the luxury and vice of imperial Rome. Of his mother no mention occurs, directly or indirectly, throughout his poems. This could scarcely have happened, had she not died while he was very young. He appears also to have been an only child. No doubt he had at an early age given evidence of superior powers; and to this it may have been in some measure owing, that his father resolved to give him a higher education than could be obtained under a provincial schoolmaster, and, although ill able to afford the expense, took him to Rome when about twelve years old, and gave him the best education which the capital could supply. No money was spared to enable the boy to keep his position among his fellow-scholars of the higher ranks. He was waited on by numerous slaves, as though he were the heir to a considerable fortune. At the same time he was not allowed to feel any shame for his own order, or to aspire to a position which he was unequal to maintain. His father taught him to look forward to filling some situation akin to that in which he had himself acquired a competency, and to feel that in any sphere culture and self-respect must command influence, and afford the best guarantee for happiness. Under the stern tutorage of Orbilius Pupillus, a grammarian of high standing, richer in reputation than gold, whose undue exercise of the rod the poet has condemned to a bad immortality, he learned grammar, and became familiar with the earlier Latin writers, and with Homer. He also acquired such other branches of instruction as were usually learned by the sons of Romans of the higher ranks. But, what was of still more importance, during this critical period of his first introduction to the seductions of the capital, he enjoyed the advantage of his father's personal superintendence, and of a careful moral training. His father went with him to all his classes, and, being himself a man of shrewd observation and natural humour, he gave his son's studies a practical bearing, by directing his attention to the follies and vices of the luxurious and dissolute society around him, and showing their incompatibility with the dictates of reason and common sense. From this admirable father Horace appears to have gathered many of "the rugged maxims hewn from life," with which his works abound, and also to have inherited that manly independence for which he was remarkable, and which, while assigning to all ranks their due influence and respect, never either overestimates or compromises its own. Under the homely exterior of the Apulian freedman we recognize the soul of the gentleman. His influence on his son was manifestly great. In the full maturity of his powers Horace penned a tribute to his worth,* in terms which prove how often and how deeply he had occasion in after-life to be grateful for the bias thus early communicated. His father's character had * For a translation of the passage in the Sixth Satire of the First Book, here referred to, see note, infra, p. 283. given a tone and strength to his own which, in the midst of manifold temptations, had kept him true to himself and to his genius. At what age Horace lost his father is uncertain Most probably this event occurred before he left Rome for Athens, to complete his education in the Greek literature and philosophy, under native teachers. This he did some time between the age of seventeen and twenty. At Athens he found many young men of the leading Roman families Bibulus, Messala, the younger Cicero, and others— engaged in the same pursuits with himself. His works prove him to have been no careless student of the classics of Grecian literature, and, with a natural enthusiasm, he made his first poetical essays in their flexible and noble language. His usual good sense, however, soon caused him to abandon the hopeless task of emulating the Greek writers on their own ground, and he directed his efforts to transfusing into his own language some of the grace and melody of these masters of song. In the political lull between the battle of Pharsalia, A. U. C. 706 (B. C. 48), and the death of Julius Cæsar, A. U. C. 710 (B. C. 44), Horace was enabled to devote himself without interruption to the tranquil pursuits of the scholar. But when, after the latter event, Brutus came to Athens, and the patrician youth of Rome, fired with zeal for the cause of republican liberty, joined his standard, Horace, infected by the general enthusiasm, accepted a military command in the army which was destined to encounter the legions of Anthony and Octavius. His rank was that of tribune, a position of so much importance, that he must have been indebted for it either to the personal friendship of Brutus or to an extraordinary dearth of officers, as he was not only without experience or birth to recommend him, but possessed no particular aptitude, physical or moral, for a military life. His appointment excited jealousy among his brother officers, who considered that the command of a Roman legion should have been reserved for men of nobler blood; and here probably he first came into direct collision with the aristocratic prejudices which the training of his father had taught him to defy, and which, at a subsequent period, grudged to the freedman's son the friendship of the emperor and of Mæcenas. At the same time he had manifestly a strong party of friends, who had learned to appreciate his genius and attractive qualities. It is certain that he secured the esteem of his commanders, and bore an active part in the perils and difficulties of the campaign, which terminated in the total defeat of the republican party at Philippi, A. U. C. 712 (B. C. 42). A playful allusion by himself to the events of that disastrous field (Odes, II. vii. 9 et seq.) has been turned by many of his commentators into an admission of his own cowardice. This is absurd. Such a confession is the very last which any man, least of all a Roman, would make. Addressing his friend Pompeius Varius, Horace says: "With thee I shared Philippi's headlong flight, My shield behind me left, which was not well, When all that brave array was broke, and fell That Archilochus and Alcæus ran away on the field of battle, leaving their shields behind them, may or may not be true; but, however anxious to rank with them as poets, Horace was not likely to carry the parallel into details disgraceful to his manhood. An allusion, like the above, to the loss of his shield, could only have been dropped by a man who felt that he had done his duty, and that it was known he had done it. The lines may thus be safely regarded, according to the views of Lessing and others, as a not ungraceful compliment to his friend, who continued the struggle against the triumvirate with the party who threw themselves into the fleet of Sextus Pompeius. This interpretation is confirmed by the language of the next verse, where, in the same spirit, he applies the epithet "paventem" to himself. "But me, poor trembler, swift Mercurius bore, Wrapp'd in a cloud through all the hostile din, Swept thee away into the strife once more." It was no discredit to Horace to have despaired of a cause which its leaders had given up. After the suicide of Brutus and Cassius, the continuance of the contest was hopeless; and Horace may in his short military career have seen, in the jealousy and selfish ambition of many of his party, enough to make him suspicious of success, even if that had been attainable. Republicans who sneered at the |