(2) 2 S. 1. 91, 2. quoad vixit, credidit ingens Pauperiem vitium, et cavit nihil acrius, &c. 3 C. XXIV. 42. Magnum pauperies opprobrium jubet Quidvis et facere et pati. Or even the humbler similitude of the family table; as where Horace describes Ofellus, 2 S. II. 116, 7. Non ego, narrantem, temere edi luce profestâ and where he sighs for his own hospitable board in the country, 2 S. VI. 63, 4. O quando fuba Pythagoræ cognata, simulque About this period of the life of Horace, from his first residence in Athens to the battle of Philippi inclusive, the following notice of different places which he appears to have visited, will be quite sufficient for any illustration of his character or writings to be derived from that source. 1 C. vII. 10-14. 1 S. VII. 4, 5. -23, 4. Me neque tam patiens Lacedæmon, Persius hic permagna negotia dives habebat In a manner quite incidental and oblique we gain another fact of locality, from the Epistle (x1.) to Bullatius. Horace, after several questions put to his whimsical and odd tempered friend then on the coast of Asia, at last thus asks him: v. 6. An Lebedum laudas, odio maris atque viarum? This question apparently was meant to hit the very point of his friend's absurdity in acting as he did. Horace then supposes Bullatius thus to reply to him, as equally with himself knowing the spot alluded to, vv. 7-10. Scis, Lebedus quid sit; Gabiis desertior atque Fidenis vicus: tamen illic vivere vellem ; But here again, Horace most acutely and sensibly rejoins, vv. 11, 12. Sed neque qui Capuâ Romam petit imbre lutoque The dialogue of the Epistle thus analysed may be taken to exemplify a great peculiarity in the manner of Horace; I mean, in the delicate, sudden, and slightly marked transitions, of which his readers have justly to complain. The abrupt and involved style of the Satires on this ground alone affords frequent matter of obscurity and doubt: while in the high-finished and perspicuous composition (generally so) of the Epistles, difficulty from that cause very seldom occurs. If there be any truth in these principles of criticism, no scholar with any judgment or taste to discriminate could possibly imagine, for instance, that the Satire which ends, 2 S. VIII. 95. Canidia adflasset, pejor serpentibus atris, and the Epistle which begins, 1 E. 1. 1. Primâ dicte mihi, summâ dicende Camœnâ, were ever written in continuity, as they have stood hitherto edited. For with all his recorded slowness of revision in satiric writing, (2 S. 11. 2. scriptorum quæque retexens,) the great and striking difference, so visible now, in the whole tone and style of composition betwixt the Satire and the Epistle loudly forbids such an idea. Horace in the inter val between those two books (as it is well remarked by Bentley, ante p. 5, ¶ 7.) had evidently become both an older man and a sounder as well as a more elegant writer. To return to Athens: early in в. c. 43. on the arrival of Brutus, then raising an army to oppose the second triumvirate, "all the young nobility and gentry of Rome" (in the old Pompeian interest) whom he found in that seat of education, most readily joined his standard. The son of the illustrious Cicero, we know, became a Legatus under him: young Horace, catching the spirit of his associates, naturally entered the service, and with the rank of military tribune, but not without some jealousy on that account, as we are told, in certain persons of high birth. 1 S. VI. 48. Quod mihi pareret legio Romana tribuno. In the course of those campaigns, as is acutely observed by Masson, (Horatii Vita, 1708. p. 55,) he must have seen much variety of hard service he could not else have addressed his friend Pompeius in language like this. 2 C. VII. 1, 2. O sæpe mecum tempus in ultimum And we gather from the sketch of his own character, (1 E. xx. 23. Me primis urbis belli placuisse domique,) that he could long afterwards refer with satisfaction to the favour of the commander-in-chief enjoyed at that period. The great battle of Philippi took place towards the end of the year B. c. 42; and Horace shared in the common ruin of the unfortunate Republicans. The proscription, perhaps, did not reach him: in the confiscation he certainly was involved. Of the worse consequences of that battle to himself he speaks thus: a Hooke. B. x. Ch. XIII. 2 E. 11. 49-51. Unde simul primum me dimisere Philippi, while in respect of his escape afterwards from ill fortune, (besides his general language of thankfulness, 2 C. VII. 13, 14. Sed me per hostes Mercurius celer we may without much hesitation assume, that when returning home by sea, in the winter B. c. 42 | 41. he encountered that peculiar danger off Cape Palinurus, which he so gratefully classes with his other deliverances. 3 C. IV. 25-28. Vestris amicum fontibus et choris, Non me Philippis versa acies retro, Devota non extinxit arbor, Nec Sicula Palinurus undá. The old commentator in Cruquius speaks without scruple, indeed, of that promontory as the scene of danger "ubi Horatius se redeuntem ex bello Philippensi periclitatum fuisse dicit:" and it was thus the Poet acquired that vivid knowledge of the tempestuous sea, which enabled him to aggravate the picture of Hannibal as a mighty agent devastating the cities of Italy. 4 C. iv. 42-44. Dirus per urbes Afer ut Italas, Ceu flamma per tædas, vel Eurus In the spring then в. c. 41. Horace is once more at Rome. Out of the scattered hints which remain, the following brief narrative may with a fair claim to credibility be drawn up. The words victis partibus veniâ impetratâ of Suetonius in Vita Horatii express no more than what Horace's actual return to Rome would in itself imply. But as the estate in the neighbourhood of Venusia was certainly gone, the next fact asserted, Scriptum quæstorium comparavit, may require some ingenuity to conjecture, how he could buy for himself a patent place as clerk in the Treasury; which of course must have been the lower way of getting admission into that respectable office. That such purchases were made, and as early as B. c. 70, appears to be an unquestionable fact, from Cicero, In Verrem. L. 111. §§ 78, 9, &c. Of so much as is quoted of that Oration by the acute and diligent Ernesti, in his Clavis Ciceroniana, under the word Scriba, the following extract may suffice. Scribæ, qui digni sunt illo ordine, boni atque honesti-ad eos me revoca. qui nummulis corrogatis de nepotum donis, ac de scenicorum corollariis, cum decuriam emerunt, ex primo ordine explosorum, in secundum ordinem civitatis se venisse dicunt. Mirabimur turpes aliquos ibi esse, quo cuivis licet pretio pervenire ? patres familias, viri Noli hos colligere, The whole passage in the original is singularly curious, especially under the head of collybus and cerarium; as showing the extent of knavery which then could be practised in the provincial governments of Rome. But in the apparent wreck of all his fortunes, it may be asked, how was Horace enabled to buy this Munus Scribæ, this decuriam? nummulis corrogatis, it may be answered: but from whence the corrogatio? Perhaps, from goodnatured friends still at Rome, even in those days of confusion: perhaps, it has sometimes struck my mind, from persons in the neighbourhood of Venusia, where on old accounts in his long absence unsettled, money might yet be due to him for arrears of rent. At all events, however, one can hardly resist the conclusion, that Horace did buy a kind of patent place as clerk in the Treasury. The words of Suetonius, scriptum quæstorium comparavit, are quite express and distinct. The |