which has been written on the subject. Horace's views were akin to those of The Preacher "Give him strong drink who is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy heart. Let him drink and forget his poverty, and remember his poverty no more. Burns in his own vigorous way echos unconsciously the very words of Horace!

Food fills the wame, and keeps us livin,'
Though life's a gift no worth receivin,'
When heavy dragg'd wi' pine and grievin';
But, oiled by thee,

The wheels o' life gae down-hill scrievin'
Wi' rattlin' glee.

Thou clears the head o' doited lair,
Thou cheers the heart o' drooping care,

Thou strings the nerves o' labour sair
At 's weary toil;

Thou even brightens dark despair
Wi' gloomy smile.

ODE XXVII. p. 193.

To Galatea. The lady, to whom this beautiful Ode is addressed appears to have been some Roman matron of Horace's acquaintance, about to visit Greece. The allusion to the evil omens remind us, with what tenacity superstition clings to the human mind; when we see that neither revelation nor science have yet extinguished the belief in many of those to which Horace refers. The transition to the story of Europa is abrupt, according to our notions; but a reference to this triumphant beauty's troubles and glory was an implicit compliment to the beauty and attractions of Galatea.

Place me, ye gods, in righteous wrath,
Naked upon the lion's path, &c. p. 195.

This appeal seems to have been a kind of “ common form" in Roman poetry. One of the most noticeable instances in which it occurs is in what Mr. Tennyson calls "that Latin song I learned at school," in which Love is made to "Sneeze out a full God-bless you right and left," — Catullus's

ACME AND SEPTIMIUS.

Septimius, holding on his breast
Acme, thus the maid addressed: -
"Acme, if I love thee not
Dearly as my dearest thought,
Nor will love thee, love thee still
With a love years shall not chill,
May I, sweet, on Lybia's sand,
Or in India's burning land,
In my solitary path

Meet the tawny lion's wrath!"

As thus he spoke, Love, who was near,
Listening with attentive ear,

Heard him his devotion plight,

And sneezed propitious on the right.
Then Acme, with a gentle grace
Bending back her rosy face,
Kissed the eyes of that sweet boy,
That swam beneath her lips with joy.
Septimius, my life," she cries,

66

"Thine is the only heart I prize;
And this, and this, my witness be,
That thou art all in all to me!
For fondly as thy heart may beat,
In mine there glows a fiercer heat,
And mightier is the flame that reigns
Through all your own fond Acme's veins."

As thus she spoke, Love, who was near,
Listening with attentive ear,

And heard her thus her passion plight,
Sneezed propitious on the right.

With such fair omens blest, the twain
Love, and are fondly loved again.
Septimius prizes Acme's smiles
Above the East, or Britain's Isles;
By faithful Acme is her lord
With all her early love adored.
Were ever pair so blest as these
By Venus' brightest auspices!

ODE XXIX. p. 197.

This Ode will probably always be read in English in Dryden's noble version, which, as a whole, is certainly finer than the original. The following passage, of which a faint suggestion only is to be found in Horace, is highly characteristic of the genius of Dryden, and his peculiar mastery of the great rhythmical resources of our language.

Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He, who can call to-day his own;
He, who, secure within, can say,

To-morrow do thy worst, for I have lived to-day..
Be fair, or foul, or rain, or shine,

The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine.
Not heaven itself upon the past has power;
But what has been, has been, and I have had my
hour.

Fortune, that with malicious joy
Does man her slave oppress,
Proud of her office to destroy,

Is seldom pleased to bless :
Still various, and unconstant still,
But with an inclination to be ill,

Promotes, degrades, delights in strife,
And makes a lottery of life.

I can enjoy her while she 's kind;
But when she dances in the wind,

And shakes her wings, and will not stay,
I puff the prostitute away;

The little or the much she gave is quietly resign'd;
Content with poverty my soul I arm;

And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.

Nor always from afar survey, &c. From Mæcenas's palace on the Esquiline hill, he could command a view of Tibur, the modern Tivoli, Æsula, (the site of which is unknown, but which probably lay between Præneste and Tibur,) and Tusculum, built on a hill above the modern Frascati, and said to have been founded by Telegonus, son of Circe by Ulysses, whom he slew in ignorance of the fact of his paternity. The "Circean walls of Tusculum " are again referred to in the First Epode.

NOTES TO BOOK FOURTH OF ODES.

ODE I.

p. 205.

The pains of Love. This Ode has been for the most part so admirably rendered by Ben Jonson, that only such alterations have been made upon his version as were necessary to bring it into harmony with the modern diction of the other translations.

ODE III. p. 210.

Julius Scaliger said of this Ode, and the Amobean Ode, (Book III. 9,) that he would rather have written them than be king of Arragon.

The following version by Bishop Atterbury holds a high place among Horatian translations.

He on whose natal hour the queen

Of verse hath smiled, shall never grace

The Isthmian gauntlet, or be seen
First in the famed Olympian race.
He shall not, after toils of war,

And taming haughty monarchs' pride,
With laurell'd brows conspicuous far
To Jove's Tarpeian temple ride.
But him the streams which warbling flow
Rich Tibur's fertile vales along,