dæans, as Cicero calls them; and were probably as much Chaldæans as the Gipsies of Norwood are Bohemians or Indians. Horace gives his fair friend a brief admonition, which, in proof of the common-sense that keeps him always modern, might be equally given to ladies, and even to the ruder sex, in our own day. For wherever we travel in England or Europe, it is rare to find a town, however deficient in books, in which a prophetic astrological almanac may not be seen in the shop-windows.

CARM. XI.

Tu ne quæsieris, scire nefas, quem mihi, quem tibi
Finem Di dederint, Leuconoë, nec Babylonios
Tentaris numeros. Ut melius, quidquid erit, pati!
Seu plures hiemes, seu tribuit Juppiter ultimam,

Quæ nunc oppositis debilitat pumicibus mare
Tyrrhenum, sapias, vina liques, et spatio brevi
Spem longam reseces. Dum loquimur, fugerit invida
Ætas: carpe
diem quam
minimum credula postero.

ODE XII.

IN CELEBRATION OF THE DEITIES AND THE

WORTHIES OF ROME.

This poem is commonly inscribed very inappropriately 'De Augusto,' and sometimes more accurately' De laudi

What man, what hero, or what god select'st thou,
Theme for sweet lyre or fife sonorous, Clio?

bus

Whose honoured name shall that gay sprite-voice, Echo,
Hymn back rebounding,

Whether on Helicon's umbrageous margent,
Whether on heights of Pindus or cold Hamus,
Whence woods, at random, vocal Orpheus followed?
He who stayed rivers

In their swift course, and winds in their wild hurry
By art maternal; and with bland enchantment
Led the huge oaks at his melodious pleasure
List'ning his harp-strings.

Whom should I place for wonted rites of homage
Before the Father-King of gods and mortals,
Who earth, and ocean, and heaven's varying seasons'
Orders and tempers,

From whom not greater than Himself proceedeth—
To whom exists no semblance and no second?
Yet where he hath a nearest, be its honours
Sacred to Pallas.

'Arte materna '-the Muse Calliope, mother of Orpheus.
" Qui mare ac terras variisque mundum

Temperat horis.'

'Mundum' here means cœlum,'' sky'-i.e. the whole framework of nature, in sea, earth, and heaven, is under the dominion of Jove.

bus Deorum vel hominum.' It was certainly composed before the death of the young Marcellus. A.U.C. 731; and Orelli and Macleane agree in accepting Franke's date, A.U.C. 729.

CARM. XII.

Quem virum aut heroa lyra vel acri
Tibia sumis celebrare, Clio?

Quem Deum? Cujus recinet jocosa
Nomen imago

Aut in umbrosis Heliconis oris
Aut super Pindo gelidove in Hæmo?
Unde vocalem temere insecutæ
Orphea silvæ,

Arte maternal rapidos morantem
Fluminum lapsus celeresque ventos,
Blandum et auritas fidibus canoris
Ducere quercus.

Quid prius dicam solitis parentis
Laudibus, qui res hominum ac deorum,
Qui mare ac terras variisque mundum"
Temperat horis ?

Unde nil majus generatur ipso,

Nec viget quidquam simile aut secundum :
Proximos illi tamen occupavit

Pallas honores.

Left not unsung be Liber, bold in battle;
Nor she, the brute-world's foe-virgin Diana;
Nor thou, dread Lord of the unerring arrow,
Phoebus Apollo.

Sing let me, too, the demigod Alcides,

And Leda's twins, the rider and the athlete-
At whose joint star, what time on storm-beat seamen
Dawns its white splendour,

Back from the rocks recedes the rush of waters,
Winds fall, clouds fly, and every threatening billow,
Lulled at their will, upon the breast of ocean
Sinks into slumber.

Should, after these, be Romulus first honoured,
Numa's calm reign, or Tarquin's haughty fasces?
I pause in doubt; or is it rather Cato's

Noble self-slaughter?

Regulus, and the Scauri,' and Æmilius

Lavish of his great life when Carthage triumphed,
Grateful I name for song's most signal honours ;-
Thee, too, Fabricius ;

He and rude unkempt Curius and Camillus,-
These were the men whom hardy thrift, rude nurture,
The ancestral farm, and unluxurious homestead

Fitted for warfare.

Tree-like grows up through unperceived increases
Marcellus' 2 fame. As the moon throned in heaven
'Mid lesser lights, the Julian constellation
Shines out resplendent.

Either the Scauri enjoyed at that time a higher reputation than they have retained in history, or Horace had some special reason, personal or political, now inexplicable, or placing them in the rank of Rome's foremost worthies. Æmilius Paulus, having advised the disastrous battle

Proliis audax, neque te silebo,
Liber, et sævis inimica Virgo
Beluis: nec te, metuende certa
Phoebe sagitta.

Dicam, et Alciden, puerosque Ledæ,
Hunc equis, illum superare pugnis
Nobilem ; quorum simul alba nautis
Stella refulsit,

Defluit saxis agitatus humor,
Concidunt venti, fugiuntque nubes,
Et minax, quod sic voluere, ponto
Unda recumbit.

Romulum post hos prius, an quietum
Pompili regnum memorem, an superbos
Tarquini fasces, dubito, an Catonis
Nobile letum.

Regulum, et Scauros,' animæque magnæ
Prodigum Paullum, superante Pœno,
Gratus insigni referam Camena,
Fabriciumque.

Hunc et incomptis Curium capillis
Utilem bello tulit, et Camillum,

Sæva paupertas et avitus apto
Cum lare fundus.

Crescit, occulto velut arbor ævo,

Fama Marcelli;2 micat inter omnes

Julium sidus, velut inter ignes.

Luna minores.

of Cannæ, refused the horse offered to him by a tribune of the soldiers, and remained to perish on the field.

As the name of Marcellus, whom I understand, with Orelli, to be the Marcellus who took Syracuse, stands for all his family, and particularly the young Marcellus, so the star of Julius Cæsar, and the lesser lights of that family, are meant by what follows.'-MACLEANE.