The national character of the _Aeneid_ gave Virgil a greater appeal than
Horace in ancient Roman times. In the Middle Age, his qualities as
story-teller and poet of the compassionate heart, together with his fame
as necromancer and prophet, made still more pronounced the favor in
which he was held. The ignorance of the earlier centuries of the period
could not appreciate Horace the logical, the intellectual, the
difficult, while the schematized religion and knowledge of the later
were not attracted by Horace the philosophical and individual.
With the Renaissance and its quickening of intellectual life in general,
and in particular the value it set upon personality and individualism,
the positions of the poets were reversed. For four hundred years now it
can hardly be denied that Horace rather than Virgil has been the
representative Latin poet of humanism.
This is not to say that Horace is greater than Virgil, or that he is as
great. Virgil is still the poet of stately movement and golden
narrative, the poet of the grand style. Owing to the greater facility
with which he may be read, he is also still the poet of the young and of
greater numbers. With the coming of the new era he did not lose in the
esteem that is based upon the appreciation of literary art, but rather
gained.
It will be better to say that Horace finally came more fully into his
own. This was not because he changed. He did not change. The times
changed. The barriers of intellectual sloth and artificiality fell away,
and men became accessible to him. Virgil lost nothing of his old-time
appeal to the fancy and to the ear, but Horace's virtues also were
discovered: his distinction in word and phrase, his understanding of the
human heart. Virgil lost nothing of his charm for youth and age, but
Horace was discovered as the poet of the riper and more thoughtful mind.
Virgil remained the admired, but Horace became the friend. Virgil
remained the guide, but Horace became the companion. "Virgil," says
Oliver Wendell Holmes, "has been the object of an adoration amounting
almost to worship, but he will often be found on the shelf, while Horace
lies on the student's table, next his hand."
The nature and extent of Horace's influence upon modern letters and life
will be best brought into relief by a brief historical review. It is not
necessary to this purpose, nor would it be possible, within ordinary
limits, to enter into a detailed account. It will be appropriate to
begin with Italy.
_i_. IN ITALY
Horace did not spring immediately into prominence with the coming of the
Renaissance, whether elsewhere or in Italy. As might be expected, the
essentially epic and medieval Dante found inspiration in Virgil rather
than in Horace, though the _Ars Poetica_ was known to him and quoted
more than once as authority on style. "This is what our master Horace
teaches," runs one of the passages, "when at the beginning of _Poetry_
he says, 'Choose a subject, etc.'" The imperfect idea of Horace formed
in Dante's mind is indicated by the one verse in the _Divina Commedia_
which refers to him: