patronage of the great, and secured immortality
to his poems, which are all dignified either
in regard to their themes or their treatment.

The value of style having been shown by
Virgil, his immediate successors were not
slow to profit by his example. Horace
aimed at the same perfection for odes and
elegies as Virgil had attained for his epic
and pastorals. Horace was not of noble
birth; his grandfather was simply a
freedman and tax-gatherer of Venusium. At
ten years of age Horace was sent to Rome,
and carefully and morally educated. On
his start into the world, he went with
Brutus to Macedonia, and was made a
tribune; but nature never intended Horace
for a soldier. At the battle of Philippi, it
is reported, he left the field and fled, having
first thrown away his shield— an action
regarded by the ancients as dishonourable.

Horace was now reduced to want, and
resorted to poetry as the means of
improving his position. His merits were
recognised by Mæcenas, to whom he was
recommended by Virgil. But Horace
preferred a country to a court life. However,
he was one of those who, with Virgil and
others, accompanied Mæcenas as deputies
for Augustus to make a treaty of peace
with Antony. He has described his journey
in the fifth satire of his first book. This
transaction introduced him to Pollio, who
wrote a history of the civil wars.

Horace has left many descriptions of his
rustic retreat at Tibur, both in his epistles
and his odes. His wishes were moderate,
and his mode of life simple. A good
library, food to serve a year— these
combined the whole of his desires, and seemed
to him all mankind should pray for. His
custom was to visit Rome in the spring, to
spend the summer in the country, and to
pass the winter at Tarentum. In his
retirement he abstained, it seems, from
literary work, and gave himself up to
enjoyment. In his latter days he devoted
himself entirely to rural pleasures. At all
times he avoided the fatigue of a long
work, though his gratitude to Augustus
led him occasionally to celebrate the
imperial triumphs over Pompey and Antony,
or the victorious exploits of Tiberius and
Drusus. Besides, Augustus expressly
desired to be frequently mentioned in the
works of so elegant a poet.

In his youth, Horace was a professed
Epicurean; but " the years that bring the
philosophic mind" induced him to turn
Stoic. His conversion he has described in
one of his odes, in which he mentions that
on a certain day it lightened and thundered
in a pure sky, an occurrence which he
regarded as miraculous, and accepted as an
argument for an overruling Providence.

As to his personal appearance, Horace
was short of stature and corpulent, being
compared by Augustus to a little thick
volume which he had sent him, accompanied
by a letter. At forty he was grey-haired,
and subject to sore eyes, which induced
him to abstain from too much exercise,
though he loved company and a cheerful
glass. But he wished his guests to use
their own discretion, and be entirely free in
their use of the latter. His disposition was
amorous, but he mastered his passions, and
lived tranquilly in his old age. He and
Mæcenas died in the same year and month;
Horace being then in his fifty-seventh
year. He is regarded as a master in the
lyric school of poetic art, and in his Odes
has risen to the sublime as well as the
beautiful, aiming always at dignity of
thought and majesty of expression. Thus,
he illustrates the defeat of Brutus and
Cassius by that of the Titans when warring
with Jupiter. His style has many felicities
which are peculiar, and by which he
contrives to elevate the humblest themes.
Delicacy, brevity, and simplicity are its
general characteristics. Of satire, Horace
may almost be considered the founder, as
the kind was not known to the Greeks, and,
as we have said, the form was altogether of
Roman origin. It was somewhat improved
by Lucilius, brought to perfection by
Horace, and maintained at a high level by
Persius and Juvenal. These writers are,
however, distinguishable from one another
— Horace for his wit, Juvenal for his
eloquence, and Persius for his spleen.

A far greater name is that next in
succession, namely, Ovid. This eminent Latin
bard was born at Sulmo, a town in the
country of the Peligni, about nine miles
from Rome. The event happened in the
year of Rome 710, about forty-three years
before the birth of Christ, at the time of
celebrating the Quinquatria, games
instituted in honour of Minerva, and taking
place near the 19th of our March. The year
itself is celebrated in history as that wherein
the consuls, Hirtius and Pansa, were slain
in the battle of Mutina against Antony.
Ovid was born to a fortune and a good
education. The Romans had begun to
cultivate the learning with which their
conquest of Greece had made them
acquainted. But first of all his parents were
careful to make him master of his mother
tongue; and the youthful bent of his