other, I must have chosen very ill among the various parts of your character to take this for the subject of an address to you. For, after all I have said and think of your critical abilities, it might seem almost as strange in a panegyrist on Mr. Warburton to tell of his admirable criticisms on POPE and SHAKESPEAR, as it would be in him, who should design an encomium on Socrates, to insist on his excellent sculpture of MERCURY and the GRACES. Yet there is a time, when it time, when it may be allowed to lay a stress on the amusements of such men. It is, when an adventurer in either art would do an honour to his profession. I am, with the truest esteem, Reverend Sir, Your most obedient and most humble servant, CAMBRIDGE, March 29, 1753. R. HURD. Q. HORATII FLACCI EPISTOLA AD AUGUSTUM. CUM tot sustineas et tanta negotia solus, COMMENTARY. EPISTOLA AD AUGUSTUM.] In conducting this work, which is an apology for the poets of his own time, the method of the writer is no other, than that which plain sense, and the subject itself, required of him. For, as the main dislike to the Augustan poets had arisen from an excessive reverence paid to their elder brethren, the first part of the epistle [from v. 1 to 113] is very naturally laid out in the ridicule and confutation of so absurd a prejudice. And having, by this preparation, obtained a candid hearing for his defence, he then proceeds [in what follows, to the end] to vindicate their real merits; setting in view the excellencies of the Latin poetry, as cultivated by the great modern masters; and throwing the blame of their ill success, and of the contempt in which they had lain, not so much on themselves, or their profession (the dignity of which, in particular, he insists highly Romulus, et Liber pater, et cum Castore Pollux, 5 Speratum meritis. diram qui contudit Hydram, 10 COMMENTARY. upon, and asserts with spirit) as on the vicious taste of the age, and certain unfavouring circumstances, which had accidentally concurred to dishonour both. This idea of the general plan being comprehended, the reader will find it no difficulty to perceive the order and arrangement of particular parts, which the natural transition of the poet's thought insensibly drew along with it. 5-118. ROMULUS, ET LIBER PATER, &c.] The subject commences from v. 5, where, by a contrivance of great beauty, a pertinent illustration of the poet's argument becomes an offering of the happiest address to`the emperor. Its double purpose may be seen thus. His primary intention was to take off the force of prejudice against modern poets, arising from the superior veneration of the ancients. To this end the first thing wanting was to demonstrate by some striking instance, that it was, indeed, nothing but prejudice; which he does effectually in taking that instance from the heroic, that is, the most revered, ages. For if such, whose acknowledged virtues and eminent services had raised them to the rank of heroes, that is, in the pagan conception of Infra se positas: extinctus amabitur idem. quae COMMENTARY. 15 20 things, to the honours of divinity, could not secure their fame, in their own times, against the malevolence of slander, what wonder that the race of wits, whose obscurer merit is less likely to dazzle the public eye, and yet, by a peculiar fatality, is more apt to awaken its jealousy, should find themselves oppressed by its rudest censure? In the former case the honours, which equal posterity paid to excelling worth, declare all such censure to have been the calumny of malice only. What reason then to conclude, it had any other original in the latter? This is the poet's argument. But now, of these worthies themselves, whom the justice of grateful posterity had snatched out of the hands of detraction, there were some, it seems, whose illustrious services the virtue or vain-glory of the emperor most affected to emulate; and these, therefore, the poet, by an ingenious flattery, selects for examples to his general observation, Romulus, et Liber pater, et cum Castore Pollux Further, as the good fortune of Augustus, though adorned with the same enviable qualities, had exempted Temporibus defuncta videt, fastidit et odit : COMMENTARY. 25 him from the injuries which had constantly befallen those admired characters, this peculiar circumstance in the history of his prince affords him the happiest occasion, flattery could desire, of paying distinguished honours to his glory. Praesenti tibi maturos largimur honores. And this constitutes the fine address and compliment of his Application. But this justice, which Augustus had exacted, as it were, by the very authority of his virtue, from his ap plauding people, was but ill discharged in other in stances. Sed tuus hoc populus sapiens et justus in uno, And thus the very exception to the general rule, which forms the encomium, leads him with advantage into his argument; which was to observe and expose "the ma"lignant influence of prepossession in obstructing the proper glories of living merit." So that, as good sense demands in every reasonable panegyric, the praise results from the nature and foundation of the subjectmatter, and is not violently and reluctantly dragged 66 into it. |