It is this intimate and warming quality in Horace that prompts Hagedorn to call him "my friend, my teacher, my companion," and to take the poet with him on country walks as if he were a living person:

Horaz, mein Freund, mein Lehrer, mein Begleiter, Wir gehen aufs Land. Die Tage sind so heiter;

and Nietzsche to compare the atmosphere of the Satires and Epistles to the "geniality of a warm winter day"; and Wordsworth to be attracted by his appreciation of "the value of companionable friendship"; and Andrew Lang to address to him the most personal of literary letters; and Austin Dobson to give his Horatian poems the form of personal address; and countless students and scholars and men out of school and immersed in the cares of life to carry Horace with them in leisure hours. Circum praecordia ludit, "he plays about the heartstrings," said Persius, long before any of these, when the actual Horace was still fresh in the memory of men.

If we were to take detailed account of certain qualities missed in Horace by the modern reader, we should be even more deeply convinced of his power of personal attraction. He is not a Christian poet, but a pagan. Faith in immortality and Providence, penitence and penance, and humanitarian sentiment, are hardly to be found in his pages. He is sometimes too unrestrained in expression. The unsympathetic or unintelligent critic might charge him with being commonplace.

Yet these defects are more apparent than real, and have never been an obstacle to souls attracted by Horace. His pages are charged with sympathy for men. His lapses in taste are not numerous, and are, after all, less offensive than those of European letters today, after the coming of sin with the law. And he is not commonplace, but universal. His content is familiar matter of today as well as of his own time. His delightful natural settings are never novel, romantic, or forced; we have seen them all, in experience or in literature, again and again, and they make familiar and intimate appeal. Phidyle is neither ancient nor modern, Latin nor Teuton; she is all of them at once. The exquisite expressions of friendship in the odes to a Virgil, or a Septimius, are applicable to any age or nationality, or any person. The story of the town mouse and country mouse is always old and always new, and always true. Mutato nomine de te may be said of it, and of all Horace's other stories; alter the names, and the story is about you. Their application and appeal are universal.

"Without sustained inspiration, without profundity of thought, without impassioned song," writes Duff, "he yet pierces to the universal heart.... His secret lies in sanity rather than impetus. Kindly and shrewd observer of the manifold activities of life, he draws vignettes therefrom and passes judgments thereon which awaken undying interest. Non omnis moriar—he remains fresh because he is human."

Horace's philosophy of life may be imperfect for the militant humanitarian and the Christian, but, as a matter of fact, it is a complete and perfect thing in itself. Horace does not fret or fume. He is not morbid or unpleasantly melancholy. It is true that "his tempered and polished expression of common experience, free from transports and free from despairs, speaks more forcibly to ripe middle age than to youth," but it is not without its appeal also to youth. Horace sums up an attitude toward existence which all men, of whatever nation or time, can easily understand, and which all, at some moment or other, sympathize with. Whether they believe in his philosophy of life or not, whether they put it into practice or not, it is always and everywhere attractive,—attractive because founded on clear and sympathetic vision of the joys and sorrows that are the common lot of men, attractive because of its frankness and manly courage, and, above all, attractive because of its object. So long as the one great object of human longing is peace of mind and heart, no philosophy which recognizes it will be without followers. The Christian is naturally unwilling to adopt the Horatian philosophy as a whole, but with its summum bonum, and with many of its recommendations, he is in perfect accord. Add Christian faith to it, or add it, so far as is consonant, to Christian faith, and either is enriched.

We are better able now to appreciate the dynamic power of Horace the person. We may see it at work in the fostering of friendly affection, in the deepening of love for favorite spots of earth, in the encouragement of righteous purpose, in the true judging of life's values.

Horace is the poet of friendship. With his address to "Virgil, the half of my soul," his references to Plotius, Varius, and Virgil as the purest and whitest souls of earth, his affectionate messages in Epistle and Ode, he sets the heart of the reader aglow with love for his friends. "Nothing, while in my right mind, would I compare to the delight of a friend!" What numbers of men have had their hearts stirred to deeper love by the matchless ode to Septimius:

"Septimius, who with me would brave Far Gades, and Cantabrian land Untamed by Rome, and Moorish wave That whirls the sand;

"Fair Tibur, town of Argive kings, There would I end my days serene, At rest from seas and travelings, And service seen.

"Should angry Fate those wishes foil, Then let me seek Galesus, sweet To skin-clad sheep, and that rich soil, The Spartan's seat.

"Oh, what can match the green recess, Whose honey not to Hybla yields, Whose olives vie with those that bless Venafrum's fields?

"Long springs, mild winters glad that spot By Jove's good grace, and Aulon, dear To fruitful Bacchus, envies not Falernian cheer.

"That spot, those happy heights desire Our sojourn; there, when life shall end, Your tear shall dew my yet warm pyre, Your bard and friend."

And what numbers of men have taken to their hearts from the same ode the famous

Ille terrarum mihi praeter omnes Angulus ridet,—

Yonder little nook of earth Beyond all others smiles on me,—

and expressed through its perfect phrase the love they bear their own beloved nook of earth. "Happy Horace!" writes Sainte-Beuve on the margin of his edition, "what a fortune has been his! Why, because he once expressed in a few charming verses his fondness for the life of the country and described his favorite corner of earth, the lines composed for his own pleasure and for the friend to whom he addressed them have laid hold on the memory of all men and have become so firmly lodged there that one can conceive no others, and finds only those when he feels the need of praising his own beloved retreat!"

To speak of sterner virtues, what a source of inspiration to righteousness and constancy men have found in the apt and undying phrases of Horace! "Cornelius de Witt, when confronting the murderous mob; Condorcet, perishing in the straw of his filthy cell; Herrick, at his far-away old British revels; Leo, during his last days at the Vatican, and a thousand others," strengthened their resolution by repeating Iustum et tenacem:

"The man of firm and noble soul No factious clamors can control No threat'ning tyrant's darkling brow Can swerve him from his just intent.... Ay, and the red right arm of Jove, Hurtling his lightnings from above, With all his terrors then unfurl'd, He would unmoved, unawed behold: The flames of an expiring world Again in crashing chaos roll'd, In vast promiscuous ruin hurl'd, Must light his glorious funeral pile: Still dauntless midst the wreck of earth he'd smile."

Of this passage Stemplinger records thirty-one imitations. How many have had their patriotism strengthened by Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, the verse which is aptly found in modern Rome on the monument to those who fell at Dogali. How many have been supported and comforted in calamity and sorrow by the poet's immortal words of consolation on the death of Quintilius:

Durum: sed levius fit patientia Quicquid corrigere est nefas,—

Ah, hard it is! but patience lends Strength to endure what Heaven sends.

The motto of Warren Hastings was Mens aequa in arduis,—An even temper in times of trial. Even humorous use of these phrases has served a purpose. The French minister, compelled to resign, no doubt drew substantial consolation from Virtute me involvo, when he turned it to fit his case:

In the robe of my virtue I wrap me round A solace for loss of all I had; But ah! I realize I've found What it really means to be lightly clad!

But the most pronounced effect of Horace's dynamic power is its inspiration to sane and truthful living. Life seems a simple thing, yet there are many who miss the paths of happiness and wander in wretched discontent because they are not bred to distinguish between the false and the real. We have seen the lesson of Horace: that happiness is not from without, but from within; that it is not abundance that makes riches, but attitude; that the acceptation of worldly standards of getting and having means the life of the slave; that the fraction is better increased by division of the denominator than by multiplying the numerator; that unbought riches are better possessions than those the world displays as the prizes most worthy of striving for. No poet is so full of inspiration as Horace for those who have glimpsed these simple and easy yet little known secrets of living. Men of twenty centuries have been less dependent on the hard-won goods of this world because of him, and lived fuller and richer lives. Surely, to give our young people this attractive example of sane solution of the problem of happy living is to leaven the individual life and the life of the social mass.



IV. CONCLUSION

We have visualized the person of Horace and made his acquaintance. We have seen in his character and in the character of his times the sources of his greatness as a poet. We have seen in him the interpreter of his own times and the interpreter of the human heart in all times. We have traced the course of his influence through the ages as both man and poet. We have seen in him not only the interpreter of life, but a dynamic power that makes for the love of men, for righteousness, and for happier living. We have seen in him an example of the word made flesh. "He has forged a link of union," writes Tyrrell, "between intellects so diverse as those of Dante, Montaigne, Bossuet, La Fontaine, Voltaire, Hooker, Chesterfield, Gibbon, Wordsworth, Thackeray."

To know Horace is to enter into a great communion of twenty centuries,—the communion of taste, the communion of charity, the communion of sane and kindly wisdom, the communion of the genuine, the communion of righteousness, the communion of urbanity and of friendly affection.

"Farewell, dear Horace; farewell, thou wise and kindly heathen; of mortals the most human, the friend of my friends and of so many generations of men."



NOTES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

The following groups of references are not meant as annotations in the usual sense. Those to the text of the poet are for such persons as wish to increase their acquaintance with Horace by reading at first hand the principal poems which have inspired the essayist's conclusions. The others are for those who desire to view in detail the working of the Horatian influence.

HORACE THE PERSON: Odes, I. 27; 38; II. 3; 7; III. 8; IV. 11. Satires, I. 6; 9; II. 6. Epistles, I. 7; 10; 20. Suetonius, Life of Horace. (see below.)

HORACE THE POET: Odes, I. 1; 3; 6; 12; 24; 35; II. 7; 16; III. 1; 21; 29; IV. 2; 3; 4. Satires, I. 4; 6. Epistles, I. 3; 20; II. 2.

HORACE THE INTERPRETER OF HIS TIMES: Landscape; Odes, I. 4; 31; II. 3; 6; 14; 15; III. 1; 13; 18; 23. Epistles, I. 12; 14. Living; Odes, I. 1; III. 1; 2; 4; 6; IV. 5; Epode, 2. Satires, I. 1; II. 6. Epistles, I. 7; 10. Religion; Odes, I. 4; 10; 21; 30; 31; 34; III. 3; 13; 16; 18; 22; 23; IV. 5; 6; Epode, 2. Popular Wisdom; Epistle, I. 1; 4; II. 2.

HORACE THE PHILOSOPHER OF LIFE: The Spectator and Essayist; Satires, I. 4; II. 1. The Vanity of Human Wishes; Odes, I. 4; 24; 28; II. 13; 14; 16; 18; III. 1; 16; 24; 29; IV. 7. Satires, I. 4; 6. Epistles, I. 1. The Pleasures of this World; Odes, I. 9; 11; 24; II. 3; 14; III. 8; 23; 29; IV. 12. Epistles, I. 4. Life and Morality; Odes, I. 5; 18; 19; 27; III. 6; 21; IV. 13. Epistles, I. 2; II. 1. Life and Purpose; Odes, I. 12; II. 2; 15; III. 2; 3; IV. 9; Epode, 2. Satires, I. 1. Epistles, I. 1. The Sources of Happiness; Odes, I. 31; II. 2; 16; 18; III. 16; IV. 9. Satires, I. 1; 6; II. 6. Epistles, I. 1; 2; 6; 10; 11; 12; 14; 16.

HORACE THE PROPHET: Odes, II. 20; III. 1; 4; 30; IV. 2; 3.

HORACE AND ANCIENT ROME: Odes, IV. 3. Epistles, I. 20. Suetonius, Vita Horati, Life of Horace, Translation, J.C. Rolfe, in The Loeb Classical Library, New York, 1914. Hertz, Martin, Analecta ad carminum Horatianorum Historiam, i-v. Breslau, 1876-82. Schanz, Martin, Geschichte der Roemischen Litteratur. Muenchen, 1911.

HORACE AND THE MIDDLE AGE: Manitius, Maximilian, Analekten zur Geschichte des Horaz im Mittelalter, bis 1300. Goettingen, 1893.

HORACE AND MODERN TIMES: In Italy; Curcio, Gaetano Gustavo, Q. Orazio Flacco, studiato in Italia dal secolo XIII al XVIII. Catania, 1913. In France and Germany; Imelmann, J., Donec gratus eram tibi, Nachdichtungen und Nachklaenge aus drei Jahrhunderten. Berlin, 1899. Stemplinger, Eduard, Das Fortleben der Horazischen Lyrik seit der Renaissance. Leipzig, 1906. In Spain; Menendez y Pelayo, D. Marcelino, Horacio en Espana, 2 vols. Madrid, 1885.[2] In England; Goad, Caroline, Horace in the English Literature of the Eighteenth Century. New Haven, 1918. Myers, Weldon T., The Relations of Latin and English as Living Languages in England during the Age of Milton. Dayton, Virginia, 1913. Nitchie, Elizabeth, "Horace and Thackeray," in The Classical Journal, XIII. 393-410 (1918). Shorey, Paul, and Laing, Gordon J., Horace: Odes and Epodes (Revised Edition). Boston, 1910. Thayer, Mary R., The Influence of Horace on the Chief English Poets of the Nineteenth Century. New Haven, 1916.

HORACE THE DYNAMIC: Ars Poetica. Cowl, R.P., The Theory of Poetry in England; its development in doctrines and ideas from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth century. London, 1914. Dobson, Henry Austin, Collected Poems, Vol. I, 135, 181, 219, 222, 224, 231, 236, 245, 263; II. 66, 83, 243, etc. London, 1899. Gladstone, W.E., The Odes of Horace, English Verse Translation. New York, 1901. Kipling, Rudyard, et Graves, C.L., Q. Horati Flacci Carminum Liber Quintus. New Haven, 1920.[3] Lang, Andrew, Letters to Dead Authors. New York, 1893. Martin, Sir Theodore, The Odes of Horace; translated into English verse. London, 1861.[2] Untermeyer, Louis, "—and Other Poets." New York, 1916. Whicher, G.M. and G.F., On the Tibur Road, a Freshman's Horace. Princeton, 1912.

Besides the works mentioned above, reference should be made to:

CAMPAUX, A., Des raisons de la popularite d'Horace en France. Paris, 1895. D'ALTON, J.F., Horace and His Age. London, 1917. MCCREA, N.G., Horatian Criticism of Life. New York, 1917. STEMPLINGER, EDUARD, Horaz im Urteil der Jahrhunderte. Leipzig, 1921. TAYLOR, HENRY OSBORN, The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages. New York, 1903.[2] The Century Horace.

and, also, to the two following works, cited and quoted in the text:

DUFF, J. WIGHT, A Literary History of Rome. London, 1910.[2] (p. 545) TYRRELL, R.Y., Latin Poetry. Boston, (lectures delivered at The Johns Hopkins University, 1893). (p. 164)

Note: Translations of Horace, not otherwise assigned or not enclosed in quotation marks, are those of G.S.



Our Debt to Greece and Rome

AUTHORS AND TITLES

1. HOMER. John A. Scott, Northwestern University. 2. SAPPHO. David M. Robinson, The Johns Hopkins University. 3A. EURIPIDES. F.L. Lucas, King's College, Cambridge. 3B. AESCHYLUS AND SOPHOCLES. J.T. Sheppard, King's College, Cambridge. 4. ARISTOPHANES. Louis E. Lord, Oberlin College. 5. DEMOSTHENES. Charles D. Adams, Dartmouth College. 6. ARISTOTLE'S POETICS. Lane Cooper, Cornell University. 7. GREEK HISTORIANS. Alfred E. Zimmern, University of Wales. 8. LUCIAN. Francis G. Allinson, Brown University. 9. PLAUTUS AND TERENCE. Charles Knapp, Barnard College, Columbia University. 10A. CICERO. John C. Rolfe, University of Pennsylvania. 10B. CICERO AS PHILOSOPHER. Nelson G. McCrea, Columbia University. 11. CATULLUS. Karl P. Harrington, Wesleyan University. 12. LUCRETIUS AND EPICUREANISM. George Depue Hadzsits, University of Pennsylvania. 13. OVID. Edward K. Rand, Harvard University. 14. HORACE. Grant Showerman, University of Wisconsin. 15. VIRGIL. John William Mackail, Balliol College, Oxford. 16. SENECA. Richard Mott Gummere, The William Penn Charter School. 17. ROMAN HISTORIANS. G. Ferrero, Florence. 18. MARTIAL. Paul Nixon, Bowdoin College. 19. PLATONISM. Alfred Edward Taylor, University of Edinburgh. 20. ARISTOTELIANISM. John L. Stocks, University of Manchester, Manchester. 21. Stoicism. Robert Mark Wenley, University of Michigan. 22. LANGUAGE AND PHILOLOGY. Roland G. Kent, University of Pennsylvania. 23. RHETORIC AND LITERARY CRITICISM. (Greek) W. Rhys Roberts, Leeds University. 24. GREEK RELIGION. Walter W. Hyde, University of Pennsylvania. 25. ROMAN RELIGION. Gordon J. Laing, University of Chicago. 26. MYTHOLOGIES. Jane Ellen Harrison, Newnham College, Cambridge. 27. THEORIES REGARDING THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. Clifford H. Moore, Harvard University. 28. STAGE ANTIQUITIES. James T. Allen, University of California. 29. GREEK POLITICS. Ernest Barker, King's College, University of London. 30. ROMAN POLITICS. Frank Frost Abbott, Princeton University. 31. ROMAN LAW. Roscoe Pound, Harvard Law School. 32. ECONOMICS AND SOCIETY. M.T. Rostovtzeff, Yale University. 33. WARFARE BY LAND AND SEA. E.S. McCartney, University of Michigan. 34. THE GREEK FATHERS. Roy J. Deferrari, The Catholic University of America. 35. BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE. Henry Osborn Taylor, New York. 36. MATHEMATICS. David Eugene Smith, Teachers College, Columbia University. 37. LOVE OF NATURE. H.R. Fairclough, Leland Stanford Junior University. 38. ASTRONOMY AND ASTROLOGY. Franz Cumont, Brussels. 39. THE FINE ARTS. Arthur Fairbanks, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 40. ARCHITECTURE. Alfred M. Brooks, Swarthmore College. 41. ENGINEERING. Alexander P. Gest, Philadelphia. 42. GREEK PRIVATE LIFE, ITS SURVIVALS. Charles Burton Gulick, Harvard University. 43. ROMAN PRIVATE LIFE, ITS SURVIVALS. Walton B. McDaniel, University of Pennsylvania. 44. FOLK LORE.

45. GREEK AND ROMAN EDUCATION.

46. CHRISTIAN LATIN WRITERS. Andrew F. West, Princeton University. 47. ROMAN POETRY AND ITS INFLUENCE UPON EUROPEAN CULTURE. Paul Shorey, University of Chicago. 48. PSYCHOLOGY. 49. MUSIC. Theodore Reinach, Paris. 50. ANCIENT AND MODERN ROME. Rodolfo Lanciani, Rome.

THE END