test of practicability and usefulness, before considering a like but more comprehensive treatment of the same material now invited by publishers, and which may be a possibility, amid the chances of the future. Whether translations of the kind are worth doing, is, of course, the essential element of my present experiment, but that the Horatian matter which they concern is of ever fresh and continuing interest, and that any simplification of its use and approach is desirable, will hardly be gainsaid. For truly, of all the ancients who are measurably within our reach, Quintus Horatius Flaccus is the most agreeable and remunerative. Grant that his philosophy-other, perhaps, than of criticism--was not profound: his own convictions equally fathomable; that his dramatis personce were few, with sentiments of somewhat monotonous reiteration; even his love affairs-like the mellifluous names of those concerned therein-of but postiche suggestion, and yet the charm, wit, interest and other attractions of our ancient poet remain. Or grant, further, that what he himself took chiefest pride in his deft and dainty transplanted Grecian metres, are now, for most of us, unattainable, or of but academic interest; that personally he was unstrenuous-as having left his shield on the danger line, and thereafter sheltering behind a patron-that he may be said to have napped, where Homer would have been content with the nod, and yet, there still exists for us the genial, enlightened man of the world-the guide, companion, friend and gentleman. It is in these agreeable and highly sufficient aspects, that, throughout the centuries, men of any and every day, and under all circumstances, have turned, and will continue to turn to Horace with interest and affection, and with reward. This too, whether in moments of mere ennui, or of actual strain; in distress, or even under more tragic conditions, as for example, Cornelius De Witt, when confronting his murderous mob; Condorcet, perishing in the straw of his filthy cell; Herrick, at his far-away old British revels; Leo, during his last days of the Vatican, and a thousand others, in numberless instances. Horace's famous Monument will doubtless long survive, in spite of the destructive vagaries of the rhyming translators: perhaps even without the aid of some of us, of different and more respectful practice, who seek to correct their ill doings. But surely the kind old Poet will never take it amiss, if any who wander near his shrine may lend a sympathetic hand in effort to keep down some of the rampant weeds that clog its better view. Various ancient MSS. of Horace have been preserved, but none apparently of earlier date than the ninth century. The Scholia-of Helenius Acron, Pomponius Porphyrion, etc.—although extant in comparatively late MSS., are commonly accepted as dating in their original form from the third to the fifth century; the Vita Horatii, attributed to Suetonius belonging to the period of about a century after the death of its subject. The Blandinius Vetustissimus, or well-known "V" of commentators, was one of four MSS. of Horace, attributed to the early part of the ninth century, which perished in the sack of the Benedictine Abbey of St. Peter in monte Blandino (Blankenberg, near Ghent) in 1566 and to which Cruquius, a professor at Bruges, had access in preparing his editions-issued from 1565 to 1578. The title editio princeps is usually conferred upon an unnamed and undated edition of the poet which is supposed to have been published by Zarotus at Milan in 1470. What is now in general acceptance as the proper arrangement of Horace's various works begins with the four books of Odes (Carmina) and follows with the Sacred Hymn (Carmen Saeculare) one book of Epodes (Epodon) two of Satires (Satirae) two of Epistles (Epistulae) and the Art of Poetry, or Epistle to the Pisos (Ars Poetica, or Liber De Arte Poetica) although in some of the earlier editions the epistles are placed before the satires and the present order otherwise varied. Of these works the Satires-from Satura, a sort of medley, although Horace himself chiefly called them Sermones-are accepted as having been the first to be written and published; the three first books of odes being grouped together, and the third of these assumed to mark the poet's maturest work and highest flight. The Epodes, although styled by Horace Iambi, have acquired their present name from the brevity of the alternate verse of the couplet (as of an echo of the longer, next preceding one) and are classified in period of composition with the less-finished Satires. Both Satires and Epodes thus appear to have been published between B. C. 35 and 30—when Horace was in the period of his sermoni propiora, or poems 66 nearer prose than verse"-and the three first books of the Odes to have followed about B. C. 27, with the Epistles coming somewhat irregularly thereafter. The Carmen Saeculare, a sort of poet-laureate-composition, at Imperial command, is readily assigned to B. C. 17,* and, as will be seen, the Ars Poetica is by some authorities deemed to have been the latest, as well as an unfinished work, perhaps first published after the author's death. This latter poem indeed is often classified as the third of the Epistles of the second book, although apparently without sufficient grounds for certainty in such definition. On the general subject of Horace, and the evolution of his poetical product, Dean Wickham finds it "characteristic of the man that his Satires should mellow and humanize into the Epistles, and that the Epodes should drop so early their iaμßiun' idéa, and soften and generalize into the Odes. The process in both cases is nearly complete before the name of the composition is changed." It will be observed that the Exegi Monumentum Ode (3. XXX)— here used by way of introduction—appears at the end of the third book of Odes, and, in its terms, indicates a completed work or finished group of poems. This latter collection is appropriately preceded by an introductory dedication to Maecenas who by this time-fortunately for the world at large, as well as for our poet-had assured to the latter, by the gift of the Sabine Farm and otherwise, an ease of circumstance compatible with leisurely and finished production. * Vide the inscription in regard to the Secular Games which was discovered at Rome while excavating near the bank of the Tiber in 1890; a record containing, among other details in addition to the above date, the statement that the famous hymn of the ancient occasion was the work of Horace: "carmen composuit Q. Horatius Flaccus". 5 IO CARM. 3. XXX.* EXEGI monumentum aere perennius Quod non imber edax, non Aquilo impotens Annorum series et fuga temporum. 15 Lauro cinge volens, Melpomene, comam, *The foregoing, and following Latin versions are taken by permission from the standard edition of the Opera Omnia (Ex Recensione, A. J. Macleane) published in the American Book Company's " Harper's Series." It has not been thought necessary to extend the present work by like inclusion of the four hundred and seventy-six verses of original text of the Ars Poetica, although a close comparison of the present translation therewith is equally invited. ODE 3. XXX. (TO MELPOMENE: The Poet's Estimate of his own Career, and of his Fame: his Monument, etc.) Here finish'd a Monument, have I, than brass more enduring Climbed is by Vestal, in silence, with Pontiff. 5 Of me shall they sing, where of Aufidus loud roar the rapids 10 As first an Æolian verse, for the Latins' Own measures, transporting. Assume thou the pride then, 15 |