There is another robbery which I should like, but shall not venture, to commit. It is usual for translators of Horace to commence with a dissertation more or less elaborate on the character of their author and of his works, but I am too conscious of being in literary matters nothing if not uncritical to think of following their example by inserting here any lucubrations of my own. I certainly should have liked, however, if such a liberty were warrantable, to transcribe the greater part of two papers on Horace's 'Two Philosophies' and Horace's 'Art of Conduct,' by an anonymous contributor to the Cornhill Magazine for July 1875, and July 1876. I have nowhere else met with anything on the same subject which is to my mind so acute, so original, or so just; and if any one should by this brief reference to those brilliant essays be induced either to read them for the first time, or having already read them, to read them again, the pleasure which he will derive from the perusal may help to put him in a good humour with me for recommending them, and so incline him to proceed without preconceived disfavour to the remaining fare set before him. 7 CADOGAN PLACE, Dec. 1877. |