sum of his philosophy. Of religion, as we understand it, he had little. Although himself little of a practical worshipper, - parcus deorum cultor et infrequens, he respected the sincerity of others in their belief in the old gods. But, in common with the more vigorous intellects of the time, he had outgrown the effete creed of his countrymen. He was content to use it for poetical purposes, but he could not accept as matter of belief the mythology, about which the forms of the contemporary worship still clustered. At no time very robust, Horace's health appears to have declined for some years before his death. He was doomed to see some of his most valued friends drop into the grave before him. This to him, who gave to friendship the ardour which other men give to love, was the severest wound that time could bring. "The shocks of Chance, the blows of Death" smote him heavily; and the failure of youth, and spirits, and health, in the inevitable decay of nature, saddened the thoughtful poet in his solitude, and tinged the gayest society with melancholy. The loss of friends, the brothers of his soul, of Virgil, Quinctilius, Tibullus, and others, and ultimately of Mecenas, without that hope of reunion which springs from the cheering faith which was soon afterwards to be revealed to the world, must have by degrees stripped life of most of its charms. Singula de nobis anni praedantur euntes (Epist. II. ii. 55) is a cheerless reflection to all, but chiefly to him who has no assured hope beyond the present time. Mæcenas's health was a source of deep anxiety to him; and one of the most exquisite Odes (B. II. 17), addressed to that valued friend, in answer to some outburst of despondency, while it expresses the depth of the poet's regard, bears in it the tone of a man somewhat weary of the world: "Ah! if untimely fate should snatch thee hence, Why should I linger on, with deaden'd sense, A worthless fragment of a fallen shrine? "Think not that I have sworn a bootless oath! Hand link'd in hand, whene'er thou leadest, both The prophecy seems to have been realized almost to the letter. The same year (A.U.C. 746, B.C. 8) witnessed the death of both Horace and Mæcenas. The latter died in the middle of the year, bequeathing his friend, in almost his last words, to the care of Augustus: Horatii Flacci, ut mei, esto memor. On the 27th of November, when he was on the eve of completing his fifty-seventh year, Horace himself died, of an illness so sharp and sudden that he was unable to make his will in writing. He declared it verbally before witnesses, leaving to Augustus the little which he possessed. He was buried on the Esquiline Hill, near his patron and friend Mæcenas. The fame of Horace was at once established. Even in the days of Juvenal he shared with Virgil the doubtful honour of being a school-book. (Juvenal, Sat. vii. 226.) That honour he still enjoys; but it is only by minds matured by experience and reflection that Horace can be thoroughly appreciated. To them the depth of his observation and the reach of his good sense are made daily more apparent; and the verses, which charmed their fancy or delighted their ear in youth, became the counsellors of their manhood, or the mirror which focalizes for their old age the gathered wisdom of a lifetime. No writer is so often quoted, and simply because the thoughts of none are more pertinent to men's "business and bosoms" in the concerns of everyday life, amid the jostle of a crowded and artificial state of society; and because the glimpses of nature, in which his writings abound, come with the freshness of truth, alike to the jaded dweller in cities, and to those who can test them day by day in the presence of nature herself. There are no authentic busts or medallions of Horace, and his descriptions of himself are vague. He was short in stature; his eyes and hair were dark, but the latter was early silvered with gray. He suffered at one time from an affection of the eyes, and seems to have been by no means robust in constitution. His habits were temperate and frugal, as a rule, although he was far from insensible to the charms of a good table and good wine, heightening and heightened by the zest of good company. But he seems to have had neither the stomach nor the taste for habitual indulgence in the pleasures of the table. In youth he was hasty and choleric, but placable; and to the last he probably shared in some degree the irritability which he ascribes to his class. At the same time, if his writings be any index to his mind, his temper was habitually sweet and well under control. Like most playful men, a tinge of melancholy coloured his life, if that is to be called melancholy which more properly is only that feeling of the incompleteness and insufficiency of life for the desires of the soul, which with all thoughtful men must be habitual. Latterly he became corpulent, and sensitive to the severity of the seasons, and sought at Baiæ and Tivoli the refreshment or shelter which his mountain retreat had ceased to yield to his delicate frame. The chronology of the poems of Horace has been the source of much critical controversy. The earlier labors of Bentley, Masson, Dacier, and Sanadon have been followed up in modern times by those of Passow, Orelli, Walckenaer, Weber, Grote fend, and Stallbaum abroad, and of Tate and Milman at home. The subject is of importance in its bearings on the poet's biography; and the general result of their investigations may be stated as follows. The Satires and most of the Epodes were first in the order of composition, having been written between the years 713 and 725, after the return of Horace to Rome, and before the close of the civil wars consequent upon the defeat of Antony and his party. The two first books of Odes ap peared between this period and the year 730. Then followed the first book of Epistles. The third book of Odes appears to have been composed about the year 735, the Carmen Seculare in 737, and the fourth book of Odes between 737 and 741. The second book of Epistles may be assigned to the period between 741 and 746; and to the same period may be ascribed the composition of the Epistle to the Pisos. In the following translations the Odes have been retained in the order in which they appear in the common editions, without any attempt at chronological arrangement. Any change might perplex the ordinary reader, and, for historical or other purposes, no student will prosecute his researches in a translation. The object of the translator has been to convey to the mind of an English reader the impression, as nearly as may be, which the originals produce upon his own. The difficulties of such a task are endless. "It is impossible," says Shelley, himself one of the most successful of translators, "to represent in another language the melody of the versification; even the volatile strength and delicacy of the ideas escape in the crucible of translation, and the reader is surprised to find a caput mortuum." This is true in the case even of languages which bear an affinity |