poetry, that

when metre, caesura, or rhyme, hold sway, alliteration plays an altogether

subordinate part. It is otherwise in Latin poetry. Here, owing to the

fondness for all that is old, alliteration is retained in what is

correspondingly a much later period of growth. After Virgil, indeed, it

almost disappears, but as used by him it is such an instrument for effect,

that perhaps the discontinuance of it was a loss rather than a gain. It is

employed in Latin poetry for various purposes. Plautus makes it

subservient to comic effect (Capt. 903, quoted by Munro.).

"_Quánta pérnis péstis véniet, quánta lábes lárido,

Quánta súmini ábsumédo, quánta cállo cálamitas

Quánta lániés lássitúdo_."

Compare our verse:

"Right round the rugged rock the ragged rascal ran."

Ennius and the tragedians make it express the stronger emotions, as

violence:

"_Priamo vi vitam evitari._"

So Virgil, imitating him: _fit via vi_; Lucr. _vivida vis animi pervicit_;

or again pity, which is expressed by the same letter (pronounced as w),

_e.g. neu patriae validas in viscera vertite vires; viva videns vivo

sepeliri viscera, busto_, from Virgil and Lucr. respectively. A hard

letter expresses difficulty or effort, _e.g. manibus magnos divellere

montis_. So Pope: _Up the high hill he heaves a huge round stone_. Or

emphasis, _parare non potuit pedibus qui pontum per vada possent_, from

Lucretius; _multaque_ prae_terea vatum_ prae_di ta_ pri_orum_, from

Virgil. Rarely it has no special appropriateness, or is a mere display of

ingenuity, as: _O Tite tute Tati tibi tanta tyranne tulisti_ (Ennius).

Assonance is almost equally common, and is even more strange to our taste.

In Greek, Hebrew, and many languages, it occurs in the form of

_Paronomasia_, or play on words; but this presupposes a _rapport_ between

the name and what is implied by it. Assonance in Latin poetry has no such

relevance. It simply emphasizes or adorns, _e.g_. Aug_usto_ aug_urio

postquam incluta condita Roma est_ (Enn.); _pulcram pulcritudinem_

(Plaut.). It takes divers forms, _e.g._ the _omoioteleuton_ akin to our

rhyme. _Vincla recus_antum _et sera sub nocte rud_entum; _cornua

relat_arum _obvertimus antenn_arum._ The beginnings of rhyme are here

seen, and perhaps still more in the elegiac, _debuerant fusos evoluisse

meos_; or Sapphic, _Pone me pigris ubi nulla campis Arbor aestiva

recreatur aura._ Other varieties of assonance are the frequent employment

of the same preposition in the same part of the foot, _e.g. insontem,

infando indicio--disjectis disque supatis_; the mere repetition of the

same word, _lacerum crudeliter ora, ora manusque_; or of a different

inflexion of it, _omnis feret omnia tellus, non omnia possumus omnes_;

most of all, by employing several words of a somewhat similar sound, what

is in fact a jingle, _e.g._ the well-known line, Cedant _arma togae

con_cedat lau_rea_ lau_di_; or again, mente _cle_mente _edita_ (Laberius).

Instances of this are endless; and in estimating the mechanical structure

of Latin poetry, which is the chief side of it, we observe the care with

which the greatest artists retain every method of producing effect, even

if somewhat old fashioned (see on this subject Munro's Lucr. preface to

Notes II. which has often been referred to.)

NOTE II.--_Some additional details on the History of the Mimus_ (from

Woelfflin. _Publ. Syri Sententiae_, Lips. 1869).

The mime at first differed from other kinds of comedy--(1) in having no

proper plot; (2) in not being presented primarily on the stage; (3) in

having but one actor. Eudicos imitated the gestures of boxing; Theodorus

the creaking of a windlass; Parmeno did the grunting of a pig to

perfection. Any one who raised a laugh by such kinds if imitation was

properly said _mimum agere_. Mimes are thus defined by Diomedes (p. 491,

13 k), _sermones cuiuslibet et molûs sine reverentia vel factorum et

dictorum turpium cum lascivia imitatio_. Such mimes as these were often

held at banquets for the amusement of great men. Sulla was passionately

fond of them. Admitted to the stage, they naturally took the place of

interludes or afterpieces. When a man imitated _e.g._ a muleteer (Petr.

Sat. 68), he had his mule with him; or if he imitated a _causidicus_, or a

drunken ruffian (Ath. 14, 621, c.), some other person was by to play the

foil to his violence. Thus arose the distinction of parts and dialogue;

the chief actor was called _Archimimus_, and the mime was then developed

after the example of the Atellanae. When several actors took part in a

piece, each was said _mimum agere_, though this phrase originally applied

only to the single actor.

When the mime first came on the stage, it was acted in front of the

curtain (Fest. p. 326, _ed. Müll._), afterwards, as its proportions

increased, a new kind of curtain called _siparium_ was introduced, so that

while the mime was being performed on this new and enlarged _proscaenium_

the regular drama were going on behind the siparium. Pliny (xxxv. 199)

calls Syrus _mimicae scaenae conditorem_; and as he certainly did not

build a theatre, it is most probable that Pliny refers to his invention of

the siparium. He evidently had a natural genius for this kind of

representation, in which Macrobius (ii. 7. 6) and Quintilian allow him the

highest place. Laberius appears to have been a more careful writer. Syrus

was not a literary man, but an improvisator and moralist. His _sententiae_

were held in great honour in the rhetorical schools in the time of

Augustus, and are quoted by the elder Seneca (Contr. 206, 4). The younger

Seneca also frequently quotes them in his letters (Ep. 108, 8, &c.), and

often imitates their style. There are some interesting lines in Petronius

(Satir. 55), which are almost certainly from Syrus. Being little known,

they are worth quoting as a popular denunciation of luxury--

"Luxuriae rictu Martis marcent moenia,

Tuo palato clausus pavo pascitur

Plumato amictus aureo Babylonico;

Gallina tibi Numidica, tibi gallus spado:

Ciconia etiam grata peregrina hospita

Pietaticultrix gracilipes crotalistria

Avis, exul hiemis, titulus tepidi temporis

Nequitiae nidum in cacabo fecit modo.

Quo margarita cara tribaca Indica?

An ut matrona ornata phaleris pelagiis

Tollat pedes indomita in strato extraneo?

Zmaragdum ad quam rem viridem, pretiosum vitrum.

Quo Carchedonios optas ignes lnpideos

Nisi ut scintilles? _probitas est carbunculus_."

There is a rude but unmistakable vigour in these lines which, when

compared with the quotation from Laberius given in the text of the work,

cause us to think very highly of the mime as patronized by Caesar.

NOTE III.--_Fragments of Valerius Soranus_.

This writer, who was somewhat earlier than the present epoch, having been

a contemporary of Sulla but having outlived him, was noted for his great

learning. He is mentioned by Pliny as the first to prefix a table of

contents to his book. His native town, Sora, was well known for its

activity in liberal studies. He is said by Plutarch to have announced

publicly the secret name of Rome or of her tutelary deity, for which the

gods punished him by death. St. Augustine (C. D. vii. 9) quotes two

interesting hexameters as from him:

"Iupiter omnipotens, rerum rex ipse deusque

Progenitor genetrixque, deum deus, unus et omnes."

Servius (Aen. iv. 638) cites two verses of a similar character, which

are most probably from Soranus. Iupiter, addressing the gods, says,

"Caelicolae, mea membra, dei, quos nostra potestas

Officiis, diversa facit."

These fragments show an extraordinary power of condensed expression, as

well as a clear grasp on the unity of the Supreme Being, for which reason

they are quoted.

PART II.

_THE AUGUSTAN EPOCH_ (42 B.C.-14 A.D.).

CHAPTER I.

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS.

The Augustan Age in its strictest sense does not begin until after the

battle of Actium, when Augustus, having overthrown his competitor, found

himself in undisputed possession of the Roman world (31 B.C.). But as the

_Eclogues_, and many of Horace's poems, were written at an earlier date,

and none of these can be ranked with the Republican literature, it is best

to assign the commencement of the Augustan period to the year of the

battle of Philippi, when the defeat of Brutus and Cassius left the old

constitution without a champion and made monarchy in the person either of

Antonius or Octavius inevitable. This period of fifty-seven years,

extending to the death of Augustus, comprises a long list of splendid

writers, inferior to those of the Ciceronian age in vigour and boldness,

but superior to all but Cicero himself in finish and artistic skill as

well as in breadth of human sympathy and suggestive beauty of expression.

It marks the culmination of Latin poetry, as the last epoch marks the

perfection of Latin prose. But the bloom which had been so long expanding

was short-lived in proportion to its sweetness; and perfect as is the art

of Virgil, Horace, and Tibullus, within a few years of Horace's death both

style and thought had entered on the path of irretrievable decline. The

muse of Ovid, captivating and brilliant, has already lost the severe grace

that stamps the highest classic verse; and the false tendencies forgiven

in him from admiration for his talent, become painfully conspicuous in his

younger contemporaries. Livy, too, in the domain of history, shows traces

of that poetical colouring which began more and more to encroach on the

style of prose; while in the work of Vitruvius, on the one hand and in

that of the elder Seneca on the other, we observe two tendencies which

helped to accelerate decay; the one towards an entire absence of literary

finish, the other towards the substitution of rich decoration for chaste

ornament.

There are certain common features shared by the chief Augustan authors

which distinguish them from those of the closing Republic. While the

latter were men of birth and eminence in the state, the former were mostly

Italians or provincials, [1] often of humble origin, neither warriors nor

statesmen, but peaceful, quiet natures, devoid of ambition, and desiring

only a modest independence and success in prosecuting their art. Horace

had indeed fought for Brutus; but he was no soldier, and alludes with

humorous irony to his flight from the field of battle. [2] Virgil prays

that he may live without glory among the forests and streams he loves. [3]

Tibullus [4] and Propertius [5] assert in the strongest terms their

incapacity for an active career, praying for nothing more than enjoyment

of the pleasures of love and song. Spirits like these would have had no

chance of rising to eminence amid the fierce contests of the Republic.

Gentle and diffident, they needed a patron to call out their powers or

protect their interests; and when, under the sway of Augustus, such a

patron was found, the rich harvest of talent that arose showed how much

letters had hitherto suffered from the unsettled state of the times. [6]

It is true that several writers of the preceding period survived into

this. Men like Varro, who kept aloof from the city, nursing in retirement

a hopeless loyalty to the past; men like Pollio and Messala, who accepted

the monarchy without compromising their principles, and who still appeared

in public as orators or jurists; these, together with a few poets of the

older school, such as Furius Bibaculus, continued to write during the

first few years of the Augustan epoch, but cannot properly be regarded as

belonging to it. [7] They pursued their own lines of thought, uninfluenced

by the Empire, except in so far as it forced them to select more trivial

themes, or to use greater caution in expressing their thoughts. But the

great authors who are the true representatives of Augustus's reign,

Virgil, Livy, and Horace, were brought into direct contact with the

emperor, and much of their inspiration centres round his office and

person.

The conqueror of Actium was welcomed by all classes with real or feigned

enthusiasm. To the remnant of the republican families, indeed, he was an

object partly of flattery, partly of hatred, in no case, probably, of

hearty approval or admiration; but by the literary class, as by the great

mass of the people, he was hailed as the restorer of peace and good

government, of order and religion, the patron of all that was best in

literature and art, the adopted son of that great man whose name was

already a mighty power, and whose spirit was believed to watch over Rome

as one of her presiding deities. It is no wonder if his opening reign

stamped literature with new and imposing features, or if literature

expressed her sense of his protection by a constant appeal to his name.

Augustus has been the most fortunate of despots, for he has met with

nothing but praise. A few harsh spirits, it seems, blamed him in no

measured terms; but he repaid them by a wise neglect, at least as long as

Maecenas lived, who well knew, from temperament as well as experience, the

value of seasonable inactivity. As it is, all the authors that have come

to us are panegyrists. None seem to remember his early days; all centre

their thoughts on the success of the present and the promise of the

future. Yet Augustus himself could not forget those times. As chief of the

proscription, as the betrayer of Cicero, as the suspected murderer of the

consul Hirtius, as the pitiless destroyer of Cleopatra's children, he must

have found it no easy task to act the mild ruler; as a man of profligate

conduct he must have found it still less easy to come forward as the

champion of decency and morals. He was assisted by the confidence which

all, weary of war and bloodshed, were willing to repose in him, even to an

unlimited extent. He was assisted also by able administrators, Maecenas in

civil, and Agrippa in military affairs. But there were other forces making

themselves felt in the great city. One of these was literature, as

represented by the literary class, consisting of men to whom letters were

a profession not a relaxation, and who now first appear prominently in

Rome. Augustus saw the immense advantage of enlisting these on his side.

He could pass laws through the senate; he could check vice by punishment;

but neither his character nor his history could make him influence the

heart of the people. To effect real reforms persuasive voice must be found

to preach them. And who so efficacious as the band of cultured poets whom

he saw collecting round him? These he deliberately set himself to win; and

that he did win then, some to a half-hearted, others to an absolute

allegiance, is one of the best testimonies to his enlightened policy. Yet

he could hardly have effected his object had it not been for the able co-

operation of Maecenas, whose conciliatory manners well fitted him to be

the friend of literary men. This astute minister formed a select circle of

gifted authors, chiefly poets, whom he endeavoured to animate with the

enthusiasm of succouring the state. He is said to have suggested to

Augustus the necessity of restoring the decayed grandeur of the national

religion. The open disregard of morality and religion evinced by the

ambitious party-leaders during the Civil Wars had brought the public

worship into contempt and the temples into ruin. Augustus determined that

civil order should once more repose upon that reverence for the gods which

had made Rome great. [8] Accordingly, he repaired or rebuilt many temples,

and both by precept and example strove to restore the traditional respect

for divine things. But he must have experienced a grave difficulty in the

utter absence of religious conviction which had become general in Rome.

The authors of the _De Divinatione_ and the _De Rerum Natura_ could not

have written as they did, without influencing many minds. And if men so

admirable as Cicero and Lucretius denied, the one the possibility of the

science he professed, [9] the other the doctrine of Providence on which

all religion rests, it was little likely that ordinary minds should retain

much belief in such things. Augustus was relieved from this strait by the

appearance of a new literary class in Rome, young authors from the country

districts, with simpler views of life and more enthusiasm, of whom some at

least might be willing to consecrate their talents to furthering the

sacred interests on which social order depends. The author who fully

responded to his appeal, and probably exceeded his highest hopes, was

Virgil; but Horace, Livy, and Propertius, showed themselves not unwilling

to espouse the same cause. Never was power more ably seconded by

persuasion; the laws of Augustus and the writings of Virgil, Horace, and

Livy, in order to be fully appreciated, must be considered in their

connection, political and religious, with each other.

The emperor, his minister, and his advocates, thus working for the same

end, beyond doubt produced some effect. The _Odes_ of Horace in the first

three books, which are devoted to politics, show an attitude of antagonism

and severe expostulation; he boldly rebukes vice, and calls upon the

strong hand to punish it:

"Quid tristes querimoniae,

Si non supplicio culpa reciditur?

Quid leges sine moribus

Vanae proficiunt?" [10]

But when, some years later, he wrote the _Carmen Saeculare_, and the

fourth book of the Odes, his voice is raised in a paean of unmixed

triumph. "The pure home is polluted by no unchastity; law and morality

have destroyed crime; matrons are blessed with children resembling their

fathers; already faith and peace, honour and maiden modesty, have returned

to us," &c. [11] This can hardly be mere exaggeration, though no doubt the

picture is coloured, since the popularity of Ovid's _Art of Love_, even

during Horace's lifetime, is a sufficient proof that profligacy did not

lack its votaries.

To the student of human development the most interesting feature in this

attempted reform of manners is the universal tendency to connect it with

the deification of the emperor. It was in vain that Augustus claimed to

return to the old paths; everywhere he met this new apotheosis of himself

crowning the restored edifice of belief; so impossible was it for him, as

for others, to reconstruct the past. As the guardian of the people's

material welfare, he became, despite of himself, the people's chief

divinity. From the time that Virgil's gratitude expressed itself in the

first Eclogue--

"Namque erit ille mihi semper deus: illius aram

Saepe tener nostris ab ovilibus imbuet agnus," [12]

the emperor was marked out for this new form of adulation, and succeeding

poets only added to what Virgil had begun. Even in his _Epistles_, where

the conventionalities of mythology are never employed, Horace compares him

with the greatest deities, and declares that altars are raised to his

name, while all confess him to be the greatest person that has been or

will be among mankind. [13] Propertius and Ovid [14] accept this language

as proper and natural, and the striking rapidity with which it established

itself in universal use is one of the most speaking signs of the growing

degeneracy. Augustus himself was not cajoled, Tiberius still less, but

Caius and his successors were; even Vespasian, when dying, in jest or

earnest used the words "ut puto deus fio." As the satirist says, "Power

will believe anything that Flattery suggests." [15]

Side by side with this religious cultus of the emperor was a willingness

to surrender all political power into his hands. Little by little he

engrossed all the offices of state, and so completely had proscription and

indulgence in turn done their work that none were found bold enough to

resist these insidious encroachments. [16] The privileges of the senate

and the rights of the people were gradually abridged; and that pernicious

policy so congenial to a despotism, of satisfying the appetite for food

and amusement and so keeping the people quiet, was inaugurated early in

his reign, and set moving in the lines which it long afterwards followed.

Freedom of debate, which had been universal in the senate, was curtailed

by the knowledge that, as often as not, the business was being decided by

a secret council held within the palace. Eloquence could not waste itself

in abstract discussions; and even if it attempted to speak, the growing

servility made it perilous to utter plain truths. Thus the sphere of

public speaking was greatly restricted. Those who had poured forth before

the assembled people the torrents of their oratory were now by what

Tacitus so graphically calls the _pacification_ of eloquence [17] confined

to the tamer arena of the civil law courts. All those who felt that

without a practical object eloquence cannot exist, had to resign

themselves to silence. Others less serious-minded found a sphere for their

natural gift of speech in the halls of the rhetoricians. It is pitiable to

see men like Pollio content to give up all higher aims, and for want of

healthier exercise waste their powers in noisy declamation.

History, if treated with dignity and candour, was almost as dangerous a

field as eloquence. Hence we find that few were bold enough to cultivate

it. Livy, indeed, succeeded in producing a great masterwork, which, while

it did not conceal his Pompeian sympathies, entered so heartily into the

emperor's general point of view as to receive high praise at his hands.

But Livy was not a politician. Those who had been politicians found it

unwise to provoke the jealousy of Augustus by expressing their sentiments.

Hence neither Messala nor Pollio continued their works on contemporary

history; a deprivation which we cannot but strongly feel, as we have few

trustworthy accounts of those, times.

In law Augustus trenched less on the independent thought of the jurists,

but at the same time was better able to put forth his prerogative when

occasion was really needed. His method of accrediting the _Responsa

Prudentum_, by permitting only those who had his authorisation to exercise

that profession, was an able stroke of policy. [18] It gave the profession

as it were the safeguard of a diploma, and veiled an act of despotic power

under the form of a greater respect for law. The science of jurisprudence

was ably represented by various professors, but it became more and more

involved and difficult, and frequently draws forth from the satirists

abuse of its quibbling intricacies.

Poetry was the form of literature to which most favour was shown, and

which flourished more vigorously than any other. The pastoral, and the

metrical epistle, were now first introduced. The former was based on the

Theocritean idyll, but does not seem to have been well adapted to Roman

treatment; the latter was of two kinds; it was either a real communication

on some subject of mutual interest, as that of Horace, or else an

imaginary expression of feeling put into the mouth of a mythical hero or

heroine, of which the most brilliant examples are those of Ovid.

Philosophy and science flourished to a considerable extent. The desire to

find some compensation for the loss of all outward activity led many to

strive after the ideal of conduct presented by stoicism: and nearly all

earnest minds were more or less affected by this great system. Livy is

reported to have been an eloquent expounder of philosophical doctrines,

and most of the poets show a strong leaning to its study. Augustus wrote

_adhortationes_, and beyond doubt his example was often followed. The

speculative and therefore inoffensive topics of natural science were

neither encouraged nor neglected by Augustus; Vitruvius, the architect,

having showed some capacity for engineering, was kindly received by him,

but his treatise, admirable as it is, does not seem to have secured him

any special favour. It was such writers as he thought might be made

instruments of his policy that Augustus set himself specially to encourage

by every means in his power. The result of this patronage was an

increasing divergence from the popular taste on the part of the poets, who

now aspired only to please the great and learned. [19] It is pleasing,

however, to observe the entire absence of ill-feeling that reigned in this

society of _beaux esprits_ with regard to one another. Each held his own

special position, but all were equally welcome at the great man's

réunions, equally acceptable to one another; and each criticised the

other's works with the freedom of a literary freemasonry. [20] This select

cultivation of poetry reacted unfavourably on the thought and imagination,

though it greatly elevated the style of those that employed it. The

extreme delicacy of the artistic product shows it to have been due to some

extent to careful nursing, and its almost immediate collapse confirms this

conclusion.

While Augustus, through Maecenas, united men eminent for taste and culture

in a literary coterie, Messala, who had never joined the successful side,

had a similar but smaller following, among whom was numbered the poet

Tibullus. At the tables of these great men met on terms of equal

companionship their own friends and the authors whom they favoured or

assisted. For though the provincial poet could not, like those of the last

age, assume the air of one who owned no superior, but was bound by ties of

obligation as well as gratitude to his patron, still the works of Horace

and Virgil abundantly prove that servile compliment was neither expected

by him nor would have been given by them, as it was too frequently in the

later period to the lasting injury of literature as well as of character.

The great patrons were themselves men of letters. Augustus was a severe

critic of style, and, when he wrote or spoke, did not fall below the high

standard he exacted from others. Suetonius and Tacitus bear witness to the

clearness and dignity of his public speaking. [21]

MAECENAS, as we shall notice immediately, was, or affected to be, a writer

of some pretension; and MESSALA'S eloquence was of so high an order, that

had he been allowed the opportunity of freely using it, he would beyond

doubt have been numbered among the great orators of Rome.

Such was the state of thought and politics which surrounded and brought

out the celebrated writers whom we shall now proceed to criticise, a task

the more delightful, as these writers are household words, and their best

works familiar from childhood to all who have been educated to love the

beautiful in literature.

The excellent literary judgment shown by Augustus contributed to encourage

a high standard of taste among the rival authors. How weighty the

sovereign's influence was may be gathered from the extravagancies into

which the Neronian and Flavian authors fell through anxiety to please

monarchs of corrupt taste. The advantages of patronage to literature are

immense; but it is indispensable that the patron should himself be great.

The people were now so totally without literary culture that a popular

poet would necessarily have been a bad poet; careful writers turned from

them to the few who could appreciate what was excellent. Yet Maecenas, so

judicious as a patron, fell as an author into the very faults he blamed.

During the years he held office (30-8 B.C.) he devoted some fragments of

his busy days to composing in prose and verse writings which Augustus

spoke of as "_murobrecheis cincinni_," "curled locks reeking with

ointment." We hear of a treatise called _Prometheus_, certain dialogues,

among them a _Symposium_, in which Messala, Virgil, and Horace were

introduced; and Horace implies that he had planned a prose history of

Augustus's wars. [22] He did not shrink from attempting, and what was

worse, publishing, poetry, which bore imprinted on it the characteristics

of his effeminate mind. Seneca quotes one passage [23] from which we may

form an estimate of his level as a versifier. But, however feeble in

execution, he was a skilful adviser of others. The wisdom of his counsels

to Augustus is known; those he offered to Virgil were equally sound. It

was he who suggested the plan of the _Georgics_, and the poet acknowledges

his debt for a great idea in the words "_Nil altum sine te meas inchoat_."

He was at once cautious and liberal in bestowing his friendship. The

length of time that elapsed between his first reception of Horace and his

final enrolment of the poet among his intimates, shows that he was not

hasty in awarding patronage. And the difficulty which Propertius

encountered in gaining a footing among his circle proves that even great

talent was not by itself a sufficient claim on his regard. As we shall

have occasion to mention him again, we shall pass him over here, and

conclude the chapter with a short account of the earliest Augustan poet

whose name has come to us, L. VARIUS RUFUS (64 B.C.-9 A.D.), the friend of

Virgil, who introduced both him and Horace to Maecenas's notice, and who

was for some years accounted the chief epic poet of Rome. [24]

Born in Cisalpine Gaul, Varius was, like all his countrymen, warmly

attached to Caesar's cause, and seems to have made his reputation by an

epic on Caesar's death. [25] Of this poem we have scattered notices

implying that it was held in high esteem, and a fragment is preserved by

Macrobius, [26] which it is worth while to quote:

"Ceu canis umbrosam lustrans Gortynia vallem,

Si veteris potuit cervae comprendere lustra,

Saevit in absentem, et circum vestigia lustrans

Aethera per nitidum tenues sectatur odores;

Non amnes illam medii non ardua tentant,

Perdita nec serae meminit decedere nocti."

The rhythm here is midway between Lucretius and Virgil; the inartistic

repetition of _lustrans_ together with the use immediately before of the

cognate word _lustra_ point to a certain carelessness in composition; the

employment of epithets is less delicate than in Horace and Virgil; the

last line is familiar from its introduction unaltered, except by an

improved punctuation, into the _Eclogues_. [27] Two fine verses, slightly

modified in expression but not in rhythm, have found their way into the

_Aeneid_. [28]

"Vendidit hic Latium populis, agrosque Quiritum

Eripuit: fixit leges pretio atque refixit."

Besides this poem he wrote another on the praises of Augustus, for which

Horace testifies his fitness while excusing himself from approaching the

same subject. [29] From this were taken two lines [30] appropriated by

Horace, and instanced as models of graceful flattery:

"Tene magis salvum populus velit, an populum tu,

Servet in ambiguum qui consulit et tibi et Urbi,

Iupiter."

After the pre-eminence of Virgil began to be recognised, Varius seems to

have deserted epic poetry and turned his attention to tragedy, and that

with so much success, that his great work, the _Thyestes_, was that on

which his fame with posterity chiefly rested. This drama, considered by

Quintilian [31.] equal to any of the Greek masterpieces, was performed at

the games after the battle of Actium; but it was probably better adapted

for declaiming than acting. Its high reputation makes its loss a serious

one--not for its intrinsic value, but for its position in the history of

literature as the first of those rhetorical dramas of which we possess

examples in those of Seneca, and which, with certain modifications, have

been cultivated in our own century with so much spirit by Byron, Shelley,

and Swinburne. The main interest which Varius has for us arises from his

having, in company with Plotius Tucca, edited the Aeneid after Virgil's

death. The intimate friendship that existed between the two poets enabled

Varius to give to the world many particulars as to Virgil's character and

habits of life; this biographical sketch, which formed probably an

introduction to the volume, is referred to by Quintilian [32] and others.

A poet of inferior note, but perhaps handed down to unenviable immortality

in the line of Virgil--

"Argutos inter strepere Anser olores," [33]

was ANSER. He was a partisan of Antony, and from this fact, together with

the possible allusion in the _Eclogues_, later grammarians discovered that

he was, like Bavius and Maevius, unhappy bards only known from the

contemptuous allusions of their betters, [34] an _obtrectator Virgilii_.

As such he of course called down the vials of their wrath. But there is no

real evidence for the charge. He seems to have been an unambitious poet,

who indulged light and wanton themes. [35] AEMILIUS MACER, of Verona, who

died 16 B.C., was certainly a friend of Virgil, and has been supposed to

be the Mopsus of the _Eclogues_. He devoted his very moderate talents to

minute and technical didactic poems. The _Ornithogonias_ of Nicander was

imitated or translated by him, as well as the _Thaeriaka_ of the same

writer. Ovid mentions having been frequently present at the poet's

recitations, but as he does not praise them, [36] we may infer that Macer

had no great name among his contemporaries, but owed his consideration and

perhaps his literary impulse to his friendship for Virgil.

CHAPTER II.

VIRGIL (70-19 B.C.).

PUBLIUS VIRGILIUS, or more correctly, VERGILIUS [1] MARO, was born in the

village or district [2] of Andes, near Mantua, sixteen years after the

birth of Catullus, of whom he was a compatriot as well as an admirer. [3]

As the citizenship was not conferred on Gallia Transpadana, of which

Mantua was a chief town, until 49 B.C., when Virgil was nearly twenty-one

years old, he had no claim by birth to the name of Roman. And yet so

intense is the patriotism which animates his poems, that no other Roman

writer, patrician or plebeian, surpasses or even equals it in depth of

feeling. It is one proof out of many how completely the power of Rome

satisfied the desire of the Italians for a great common head whom they

might reverence as the heaven-appointed representative of their race. And

it leads us to reflect on the narrow pride of the great city in not

earlier extending her full franchise to all those gallant tribes who

fought so well for her, and who at last extorted their demand with

grievous loss to themselves as to her, by the harsh argument of the sword.

To return to Virgil. We learn nothing from his own works as to his early

life and parentage. Our chief authority is Donatus. His father, Maro, was

in humble circumstances; according to some he followed the trade of a

potter. But as he farmed his own little estate, he must have been far

removed from indigence, and we know that he was able to give his

illustrious son the best education the time afforded. Trained in the

simple virtues of the country, Virgil, like Horace, never lost his

admiration for the stern and almost Spartan ideal of life which he had

there witnessed, and which the levity of the capital only placed in

stronger relief. After attending school for some years at Cremona, he

assumed at sixteen the manly gown, on the very day to which tradition

assigns the death of the poet Lucretius. Some time later (53 B.C.), we

find him at Rome studying rhetoric under Epidius, and soon afterwards

philosophy under Siro the Epicurean. The recent publication of Lucretius's

poem must have invested Siro's teaching with new attractiveness in the

eyes of a young author, conscious of genius, but as yet self-distrustful,

and willing to humble his mind before the "temple of speculative truth,"

The short piece, written at this date, and showing his state of feeling,

deserves to be quoted:--

"Ite hinc inanes ite rhetorum ampullae...

Scholasticorum natio madens pingui:...

Tuque o mearum cura, Sexte, curarum

Vale Sabine: iam valete formosi.

Nos ad beatos vela mittimus portus

Magni patentes docta dicta Sironis,

Vitamque ab omni vindicabimus cura.

Ite hinc Camenae...

Dulces Camenae, nam (fatebimur verum)

Dulces fuistis: et tamen meas chartas

Revisitote, sed pudenter et varo."

These few lines are very interesting, first, as enabling us to trace the

poetic influence of Catullus, whose style they greatly resemble, though

their moral tone is far more serious; secondly, as showing us that Virgil

was in aristocratic company, the names mentioned, and the epithet

_formosi_, by which the young nobles designated themselves, after the

Greek _kaloi, kalokagathoi_, indicating as much; and thirdly, as evincing

a serious desire to embrace philosophy for his guide in life, after a

conflict with himself as to whether he should give up writing poetry, and

a final resolution to indulge his natural taste "seldom and without

licentiousness." We can hardly err in tracing this awakened earnestness

and its direction upon the Epicurean system to his first acquaintance with

the poem of Lucretius. The enthusiasm for philosophy expressed in these

lines remained with Virgil all his life. Poet as he was, he would at once

be drawn to the theory of the universe so eloquently propounded by a

brother-poet. And in all his works a deep study of Lucretius is evidenced

not only by imitations of his language, but by frequent adoption of his

views and a recognition of his position as the loftiest attainable by man.

[4] The young Romans at this time took an eager interest in the problems

which philosophy presents, and most literary men began their career as

disciples of the Lucretian theory. [5] Experience of life, however,

generally drew them away from it. Horace professed to have been converted

by a thunder-clap in a clear sky; this was no doubt irony, but it is clear

that in his epistles he has ceased to be an Epicurean. Virgil, who in the

_Eclogues_ and _Georgics_ seems to sigh with regret after the doctrines he

fears to accept, comes forward in the _Aeneid_ as the staunch adherent of

the national creed, and where he acts the philosopher at all, assumes the

garb of a Stoic, not an Epicurean. But he still desired to spend his later

days in the pursuit of truth; it seemed as if he accepted almost with

resignation the labours of a poet, and looked forward to philosophy as his

recompense and the goal of his constant desire. [6] We can thus trace a

continuity of interest in the deepest problems, lasting throughout his

life, and, by the sacrifice of one side of his affections, tinging his

mind with that subtle melancholy so difficult to analyse, but so

irresistible in its charm. The craving to rest the mind upon a solid

ground of truth, which was kept in abeyance under the Republic by the

incessant calls of active life, now asserted itself in all earnest

characters, and would not be content without satisfaction. Virgil was cut

off before his philosophical development was completed, and therefore it

is useless to speculate what views he would have finally espoused. But it

is clear that his tone of mind was in reality artistic and not

philosophical. Systems of thought could never have had real power over him

except in so far as they modified his conceptions of ideal beauty: he

possessed neither the grasp nor the boldness requisite for speculative

thought; all ideas as they were presented to his mind were unconsciously

transfused into materials for effects of art. And the little poem which

has led to these remarks seems to enshrine in the outpourings of an early

enthusiasm the secret of that divided allegiance between his real and his

fancied aptitudes, which impels the poet's spirit, while it hears the

discord, to win its way into the inner and more perfect harmony.

After the battle of Philippi (42 B.C.) he appears settled in his native

district cultivating pastoral poetry, but threatened with ejection by the

agrarian assignations of the Triumvirs. Pollio, who was then Prefect of

Gallia Transpadana, interceded with Octavian, and Virgil was allowed to

retain his property. But on a second division among the veterans, Varus

having now succeeded to Pollio, he was not so fortunate, but with his

father was obliged to fly for his life, an event which he has alluded to

in the first and ninth Eclogues. The fugitives took refuge in a villa that

had belonged to Siro, [7] and from this retreat, by the advice of his

friend Cornelius Gallus, he removed to Rome, where, 37 B.C., he published

his _Eclogues_. These at once raised him to eminence as the equal of

Varius, though in a different department; but even before their

publication he had established himself as an honoured member of Maecenas's

circle. [8] The liberality of Augustus and his own thrift enabled him to

live in opulence, and leave at his death a very considerable fortune.

Among other estates he possessed one in Campania, at or near Naples, which

from its healthfulness and beauty continued till his death to be his

favourite dwelling-place. It was there that he wrote the _Georgics_, and

there that his bones were laid, and his tomb made the object of

affectionate and even religious veneration. He is not known to have

undertaken more than one voyage out of Italy; but that contemplated in the

third Ode of Horace may have been carried out, as Prof. Sellar suggests,

for the sake of informing himself by personal observation about the

localities of the _Aeneid_; for it seems unlikely that the accurate

descriptions of Book III. could have been written without some such direct

knowledge. The rest of his life presents no event worthy of record. It was

given wholly to the cultivation of his art, except in so far as he was

taken up with scientific and antiquarian studies, which he felt to be

effectual in elevating his thought and deepening his grasp of a great

subject. [9] The _Georgics_ were composed at the instance of Maecenas

during the seven years 37-30 B.C., and read before Augustus the following

year. The _Aeneid_ was written during the remaining years of his life, but

was left unfinished, the poet having designed to give three more years to

its elaboration. As is well known, it was saved from destruction and given

to the world by the emperor's command, contrary to the poet's dying wish

and the express injunctions of his will. He died at Brundisium (19 B.C.)

at the comparatively early age of 51, of an illness contracted at Megara,

and aggravated by a too hurried return. The tour on which he had started

was undertaken from a desire to see for himself the coasts of Asia Minor

which he had made Aeneas visit. Such was the life and such the premature

death of the greatest of Roman bards.

Even those who have judged the poems of Virgil most unfavourably speak of

his character in terms of warmest praise. He was gentle, innocent, modest,

and of a singular sweetness of disposition, which inspired affection even

where it was not returned, and in men who rarely showed it. [10] At the

same time he is described as silent and even awkward in society, a trait

which Dante may have remembered when himself taunted with the same

deficiency. His nature was pre-eminently a religious one. Dissatisfied

with his own excellence, filled with a deep sense of the unapproachable

ideal, he reverenced the ancient faith and the opinions of those who had

expounded it. This habit of mind led him to underrate his own poetical

genius and to attach too great weight to the precedents and judgment of

others. He seems to have thought no writer so common-place as not to yield

some thought that he might make his own; and, like Milton, he loves to pay

the tribute of a passing allusion to some brother poet, whose character he

valued, or whose talent his ready sympathy understood. In an age when

licentious writing, at least in youth, was the rule and required no

apology, Virgil's early poems are conspicuous by its almost total absence;

while the _Georgics_ and _Aeneid_ maintain a standard of lofty purity to

which nothing in Latin, and few works in any literature, approach. His

flattery of Augustus has been censured as a fault; but up to a certain

point it was probably quite sincere. His early intimacy with Varius, the

Caesarian poet, and possibly the general feeling among his fellow

provincials, may have attracted him from the first to Caesar's name; his

disposition, deeply affected by power or greatness, naturally inclined him

to show loyalty to a person; and the spell of success when won on such a

scale as that of Augustus doubtless wrought upon his poetical genius.

Still, no considerations can make us justify the terms of divine homage

which he applies in all his poems, and with every variety of ornament, to

the emperor. Indeed, it would be inconceivable, were it not certain, that

the truest representative of his generation could, with the approbation of

all the world, use language which, but a single generation before, would

have called forth nothing but scorn.

Virgil was tall, dark, and interesting-looking, rather than handsome; his

health was delicate, and besides a weak digestion, [11] he suffered like

other students from headache. His industry must, in spite of this, have

been extraordinary; for he shows an intimate acquaintance not only with

all that is eminent in Greek and Latin literature, but with many recondite

departments of ritual, antiquities, and philosophy, [12] besides being a

true interpreter of nature, an excellence that does not come without the

habit as well as the love of converse with her. Of his personal feelings

we know but little, for he never shows that unreserve which characterises

so many of the Roman writers; but he entertained a strong and lasting

friendship for Gallus, [13] and the force and truth of his delineations of

the passion of love seem to point to personal experience. Like Horace, he

never married, and his last days are said to have been clouded with regret

for the unfinished condition of his great work.

The early efforts of Virgil were chiefly lyric and elegiac pieces after

the manner of Catullus, whom he studied with the greatest care, and two

short poems in hexameters, both taken from the Alexandrines, called

_Culex_ and _Moretum_, of which the latter alone is certainly, the

formerly possibly, genuine. [14] Among the short pieces called _Catalecta_

we have some of exquisite beauty, as the dedicatory prayer to Venus and

the address to Siro's villa; [15] others show a vein of invective which we

find it hard to associate with the gentle poet; [16] others, again, are

parodies or close imitations of Catullus; [17] while one or two [18] are

proved by internal evidence to be by another hand than Virgil's. The

_Copa_, "Mine Hostess," which closes the series, reminds us of Virgil in

its expression, rhythm, and purity of style, but is far more lively than

anything we possess of his. It is an invitation to a rustic friend to put

up his beast and spend the hot hours in a leafy arbour where wine, fruits,

and goodly company wait for him. We could wish the first four lines away,

and then the poem would be a perfect gem. Its clear joyous ring marks the

gay time of youth; its varied music sounds the prelude to the metrical

triumphs that were to come, and if it is not Virgil's, we have lost in its

author a _genre_ poet of the rarest power.

The _Moretum_ is a pleasing idyll, describing the daily life of the

peasant Simplus, translated probably from the Greek of Parthenius. On it

Teuffel says, "Suevius had written a _Moretum_, and it is not improbable

that the desire to surpass Suevius influenced Virgil in attempting the

same task again." [19] Trifling as this circumstance is, nothing that

throws any light on the growth of Virgil's muse can be wanting in

interest. Virgil was not one of those who startle the world by their

youthful genius. His soul was indeed a poet's from the first, but the rich

perfection of his verse was not developed until after years of severe

labour, self-correction, and even failure. He began by essaying various

styles; he gradually confined himself to one; and in that one he wrought

unceasingly, always bringing method to aid talent, until, through various

grades of immaturity, he passed to a perfection peculiarly his own, in

which thought and expression are fused with such exceeding art as to elude

all attempts to disengage them. If we can accept the _Culex_ in its

present form as genuine, the development of Virgil's genius is shown to us

in a still earlier stage. Whether he wrote it at sixteen or twenty-six

(and to us the latter age seems infinitely the more probable), it bears

the strongest impress of immaturity. It is true the critics torment us by

their doubts. Some insist that it cannot be by Virgil. Their chief

arguments are derived from the close resemblances (which they regard as

imitations) to many passages in the _Aeneid_; but of these another, and

perhaps a more plausible, explanation may be given. The hardest argument

to meet is that drawn from the extraordinary imperfection of the plot,

which mars the whole consistency of the poem; [20] but even this is not

incompatible with Virgil's authorship. For all ancient testimony agrees in

regarding the _Culex_ of Virgil as a poem of little merit. [21] Amid the

uncertainty which surrounds the subject, it seems best not to disturb the

verdict of antiquity, until better grounds are discovered for assigning

our present poem to a later hand. To us the evidence seems to point to the

Virgilian authorship. The defect in the plot marks a fault to which Virgil

certainly was prone, and which he never quite cast off. [22] The

correspondences with the mythology, language, and rhythm of Virgil are

just such as might be explained by supposing them to be his first opening

conceptions on these points, which assumed afterwards a more developed

form. [23] And this is the more probable because Virgil's mind created

with labour, and cast and re-cast in the crucible of reflection ideas of

which the first expression suggested itself in early life. Thus we find in

the _Aeneid_ similes which had occurred in a less finished form in the

_Georgics_; in both _Georgics_ and _Aeneid_ phrases or cadences which seem

to brood over and strive to reproduce half-forgotten originals wrought out

long before. Nothing is more interesting in tracing Virgil's genius, than

to note how each fullest development of his talent subsumes and embraces

those that had gone before it; how his mind energises in a continuous

mould, and seems to harp with almost jealous constancy on strings it has

once touched. The deeper we study him, the more clearly is this feature

seen. Unlike other poets who throw off their stanzas and rise as if freed

from a load, Virgil seems to carry the accumulated burden of his creations

about with him. He imitates himself with the same elaborate assimilation

by which he digests and reproduces the thoughts of others.

It is probable that Virgil suppressed all his youthful poetry, and

intended the _Eclogues_ to be regarded as the first-fruits of his genius.

[24] The pastoral had never yet been cultivated at Rome. Of all the

products of later Greece none could vie with it in truth to nature. Its

Sicilian origin bespoke a fresh inspiration, for it arose in a land where

the muse of Hellas still lingered. Theocritus's vivid delineation of

country scenes must have been full of charm to the Romans, and Virgil did

well to try to naturalise it. Not even his matchless grace, however, could

atone for the want of reality that pervades an imported type of art.

Sicilian shepherds, Roman _literati_, sometimes under a rustic disguise,

sometimes in their own person; a landscape drawn, now from the vales round

Syracuse, now from the poet's own district round Mantua; playful contests

between rural bards interspersed with panegyrics on Julius Caesar and the

patrons or benefactors of the poet; a continual mingling of allegory with

fiction, of genuine rusticity with assumed courtliness; such are the

incongruities which lie on the very surface of the _Eclogues_. Add to

these the continual imitations, sometimes sinning against the rules of

scholarship, [25] which make them, with all their beauties, by far the

least original of Virgil's works, the artificial character of the whole

composition; and the absence of that lofty self-consciousness on the

poet's part [26] which lends so much fire to his after works: and it may

seem surprising that the _Eclogues_ have been so much admired. But the

fact is, their irresistible charm outweighs all the exceptions of

criticism. While we read we become like Virgil's own shepherd; we cannot

choose but surrender ourselves to the magic influence:

"Tale tuum carmen nobis, divine poeta,

Quale sopor fessis in gramine, quale per herbam

Dulcis aquae saliente sitim restinguere rivo." [27]

This charm is due partly to the skill with which the poet has blended

reality with allegory, fancy with feeling, partly to the exquisite

language to which their music is attuned. The Latin language had now

reached its critical period of growth, its splendid but transitory epoch

of ripe perfection. Literature had arrived at that second stage of which

Conington speaks, [28] when thought finds language no longer as before

intractable and inadequate, but able to keep pace with and even assist her

movements. Trains of reflection are easily awakened; a diction matured by

reason and experience rivals the flexibility or sustains the weight of

consecutive thought. It is now that an author's mind exhibits itself in

its most concrete form, and that the power of style is first fully felt.

But language still occupies its proper place as a means and not an end;

the artist does not pay it homage for its own sake; this is reserved for

the next period when the meridian is already past.

It has already been said that the _Georgics_ were undertaken at the

request of Maecenas. [29] From more than one passage in the _Eclogues_ we

should infer that Virgil was not altogether content with the light themes

he was pursuing; that he had before his mind's eye dim visions of a great

work which should give full scope to the powers he felt within him. But

Virgil was deficient in self-reliance. He might have continued to trifle

with bucolic poetry, had not Maecenas enlisted his muse in a practical

object worthy of its greatness. This was the endeavour to rekindle the old

love of husbandry which had been the nurse of Rome's virtue, and which was

gradually dying out. To this object Virgil lent himself with enthusiasm.

To feel that his art might be turned to some real good, that it might

advance the welfare of the state, this idea acted on him like an

inspiration. He was by early training well versed in the details of

country life. And he determined that nothing which ardour or study could

effect should be wanting to make his knowledge at once thorough and

attractive. For seven years he wrought into their present artistic

perfection the technical details of husbandry; a labour of love wrought

out of study and experience, and directed, as Merivale well says, to the

glorification of labour itself as the true end of man.

Virgil's treatment is partially adapted from the Alexandrines; but, as he

himself says, his real model is Hesiod. [30] The combination of quaint

sententiousness with deep enthusiasm, which he found in the old poet, met

his conception of what a practical poem should be. And so, although the

desultory maxims of the _Works and Days_ give but a faint image of the

comprehensive width and studied discursiveness of the _Georgics_, yet they

present a much more real parallel to it than the learned trifling of

Aratus or Nicander. For Virgil, like Lucretius, is no trifler: he uses

verse as a serious vehicle for impressing his conviction; he acknowledges,

so to say, the responsibility of his calling, [31] and writes in poetry

because poetry is the clothing of his mind. Hence the _Georgics_ must be

ranked as a link in the chain of serious treatises on agriculture, of

which Cato's is the first and Varro's the second, designed to win the

nation back to the study and discipline of its youth. And that Columella

so understood it is clear both from his defending his opinions by frequent

quotation from it as a standard authority, and from his writing one book

of his voluminous manual in verses imitated from Virgil. The almost

religious fervour with which Virgil threw himself into the task of

arresting the decay of Italian life, which is the dominant motive of the

_Aeneid_, is present also in the _Georgics_. The pithy condensation of

useful experience characteristic of Cato,

"Utiliumque sagax rerum et divina futuri

Sortilegis non discrepuit sententia Delphis," [32]

the fond antiquarianism of Varro, "laudator temporis acti," unite, with

the newly-kindled hope of future glories to be achieved under Caesar's

rule, to make the _Georgics_ the most complete embodiment of Roman

industrial views, as the _Aeneid_ is of Roman theology and religion. [33]

Virgil aims at combining the stream of poetical talent, which had come

mostly from outside, [34] with the succession of prose compositions on

practical subjects which had proceeded from the burgesses themselves. Cato

and Varro are as continually before his mind as Ennius, Catullus, and

Lucretius. A new era had arrived: the systematising of the results of the

past he felt was committed to him. Of Virgil's works the _Georgics_ is

unquestionably the most artistic. Grasp of the subject, clearness of

arrangement, evenness of style, are all at their highest excellence; the

incongruities that criticism detects in the _Eclogues_, and the

unrealities that often mar the _Aeneid_, are almost wholly absent. There

is, however, one great artistic blemish, for which the poet's courage, not

his taste, is to blame. We have already spoken of his affection for

Gallus, celebrated in the most extravagant but yet the most ethereally

beautiful of the Eclogues; [35] and this affection, unbroken by the

disgrace and exile of its object, had received a yet more splendid tribute

in the episode which closed the _Georgics_. Unhappily, the beauties of

this episode, so honourable to the poet's constancy, are to us a theme for

conjecture only; the narrow jealousy of Augustus would not suffer any

honourable mention of one who had fallen under his displeasure; and, to

his lasting disgrace, he ordered Virgil to erase his work. The poet weakly

consented, and filled up the gap by the story, beautiful, it is true, but

singularly inappropriate, of Aristacus and Orpheus and Eurydice. This epic

sketch, Alexandrine in form but abounding in touches of the richest native

genius, [36] must have revealed to Rome something of the loftiness of

which Virgil's muse was capable. With a felicity and exuberance scarcely

inferior to Ovid, it united a power of awakening feeling, a dreamy pathos

and a sustained eloquence, which marked its author as the heir of Homer's

lyre, "_magnae spes altera Romae_." [37]

In a work like this it would be obviously out of place to offer any minute

criticism either upon the beauties or the difficulties of the _Georgics_.

We shall conclude this short notice with one or two remarks on that love

of nature in Latin poetry of which the _Georgics_ are the most renowned

example. Dunlop has called Virgil a landscape painter. [38] In so far as

this implies a faithful and picturesque delineation of natural scenes,

whether of movement or repose, [39] the criticism is a happy one: Virgil

lingers over these with more affection than any previous writer. The

absence of a strong feeling for the peaceful or the grand in nature has

often been remarked as a shortcoming of the Greek mind, and it does not

seem to have been innate even in the Italian. Alpine scenery suggested no

associations but those of horror and desolation. Even the more attractive

beauties of woods, rills, and flowers, were hailed rather as a grateful

exchange from the turmoil of the city than from a sense of their intrinsic

loveliness; it is the repose, the comfort, ease, in a word the _body_, not

the _spirit_ of nature that the Roman poets celebrate. [40] As a rule

their own retirement was not spent amid really rustic scenes. The villas

of the great were furnished with every means of making study or

contemplation attractive. Rich gardens, cool porticoes, and the shade of

planted trees were more to the poet's taste than the rugged stile or the

village green. Their aspirations after rural simplicity spring from the

weariness of city unrealities rather than from the necessity of being

alone with nature. As a fact the poems of Virgil were not composed in a

secluded country retreat, but in the splendid and fashionable vicinity of

Naples. [41] The Lake of Avernus, the Sibyl's cave, and the other scenes

so beautifully painted in the _Aeneid_ are all near the spot. From his

luxurious villa the poet could indulge his reverie on the simple rusticity

of his ancestors or the landscapes famous in the scenery of Greek song. At

such times his mind called up images of Greek legend that blended with his

delineations of Italian peasant life: [42]

"O ubi campi

Spercheiosque, et virginibus bacchata Lacaenis

Taygeta; o qui me gelidis in vallibus Haemi

Sistat, et ingenti ramorum protegat umbra!"

The very name _Tempe_, given so often to shady vales, shows the mingled

literary and aesthetic associations that entered into the love of rural

ease and quiet. The deeper emotion peculiar to modern times, which

struggles to find expression in the verse of Shelley or Wordsworth, in the

canvass of Turner, in the life of restless travel, often a riddle so

perplexing to those who cannot understand its source; the mysterious

questionings which ask of nature not only what she says to us, but what

she utters to herself; why it is that if she be our mother, she veils her

face from her children, and will not use a language they can understand--

"Cur natum crudelis tu quoque falsis

Ludis imaginibus? Cur dextrae iungere dextram

Non datur, et veras audire et reddere voces?"

feelings like these which--though often but obscurely present, it would

indeed be a superficial glance that did not read in much of modern

thought, however unsatisfactory, in much of modern art, however imperfect

--we can hardly trace, or, if at all, only as lightest ripples on the

surface, scarcely ruffling the serene melancholy, deep indeed, but self-

contained because unconscious of its depth, in which Virgil's poetry

flows.

At what time of his life Virgil turned his thoughts to epic poetry is not

known. Probably like most gifted poets he felt from his earliest years the

ambition to write a heroic poem. He expresses this feeling in the

_Eclogues_ [43] more than once; Pollio's exploits seemed to him worthy of

such a celebration. [44] In the _Georgics_ he declares that he will wed

Caesar's glories to an epic strain, [45] but though the emperor urged him

to undertake the subject, which was besides in strict accordance with epic

precedent, his mature judgment led him to reject it. [46] Like Milton, he

seems to have revolved for many years the different themes that came to

him, and, like him, to have at last chosen one which by mounting back into

the distant past enabled him to indulge historical retrospect, and gather

into one focus the entire subsequent development. As to his aptitude for

epic poetry opinions differ. Niebuhr expresses the view of many great

critics when he says, "Virgil is a remarkable instance of a man mistaking

his vocation; his real calling was lyric poetry; his small lyric poems

show that he would have been a poet like Catullus if he had not been led

away by his desire to write a great Graeco-Latin poem." And Mommsen, by

speaking of "successes like that of the _Aeneid_" evidently inclines

towards the same view. It must be conceded that Virgil's genius lacked

heroic fibre, invention, dramatic power. He had not an idea of "that stern

joy that warriors feel," so necessary to one who would raise a martial

strain. The passages we remember best are the very ones that are least

heroic. The funeral games in honour of Anchises, the forlorn queen, the

death of Nisus and Euryalus, owe all their charm to the sacrifice of the

heroic to the sentimental. Had Virgil been able to keep rigidly to the

lofty purpose with which he entered on his work, we should perhaps have

lost the episodes which bring out his purest inspiration. So far as his

original endowments went, his mind certainly was not cast in a heroic

mould. But the counter-balancing qualifications must not be forgotten. He

had an inextinguishable enthusiasm for his art, a heart

"Smit with the love of ancient song,"

a susceptibility to literary excellence never equalled, [47] and a spirit

responsive to the faintest echo of the music of the ages. [48] The very

faculties that bar his entrance into the circle of creative minds enable

him to stand first among those epic poets who own a literary rather than

an original inspiration. For in truth epic poetry is a name for two widely

different classes of composition. The first comprehends those early

legends and ballads which arise in a nation's vigorous youth, and embody

the most cherished traditions of its gods and heroes and the long series

of their wars and loves. Strictly native in its origin, such poetry is the

spontaneous expression of a people's political and religious life. It may

exist in scattered fragments bound together only by unity of sentiment and

poetic inspiration: or it may be welded into a whole by the genius of some

heroic bard. But it can only arise in that early period of a nation's

history when political combination is as yet imperfect, and scientific

knowledge has not begun to mark off the domain of historic fact from the

cloudland of fancy and legend. Of this class are the Homeric poems, the

_Nibelungen Lied_, the Norse ballads, the _Edda_, the _Kalewâla_, the

legends of Arthur, and the poem of the _Cid_: all these, whatever their

differences, have this in common, that they sprang at a remote period out

of the earliest traditions of the several peoples, and neither did nor

could have originated in a state of advanced civilization. It is far

otherwise with the other sort of epics. These are composed amid the

complex influences of a highly developed political life. They are the

fruit of conscious thought reflecting on the story before it and seeking

to unfold its results according to the systematic rules of art. The stage

has been reached which discerns fact from fable; the myths which to an

earlier age seemed the highest embodiment of truth, are now mere graceful

ornaments, or at most faint images of hidden realities. The state has

asserted its dominion over man's activity; science, sacred and profane,

has given its stores to enrich his mind; philosophy has led him to

meditate on his place in the system of things. To write an enduring epic a

poet must not merely recount heroic deeds, but must weave into the recital

all the tangled threads which bind together the grave and varied interests

of civilized man.

It is the glory of Virgil that alone with Dante and Milton he has achieved

this; that he stands forth as the expression of an epoch, of a nation.

That obedience to sovereign law, [49] which is the chief burden of the

_Aeneid_, stands out among the diverse elements of Roman life as specially

prominent, just as faith in the Church's doctrine is the burden of

Mediaevalism as expressed in Dante, and as justification of God's

dealings, as given in Scripture, forms the lesson of _Paradise Lost_,

making it the best poetical representative of Protestant thought. None of

Virgil's predecessors understood the conditions under which epic greatness

was possible. His successors, in spite of his example, understood them

still less. It has been said that no events are of themselves unsuited for

epic treatment, simply because they are modern or historical. [50] This

may be true; and yet, where is the poet that has succeeded in them? The

early Roman poets were patriotic men; they chose for subjects the annals

of Rome, which they celebrated in noble though unskilled verse. Naevius.

Ennius, Accius, Hostius, Bibaculus, and Varius before Virgil, Lucan and

Silius after him, treated national subjects, some of great antiquity, some

almost contemporaneous. But they failed, as Voltaire failed, because

historical events are not by themselves the natural subjects of heroic

verse. Tasso chose a theme where history and romance were so blended as to

admit of successful epic treatment; but such conditions are rare. Few

would hesitate to prefer the histories of Herodotus and Livy to any

poetical account whatever of the Persian and Punic wars; and in such

preference they would be guided by a true principle, for the domain of

history borders on and overlaps, but does not coincide with, that of

poetry.

The perception of this truth has led many, epic poets to err in the

opposite extreme. They have left the region of truth altogether, and

confined themselves to pure fancy or legend. This error is less serious

than the first; for not only are legendary subjects well adapted for epic

treatment, but they may be made the natural vehicle of deep or noble

thought. The _Orlando Furioso_ and the _Faery Queen_ are examples of this.

But more often the poet either uses his subject as a means for exhibiting

his learning or style, as Statius, Cinna, and the Alexandrines; or loses

sight of the deeper meaning altogether, and merely reproduces the beauty

of the ancient myths without reference to their ideal truth, as was done

by Ovid, and recently by Mr. Morris, with brilliant success, in his

_Earthly Paradise_. This poem, like the _Metamorphoses_, does not claim to

be a national epic, but both, by their vivid realization of a mythology

which can never lose its charm, hold a legitimate place among the

offshoots of epic song.

Virgil has overcome the difficulties and joined the best results of both

these imperfect forms. By adopting the legend of Aeneas, which, since the

Punic wars, had established itself as one of the firmest national beliefs,

[51] he was enabled without sacrificing reality to employ the resources of

Homeric art; by tracing directly to that legend the glorious development

of Roman life and Roman dominion, he has become the poet of his nation's

history, and through it, of the whole ancient world.

The elements which enter into the plan of the _Aeneid_ are so numerous as

to have caused very different conceptions of its scope and meaning. Some

have regarded it as the sequel and counterpart of the _Iliad_, in which

Troy triumphs over her ancient foe, and Greece acknowledges the divine

Nemesis. That this conception was present to the poet is clear from many

passages in which he reminds Greece that she is under Rome's dominion, and

contrasts the heroes or achievements of the two nations. [52] But it is by

no means sufficient to explain the whole poem, and indeed is in

contradiction to its inner spirit. For in the eleventh Aeneid [53] Diomed

declares that after Troy was taken he desires to have no more war with the

Trojan race; and in harmony with this thought Virgil conceives of the two

nations under Rome's supremacy as working together by law, art, and

science, to advance the human race. [54] Roman talent has made her own all

that Greek genius created, and fate has willed that neither race should be

complete without the other. The germs of this fine thought are found in

the historian Polybius, who dwelt on the grandeur of such a joint

influence, and perhaps through his intercourse with the Scipionic circle,

gave the idea currency. It is therefore rather the final reconciliation

than the continued antagonism that the _Aeneid_ celebrates, though of

course national pride dwells on the striking change of relations that time

had brought.

Another view of the _Aeneid_ makes it centre in Augustus. Aeneas then

becomes a type of the emperor, whose calm calculating courage was equalled

by his piety to the gods, and care for public morals. Turnus represents

Antony, whose turbulent vehemence (_violentia_) [55] mixed with generosity

and real valour, makes us lament, while we accept his fate. Dido is the

Egyptian queen whose arts fell harmless on Augustus's cold reserve, and

whose resolve to die eluded his vigilance. Drances, [56] the brilliant

orator whose hand was slow to wield the sword, is a study from Cicero; and

so the other less important characters have historical prototypes. But

there is even less to be said for this view than for the other. It is

altogether too narrow, and cannot be made to correspond with, the facts of

history, nor do the characters on a close inspection resemble their

supposed originals. [57] Beyond doubt the stirring scenes Virgil had as a

young man witnessed, suggested points which he has embodied in the story,

but the Greek maxim that "poetry deals with universal truth," [58] must

have been rightly understood by him to exclude all such dressing-up of

historical facts.

There remains the view to which many critics have lent their support, that

the _Aeneid_ celebrates the triumph of law and civilization over the

savage instincts of man; and that because Rome had proved the most

complete civilizing power, therefore it is to her greatness that

everything in the poem conspires. This view has the merit of being in

every way worthy of Virgil. No loftier conception could guide his verse

through the long labyrinth of legend, history, religious and antiquarian

lore, in which for ten years of patient study his muse sought inspiration.

Still it seems somewhat too philosophical to have been by itself his

animating principle. It is true, patriotism had enlarged its basis; the

city of Rome was already the world, [59] and the growth of Rome was the

growth of human progress. Hence the muse, while celebrating the imperial

state, transcends in thought the limits of space and time, and swells, as

it were, the great hymn of humanity. But this represents rather the utmost

reach of the poet's flight after he has thrown himself into the empyrean

than the original definitely conceived goal on which he fixed his mind. We

should supplement this view by another held by Macrobius and many Latin

critics, and of which Mr. Nettleship, in a recent admirable pamphlet [60]

recognises the justice, viz. that the _Aeneid_ was written with a

religious object, and must be regarded mainly as a religious poem. Its

burning patriotism glows with a religious light. Its hero is "religious"

(_pius_), not "beautiful" or "brave." [61] At the sacrifice even of

poetical effect his religious dependence on the gods is brought into

prominence. The action of the whole poem hinges on the Divine will, which,

is not as in Homer, a mere counterpart of the human, far less is

represented as in conflict with resistless destiny, but, cognizant of fate

and in perfect union with it, as overruling all lower impulses, divine or

human, towards the realization of the appointed end. This Divine Power is

Jupiter, whom in the _Aeneid_ he calls by this name as a concession to

conventional beliefs, but in the _Georgics_ prefers to leave nameless,

symbolised under the title Father. [62] Jupiter is not the Author, but he

is the Interpreter and Champion of Destiny (_Fata_), which lies buried in

the realm of the unknown, except so far as the father of the gods pleases

to reveal it. [63] Deities of sufficient power or resource may defer but

cannot prevent its accomplishment. Juno is represented doing this--the

idea is of course from Homer. But Jupiter does not desire to change

destiny, even if he could, though he feels compassion at its decrees

(_e.g._ at the death of Turnus). The power of the Divine fiat to overrule

human equity is shown by the death of Turnus who has right, and of Dido

who has the lesser wrong, on her side. Thus punishment is severed from

desert, and loses its higher meaning; the instinct of justice is lost in

the assertion of divine power; and while in details the religion of the

_Aeneid_ is often pure and noble, its ultimate conceptions of the relation

of the human and divine are certainly no advance on those of Homer. The

verdict of one who reads the poem from this point of view will surely be

that of Sellar, who denies that it enlightens the human conscience. Every

form of the doctrine that might is right, however skilfully veiled, as it

is in the _Aeneid_ by a thousand beautiful intermediaries, must be classed

among the crude and uncreative theories which mark an only half-reflecting

people. But when we pass from the philosophy of religion to the particular

manifestation of it as a national worship, we find Virgil at his greatest,

and worthy to hold the position he held with later ages as the most

authoritative expounder of the Roman ritual and creed. [64] He shared the

palm of learning with Varro, and sympathy inclined towards the poet rather

than the antiquarian. The _Aeneid_ is literally filled with memorials of

the old religion. The glory of Aeneas is to have brought with him the

Trojan gods, and through perils of every kind to have guarded his faith in

them, and scrupulously preserved their worship. It is not the Trojan race

as such that the Romans could look back to with pride as ancestors; they

are the _bis capti Phryges_, who are but heaven-sent instruments for

consecrating the Latin race to the mission for which it is prepared.

"_Occidit_" says Juno, "_occideritque sinas cum nomine Troja:_" [65] and

Aeneas states the object of his proposal in these words--

"Sacra deosque dabo; socer arma Latinas habeto." [66]

This then being the lofty origin, the immemorial antiquity of the national

faith, the moral is easily drawn, that Rome must never cease to observe

it. The rites to import which into the favoured land cost heaven itself so

fierce a struggle, which have raised that land to be the head of all the

earth, must not be neglected now that their promise has been fulfilled.

Each ceremony embodies some glorious reminiscence; each minute

technicality enshrines some special national blessing.

Here, as in the _Georgics_, Cato and Varro live in Virgil, but with far

less of narrow literalness, with far more of rich enthusiasm. We can well

believe that the _Aeneid_ was a poem after Augustus's heart, that he

welcomed with pride as well as gladness the instalments which, before its

publication, he was permitted to see, [67] and encouraged by unreserved

approbation so thorough an exponent of his cherished views. To him the

_Aeneid_ breathed the spirit of the old cult. Its very style, like that of

Milton from the Bible, was borrowed in countless instances from the Sacred

Manuals. When Aeneas offers to the gods four prime oxen (_eximios tauros_)

the pious Roman recognised the words of the ritual. [68] When the nymph

Cymodoce rouses Aeneas to be on his guard against danger with the words

"_Vigilas ne deum gens? Aenea, vigila!_" [69] she recalls the imposing

ceremony by which, immediately before a war was begun, the general struck

with his lance the sacred shields, calling on the god "_Mars, vigila!_"

These and a thousand other allusions caused many of the later commentators

to regard Aeneas as an impersonation of the pontificate. This is an error

analogous to, but worse than, that which makes him represent Augustus; he

is a poetical creation, imperfect no doubt, but still not to be tied to

any single definition.

Passing from the religious to the moral aspect of the _Aeneid_, we find a

gentleness beaming through it, strangely contradicted by some of the

bloody episodes, which out of deference to Homeric precedent Virgil

interweaves. Such are the human sacrifices, the ferocious taunts at fallen

enemies, and other instances of boasting or cruelty which will occur to

every reader, greatly marring the artistic as well as the moral effect of

the hero. Tame as he generally is, a resigned instrument in the divine

hands, there are moments when Aeneas is truly attractive. As Conington

says, his kindly interest in the young shown in Book V. is a beautiful

trait that is all Virgil's own. His happy interview with Evander, where,

throwing off the monarch, he chats like a Roman burgess in his country

house; his pity for young Lausus whom he slays, and the mournful tribute

of affection he pays to Pallas, are touching scenes, which without

presenting Aeneas as a hero (which he never is), harmonise far better with

the ideal Virgil meant to leave us. But after all said, that ideal is a

poor one for purposes of poetry. Aeneas is uninteresting, and this is the

great fault of the poem. Turnus enlists our sympathy far more, he is

chivalrous and valiant; the wrong he suffers does not harden him, but he

lacks strength of character. The only personage who is "proudly conceived"

[70] is Mezentius, the despiser of the gods. The absence of restraint

seems to have given the poet a more masculine touch; the address of the

old king to his horse, his only friend, is full of pathos. Among female

characters Camilla is perhaps original; she is graceful without being

pleasing. Amata and Juturna belong to the class _virago_, a term applied

to the latter by Virgil himself. [71] Lavinia is the modest maiden, a

sketch, not a portrait. Dido is a character for all time, the _chef

d'oeuvre_ of the _Aeneid_. Among the stately ladies of the imperial house

--a Livia, a Scribonia, an Octavia, perhaps a Julia--Virgil must have

found the elements which he has fused with such mighty power, [72] the

rich beauty, the fierce passion, the fixed resolve. Dido is his greatest

effort: and yet she is not an individual living woman like Helen or

Ophelia. Like Racine, Virgil has developed passions, not created persons.

The divine gift of tender, almost Christian, feeling that is his, cannot

see into those depths where the inner personality lies hidden. Among the

traditional characters few call for remark. The gods maintain on the whole

their Homeric attributes, only hardened by time and by a Roman moulding.

Venus is, however, touched with magic skill; it may be questioned whether

words ever carried such suggestions of surpassing beauty as those in

which, twice in the poem, her mystic form [73] is veiled rather than

pourtrayed. The characters of Ulysses and Helen bear the debased, unheroic

stamp of the later Greek drama; the last spark of goodness has left them,

and even his careful study of Homer, seems to have had no effect in

opening the poet's eyes to the gross falsification. Where Virgil did not

feel obliged to create, he was to the last degree conventional.

A most interesting feature in the _Aeneid_--and with it we conclude our

sketch--is its incorporation of all that was best in preceding poetry. All

Roman poets had imitated, but Virgil carried imitation to an extent

hitherto unknown. Not only Greek but Latin writers are laid under

contribution in every page. Some idea of his indebtedness to Homer may be

formed from Conington's commentary. Sophocles and the other tragedians,

Apollonius Rhodius and the Alexandrines are continually imitated, and

almost always improved upon. And still more is this the case with his

adaptations from Naevius, Ennius, Lucretius, Hostius, Furius, &c. whose

works he had thoroughly mastered, and stored in his memory their most

striking rhythms or expressions. [74] Massive lines from Ennius, which as

a rule he has spared to touch, leaving them in all their rugged grandeur

planted in the garden of his verse, to point back like giant trees to the

time when that garden was a forest, bear witness at once to his reverence

for the old bard and to his own wondrous art. It is not merely for

literary effect that the old poets are transferred into his pages. A

nobler motive swayed him. The _Aeneid_ was meant to be, above all things,

a National Poem, carrying on the lines of thought, the style of speech,

which National Progress had chosen; it was not meant to eclipse so much us

to do honour to the early literature. Thus those bards who like Naevius

and Ennius had done good service to Rome by singing, however rudely, her

history, find their _Imagines_ ranged in the gallery of the _Aeneid_.

There they meet with the flamens and pontiffs unknown and unnamed, who

drew up the ritual formularies, with the antiquarians and pious scholars

who had sought to find a meaning in the immemorial names, [75] whether of

places or customs or persons; with the magistrates, moralists, and

philosophers, who had striven to ennoble or enlighten Roman virtue; with

the Greek singers and sages, for they too had helped to rear the towering

fabric of Roman greatness. All these meet together in the _Aeneid_ as if

in solemn conclave, to review their joint work, to acknowledge its final

completion, and predict its impending fall. This is beyond question the

explanation of the wholesale appropriation of others' thought and

language, which otherwise would be sheer plagiarism. With that tenacious

sense of national continuity which had given the senate a policy for

centuries, Virgil regards Roman literature as a gradually expanded whole;

coming at the close of its first epoch, he sums up its results and enters

into its labours. So far from hesitating whether to imitate, he rather

hesitated whom not to include, if only by a single reference, in his

mosaic of all that had entered into the history of Rome. His archaism is

but another side of the same thing. Whether it takes the form of

archaeological discussion, [76] of antiquarian allusion, [77] of a mode of

narration which recalls the ancient source, [78] or of obsolete

expressions, forms of inflection, or poetical ornament, [79] we feel that

it is a sign of the poet's reverence for what was at once national and

old. The structure of his verse, while full of music, often reminds us of

the earlier writers. It certainly has more affinity with that of Lucretius

than with that of Lucan. A learned Roman reading the _Aeneid_ would feel

his mind stirred by a thousand patriotic associations. The quaint old

laws, the maxims and religious formulae he had learnt in childhood would

mingle with the richest poetry of Greece and Rome in a stream flowing

evenly, and as it would seem, from a single spring; and he who by his art

had effected this wondrous union would seem to him the prophet as well as

the poet of the era. That art, in spite of its occasional lapses, for we

must not forget the work was unfinished, is the most perfect the world has

yet seen. The poet's exquisite sense of beauty, the sonorous language he

wielded, the noble rivalry of kindred spirits great enough to stimulate

but not to daunt him, and the consciousness of living in a new time big

with triumphs, as he fondly hoped, for the useful and the good, all united

to make Virgil not only the fairest flower of Roman literature, but as the

master of Dante, the beloved of all gentle hearts, and the most widely-

read poet of any age, to render him an influential contributor to some of

the deepest convictions of the modern world.

APPENDIX.

Note I.--_Imitations of Virgil in Propertius, Ovid, and Manilius._

The prestige of Virgil made him a subject for imitation even during his

lifetime. Just as Carlyle, Tennyson, and other vigorous writers soon

create a school, so Virgil stamped the poetical dialect for centuries. But

he offered two elements for imitation, the declamatory or rhetorical,

which is most prominent in his speeches, and in the second and sixth

books; and detached passages showing descriptive imagery, touches of

pathos, similes, &c. These last might he imitated without at all unduly

influencing the individuality of the imitator's style. In this way Ovid is

a great imitator of Virgil; so to a less extent are Propertius, Manilius,

and Lucan. Statius and Silius base their whole poetical art on him, and

therefore particular instances of imitation throw no additional light on

their style. We shall here notice a few of the points in which the

Augustan poets copied him:--

(1) _In Facts._--Beside the great number of early historical points on

which he was followed implicitly, we find even his errors imitated, _e.g._

the confusion which perhaps in Virgil is only apparent between Pharsalia

and Philippi, has, as Merivale remarks, been adopted by Propertius (iv.

10,40), Ovid (M. xv, 824), Manilius (i. 906), Lucan (vii. 854), and

Juvenal (viii. 242); not so much from ignorance of the locality as out of

deference to Virgilian precedent. The lines may be quoted--Virgil (G. i.

489), _Ergo inter se paribus concurrere telis Romanas acies iterum videre

Philippi;_ Propertius, _Una Philippeo sanguine inusta nota;_ Ovid,

_Emathiaque iterum madefient caede Philippi;_ Manilius, _Arma Philippeos

implerunt sanguine campos. Vixque etiam sicca miles Romanus arena Ossa

virum lacerosque prius superastitit artus;_ Lucan, _Scelerique secundo

Praestatis nondum siccos hoc sanguine campos;_ Juvenal, _Thessaliae campis

Octavius abstulit ... famam...._ This is analogous to the way in which the

satirists use the names consecrated by Lucilius or Horace as types of a

vice, and repeat the same symptoms _ad nauseam, e.g._ the miser who

anoints his body with train oil, who locks up his leavings, who picks up a

farthing from the road, &c. The veiled allusion to the poet Anser (Ecl.

ix. 36) is perhaps recalled by Prop. iii. 32, 83, _sqq._ So the portents

described by Virgil as following on the death of Caesar are told again by

Manilius at the end of Bk. I. and referred to by Lucan (_Phars._ i.) and

Ovid. Again, the confusion between _Inarime_ and _ein Arimois_, into which

Virgil falls, is borrowed by Lucan (_Phars._ v. 101).

(2) _In Metre._--As regards metre, Ovid in the _Metamorphoses_ is nearest

to him, but differs in several points, He imitates him--(_a_) in not

admitting words of four or more syllables, except very rarely, at the end

of the line; (_b_) in rhythms like _vulnificus sus_ (viii. 358), and the

not unfrequent _spondetazontes_; (_c_) in keeping to the two caesuras as

finally established by him, and avoiding beginnings like _scilicet omnibus

| est_, &c. In all these points Manilius is a little less strict than

Ovid, _e.g._ (i. 35) _et veneranda_, (iii. 130) _sic breviantur_, (ii.

716) _altribuuntur_. He also follows Virgil in alliteration, which Ovid

does not. They differ from Virgil in--(_a_) a much more sparing employment

of elision. The reason of this is that elision marks the period of living

growth; as soon as the language had become crystallised, each letter had

its fixed force, the caprices of common pronunciation no longer

influencing it; and although no correct writer places the unelided _m_

before a vowel, yet the great rarity of elision not only of _m_ but of

long and even short vowels (except _que_) shows that the main object was

to avoid it, if possible. The great frequency of elision in Virgil must be

regarded as an archaism. (_b_) In a much lesser variety of rhythm. This

is, perhaps, rather an artistic defect, but it is designed. Manilius,

however, has verses which Virgil avoids, _e.g. Delcetique sacerdotes_ (i.

47), probably as a reminiscence of Lucretius.

Imitations in language are very frequent. Propertius gives _ah pereat!

qui_ (i. 17, 13), from the _Copa_. Again, _Sit licet et saxo patientior

illa Sicano_ (i. 16, 29), from the _Cyclopia saxa_ of _Aeneid_, i. 201;

_cum tamen_ (i. 1, 8) with the indic. as twice in Virgil; _Umbria me

genuit_ (i. 23, 9), perhaps from the _Mantua me genuit_ of Virgil's

epitaph. These might easily be added to. Ovid in the _Metamorphoses_ has a

vast number of imitations of which we select the most striking; _Plebs

habitat diversa locis_ (i. 193); _Navigat, hic summa_, &c. (i. 296); cf.

_Naviget, haec summa est_, in the 4th Aeneid; _similisque roganti_ (iii.

240), _amarunt me quoque Nymphae_ (iii. 454); _Arma manusque meae, mea,

nate, potentia, dixit_ (v. 365); _Heu quantum haec Niobe Niobe distabat ab

illa_ (vi. 273); _leti discrimine parvo_ (vi. 426); _per nostri foedera

lecti, perque deos supplex oro superosque neosque, Per si quid merui de te

bene_ (vii. 852); _maiorque videri_ (ix. 269). These striking

resemblances, which are selected from hundreds of others, show how

carefully he had studied him. Of all other poets I have noticed but two or

three imitations in him, _e.g. multi illum pueri, multae cupiere puellae_

(iii. 383), from Catullus; _et merito, quid enim...?_ (ix. 585) from

Propertius (i. 17). Manilius also imitates Virgil's language, _e.g. acuit

mortalia corda_ (i. 79), _Acherunta movere_ (i. 93), _molli cervice

reflexus_ (i. 334), and his sentiments in _omnia conando docilis solertia

vicit_ (i. 95), compared with _labor omnia vicit improbus: invictamque sub

Hectore Troiam_ (i. 766), with _decumum quos distulit Hector in annum_ of

the _Aeneid_; cf. also iv. 122, and _litora litoribus regnis contraria

regna_ (iv. 814); cf. also iv. 28, 37.

NOTE II.--_On the shortening of final o in Latin poetry._

The fact that in Latin the accent was generally thrown back caused a

strong tendency to shorten long final vowels. The one that resisted this

tendency best was _o_, but this gradually became shortened as poetry

advanced, and is one of the very few instances of a departure from the

standard of quantity as determined by Ennius. There is one instance even

in him: _Horrida Romuleum certamina pango duellum_. The words _ego_ and

_modo_, which from their frequent use are often shortened in the

comedians, are generally long in Ennius; Lucretius uses them as common,

but retains _homo_, which after him does not appear. Catullus has one

short _o_, _Virro_ (89, 1), but this is a proper name. Virgil has

_sci0_ (_Aen._ iii. 602), but _ego, homo_, when in the arsis, are

always elided, _e.g. Pulsus ego? aut; Graius homo, infectos. Spondeo_

which used to be read (_Aen._ ix, 294), is now changed to _sponde_.

_Pollio_ is elided by Virgil, shortened by Horace (O. II. i. 14). He also

has _mentio_ and _dixero_ in the _Satires_ (I. iv. 93, 104). A line by

Maecenas, quoted in Suetonius, has _diligo_. Ovid has _cito, puto_ (_Am._

iii. vii. 2), but only in such short words; in nouns, _Naso_ often,

_origo, virgo_, once each. Tibullus and Propertius are stricter in this

respect, though Propertius has _findo_ (iii. or iv. 8 or 9, 35); Manilius

has _leo, Virgo_ (i. 266), Lucan _Virgo_ (ii. 329), _pulmo_ (iii. 644),

and a few others. Gratius first gives the imperative _reponito_ (_Cyn._

56); Calpurnius, in the the time of Nero, the false quantities _quando

ambo_, the latter (ix. 17) perhaps in a spurious eclogue; so _expecto_. In

Statius no new licenses appear. Juvenal, however, gives _vigilando_ (iii.

232), an improper quantity repeated by Seneca (_Tro._ 264) _vincendo_,

Nemesianus (viii. 53) _mulcendo_, (ix. 80), _laudano_. Juvenal gives also

_sumito, octo, ergo_. The dat. and abl. sing. are the only terminations

that were not affected. We see the gradual deterioration of quantity, and

are not surprised that even before the time of Claudian a strict knowledge

of it was confined to the most learned poets.

NOTE III.--_On parallelism in Virgil's poetry._

There is a very frequent feature in Virgil's poetry which we may compare

to the parallelism well known as the chief characteristic of Hebrew verse.

In that language the poet takes a thought and either repeats it, or varies

it, or explains it, or gives its antithesis in a corresponding clause, as

evenly as may be balancing the first. As examples we may take--

(1) A mere iteration:

"Why do the nations so furiously rage together?

And why do the people imagine a vain thing?"

(2) Contrast:

"A wise son maketh a glad father:

But a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother."

This somewhat rude idea of ornament is drawn no doubt from the simplest

attempts to speak with passion or emphasis, which naturally turned to

_iteration_ or _repetition_ as the obvious means of gaining the effect.

Roman poetry, as we have already said, rests upon a primitive and rude

basis, the Greek methods of composition being applied to an art arrested

before its growth was complete. The fondness for repetition is very

prominent. Phrases like _somno gravidi vinoque sepulti; indu foro lato,

sanctoque senatu_, occur commonly in Ennius; and the trick of composition

of which they are the simplest instances, is perpetuated throughout Roman

poetry. It is in reality rather rhetorical than poetical, and abounds in

Cicero. It scarcely occurs in Greek poetry, but is very common in Virgil,

_e.g. _:

"Ambo florentes aetatibus, Arcades ambo,

Et cantare pares, et respondere parati."

Similar to this is the introduction of

corresponding clauses by the same

initial word, _e.g. ille_ (_Ecl._ i. 17):

"Namque erit _ille_ mihi semper deus: _illius_ aram

Saepe tener nostris ab ovilibus imbuet agnus.

_Ille_ meas errare boves..."

Instances of this construction will occur to every reader. Frequently the

first half of the hexameter expresses a thought obscurely which is

expressed clearly in the latter half, or _vice versa, e.g._ (G. iv. 103):

"At quum incerta volant, caeloque examina ludunt."

Again (_Aen._ iv. 368):

"Nam quid dissimulo, aut quae me ad maiora reservo?"

at times this parallelism is very useful as helping us to find out the

poet's meaning, _e.g._ (_Aen._ ii. 121):

"Cui fata parent, quem poseat Apollo."

Here interpretations vary between _fata_, n. to _parent_, and acc. after

it. But the parallelism decides at once in favour of the former "for whom

the fates are making preparations; whom Apollo demands." To take another

instance (_Aen_. i. 395):

"Nunc terras ordine longo

Aut capere, aut captas, iam despectare videntur."

This passage is explained by its parallelism with another a little further

on (v. 400):

"Puppesque tuae plebesque tuorum

Aut portum tenet aut pleno subit ostia velo."

Here the word _capere_ is fixed to mean "settling on the ground" by the

words _portum tenet_. Once more in _Aen_. xii. 725:

"Quem damnet labor, aut quo vergat pondere letum,"

the difficulty is solved both by the iteration in the line itself, by

which _damnet labor = vergat letum_; and also by its close parallelism

with another (v. 717), which is meant to illustrate it:

"Mussantque iuvencae

Quis nemori imperitet quem tota armenta sequantur."

This feature in Virgil's verse, which might be illustrated at far greater

length, reappears under another form in the Ovidian elegiac. There the

pentameter answers to the second half of Virgil's hexameter verse, and

rings the changes on the line that has preceded in a very similar way. A

literature which loves the balanced clauses of rhetoric will be sure to

have something analogous. Our own heroic couplet is a case in point. So

perhaps is the invention of rhyme which tends to confine the thought

within the oscillating limits of a refrain, and that of the stanza, which

shows the same process in a much higher stage of complexity.

NOTE IV.--_On the Legends connected with Virgil_.

Side by side with the historical account of this poet is a mythical one

which, even within the early post-classical period, began to gain

credence. The reasons of it are to be sought not so much in his poetical

genius as in the almost ascetic purity of his life, which surrounded him

with a halo of mysterious sanctity. Prodigies are said, in the lives that

have come down to us, to have happened at his birth; his mother dreamt she

gave birth to a laurel-branch, which grew apace until it filled the

country. A poplar planted at his birth suddenly grew into a stately tree.

The infant never cried, and was noted for the preternatural sweetness of

its temper. When at Naples he is said to have studied medicine, and cured

Augustus's horses of a severe ailment. Augustus ordered him a daily

allowance of bread, which was doubled on a second instance of his

chirurgical knowledge, and trebled on his detecting the true ancestry of a

rare Spanish hound! Credited with supernatural knowledge, though he never

pretended to it, he was consulted privately by Augustus as to his own

legitimacy. By the cautious dexterity of his answer, he so pleased the

emperor that he at once recommended him to Pollio as a person to be well

rewarded. The mixture of fable and history here is easily observed. The

custom of making pilgrimages to his tomb, and in the case of Silius

Italicus (and doubtless others too), of honouring it with sacrifices,

seems to have produced the belief that he was a great magician. Even as

early as Hadrian the _Sortes Virgilianae_ were consulted from an idea that

there was a sanctity about the pages of his book; and, as is well known,

this superstitious custom was continued until comparatively modern times.

Meanwhile plays were represented from his works, and amid the general

decay of all clear knowledge a confused idea sprung up that these stories

were inspired by supernatural wisdom. The supposed connection of the

fourth Eclogue with the _Sibylline Books_, and through them, with the

sacred wisdom of the Hebrews, of course placed Virgil on a different level

from other heathens. The old hymn, "Dies irae dies illa Solvet saeclum cum

favilla Teste David cum Sibylla," shows that as early as the eighth

century the Sibyl was well established as one of the prophetic witnesses;

and the poet, from the indulgence of an obscure style, reaped the great

reward of being regarded almost as a saint for several centuries of

Christendom. Dante calls him _Virtu summa_, just as ages before Justinian

had spoken of Homer as _pater omnis virtutis_. But before Dante's time the

real Virgil had been completely lost in the ideal and mystic poet whose

works were regarded as wholly allegorical.

The conception of Virgil as a magician as distinct from an inspired sage

is no doubt a popular one independent of literature, and had originally a

local origin near Naples where his tomb was. Foreign visitors disseminated

the legend, adding striking features, which in time developed almost an

entire literature.

In the _Otia Imperialia_ of Gervasius of Tilbury, we see this belief in

formation; the main point in that work is that he is the protector of

Naples, defending it by various contrivances from war or pestilence. He

was familiarly spoken of among the Neapolitans as _Parthenias_, in

allusion to his chastity. It was probably in the thirteenth century that

the connection of Virgil with the Sibyl was first systematically taught,

and the legends connected with him collected into one focus. They will be

found treated fully in Professor Comparetti's work. We append here a very

short passage from the _Gesta Romanorum_ (p. 590), showing the necromantic

character which surrounded him:--

"Refert Alexander Philosophus de natura rerum, quod Vergilius in civitate

Romana nobile construxit palatium, in cuius medio palatii stabat imago,

quae Dea Romana vocabatur. Tenebat enim pomum aureum in manu sua. Per

circulum palatii erant imagines cuiuslibet regionis, quae subiectae erant

Romano imperio, et quaelibet imago campanam ligneam in manu sua habebat.

Cum vero aliqua regio nitebatur Romanis insidias aliquas imponere, statim

imago eiusdem regionis campanam suam pulsavit, et miles exivit in equo

aeneo in summitate predicti palatii, hastam vibravit, et predictam

regionem inspexit. Et ab instanti Romani hoc videntes se armaverunt et

predictam regionem expugnaverunt.

"Ista civitas est Corpus Humanum: quinque portae sunt quinque Sensus:

Palatium est Anima rationalis, et aureum pomum Similitudo cum Deo. Tria

regna inimica sunt Caro, Mundus, Diabolus, et eius imago Cupiditas,

Voluptas, Superbia."

The above is a good instance both of the supernatural powers attributed to

the poet, and the supernatural interpretation put upon his supposed

exercise of them. This curious mythology lasted throughout the fourteenth

century, was vehemently opposed in the fifteenth by the partisans of

enlightened learning, and had not quite died out by the middle of the

sixteenth.

CHAPTER III.

HORACE (65-8 B.C.).

If Virgil is the most representative, Horace is the most original poet of

Rome. This great and varied genius, whose exquisite taste and deep

knowledge of the world have made him the chosen companion of many a great

soldier and statesman, suggesting as he does reflections neither too ideal

nor too exclusively literary for men of affairs, was born at or near

Venusia, on the borders of Lucania and Apulia, December 8, 65 B.C. [1] His

father was a freedman of the Horatia gens, [2] but set free before the

poet's birth. [3] We infer that he was a tax-gatherer, or perhaps a

collector of payments at auctions; for the word _coactor_, [4] which

Horace uses, is of wide application. At any rate his means sufficed to

purchase a small farm, where the poet passed his childhood. Horace was

able to look back to this time with fond and even proud reminiscences, for

he relates how prodigies marked him even in infancy as a special favourite

of the gods. [5] At the age of twelve he was brought by his father to Rome

and placed under the care of the celebrated Orbilius Pupillus. [6] The

poet's filial feeling has left us a beautiful testimony to his father's

affectionate interest in his studies. The good man, proud of his son's

talent, but fearing the corruptions of the city, accompanied him every day

to school, and consigned him in person to his preceptor's charge, [7] a

duty usually left to slaves called _paedagogi_, who appear to have borne

no high character for honesty, [8] and at best did nothing to improve

those of whom they had the care. From the shrewd counsels of his father,

who taught by instances not by maxims, [9] and by his own strict example,

Horace imbibed that habit of keen observation and that genial view of life

which distinguish him above all other satirists. He also learnt the

caution which enabled him to steer his course among rocks and shoals that

would have wrecked a novice, and to assert his independence of action with

success even against the emperor himself.

The life of Horace is so well known that it is needless to retrace it

here. We shall do no more than summarise the few leading events in it,

alluding more particularly to those only which affect his literary

position. After completing his education so far in the capital, he went

for a time, as was customary, to study philosophy at Athens. [10] While he

was there the death of Caesar and the events which followed roused the

fierce party spirit that had uneasily slumbered. Horace, then twenty-two

years of age, was offered a command by Brutus on his way to Macedonia,

which he accepted, [11] and apparently must have seen some hard service.

[12] He shared the defeat of the Republicans at Philippi, [13] and as the

territory of Venusium, like that of Cremona, was selected to be parcelled

out among the soldiery, Horace was deprived of his paternal estate, [14] a

fact from which we learn incidentally that his father was now dead.

Thrown upon his own resources, he sought and obtained permission to come

to Rome, where he obtained some small post as a notary [15] attached to

the quaestors. Poverty drove him to verse-making, [16] but of what kind we

do not certainly know. Probably epodes and satires were the first fruits

of his pen, though some scholars ascribe certain of the _Odes_ (_e.g._ i.

14) to this period. About this time he made the acquaintance of Virgil,

which ripened at least on Horace's part into warm affection. Virgil and

Varius introduced him to Maecenas, [17] who received the bashful poet with

distant hauteur, and did not again send for him until nine months had

elapsed. Slow to make up his mind, but prompt to act when his decision was

once taken, Maecenas then called for Horace, and in the poet's words bade

him be reckoned among his friends; [18] and very shortly afterwards we

find them travelling together to Brundisium on a footing of familiar

intimacy (39 B.C.). This circumspection of Maecenas was only natural, for

Horace was of a very different stamp from Varius and Virgil, who were warm

admirers of Octavius. Horace, though at first a Platonist, [19] then an

Epicurean, [20] then an Eclectic, was always somewhat of a "free lance."

[21] His mind was of that independent mould which can never be got to

accept on anybody's authority the solution of problems which interest it.

Even when reason convinced him that imperialism, if not good in itself,

was the least of all possible evils, ho did not become a hearty partisan;

he maintained from first to last a more or less critical attitude. Thus

Maecenas may have heard of his literary promise, of his high character,

without much concern. It was the paramount importance of enlisting so able

a man on his own side that weighed with the shrewd statesman. For Horace,

with the recklessness that poverty inspires, had shown a disposition to

attack those in power. It is generally thought that Maecenas himself is

ridiculed under the name Malthinus. [22] It is nevertheless clear that

when he knew Maecenas he not only formed a high opinion of his character

and talent, but felt a deep affection for him, which expresses itself in

the generous language of an equal friend, with great respect, indeed, but

totally without unworthy complaisance. The minister of monarchy might

without inconsistency gain his goodwill; with the monarch it was a

different matter. For many years Horace held aloof from Augustus. He made

no application to him; he addressed to him no panegyric. Until the year

29, when the Temple of Janus was closed, he showed no approval of his

measures. All his laudatory odes were written after that event. He indeed

permitted the emperor to make advances to him, to invite him to his table,

and maintain a friendly correspondence. But he refused the office of

secretary which Augustus pressed upon him. He scrupulously abstained from

pressing his claims of intimacy, as the emperor wished him to do; and at

last he drew forth from him the remorseful expostulation, "Why is it that

you avoid addressing me of all men in your poems? Is it that you are

afraid posterity will think the worse of you for having been a friend of

mine?" [23]

This appeal elicited from the poet that excellent epistle which traces the

history and criticises the merits of Latin poetry. From all this we may be

sure that when Augustus's measures are celebrated, as they are in the

third book of the Odes and other places, with emphatic commendation,

though the language may be that of poetical exaggeration, the sentiment is

in the main sincere. It is a greater honour to the prudent ruler to have

won the tardy approval of Horace, than to have enlisted from the outset

the enthusiastic devotion of Virgil.

We left Horace installed as one of Maecenas's circle. This position

naturally gained him many enemies; nor was his character one to conciliate

his less fortunate rivals. He was choleric and sensitive, prompt to resent

an insult, though quite free from malice or vindictiveness. He had not yet

reached that high sense of his position when he could afford to treat the

envious crowd with contempt. [24] He records in the satires which he now

wrote, painting with inimitable humour each incident that arose, the

attempts of the outsiders to obtain from him an introduction to Maecenas,

[25] or some of that political information of which he was supposed to be

the confidant. [26] At this period of his career he lived a good deal with

his patron both in Rome and at his Tiburtine villa. Within a few years,

however (probably 31 B.C.), he was put in possession of what he had always

desired, [27] a small competence of his own. This was the Sabine estate in

the valley of Ustica, not far from Tivoli, given him by Maecenas, the

subject of many beautiful allusions, and the cause of his warmest

gratitude. [28] Here he resided during some part of each year [29] in the

enjoyment of that independence which was to him the greatest good; and

during the seven years that followed he wrote, and at their close

published, the first three books of the Odes. [30] The death of Virgil,

which happened when Horace was forty-six years of age, and soon afterwards

that of Tibullus, threw his affections once more upon his early patrons.

He now resided more frequently at Rome, and was often to be seen at the

palace. How he filled the arduous position of a courtier may be gathered

from many, of the Epistles of the first book. The one which introduces

Septimus to Tiberius is a masterpiece; [31] and those to Scaeva and

Lellius [32] are models of high-bred courtesy. No one ever mingled

compliment and advice with such consummate skill. Horace had made his

position at court for himself, and though he still loved the country best,

[33] he found both interest and profit in his daily intercourse with the

great.

In the year 17 B.C. Augustus found an opportunity of testifying his regard

for Horace. The secular games, which were celebrated in that year,

included the singing of a hymn to Apollo and Diana by a chorus of 27 boys

and the same number of girls, selected from the highest families in the

state. The composition of this hymn was intrusted to Horace, much to his

own legitimate pride, and to our instruction and pleasure, for not only is

it a poem of high intrinsic excellence, but it is the only considerable

extant specimen of the lyrical part of Roman worship. Some scholars

include under it besides the _Carmen Saeculare_ proper, various other

odes, some of which unquestionably bear on the same subject, though, there

is no direct evidence of their having been sung together. [34] Whether

Horace had any Roman models in this style before him is not very clear. We

have seen that Livius Andronicus was selected to celebrate the victory of

Sena, [35] and there is an ode of Catullus [36] which seems to refer to

some similar occasion. Doubtless the main lines in which the composition

moved were indicated by custom; but the treatment was left to the

individual genius of the poet. In this case we observe the poet's happy

choice of a metre. Of all the varied lyric rhythms none, at least to our

ears, lends itself so readily to a musical setting as the Sapphic; and the

many melodies attached to odes in this metre by the monks of the Middle

Ages attest its special adaptability to choir-singing. Augustus was highly

pleased with the poet's performance, and two years' afterwards he

commanded him to celebrate the victory of his step-sons Drusus and

Tiberius over the Rhaeti and Vindelici. [37] This circumstance turned his

attention once more to lyric poetry, which for six years he had quite

discontinued. [38] It is not conclusively proved that he wrote all the

odes which compose the fourth book at this period; two or three bear the

impress of an earlier date, and were doubtless improved by re-writing or

revision, but the majority were the production of his later years, and

present to us the fruits of his matured judgment and taste. They show no

diminution of lyric power, but the reverse; nor is there any ode in the

first three books which surpasses or even equals the fourth poem in this

collection. Horace's attention was, during the last few years of his life,

given chiefly to literary subjects; the treatise on poetry and the epistle

to Julius Florus were written probably between 14 and 11 B.C. That to

Augustus is the last composition that issued from his pen; we may refer it

to 10 B.C. two years before his death.

Horace's health had long been the reverse of strong. Whether from early

delicacy, or from exposure to hardships in Asia, his constitution was

never able to respond to the demands made upon it by the society of the

capital. The weariness he expresses was often the result of physical

prostration. The sketch he has left of himself [39] suggests a physique

neither interesting nor vigorous. He was at 44 short, fat, and good-

natured looking (rallied, we learn, by Augustus on his obesity), blear-

eyed, somewhat dyspeptic, and prematurely grey; and ten years, we may be

sure, had not improved the portrait. In the autumn of 8 B.C. Maecenas, who

had long been himself a sufferer, succumbed to the effects of his devoted

and arduous service. His last message confided Horace to the Emperor's

care: "_Horatii flacci ut mei esto memor_." But the legacy was not long a

burden. The prophetic anticipations of affection that in death the poet

would not be parted from his friend [40] were only too faithfully

realised. Within a month of Maecenas's death Horace was borne to his rest,

and his ashes were laid beside those of his patron on the Esquiline

(November 29, 8 B.C.).

As regards the date of publication of his several books, several theories

have been propounded, for which the student is referred to the many

excellent editions of Horace that discuss the question. We shall content

ourselves with assigning those dates which seem to us the most probable.

All agree in considering the first book of the Satires to have been his

earliest effort. This may have been published in 34 B.C.; and in 29 B.C.

the two books of Satires together, and perhaps the _Epodes_. In 24 B.C.

probably appeared the first two books of Odes, which open and close with a

dedication to Maecenas, and in 23 B.C. the three books of Odes complete;

though some suppose that all appeared at once and for the first time in

this later year. In 21 B.C. perhaps, but more probably in 20, the first

book of the Epistles was published; in 14 B.C. the fourth book of the

Odes, though it is possible that the last ode of that book was written at

a later date. The second book of Epistles, in which may have been included

the _Ars Poetica_, could not have appeared before 10 B.C. It is clear that

the latter poem is not complete, but whether Horace intended to finish it

more thoroughly it is impossible to say.

In approaching the criticism of Horace, the first thing which strikes us

is, that in him we see two different poets. There is the lyricist winning

renown by the importation of a new kind of Greek song; and there is the

observant critic and man of the world, entrusting to the tablets, his

faithful companions, his reflections on men and things. The former poet

ran his course through the _Epodes_ to the graceful pieces which form the

great majority of his odes, and culminated in the loftier vein of lyric

inspiration that characterises his political odes. The latter began with a

somewhat acrimonious type of satire, which he speedily deserted for a

lighter and more genial vein, and finally rested in the sober, practical,

and healthy moralist and literary critic of the _Epistles_. It was in the

former aspect that he assumed the title of poet; with characteristic

modesty he relinquishes all claim to it with regard to his _Epistles_ and

_Satires_. We shall consider him briefly under these two aspects.

No writer believed so little in the sufficiency of the poetic gift by

itself to produce a poet. Had he trusted the maxim _Poeta nascitur, non

fit_, he would never have written his _Odes_. Looking back at his early

attempts at verse we find in them few traces of genuine inspiration. Of

the _Epodes_ a large number are positively unpleasing; others interest us

from the expression of true feeling; a few only have merits of a high

order. The fresh and enthusiastic, though somewhat diffuse, descriptions

of country enjoyments in the second and sixteenth Epodes, and the vigorous

word-painting in the fifth, bespeak the future master; and the patriotic

emotion in the seventh, ninth, and sixteenth, strikes a note that was to

thrill with loftier vibrations in the Odes of the third and fourth books.

But as a whole the _Epodes_ stand far below his other works. Their

bitterness is quite different from the genial irony of the _Satires_, and,

though occasionally the subjects of them merited the severest handling,

[41] yet we do not like to see Horace applying the lash. It was not his

proper vocation, and he does not do it well. He is never so unlike himself

as when he is making a personal attack. Nevertheless to bring himself into

notice, it was necessary to do something of the kind. Personal satire is

always popular, and Horace had to carve his own way to fame. It is evident

that the series of sketches of which Canidia is the heroine, [42] were

received with unanimous approval by the _beau monde_. This wretched woman,

singled out as the representative of a class which was gaining daily

influence in Rome, [43] he depicts in colours detestable and ignominious,

which do credit to his talent but not to his courteous feeling. Horace has

no true respect for woman. Nothing in all Latin poetry is so unpleasant as

his brutal attacks on those _hetaerae_ (the only ladies of whom he seems

to have had any knowledge) whose caprice or neglect had offended him. [44]

This is the one point in which he did not improve. In all other respects

his constant self-culture opened to him higher and ever widening paths of

excellence.

The glimpses of real feeling which the _Epodes_ allow us to gain are as a

rule carefully excluded from the _Odes_. This is at first sight a matter

for surprise. Our idea of a lyric poem is that of a warm and passionate

outpouring of the heart. Such are those of Burns; such are those of nearly

all the writers who have gained the heart of modern times. In the grand

style of dithyrambic song, indeed, the bard is rapt into an ideal world,

and soars far beyond his subjective emotions or desires; but to this

Pindaric inspiration Horace made no pretension. He was content to be an

imitator of Alcaeus and Sappho, who had attuned to the lyre their own

hopes and fears, the joys and sorrows of their own chequered life. But in

imitating their form he has altogether changed their spirit. Where they

indulged feeling, he has controlled it; what they effect by intensity of

colour, he attains by studied propriety of language. He desires not to

enlist the world to sympathy with himself, but to put himself in sympathy

with the world. Hence the many-sidedness, the culture, the broad human

stand-point after which he ceaselessly strives. If depth must be

sacrificed to attain this, he is ready to sacrifice it. He finds a field

wide enough in the network of aims, interest, and feelings, which give

society its hold on us, and us our union with society. And he feels that

the writer who shall make his poem speak with a living voice to the

largest number of these, will meet with most earnest heed, and be doing

best the poet's true work. At the same time we must not forget that

Horace's public was not our public. The unwieldy mass of labouring

millions, shaken to its depths by questionings of momentous interest,

cannot be drawn to listen except by an emotion vast as its own; but the

society for whom Horace wrote was homogeneous in tone, limited in number,

cultivated in intellect, and deeply absorbed in a race of ambition, some

of whose prizes, at least, each might hope to win. He was, has been, and

intended himself to be, the poet of men of the world.

Among such men at all times, and to an immeasurably greater extent in

antiquity than now, staunch friendship has been considered one of the

chief of virtues. Whatever were Horace's relations to the other sex, no

man whom he had once called a friend had any cause to complain. Admirable

indeed in their frankness, their constancy, their sterling independence,

are the friendships it has delighted him to record. From the devoted,

almost passionate tribute to Maecenas--

"Ibimus ibimus

Uteunque praecedes supremum

Carpere iter comites parati,"

to the raillery so gracefully flung at an Iccius or Xanthias, for whom yet

one discerns the kindest and tenderest feeling, these memorials of Roman

intercourse place both giver and receiver in a truly amiable light. We can

understand Augustus's regret that he had not been honoured with a regard

of which he well knew the value. For the poet was rich who could dispense

gifts like these.