acts ignorantly on this behalf, but he acts grossly wrong also for those Odes marked with the faulty structure he has scattered promiscuously over the later books in his arrangement and over the earlier, very much alike. No difference is known; no discrimination is preserved. Need one say more? And here with these proofs of his judgment disabled, let us take our leave of Mr. Sanadon for the present. The strange and accumulated mistakes in which the personal history of Horace has been long involved, it would be an irksome task to discuss one by one in detail. The most important of them, however, shall be duly noticed in the course of these pages; and the whole mass will be put into a way for ultimate clearance. It may be too much to assert that the publication of the books of Horace in the original series of succession will at once set all other things right yet there can be no doubt, but the wrong, unnatural, confused order, in which his works have hitherto been exhibited, has given rise to a great portion of all the errors. existing at this day. And so long as the common arrangement shall continue to influence the train of thought by the order of perusal, it will be difficult if not impossible to overcome that proneness to false combinations, which the working on a distorted view must of necessity create. But when once that disorder is banished and the natural succession restored, then the mind, instead of being misguided by the mechanical progress of the hand and the eye, will be by that progress directed and sustained all along in tracing the personal and poetical history of Horace. All the stages of his career will then develope themselves in beautiful transition especially, the Parian Iambics of the Sabine Poet will precede as they ought, the Sapphic and Alcaic stanzas of the Lyrist of Tivoli. : Let us now proceed to exemplify by a few striking instances what absurdity is involved in the common order of the books of Horace being taken for the true one, and what immediate congruity on the other hand arises from observing the arrangement of Bentley. (1.) Horace in the Ivth Satire of his 1st book, vv. 3955. shows a great anxiety to disclaim all pretence to the higher character of a poet and well he might, without any mock modesty, disavow it. and writings, he had nothing to ground the claim upon, except the limited publication of a few satires, and the farther promise of talent in that particular vein. At that early period of his life But hear what M. Dacier says, as reported by Dr. Francis. "54. Ergo Non satis est puris versum perscribere verbis. M. Dacier thinks, that Horace would not have been so modest with regard to his Satires, and so fearful of prostituting the name of poet, if he had not secured his own right to it by his Odes." Hear next M. Sanadon. (Vol. 11. p. 169.) "39. Primum ego me illorum, dederim quibus esse poetis, Horace s'étoit déja assuré par ses odes le nom de Poète, ainsi il ne risque rien à se dégrader pour ses satires. Sa modestie n'en est que plus grande, et cette vertu ne sauroit être petite dans un poète, pourvû qu'elle soit bien sincere." No exposure can make blunders like these more ridiculous: they cannot be aggravated by any comment. Père Hardouin, on the contrary, (Vid. KLOTZII Lectiones Venusinæ, pp. 15, 39, 40. 1770,) who amongst many paradoxes maintained this, Horatii Poetae nihil superesse genuinum, præter Epistolas et Sermones, draws a very different conclusion out of the verses before us. neque enim concludere versum Dixeris esse satis: neque, si quis scribat, uti nos, Sermoni propiora, putes hunc esse poetam. From this passage, Hardouin very ingeniously and justly concludes, Horatium se nullas odas scripsisse profiteri : nothing in itself more true AT THAT TIME. But the good Father too hastily assumed, that the Odes if written by Horace at all, had been written as their collocation to him indicated, at some period prior to that of the Satires. Hardouin would have been disarmed of at least one argument, perhaps in his opinion a very strong one; if he had ever viewed the books of Horace in the order of their original publication. (2.) If there be any truth in Bentley's calculations, the 2d book of these Satires was collectively published not later than the year B. c. 32. If there be any faith in the Fasti Hellenici, the restoration of the Roman Eagles from Parthia did not take place earlier than the year B. c. 20. Horace (2 S. 1. 10-15) when thus urged by his learned friend Trebatius, Aut si tantus amor scribendi te rapit, aude Cæsaris invicti res dicere, mu ta laborum Præmia laturus. declines the task with much elegance and address, on the ground of inability to describe the scenes of heroic warfare. cupidum, pater optime, vires Deficiunt; neque enim quivis horrentia pilis The Parthians and Gauls, from having been the principal objects of dread to the Roman armies, are the nations selected to furnish, each of them, a very tremendous image of battle; with a tacit reference perhaps to the exploits of Marius at a distant period and of Ventidius on a later occasion, B. c. 39. What is the remark of Baxter on this passage? "15. Bene labentis equo: nam Parthorum pugna fere erat equestris. Apposuit autem ista, quo gratificaretur Augusto, ob recepta signa Marco Crasso adempta." Anachronism and confusion like this might be expected from Baxter. One may wonder that the cautious and accurate Gesner should interpose no correction of it. But neither is he found always faithful to his qualified declaration of agreement with Bentley. Hoc certe confirmare possum, me, dum recenseo singulas Eclogas, diligenter attendisse, si quid esset Bentleianis temporum rationibus adversum, nec deprehendisse quidquam, quod momentum aliquod ad eam evertendam haberet; licet quibusdam Eclogis non improbabili ratione forte tempus etiam aliud, recentius præsertim, possit adscribi. The clearness of view which arises from placing the Satires before the Epodes, and the Epodes before the Odes, cannot be denied. The advantage to be derived from Bentley's arrangement in placing the 4th book of Odes after the 1st book of Epistles, may not perhaps be quite so evident. One example or two will serve to show the importance of that distribution. There is an intellectual as well as a linear perspective. And some space for time and thought must be allowed to intervene or in the case of great moral and political changes taking place, without the aid of that interval, very often all the probabilities of expectation will be shocked. Thus, if seven or eight years are considered to elapse betwixt the average date of the 3d book of Odes and the publication of the 4th; even in the omens of moral improvement displayed in the latter we shall see nothing extravagant, in those of political alteration we shall see the highest credibility. с In the vith Ode of the 3d book, Horace traces the vice and immorality which he there laments, to the predominance of luxury and corruption, which no Censorian regulations could control: and in the xxivth Ode, impressed with the very same feeling (vv. 35, 6.) he exclaims, Quid leges sine moribus Vanæ proficiunt? But in the vth Ode of the 4th book (addressed to Augustus) he piously exults in the blessings of a new era; and by the very phrase (v. 22.) adopted there, he recalls in contrast that vicious state of social life which now seemed to be past or to be passing away. Mos et lex maculosum edomuit nefas. Then again, in the xvth Ode of the same book, with what energy does he hail the revival of the virtues under the reign of a reforming Prince! Tua, Cæsar ætas— -et ordinem Rectum evaganti fræna licentiæ Et veteres revocavit artes. In the year B. C. 24, Augustus came home from the Cantabrian war: Horace, catching a happy allusion to the heroic wanderings of Hercules, congratulates the commonalty of Rome on the victorious return of their sovereign. Herculis ritu modo dictus, O Plebs, Morte venalem petiisse laurum Cæsar, Hispanâ repetit penates Victor ab orâ. 3 C. XIV. Here Sanadon (at times so acute and intelligent) condemns at once the opening line of this Ode; and betrays exactly what Dr. Parr would call the coxcomb, in the following remark. O Plebs.] On ne peut disconvenir que ce vers n'est pas le meilleur de la piéce. Cette chute est assommante, et je ne pardonne point à nôtre Poète d'avoir si mal débuté. The fact is, that Sanadon saw nothing here beyond the |