Telephus is altogether a poetic fiction; neither am I satisfied with the grounds upon which Ritter identifies the Telephus of Ode xiii. Book I., and xix. Book III., with Heliodorus, the grammarian and Greek scholar mentioned Serm. i. 5, 2, and assumes that another person is designated under that name in this ode. Nothing is more likely than that among Horace's gayer companions there was some one very good-looking gallant, celebrated for his bonnes fortunes among the freedwomen of Rome, whom the poet always designates under the name of Telephus. It is observable that there is considerable consistency in the way in which Telephus is mentioned in Horace, with a good-humoured, half-envious admiration for personal gifts, and whom, on the single occasion (Carm. xix. Lib. III.) in which the handsome gentleman seems disposed to bore with an unseasonable display of learning, he puts back into his right place. as reveller and gallant, with a certain superiority, such as, when it came to a display of learning, a Horace might be disposed to assume towards a Telephus. CARM. XI. Est mihi nonum superantis annum Multa, qua crines religata fulges; Cuncta festinat manus, huc et illuc As it whirls the smoke cresting the point of its summit But that now thou may'st know to what mirth I invite thee, "Tis in honour of Ides, not ungrateful to Phyllis, 'Tis the day that halves April, the month we devote to Day, indeed, that by me should be solemnised duly- Come, that Telephus whom thou art seeking (poor Phyllis ! Phaethon, burnt in his chariot, deters from ambition, Deeming Hope, when it flies out of reach, is forbidden, After thee never more woman's face shall inflame me ; measures As the voice which I love into sweetness shall render; 1 'Sordidum flammæ trepidant rotantes ""Vertice" is the top of the flame, which flickers as it whirls the dark smoke on its crest—a spiral flame, culminating in a column of smoke. It seems as if Horace were writing with a fire burning before him, and caught the idea as he wrote.'-MACLEANE. In astrology the Star of Venus rules the month of April. Sordidum flammæ trepidant rotantes Vertice fumum.1 Ut tamen noris, quibus advoceris Jure sollemnis mihi, sanctiorque, 2 Telephum, quem tu petis, occupavit, Non tuæ sortis juvenem, puella Dives et lasciva, tenetque grata Compede vinctum. Terret ambustus Phaëthon avaras Spes; et exemplum grave præbet ales Pegasus, terrenum equitem gravatus Bellerophontem ; Semper ut te digna sequare, et ultra Quam licet sperare nefas putando Disparem vites. Age jam, meorum Finis amorum, Non enim posthac alia calebo Femina, condisce modos, amanda Voce quos reddas; minuentur atræ Carmine curæ. ODE XII. INVITATION TO VIRGIL. It is a vexed question among commentators whether the Virgil here addressed be Virgil the poet. Yonge says that the general authority of critics is against that identification. Macleane is disposed to favour it, and it is not without other and very eminent defenders. The main objections to the assumption are Ist, the chronological one. Virgil was dead many years before the publication of the Fourth Book; but, in answer to this, it is said that, in making up the collection composed for Book IV., Horace might have included poems composed at a much earlier date. Dillenburger considers that this ode was written in youth, and published in the final book of the Odes, as if Horace wished to refresh and record the memory of his friend. 2d, It is asked, 'How can Virgil the poet be called the client of noble youths?' To this it has been replied, that the youths referred to might be the stepsons of Augustus, or (more generally by Dillenburger), that the phrase means nothing more than the familiarity with persons of high station, such as Agrippa, Pollio, and others. 3d, That an injunction to lay aside the care or study of gain (studium lucri) is very inappropriate to the liberal and generous character assigned to the poet. But here again it is said, that it is absurd to take literally what is obviously written in jest. If a man, the most indifferent to gain, had, for instance, informed us that he thought he could sell an Now Thracian breezes, comrades of the spring, olive olive crop well, or that he had found a good investment for his money, we might very well say to him, 'Put aside those mercenary thoughts of gain, and come and sup with us.' There would be at once a jest and a compliment in the irony of the implied accusation. That the Virgil addressed must be a vender of perfumes, because he is asked to contribute a pot of nard; or a banker or negotiator, because he is exhorted to put aside the care of gain-and a scholiast in a Paris MS. inscribes the ode, Ad Virgilium Negotiatorem,' -is a conjecture less plausible than that he was a physician of that name to the Neros, or a relation of C. Virgil the prætor, Cicero's friend. Orelli and Yonge quote with approval Gesner's remark, 'That there is nothing in the poem itself which pertains more to the poet Virgil than to any other friend of Horace's.' On the other hand, it has been said that the mythological imagery and the description of Spring with which the poem opens, are addressed with appropriate felicity to the Poet of the Eclogues and Georgics. The question does not seem to admit of positive solution. one way or the other. The reader must judge for himself whether it is probable that Horace included in the Fourth Book a poem that, if addressed to Virgil the poet, he must have written many years before; and whether if he did thus, as Dillenburger contends, seek to revive the memory of his early friend, it would have been in a poem of a comparatively light character, and so wholly free from any reference to the loss he had sustained. CARM. XII. Jam Veris comites, quæ mare temperant, Impellunt animæ lintea Thraciæ; Jam nec prata rigent nec fluvii strepunt |