deficiencies or those of the Latin language, he falls far short of the Greek lyrical poets in fire, in passion, in elevation of style, in varied melodies of versification. Granted: but judging by the scanty remains of those poets which time has spared, we find evidence of no one-unless it be Alcæus, and conjecturing what his genius might have been as a whole less by the fragments it has left than by Horace's occasional imitations-no one who combines so many excellences, be they great or small, as even a very qualified admirer must concede to Horace; no one who blends so large a knowledge of the practical work-day world with so delicate a fancy, and so graceful a perception of the poetic aspects of human life; no one who has the same alert quickness of movement 'from gay to grave, from lively to severe ;' no one who unites the same manly and high-spirited enforcement of hardy virtues, temperance and fortitude, devotion to friends and to the native land, with so pleasurable and genial a temperament; no one who adorns so extensive an acquaintance with metropolitan civilisation by so many lovely pictures of rural enjoyment; or so animates the description of scenery by the introduction of human groups and images, instilling, as it were, into the body of outward nature the heart and the thought of man. So that where his genius may fail in height as compared with Pindar, or in the intensity of sensuous passion as compared with Sappho, it compensates by the breadth to which it extends its survey, and over which it diffuses its light and its warmth.

Of all classical authors Horace is the one who has most attracted the emulation of editors and commentators. Students, indeed, have some reason to complain of the very attempts made by learning and ingenuity to determine his text and interpret his meaning. No sooner have they accus

tomed themselves to one edition than a new one appears to challenge the authority they had deferred to, and disturb the reading they had accepted. Paraphrases and translations are still more numerous than editions and commentaries. There is scarcely a man of letters who has not at one time or other versified or imitated some of the Odes; and scarcely a year passes without a new translation of them all. No doubt there is a charm in the proverbial difficulty of dealing with Horace's modes of expression; but perhaps the true cause which invites translators to encounter that difficulty has been sufficiently intimated in the preceding remarks-viz., the comprehensive range of his sympathy with human beings. He touches so many sides of character, that on one side or the other he is sure to attract us all, and we seek to clothe in his words some cherished feeling or sentiment of our own. Be that as it may, an unusual degree of indulgence has by tacit consent been accorded to new translations from Horace. Readers unacquainted with the original are disposed to welcome every fresh attempt to make the Venusian Muse express herself in familiar English; and Horatian scholars feel an interest in examining how each succeeding translator grapples with the difficulties of interpretation which have been, as many of them still are, matters of conjecture and dispute to commentators the most erudite, and critics the most acute.

May a reasonable share of such general indulgence be vouchsafed to that variety in the mode of translation of which I now propose to hazard the experiment.

I have long been of opinion that the adoption of other rhymeless measures than that to which we at present confine the designation of blank verse would be attended with especial advantage in translations from the classical poets, and, indeed, in poems founded upon Hellenic and Roman myths, and treated in the classical character and spirit. In that belief I began many years ago these translations from

Horace, and more recently submitted to the public the experiment of the metres employed in the 'Lost Tales of Miletus.' I will not lengthen this preface by any definition of the general rhythmical principles upon which, in my judgment, lyrical measures that, taking the form of strophe or stanza, dispense with rhyme, should be invented and framed. Should any writer be tempted hereafter to repeat and improve on my experiments, he will easily detect the laws I have laid down for myself, and adopt, modify, or reject them, according to his own idiosyncrasies of ear and

taste.

So far as these translations are concerned, it will be seen that I have shunned any attempt to transfer to our own language the exact form of the original metres. I have rather sought to construct measures in accordance with the character of English prosody, akin to the prevalent spirit of the original, and of compass sufficient to allow a general adherence to the rule of translating line by line, or at least strophe by strophe, without needless amplification on the one hand, or harsh contraction on the other.

The same licence of diversifying the metres employed in translation, according as the prevalent spirit of the ode demands lively and sportive, or serious and dignified expression, in which most of the rhyming translators unscrupulously indulge, must be conceded to him who rejects. rhyme from his version. We have no English metres, rhymed or unrhymed, so supple for the expressing of opposing sentiment or emotion as are the Alcaic, and even the Sapphic, in the hands of Horace; and if we desire to be true to the spirit of Horace, we have no option but to vary his form, and not always preserve for loose and sprightly movement the same mechanical arrangement of syllables which accords with the march of the serried and the grave.

For the Alcaic stanza I have chiefly employed two different forms of rhythm; the one, which is of more frequent

recurrence, as in Ode ix.-the other, as in Odes xxxiv.-xxxv., Book I. But in both these forms of rhythm I have made occasional variations.

For the Sapphic metre, in which Horace has composed more odes than in any other except the Alcaic, I have avoided, save in one or two of the shorter poems, any imitation of the chime rendered sufficiently familiar by Canning's 'Knife-grinder,' not only because, in the mind of an English reader, it is associated with a popular burlesque, but chiefly because an English imitation of the Latin rhythm, with a due observance of the trochee in the first three lines of the stanza, has in itself an unpleasant and monotonous sing-song. In my version of the Sapphic I have chiefly employed two varieties of rhythm: for the statelier odes, our own recognised blank verse in the first three lines, usually, though not always, with a dissyllabic termination; and, in the fourth line, a metre analogous in length and cadence to the fourth line of the original, though, of course, without any attempt at preserving the Latin quantity of dactyl and spondee. In fact, as Dr. Kennedy has truly observed, the spondee is not attainable in our language, except by a very forced effort of pronunciation. That which passes current as an English spondee is really a trochee. For the lighter odes of the Sapphic metre, a more sportive or tripping measure is adopted.

I must leave my versions of the other metres which Horace has less frequently employed to speak for themselves.

In the Latin version, placed side by side with the English, I have generally adopted the text of Orelli. The rare instances in which I have differed from it for that of another editor are stated in the notes. For the current punctuation -which in Orelli, and indeed in Macleane, is so sparse as not unfrequently to render the sense obscure to those not familiarly intimate with it-I am largely indebted to the

admirable edition of Mr. Yonge. The modes of spelling preferred by Ritter and Mr. Munro as more faithful transcripts of the ancient MSS., involve questions of great interest to professional scholars, but are as yet too unfamiliar to the general reader for adoption in a text especially designed for his use, and annexed to the English translation for the convenient facilities of reference and comparison.

My objects in the task I have undertaken have compelled me to add in some degree the labour of a critic to that of a translator. The introductions prefixed and the notes appended to the several odes are designed not only to serve for readers unacquainted with the original, but to bring, in a terse and convenient form, before such students of Horace as may not have toiled through the many and often conflicting commentaries of the best editors, the opinions of eminent authorities upon difficult or disputed questions of interpretation. In my notes will be seen the extent to which I am indebted not only to Dillenburger, Orelli, Ritter, but to our own recent English editors, Macleane and Yonge-and, on certain points of controverted interpretation, to Mr. Munro's erudite and valuable introduction to the beautiful edition illustrated from antique gems, by Mr. King.

The majority of critics concur in the doctrine that all the Odes in Horace, differing in this respect from the Epodes, consist of stanzas in four lines, as the Alcaic and Sapphic do. This opinion has been ably controverted by Ritter. Munro declines either to affirm or deny it. But conformably to the general opinion, I have treated, and so translated, the Odes as quatrains, with four exceptions, for which I subjoin my reasons.

Odes i. Book I., xxx. Book III., and viii. Book IV., are in the same metre, and the only ones that are; but Ode viii. Book IV. consists of thirty-four lines, and cannot therefore be reduced to quatrain stanzas; and the supposition that two verses required for such subdivision have been lost-no