Avoid all prying; what you're told, keep back, Though wine or anger put you on the rack; Nor puff your own, nor slight your friend's pursuits, Nor court the Muses when he'd chase the brutes. 'Twas thus the Theban brethren jarred, until The harp that vexed the stern one became still. Amphion humoured his stern brother: well, Your friend speaks gently; do not you rebel: No; when he gives the summons, and prepares To take the field with hounds, and darts, and snares, Leave your dull Muse to sulkiness and sloth, That both may feast on dainties earned by both. 'Tis a true Roman pastime, and your frame Will gain thereby, no less than your good name: Besides, you're strong; in running you can match The dogs, and kill the fiercest boar you catch: Who plays like you? you have but to appear In Mars's field to raise a general cheer: Remember too, you served a hard campaign, When scarce past boyhood, in the wars of Spain, Beneath his lead who brings our standards home, And makes each nook of earth a prize for Rome. Just one thing more, lest still you should refuse And show caprice that nothing can excuse: Safe as you are from doing aught unmeet, You sometimes trifle at your father's seat; The Actian fight in miniature you play, With boats for ships, your lake for Hadria's bay, Your brother for your foe, your slaves for crews, And so you battle till you win or lose. Let your friend see you share his taste, he'll vow He never knew what sport was like till now.

Well, to proceed; beware, if there is room For warning, what you mention, and to whom; Avoid a ceaseless questioner; he burns To tell the next he talks with what he learns; Wide ears retain no secrets, and you know You can't get back a word you once let go.

Look round and round the man you recommend, For yours will be the shame should he offend. Sometimes we're duped; a protege dragged down By his own fault must e'en be left to drown, That you may help another known and tried, And show yourself his champion if belied; For when 'gainst him detraction forks her tongue, Be sure she'll treat you to the same ere long. No time for sleeping with a fire next door; Neglect such things, they only blaze the more.

A patron's service is a strange career; The tiros love it, but the experts fear. You, while you're sailing on a prosperous tack, Look out for squalls which yet may drive you back. The gay dislike the grave, the staid the pert, The quick the slow, the lazy the alert; Hard drinkers hate the sober, though he swear Those bouts at night are more than he can bear. Unknit your brow; the silent man is sure To pass for crabbed, the modest for obscure.

Meantime, while thoughts like these your mind engage, Neglect not books nor converse with the sage; Ply them with questions; lead them on to tell What things make life go happily and well; How cure desire, the soul's perpetual dearth? How moderate care for things of trifling worth? Is virtue raised by culture or self-sown? What soothes annoy, and makes your heart your own? Is peace procured by honours, pickings, gains, Or, sought in highways, is she found in lanes?

For me, when freshened by my spring's pure cold Which makes my villagers look pinched and old, What prayers are mine? "O may I yet possess The goods I have, or, if Heaven pleases, less! Let the few years that Fate may grant me still Be all my own, not held at others' will! Let me have books, and stores for one year hence, Nor make my life one flutter of suspense!"

But I forbear: sufficient 'tis to pray To Jove for what he gives and takes away: Grant life, grant fortune, for myself I'll find That best of blessings, a contented mind.



XIX. TO MAECENAS.

PRISCO SI CREDIS.

If truth there be in old Cratinus' song, No verse, you know, Maecenas, can live long Writ by a water-drinker. Since the day When Bacchus took us poets into pay With fauns and satyrs, the celestial Nine Have smelt each morning of last evening's wine. The praises heaped by Homer on the bowl At once convict him as a thirsty soul: And father Ennius ne'er could be provoked To sing of battles till his lips were soaked. "Let temperate folk write verses in the hall Where bonds change hands, abstainers not at all;" So ran my edict: now the clan drinks hard, And vinous breath distinguishes a bard.

What if a man appeared with gown cut short, Bare feet, grim visage, after Cato's sort? Would you respect him, hail him from henceforth The heir of Cato's mind, of Cato's worth? The wretched Moor, who matched himself in wit With keen Timagenes, in sunder split. Faults are soon copied: should my colour fail, Our bards drink cummin, hoping to look pale. Mean, miserable apes! the coil you make Oft gives my heart, and oft my sides, an ache.

Erect and free I walk the virgin sod, Too proud to tread the paths by others trod. The man who trusts himself, and dares step out, Soon sets the fashion to the inferior rout. 'Tis I who first to Italy have shown Iambics, quarried from the Parian stone; Following Archilochus in rhythm and stave, But not the words that dug Lycambes' grave. Yet think not that I merit scantier bays, Because in form I reproduce his lays: Strong Sappho now and then adopts a tone From that same lyre, to qualify her own; So does Alcaeus, though in all beside, Style, order, thought, the difference is wide; 'Gainst no false fair he turns his angry Muse, Nor for her guilty father twists the noose. Aye, and Alcaeus' name, before unheard, My Latian harp has made a household word. Well may the bard feel proud, whose pen supplies Unhackneyed strains to gentle hands and eyes.

Ask you what makes the uncourteous reader laud My works at home, but run them down abroad? I stoop not, I, to catch the rabble's votes By cheap refreshments or by cast-off coats, Nor haunt the benches where your pedants swarm, Prepared by turns to listen and perform. That's what this whimpering means. Suppose I say "Your theatres have ne'er been in my way, Nor I in theirs: large audiences require Some heavier metal than my thin-drawn wire:" "You put me off," he answers, "with a sneer: Your works are kept for Jove's imperial ear: Yes, you're a paragon of bards, you think, And no one else brews nectar fit to drink." What can I do? 'tis an unequal match; For if my nose can sniff, his nails can scratch: I say the place won't snit me, and cry shame; "E'en fencers get a break 'twixt game and game." Games oft have ugly issue: they beget Unhealthy competition, fume and fret: And fume and fret engender in their turn Battles that bleed, and enmities that burn.



XX. TO HIS BOOK.

VERTUMNUM JANUMQUE.

To street and market-place I see you look With wistful longing, my adventurous book, That on the stalls for sale you may be seen, Rubbed by the binder's pumice smooth and clean. You chafe at look and key, and court the view Of all the world, disdainful of the few. Was this your breeding? go where you would go; When once sent out, you won't come back, you know. "What mischief have I done?" I hear you whine, When some one hurts those feelings, now so fine; For hurt you're sure to be; when people pall Of reading you, they'll crush and fold you small. If my prophetic soul be not at fault From indignation at your rude revolt, Your doom, methinks, is easy to foretell: While you've your gloss on, Rome will like you well: Then, when you're thumbed and soiled by vulgar hands, You'll feed the moths, or go to distant lands. Ah, then you'll mind your monitor too late, While he looks on and chuckles at your fate, Like him who, pestered by his donkey's vice, Got off and pushed it down the precipice; For who would lose his temper and his breath To keep a brute alive that's bent on death? Yet one thing more: your fate may be to teach In some suburban school the parts of speech, And, maundering over grammar day by day, Lisp, prattle, drawl, grow childish, and decay.

Well, when in summer afternoons you see Men fain to listen, tell them about me: Tell them that, born a freedman's son, possessed Of slender means, I soared beyond my nest, That so whate'er's deducted for my birth May count as assets on the score of worth; Say that I pleased the greatest of my day: Then draw my picture;—prematurely grey, Of little person, fond of sunny ease, Lightly provoked, but easy to appease. Last, if my age they ask you, let them know That I was forty-four not long ago, In the December of last year, the same That goes by Lepidus' and Lollius' name.



THE EPISTLES

BOOK II.

I. TO AUGUSTUS.

CUM TOT SUSTINEAS.

Since you, great Caesar, singly wield the charge Of Rome's concerns, so manifold and large, With sword and shield the commonwealth protect, With morals grace it, and with laws correct, The bard, methinks, would do a public wrong Who, having gained your ear, should keep it long.

Quirinus, Bacchus, and the Jove-born pair, Though now invoked with in cense, gifts, and prayer, While yet on earth they civilized their kind, Tilled lands, built cities, properties assigned, Oft mourned for man's ingratitude, and found The race they served less thankful than the ground. The prince whose fated vassalage subdued Fell Hydra's power and all the monster brood, Soon found that envy, worse than all beside, Could only be extinguished when he died. He that outshines his age is like a torch, Which, when it blazes high, is apt to scorch: Men hate him while he lives: at last, no doubt, He wins affection—when his light is out.

You, while in life, are honoured as divine, And vows and oaths are taken at your shrine; So Rome pays homage to her man of men, Ne'er seen on earth before, ne'er to be seen again. But this wise nation, which for once thinks true, That nought in Greece or here can rival you, To all things else a different test applies, And looks on living worth with jaundiced eyes: While, as for ancient models, take the code Which to the ten wise men our fathers owed, The treaties made 'twixt Gabii's kings and Home's, The pontiffs' books, the bards' forgotten tomes, They'll swear the Muses framed them every one In close divan on Alba's Helicon.

But what's the argument? the bards of Greece And those of Rome must needs be of a piece; As there the oldest hold the foremost place, So here, 'twould seem, the same will be the case. Is this their reasoning? they may prove as well An olive has no stone, a nut no shell. Soon, flattered by such dexterous logic, we Shall think we've gained the summit of the tree; In art, in song our rivals we outdo, And, spite of all their oil, in wrestling too.

Or is it said that poetry's like wine Which age, we know, will mellow and refine? Well, let me grant the parallel, and ask How many years a work must be in cask. A bard who died a hundred years ago, With whom should he be reckoned, I would know? The priceless early or the worthless late? Come, draw a line which may preclude debate. "The bard who makes his century up has stood The test: we call him sterling, old, and good." Well, here's a poet now, whose dying day Fell one month later, or a twelvemonth, say: Whom does he count with? with the old, or them Whom we and future times alike contemn? "Aye, call him old, by favour of the court, Who falls a month, or e'en a twelvemonth short." Thanks for the kind permission! I go on, And pull out years, like horse-hairs, one by one, While all forlorn the baffled critic stands, Fumbling a naked stump between his hands, Who looks for worth in registers, and knows No inspiration but what death bestows.

Ennius, the stout and wise, in critic phrase The analogue of Homer in these days, Enjoys his ease, nor cares how he redeems The gorgeous promise of his peacock dreams. Who reads not Naevius? still he lives enshrined A household god in every Roman mind. So as we reckon o'er the heroic band We call Pacuvius learned, Accius grand; Afranius wears Menander's robe with grace; Plautus moves on at Epicharmus' pace; In force and weight Caecilius bears the palm; While Terence—aye, refinement is his charm. These are Rome's classics; these to see and hear She throngs the bursting playhouse year by year: 'Tis these she musters, counts, reviews, displays, From Livius' time to our degenerate days.

Sometimes the public sees like any lynx; Sometimes, if 'tis not blind, at least it blinks. If it extols the ancient sous of song As though they were unrivalled, it goes wrong: If it allows there's much that's obsolete, Much hasty work, much rough and incomplete, 'Tis just my view; 'tis judging as one ought; And Jove was present when that thought was thought. Not that I'd act the zealot, and desire To fling the works of Livius on the fire, Which once Orbilius, old and not too mild, Made me repeat by whipping when a child; But when I find them deemed high art, and praised As only not perfection, I'm amazed, That here and there a thought not ill expressed, A verse well turned, should carry off the rest; Just as an unfair sample, set to catch The heedless customer, will sell the batch.

I chafe to hear a poem called third-rate Not as ill written, but as written late; To hear your critics for their ancients claim Not charity, but honour and high fame. Suppose I doubt if Atta's humorous show Moves o'er the boards with best leg first or no, The fathers of the city all declare That shame has fled from Rome, and gone elsewhere; "What! show no reverence to his sacred shade Whose scenes great Roscius and Aesopus played?" Perhaps with selfish prejudice they deem That nought but what they like deserves esteem, Or, jealous of their juniors, won't allow That what they learnt in youth is rubbish now. As for the pedant whose preposterous whim Finds poetry in Numa's Salian hymn, Who would be thought to have explored alone A land to him and me alike unknown, 'Tis not that buried genius he regards: No; 'tis mere spleen and spite to living bards. Had Greece but been as carping and as cold To new productions, what would now be old? What standard works would there have been, to come Beneath the public eye, the public thumb?

When, having done with fighting, Greece began To care for trifles that refine the man, And, borne aloft on Fortune's full flood-tide, Went drifting on to luxury and pride, Of athletes and of steeds by turns she raved, Loved ivory, bronze, and marble deftly graved, Hung raptured on a painting, mind and eye, Now leant to music, now to tragedy, Like a young child that hankers for a toy, Then throws it down when it begins to cloy. With change of fortune nations change their minds: So much for happy peace and prosperous winds. At Rome erewhile men rose by day-break, saw Their clients at their homes, laid down the law, Put money at good interest out to loan Secured by names responsible and known, Explained to younger folk, or learned from old, How wealth might be increased, expense controlled. Now our good town has taken a new fit: Each man you meet by poetry is bit; Pert boys, prim fathers dine in, wreaths of bay, And 'twixt the courses warble out their lay. E'en I, who vow I never write a verse, Am found as false as Parthia, maybe worse; Before the dawn I rouse myself, and call For pens and parchment, writing-desk and all. None dares be pilot who ne'er steered a craft; No untrained nurse administers a draught; None but skilled workmen handle workmen's tools: But verses all men scribble, wise or fools.

And yet this scribbling is a harmless craze, And boasts in fact some few redeeming traits. Avarice will scarce find lodging in a heart Whose every thought is centred on its art; He lays no subtle schemes, your dreamy bard, To circumvent his partner or his ward; Content with pulse and bread of ration corn, Mres, losses, runaways he laughs to scorn; Useless in camp, at home he serves the state, That is, if small can minister to great. His lessons form the child's young lips, and wean The boyish ear from words and tales unclean; As years roll on, he moulds the ripening mind, And makes it just and generous, sweet and kind; He tells of worthy precedents, displays The example of the past to after days, Consoles affliction, and disease allays. Had Rome no poets, who would teach the train Of maids and spotless youths their ritual strain? Schooled by the bard, they lift their voice to heaven, And feel the wished-for aid already given, Prom brazen skies call down abundant showers, Are heard when sickness threats or danger lowers, Win for a war-worn land the smiles of peace, And crown the year with plentiful increase. Song checks the hand of Jove in act to smite; Song soothes the dwellers in abysmal night.

Our rustic forefathers in days of yore, Robust though frugal, and content though poor, When, after harvest done, they sought repair From toils which hope of respite made them bear, Were wont their hard-earned leisure to enjoy With those who shared their labour, wife and boy; With porker's blood the Earth they would appease, With milk Silvanus, guardian of their trees, With flowers and wine the Genius, who repeats That life is short, and so should have its sweets. 'Twas hence Fescennia's privilege began, Where wit had licence, and man bantered man; And the wild sport, though countrified and rough, Passed off each year acceptably enough; Till jokes grew virulent, and rabid spite Ran loose through houses, free to bark and bite. The wounded shrieked; the unwounded came to feel That things looked serious for the general weal: So laws were passed with penalties and pains To guard the lieges from abusive strains, And poets sang thenceforth in sweeter tones, Compelled to please by terror for their bones.

Greece, conquered Greece, her conqueror subdued, And Rome grew polished, who till then was rude; The rough Saturnian measure had its day, And gentler arts made savagery give way: Yet traces of the uncouth past lived on For many a year, nor are they wholly gone, For 'twas not till the Punic wars were o'er That Rome found time Greek authors to explore, And try, by digging in that virgin field, What Sophocles and Aeschylus could yield. Nay, she essayed a venture of her own, And liked to think she'd caught the tragic tone; And so she has:—the afflatus comes on hot; But out, alas! she deems it shame to blot.

'Tis thought that comedy, because its source Is common life, must be a thing of course, Whereas there's nought so difficult, because There's nowhere less allowance made for flaws. See Plautus now: what ill-sustained affairs Are his close fathers and his love-sick heirs! How farcical his parasites! how loose And down at heel he wears his comic shoes! For, so he fills his pockets, nought he heeds Whether the play's a failure or succeeds.

Drawn to the house in glory's car, the bard Is made by interest, by indifference marred: So slight the cause that prostrates or restores A mind that lives for plaudits and encores. Nay, I forswear the drama, if to win Or lose the prize can make me plump or thin. Then too it tries an author's nerve, to find The class in numbers strong, though weak in mind, The brutal brainless mob, who, if a knight Disputes their judgment, bluster and show fight, Call in the middle of a play for bears Or boxers;—'tis for such the rabble cares. But e'en the knights have changed, and now they prize Delighted ears far less than dazzled eyes. The curtain is kept down four hours or more, While horse and foot go hurrying o'er the floor, While crownless majesty is dragged in chains, Chariots succeed to chariots, wains to wains, Whole fleets of ships in long procession pass, And captive ivory follows captive brass. O, could Democritus return to earth, In truth 'twould wake his wildest peals of mirth, To see a milkwhite elephant, or shape Half pard, half camel, set the crowd agape! He'd eye the mob more keenly than the shows, And find less food for sport in these than those; While the poor authors—he'd suppose their play Addressed to a deaf ass that can but bray. For where's the voice so strong as to o'ercome A Roman theatre's discordant hum? You'd think you heard the Gargan forest roar Or Tuscan billows break upon the shore, So loud the tumult waxes, when they see The show, the pomp, the foreign finery. Soon as the actor, thus bedizened, stands In public view, clap go ten thousand hands. "What said he?" Nought. "Then what's the attraction? "Why, That woollen mantle with the violet dye.

But lest you think 'tis niggard praise I fling To bards who soar where I ne'er stretched a wing, That man I hold true master of his art Who with fictitious woes can wring my heart, Can rouse me, soothe me, pierce me with the thrill Of vain alarm, and, as by magic skill, Bear me to Thebes, to Athens, where he will.

Now turn to us shy mortals, who, instead Of being hissed and acted, would be read: We claim your favour, if with worthy gear You'd fill the temple Phoebus holds so dear, And give poor bards the stimulus of hope To aid their progress up Parnassus' slope. Poor bards! much harm to our own cause we do (It tells against myself, but yet 'tis true), When, wanting you to read us, we intrude On times of business or of lassitude, When we lose temper if a friend thinks fit To find a fault or two with what we've writ, When, unrequested, we again go o'er A passage we recited once, before, When we complain, forsooth, our laboured strokes, Our dexterous turns, are lost on careless folks, When we expect, so soon as you're informed That ours are hearts by would-be genius warmed, You'll send for us instanter, end our woes With a high hand, and make us all compose.

Yet greatness, proved in war and peace divine, Had best be jealous who should keep its shrine: The sacred functions of the temple-ward Were ill conferred on an inferior bard. A blunderer was Choerilus; and yet This blunderer was Alexander's pet, And for the ill-stamped lines that left his mint Received good money with the royal print. Ink spoils what touches it: indifferent lays Blot out the exploits they pretend to praise. Yet the same king who bought bad verse so dear In other walks of art saw true and clear; None but Lysippus, so he willed by law, Might model him, none but Apelles draw. But take this mind, in paintings and in bronze So ready to distinguish geese from swans, And bid it judge of poetry, you'd swear "Twas born and nurtured in Boeotian air.

Still, bards there are whose excellence commends The sovereign judgment that esteems them friends, Virgil and Varius; when your hand confers Its princely bounty, all the world concurs. And, trust me, human features never shone With livelier truth through brass or breathing stone Than the great genius of a hero shines Through the clear mirror of a poet's lines. Nor is it choice (ah, would that choice were all!) Makes my dull Muse in prose-like numbers crawl, When she might sing of rivers and strange towns, Of mountain fastnesses and barbarous crowns, Of battles through the world compelled to cease, Of bolts that guard the God who guards the peace, And haughty Parthia through defeat and shame By Caesar taught to fear the Roman name: 'Tis strength that lacks: your dignity disdains The mean support of ineffectual strains, And modesty forbids me to essay A theme whose weight would make my powers give way. Officious zeal is apt to be a curse To those it loves, especially in verse; For easier 'tis to learn and recollect What moves derision than what claims respect. He's not my friend who hawks in every place A waxwork parody of my poor face; Nor were I flattered if some silly wight A stupid poem in my praise should write: The gift would make me blush, and I should dread To travel with my poet, all unread, Down to the street where spice and pepper's sold, And all the wares waste paper's used to fold.



II. TO JULIUS FLORUS.

FLORE BONO CLAROQUE.

Dear Florus, justly high in the good grace Of noble Nero, let's suppose a case; A man accosts you with a slave for sale, Born, say, at Gabii, and begins his tale: "See, here's a lad who's comely, fair, and sound; I'll sell him, if you will, for sixty pound. He's quick, and answers to his master's look, Knows Greek enough to read a simple book Set him to what you like, he'll learn with ease; Soft clay, you know, takes any form you please; His voice is quite untrained, but still, I think, You'll like his singing, as you sit and drink. Excuse professions; they're but stale affairs, Which chapmen use for getting off their waves. I'm quite indifferent if you buy or no: Though I'm but poor, there's nothing that I owe. No dealer'd use you thus; nay, truth to tell, I don't treat all my customers so well. He loitered once, and fearing whipping, did As boys will do, sneaked to the stairs and hid. So, if this running off be not a, vice Too bad to pardon, let me have my price." The man would get his money, I should say, Without a risk of having to repay. You make the bargain knowing of the flaw; 'Twere mere vexatiousness to take the law.

'Tis so with me; before you left, I said That correspondence was my rock ahead, Lest, when you found that ne'er an answer came To all your letters, you should call it shame. But where's my vantage if you won't agree To go by law, because the law's with me? Nay more, you say I'm faithless to my vow In sending you no verses. Listen now:

A soldier of Lucullus's, they say, Worn out at night by marching all the day, Lay down to sleep, and, while at ease he snored, Lost to a farthing all his little hoard. This woke the wolf in him;—'tis strange how keen The teeth will grow with but the tongue between;— Mad with the foe and with himself, off-hand He stormed a treasure-city, walled and manned, Destroys the garrison, becomes renowned, Gets decorations and two hundred pound. Soon after this the general had in view To take some fortress, where I never knew; He singles out our friend, and makes a speech That e'en might drive a coward to the breach: "Go, my fine fellow! go where valour calls! There's fame and money too inside those walls." "I'm not your man," returned the rustic wit: "He makes a hero who has lost his kit."

At Rome I had my schooling, and was taught Achilles' wrath, and all the woes it brought; At classic Athens, where I went erelong, I learnt to draw the line 'twixt right and wrong, And search for truth, if so she might be seen, In academic groves of blissful green; But soon the stress of civil strife removed My adolescence from the scenes it loved, And ranged me with a force that could not stand Before the might of Caesar's conquering hand. Then when Philippi turned me all adrift A poor plucked fledgeling, for myself to shift, Bereft of property, impaired in purse, Sheer penury drove me into scribbling verse: But now, when times are altered, having got Enough, thank heaven, at least to boil my pot, I were the veriest madman if I chose To write a poem rather than to doze.

Our years keep taking toll as they move on; My feasts, my frolics are already gone, And now, it seems, my verses must go too: Bestead so sorely, what's a man to do? Aye, and besides, my friends who'd have me chant Are not agreed upon the thing they want: You like an ode; for epodes others cry, While some love satire spiced and seasoned high. Three guests, I find, for different dishes call, And how's one host to satisfy them all? I bring your neighbour what he asks, you glower: Obliging you, I turn two stomachs sour.

Think too of Rome: can I write verses here, Where there's so much to tease and interfere? One wants me for his surety; one, still worse, Bids me leave work to hear him just rehearse; One's ill on Aventine, the farthest end, One on Quirinal; both must see their friend. Observe the distance. "What of that?" you say, "The streets are clear; make verses by the way." There goes a builder's gang, all haste and steam; Yon crane lifts granite, or perhaps a beam; Waggons and funerals jostle; a mad dog Ran by just now; that splash was from a hog: Go now, abstract yourself from outward things, And "hearken what the inner spirit sings." Bards fly from town and haunt the wood and glade; Bacchus, their chief, likes sleeping in the shade; And how should I, with noises all about, Tread where they tread and make their footprints out? Take idle Athens now; a wit who's spent Seven years in studying there, on books intent, Turns out as stupid as a stone, and shakes The crowd with laughter at his odd mistakes: Here, in this roaring, tossing, weltering sea, To tune sweet lyrics, is that work for me?

Two brothers, counsellor and pleader, went Through life on terms of mutual compliment; That thought the other Gracchus, this supposed His brother Mucius; so they praised and prosed. Our tuneful race the selfsame madness goads: My friend writes elegies, and I write odes: O how we puff each other! "'Tis divine; The Muses had a hand in every line." Remark our swagger as we pass the dome Built to receive the future bards of Rome; Then follow us and listen what we say, How each by turns awards and takes the bay. Like Samnite fencers, with elaborate art We hit in tierce to be hit back in quart. I'm dubbed Alcaeus, and retire in force: And who is he? Callimachus of course: Or, if 'tis not enough, I bid him rise Mimnermus, and he swells to twice his size. Writing myself, I'm tortured to appease Those wasp-like creatures, our poetic bees: But when my pen's laid down, my sense restored, I rest from boring, rest from being bored.

Bad poets are our jest: yet they delight, Just like their betters, in whate'er they write, Hug their fool's paradise, and if you're slack To give them praise, themselves supply the lack. But he who meditates a work of art, Oft as he writes, will act the censor's part: Is there a word wants nobleness and grace, Devoid of weight, unworthy of high place? He bids it go, though stiffly it decline, And cling and cling, like suppliant to a shrine: Choice terms, long hidden from the general view, He brings to day and dignifies anew, Which, once on Cato's and Cethegus' lips, Now pale their light and suffer dim eclipse; New phrases, in the world of books unknown, So use but father them, he makes his own: Fluent and limpid, like a crystal stream, He makes Rome's soil with genial produce teem: He checks redundance, harshnesses improves By wise refinement, idle weeds removes; Like an accomplished dancer, he will seem By turns a Satyr and a Polypheme; Yet all the while 'twill be a game of skill, Where sport means toil, and muscle bends to will.

Yet, after all, I'd rather far be blind To my own faults, though patent to mankind, Nay, live in the belief that foul is fair, Than see and grin in impotent despair. There was an Argive nobleman, 'tis said, Who all day long had acting in his head: Great characters on shadowy boards appeared, While he looked on and listened, clapped and cheered: In all things else he fairly filled his post, Friendly as neighbour, amiable as host; Kind to his wife, indulgent to his slave, He'd find a bottle sweated and not rave; He'd scorn to run his head against a wall; Show him a pit, and he'd avoid the fall. At last, when quarts of hellebore drunk neat, Thanks to his kin, had wrought a cure complete, Brought to himself again, "Good friends," quoth he, "Call you this saving? why, 'tis murdering me; Your stupid zeal has spoilt my golden days, And robbed me of a most delicious craze."

Wise men betimes will bid adieu to toys, And give up idle games to idle boys; Not now to string the Latian lyre, but learn The harmony of life, is my concern. So, when I commune with myself, I state In words like these my side in the debate: "If no amount of water quenched your thirst, You'd tell the doctor, not go on and burst: Experience shows you, as your riches swell Your wants increase; have you no friend to tell? A healing simple for a wound you try; It does no good; you put the simple by: You're told that silly folk whom heaven may bless With ample means get rid of silliness; You test it, find 'tis not the case with you: Then why not change your Mentor for a new? Did riches make you wiser, set you free From idle fear, insane cupidity, You'd blush, and rightly too, if earth contained Another man more fond of what he gained. Now put the matter thus: whate'er is bought And duly paid for, is our own, we're taught: Consult a lawyer, and he'll soon produce A case where property accrues from use. The land by which you live is yours; most true, And Orbius' bailiff really works for you; He, while he ploughs the acres that afford Flour for your table, owns you for his lord; You pay your price, whate'er the man may ask, Get grapes and poultry, eggs and wine in cask; Thus, by degrees, proceeding at this rate, You purchase first and last the whole estate, Which, when it last was in the market, bore A good stiff price, two thousand say, or more. What matters it if, when you eat your snack, 'Twas paid for yesterday, or ten years back? There's yonder landlord, living like a prince On manors near Aricia, bought long since; He eats bought cabbage, though he knows it not; He burns bought sticks at night to boil his pot; Yet all the plain, he fancies, to the stone That stands beside the poplars, is his own. But who can talk of property in lands Exposed to ceaseless risk of changing hands, Whose owner purchase, favour, lawless power, And lastly death, may alter in an hour? So, with heirs following heirs like waves at sea, And no such thing as perpetuity, What good are farmsteads, granaries, pasture-grounds That stretch long leagues beyond Calabria's bounds, If Death, unbribed by riches, mows down all With his unsparing sickle, great and small?

"Gems, marbles, ivory, Tuscan statuettes, Pictures, gold plate, Gaetulian coverlets, There are who have not; one there is, I trow, Who cares not greatly if he has or no. This brother loves soft couches, perfumes, wine, More than the groves of palmy Palestine; That toils all day, ambitious to reclaim A rugged wilderness with axe and flame; And none but he who watches them from birth, The Genius, guardian of each child of earth, Born when we're born and dying when we die, Now storm, now sunshine, knows the reason why I will not hoard, but, though my heap be scant, Will take on each occasion what I want, Nor fear what my next heir may think, to find There's less than he expected left behind; While, ne'ertheless, I draw a line between Mirth and excess, the frugal and the mean. 'Tis not extravagance, but plain good sense, To cease from getting, grudge no fair expense, And, like a schoolboy out on holiday, Take pleasure as it comes, and snatch one's play.

"So 'twill not sink, what matter if my boat Be big or little? still I keep afloat, And voyage on contented, with the wind Not always contrary, nor always kind, In strength, wit, worth, rank, prestige, money-bags, Behind the first, yet not among the lags.

"You're not a miser: has all other vice Departed in the train of avarice, Or do ambitious longings, angry fret, The terror of the grave, torment you yet? Can you make sport of portents, gipsy crones, Hobgoblins, dreams, raw head and bloody bones? Do you count up your birthdays year by year, And thank the gods with gladness and blithe cheer, O'erlook the failings of your friends, and grow Gentler and better as your sand runs low? Where is the gain in pulling from the mind One thorn, if all the rest remain behind? If live you cannot as befits a man, Make room, at least, you may for those that can. You've frolicked, eaten, drunk to the content Of human appetite; 'tis time you went, Lest, when you've tippled freely, youth, that wears Its motley better, hustle you down stairs."



THE ART OF POETRY.

TO THE PISOS, FATHER AND SONS.

HUMANO CAPITI.

Suppose some painter, as a tour de force, Should couple head of man with neck of horse, Invest them both with feathers, 'stead of hair, And tack on limbs picked up from here and there, So that the figure, when complete, should show A maid above, a hideous fish below: Should you be favoured with a private view, You'd laugh, my friends, I know, and rightly too. Yet trust me, Pisos, not less strange would look, To a discerning eye, the foolish book Where dream-like forms in sick delirium blend, And nought is of a piece from end to end. "Poets and painters (sure you know the plea) Have always been allowed their fancy free." I own it; 'tis a fair excuse to plead; By turns we claim it, and by turns concede; But 'twill not screen the unnatural and absurd, Unions of lamb with tiger, snake with bird.

When poets would be lofty, they commence With some gay patch of cheap magnificence: Of Dian's altar and her grove we read, Or rapid streams meandering through the mead; Or grand descriptions of the river Rhine, Or watery bow, will take up many a line. All in their way good things, but not just now: You're happy at a cypress, we'll allow; But what of that? you're painting by command A shipwrecked sailor, striking out for land: That crockery was a jar when you began; It ends a pitcher: you an artist, man! Make what you will, in short, so, when 'tis done, 'Tis but consistent, homogeneous, one.

Ye worthy trio! we poor sons of song Oft find 'tis fancied right that leads us wrong. I prove obscure in trying to be terse; Attempts at ease emasculate my verse; Who aims at grandeur into bombast falls; Who fears to stretch his pinions creeps and crawls; Who hopes by strange variety to please Puts dolphins among forests, boars in seas. Thus zeal to 'scape from error, if unchecked By sense of art, creates a new defect. Fix on some casual sculptor; he shall know How to give nails their sharpness, hair its flow; Yet he shall fail, because he lacks the soul To comprehend and reproduce the whole. I'd not be he; the blackest hair and eye Lose all their beauty with the nose awry.

Good authors, take a brother bard's advice: Ponder your subject o'er not once nor twice, And oft and oft consider, if the weight You hope to lift be or be not too great. Let but our theme be equal to our powers, Choice language, clear arrangement, both are ours. Would you be told how best your pearls to thread? Why, say just now what should just now be said, But put off other matter for to-day, To introduce it later by the way.

In words again be cautious and select, And duly pick out this, and that reject. High praise and honour to the bard is due Whose dexterous setting makes an old word new. Nay more, should some recondite subject need Fresh signs to make it clear to those who read, A power of issuing terms till now unused, If claimed with modesty, is ne'er refused. New words will find acceptance, if they flow Forth from the Greek, with just a twist or so. But why should Rome capriciously forbid Our bards from doing what their fathers did? Or why should Plautus and Caecilius gain What Virgil or what Varius asks in vain? Nay, I myself, if with my scanty wit I coin a word or two, why grudge me it, When Ennius and old Cato boldly flung Their terms broadcast, and amplified our tongue? To utter words stamped current by the mill Has always been thought right and always will.

When forests shed their foliage at the fall, The earliest born still drops the first of all: So fades the elder race of words, and so The younger generations bloom and grow. Death claims humanity and human things, Aye, e'en "imperial works and worthy kings:" What though the ocean, girdled by the shore, Gives shelter to the ships it tossed before? What though the marsh, once waste and watery, now Feeds neighbour towns, and groans beneath the plough? What though the river, late the corn-field's dread, Rolls fruit and blessing down its altered bed? Man's works must perish: how should words evade The general doom, and flourish undecayed? Yes, words long faded may again revive, And words may fade now blooming and alive, If usage wills it so, to whom belongs The rule, the law, the government of tongues.

For metres, Homer shows you how to write Heroic deeds and incidents of fight.

Complaint was once the Elegiac's theme; From thence 'twas used to sing of love's young dream: But who that dainty measure first put out, Grammarians differ, and 'tis still in doubt.

Archilochus, inspired by fiery rage, Called forth Iambics: now they tread the stage In buskin or in sock, conduct discourse, Lead action on, and awe the mob perforce.

The glorious gods, the gods' heroic seed, The conquering boxer, the victorious steed, The joys of wine, the lover's fond desire, Such themes the Muse appropriates to the lyre.

Why hail me poet, if I fail to seize The shades of style, its fixed proprieties? Why should false shame compel me to endure An ignorance which common pains would cure?

A comic subject steadily declines To be related in high tragic lines. The Thyestean feast no less disdains The vulgar vehicle of comic strains. Each has its place allotted; each is bound To keep it, nor invade its neighbour's ground. Yet Comedy sometimes will raise her note: See Chremes, how he swells his angry throat! And when a tragic hero tells his woes, The terms he chooses are akin to prose. Peleus or Telephus, suppose him poor Or driven to exile, talks in tropes no more; His yard-long words desert him, when he tries To draw forth tears from sympathetic eyes.

Mere grace is not enough: a play should thrill The hearer's soul, and move it at its will. Smiles are contagious; so are tears; to see Another sobbing, brings a sob from me. No, no, good Peleus; set the example, pray, And weep yourself; then weep perhaps I may: But if no sorrow in your speech appear, I nod or laugh; I cannot squeeze a tear. Words follow looks: wry faces are expressed By wailing, scowls by bluster, smiles by jest, Grave airs by saws, and so of all the rest. For nature forms our spirits to receive Each bent that outward circumstance can give: She kindles pleasure, bids resentment glow, Or bows the soul to earth in hopeless woe; Then, as the tide of feeling waxes strong, She vents it through her conduit-pipe, the tongue.

Unless the speaker's words and fortune suit, All Rome will join to jeer him, horse and foot. Gods should not talk like heroes, nor again Impetuous youth like grave and reverend men; Lady and nurse a different language crave, Sons of the soil and rovers o'er the wave; Assyrian, Colchian, Theban, Argive, each Has his own style, his proper cast of speech.

In painting characters, adhere to fame, Or study keeping in the type you frame: If great Achilles figure in the scene, Make him impatient, fiery, ruthless, keen; All laws, all covenants let him still disown, And test his quarrel by the sword alone. Still be Medea all revenge and scorn, Ino still sad, Ixion still forsworn, Io a wanderer still, Orestes still forlorn.

If you would be original, and seek To frame some character ne'er seen in Greek, See it be wrought on one consistent plan, And end the same creation it began. 'Tis hard, I grant, to treat a subject known And hackneyed so that it may look one's own; Far better turn the Iliad to a play And carve out acts and scenes the readiest way, Than alter facts and characters, and tell In a strange form the tale men know so well. But, with some few precautions, you may set Your private mark on public chattels yet: Avoid careering and careering still In the old round, like carthorse in a mill; Nor, bound too closely to the Grecian Muse, Translate the words whose soul you should transfuse, Nor act the copyist's part, and work in chains Which, once put on by rashness, shame retains.

Don't open like the cyclic, with a burst: "Troy's war and Priam's fate are here rehearsed." What's coming, pray, that thus he winds his horn? The mountain labours, and a mouse is born. Far better he who enters at his ease, Nor takes your breath with empty nourishes: "Sing, Muse, the man who, after Troy was burned, Saw divers cities, and their manners learned." Not smoke from fire his object is to bring, But fire from smoke, a very different thing; Yet has he dazzling miracles in store, Cyclops, and Laestrygons, and fifty more. He sings not, he, of Diomed's return, Starting from Meleager's funeral urn, Nor when he tells the Trojan story, begs Attention first for Leda and her eggs. He hurries to the crisis, lets you fall Where facts crowd thick, as though you knew them all, And what he judges will not turn to gold Beneath his touch, he passes by untold. And all this glamour, all this glorious dream, Truth blent with fiction in one motley scheme, He so contrives, that, when 'tis o'er, you see Beginning, middle, end alike agree.

Now listen, dramatists, and I will tell What I expect, and all the world as well. If you would have your auditors to stay Till curtain-rise and plaudit end the play, Observe each age's temper, and impart To each the grace and finish of your art.

Note first the boy who just knows how to talk And feels his feet beneath him in his walk: He likes his young companions, loves a game, Soon vexed, soon soothed, and not two hours the same.

The beardless youth, at last from tutor freed, Loves playing-field and tennis, dog and steed: Pliant as wax to those who lead him wrong, But all impatience with a faithful tongue; Imprudent, lavish, hankering for the moon, He takes things up and lays them down as soon.

His nature revolutionized, the man Makes friends and money when and how he can: Keen-eyed and cool, though on ambition bent, He shuns all acts of which he may repent.

Grey hairs have many evils: without end The old man gathers what he dares not spend, While, as for action, do he what he will, 'Tis all half-hearted, spiritless, and chill: Inert, irresolute, his neck he cranes Into the future, grumbles, and complains, Extols his own young years with peevish praise, But rates and censures these degenerate days.

Years, as they come, bring blessings in their train; Years, as they go, take blessings back again: Yet haste or chance may blink the obvious truth, Make youth discourse like age, and age like youth: Attention fixed on life alone can teach The traits and adjuncts which pertain to each.

Sometimes an action on the stage is shown, Sometimes 'tis done elsewhere, and there made known. A thing when heard, remember, strikes less keen On the spectator's mind than when 'tis seen. Yet 'twere not well in public to display A business best transacted far away, And much may be secluded from the eye For well-graced tongues to tell of by and by. Medea must not shed her children's blood, Nor savage Atreus cook man's flesh for food, Nor Philomel turn bird or Cadmus snake, With people looking on and wide awake. If scenes like these before my eyes be thrust, They shock belief and generate disgust.

Would you your play should prosper and endure? Then let it have five acts, nor more nor fewer. Bring in no god save as a last resource, Nor make four speakers join in the discourse.

An actor's part the chorus should sustain And do their best to get the plot in train: And whatsoe'er between the acts they chant Should all be apt, appropriate, relevant. Still let them give sage counsel, back the good, Attemper wrath, and cool impetuous blood, Praise the spare meal that pleases but not sates, Justice, and law, and peace with unbarred gates, Conceal all secrets, and the gods implore To crush the proud and elevate the poor.

Not trumpet-tongued, as now, nor brass-belayed, The flute was used to lend the chorus aid: Simple and slight and moderately loud, It charmed the ears of not too large a crowd, Which, frugal, rustic, primitive, severe, Flocked in those early days to see and hear.

Then, when the city gained increase of land, And wider walls its waxing greatness spanned, When the good Genius, frolicsome and gay, Was soothed at festivals with cups by day, Change spread to scenic measures: breadth, and ease, And freedom unrestrained were found in these: For what (said men) should jovial rustic, placed At random 'mid his betters, know of taste?

So graceful dance went hand in hand with song, And robes of kingly splendour trailed along: So by the side of music words upgrew, And eloquence came rolling, prompt and new: Shrewd in things mundane, wise in things divine, Its voice was like the voice of Delphi's shrine.

The aspiring bard who served the tragic muse, A paltry goat the summit of his views, Soon brought in Satyrs from the woods, and tried If grave and gay could nourish side by side, That the spectator, feasted to his fill, Noisy and drunk, might ne'ertheless sit still.

Yet, though loud laugh and frolic jest commend Your Satyr folk, and mirth and morals blend, Let not your heroes doff their robes of red To talk low language in a homely shed, Nor, in their fear of crawling, mount too high, Catching at clouds and aiming at the sky. Melpomene, when bidden to be gay, Like matron dancing on a festal day, Deals not in idle banter, nor consorts Without reserve with Satyrs and their sports.

In plays like these I would not deal alone In words and phrases trite and too well known, Nor, stooping from the tragic height, drop down To the low level of buffoon and clown, As though pert Davus, or the saucy jade Who sacks the gold and jeers the gull she made, Were like Silenus, who, though quaint and odd, Is yet the guide and tutor of a god. A hackneyed subject I would take and treat So deftly, all should hope to do the feat, Then, having strained and struggled, should concede To do the feat were difficult indeed. So much may order and arrangement do To make the cheap seem choice, the threadbare new.

Your rustic Fauns, methinks, should have a care Lest people deem them bred in city air; Should shun the cant of exquisites, and shun Coarse ribaldry no less and blackguard fun. For those who have a father or a horse Or an estate will take offence of course, Nor think they're bound in duty to admire What gratifies the vetch-and-chestnut-buyer

The Iambic foot is briefly thus defined: Two syllables, a short with long behind: Repeat it six times o'er, so quick its beat, 'Tis trimeter, three measures for six feet: At first it ran straight on; but, years ago, Its hearers begged that it would move more slow; On which it took, with a good-natured air, Stout spondees in, its native rights to share, Yet so that none should ask it to resign The sixth, fourth, second places in the line. But search through Attius' trimeters, or those Which Ennius took such pleasure to compose, You'll rarely find it: on the boards they groan, Laden with spondees, like a cart with stone, And brand our tragedy with want of skill Or want of labour, call it which you will. What then? false rhythm few judges can detect, And Roman bards of course are all correct.

What shall a poet do? make rules his sport, And dash through thick and thin, through long and short? Or pick his steps, endeavour to walk clean, And fancy every mud-stain will be seen? What good were that, if though I mind my ways And shun all blame, I do not merit praise? My friends, make Greece your model when you write, And turn her volumes over day and night.

"But Plautus pleased our sires, the good old folks; They praised his numbers, and they praised his jokes." They did: 'twas mighty tolerant in them To praise where wisdom would perhaps condemn; That is, if you and I and our compeers Can trust our tastes, our fingers, and our ears, Know polished wit from horse-play, and can tell What verses do, and what do not, run well.

Thespis began the drama: rumour says In travelling carts he carried round his plays, Where actors, smeared with lees, before the throng Performed their parts with gesture and with song. Then AEschylus brought in the mask and pall, Put buskins on his men to make them tall, Turned boards into a platform, not too great, And taught high monologue and grand debate. The elder Comedy had next its turn, Nor small the glory it contrived to earn: But freedom passed into unbridled spite, And law was soon invoked to set things right: Law spoke: the chorus lost the power to sting, And (shame to say) thenceforth refused to sing.

Our poets have tried all things; nor do they Deserve least praise, who follow their own way, And tell in comedy or history-piece Some story of home growth, not drawn from Greece. Nor would the land we love be now more strong In warrior's prowess than in poet's song, Did not her bards with one consent decline The tedious task, to alter and refine. Dear Pisos! as you prize old Numa's blood, Set down that work, and that alone, as good, Which, blurred and blotted, checked and counter- checked, Has stood all tests, and issued forth correct.

Because Democritus thinks fit to say, That wretched art to genius must give way, Stands at the gate of Helicon, and guards Its precinct against all but crazy bards, Our witlings keep long nails and untrimmed hair, Much in brown studies, in the bath-room rare. For things are come to this; the merest dunce, So but he choose, may start up bard at once, Whose head, too hot for hellebore to cool, Was ne'er submitted to a barber's tool. What ails me now, to dose myself each spring? Else had I been a very swan to sing. Well, never mind: mine be the whetstone's lot, Which makes steel sharp, though cut itself will not. Although no writer, I may yet impart To writing folk the precepts of their art, Whence come its stores, what trains and forms a bard, And how a work is made, and how 'tis marred.

Of writing well, be sure, the secret lies In wisdom: therefore study to be wise. The page of Plato may suggest the thought, Which found, the words will come as soon as sought. The man who once has learned to comprehend His duty to his country and his friend, The love that parent, brother, guest may claim. The judge's, senator's, or general's aim, That man, when need occurs, will soon invent For every part its proper sentiment. Look too to life and manners, as they lie Before you: these will living words supply. A play, devoid of beauty, strength, and art, So but the thoughts and morals suit each part, Will catch men's minds and rivet them when caught More than the clink of verses without thought.

To Greece, fair Greece, ambitious but of praise, The Muse gave ready wit, and rounded phrase. Our Roman boys, by puzzling days and nights, Bring down a shilling to a hundred mites. Come, young Albinus, tell us, if you take A penny from a sixpence, what 'twill make. Fivepence. Good boy! you'll come to wealth one day. Now add a penny. Sevenpence, he will say. O, when this cankering rust, this greed of gain, Has touched the soul and wrought into its grain, What hope that poets will produce such lines As cedar-oil embalms and cypress shrines?

A bard will wish to profit or to please, Or, as a tertium quid, do both of these. Whene'er you lecture, be concise: the soul Takes in short maxims, and retains them whole: But pour in water when the vessel's filled, It simply dribbles over and is spilled.

Keep near to truth in a fictitious piece, Nor treat belief as matter of caprice. If on a child you make a vampire sup, It must not be alive when she's ripped up. Dry seniors scout an uninstructive strain; Young lordlings treat grave verse with tall disdain: But he who, mixing grave and gay, can teach And yet give pleasure, gains a vote from each: His works enrich the vendor, cross the sea, And hand the author down to late posterity.

Some faults may claim forgiveness: for the lyre Not always gives the note that we desire; We ask a flat; a sharp is its reply; And the best bow will sometimes shoot awry. But when I meet with beauties thickly sown, A blot or two I readily condone, Such as may trickle from a careless pen, Or pass unwatched: for authors are but men. What then? the copyist who keeps stumbling still At the same word had best lay down his quill: The harp-player, who for ever wounds the ear With the same discord, makes the audience jeer: So the poor dolt who's often in the wrong I rank with Choerilus, that dunce of song, Who, should he ever "deviate into sense," Moves but fresh laughter at his own expense: While e'en good Homer may deserve a tap, If, as he does, he drop his head and nap. Yet, when a work is long, 'twere somewhat hard To blame a drowsy moment in a bard.

Some poems, like some paintings, take the eye Best at a distance, some when looked at nigh. One loves the shade; one would be seen in light, And boldly challenges the keenest sight: One pleases straightway; one, when it has passed Ten times before the mind, will please at last.

Hope of the Pisos! trained by such a sire, And wise yourself, small schooling you require; Yet take this lesson home; some things admit A moderate point of merit, e'en in wit. There's yonder counsellor; he cannot reach Messala's stately altitudes of speech, He cannot plumb Cascellius' depth of lore, Yet he's employed, and makes a decent score: But gods, and men, and booksellers agree To place their ban on middling poetry. At a great feast an ill-toned instrument, A sour conserve, or an unfragrant scent Offends the taste: 'tis reason that it should; We do without such things, or have them good: Just so with verse; you seek but to delight; If by an inch you fail, you fail outright.

He who knows nought of games abstains from all, Nor tries his hand at quoit, or hoop, or ball, Lest the thronged circle, witnessing the play, Should laugh outright, with none to say them nay: He who knows nought of verses needs must try To write them ne'ertheless. "Why not?" men cry: "Free, gently born, unblemished and correct, His means a knight's, what more can folks expect?" But you, my friend, at least have sense and grace; You will not fly in queen Minerva's face In action or in word. Suppose some day You should take courage and compose a lay, Entrust it first to Maecius' critic ears, Your sire's and mine, and keep it back nine years. What's kept at home you cancel by a stroke: What's sent abroad you never can revoke.

Orpheus, the priest and harper, pure and good, Weaned savage tribes from deeds and feasts of blood, Whence he was said to tame the monsters of the wood. Amphion too, men said, at his desire Moved massy stones, obedient to the lyre, And Thebes arose. 'Twas wisdom's province then To judge 'twixt states and subjects, gods and men, Check vagrant lust, give rules to wedded folk, Build cities up, and grave a code in oak. So came great honour and abundant praise, As to the gods, to poets and their lays. Then Homer and Tyrtaeus, armed with song, Made manly spirits for the combat strong: Verse taught life's duties, showed the future clear, And won a monarch's favour through his ear: Verse gave relief from labour, and supplied Light mirth for holiday and festal tide. Then blush not for the lyre: Apollo sings In unison with her who sweeps its strings.

But here occurs a question some men start, If good verse comes from nature or from art. For me, I cannot see how native wit Can e'er dispense with art, or art with it. Set them to pull together, they're agreed, And each supplies what each is found to need.

The youth who suns for prizes wisely trains, Bears cold and heat, is patient and abstains: The flute-player at a festival, before He plays in public, has to learn his lore. Not so our bardlings: they come bouncing in— "I'm your true poet: let them laugh that win: Plague take the last! although I ne'er was taught, Is that a cause for owning I know nought?"

As puffing auctioneers collect a throng, Rich poets bribe false friends to hear their song: Who can resist the lord of so much rent, Of so much money at so much per cent.? Is there a wight can give a grand regale, Act as a poor man's counsel or his bail? Blest though he be, his wealth will cloud his view, Nor suffer him to know false friends from true. Don't ask a man whose feelings overflow For kindness that you've shown or mean to show To listen to your verse: each line you read, He'll cry, "Good! bravo! exquisite indeed!" He'll change his colour, let his eyes run o'er With tears of joy, dance, beat upon the floor. Hired mourners at a funeral say and do A little more than they whose grief is true: 'Tis just so here: false flattery displays More show of sympathy than honest praise. 'Tis said when kings a would-be friend will try, With wine they rack him and with bumpers ply: If you write poems, look beyond the skin Of the smooth fox, and search the heart within.

Read verses to Quintilius, he would say, "I don't like this and that: improve it, pray:" Tell him you found it hopeless to correct; You'd tried it twice or thrice without effect: He'd calmly bid you make the three times four, And take the unlicked cub in hand once more. But if you chose to vindicate the crime, Not mend it, he would waste no further time, But let you live, untroubled by advice, Sole tenant of your own fool's paradise.

A wise and faithful counsellor will blame Weak verses, note the rough, condemn the lame, Retrench luxuriance, make obscureness plain, Cross-question this, bid that be writ again: A second Aristarch, he will not ask, "Why for such trifles take my friend to task?" Such trifles bring to serious grief ere long A hapless bard, once flattered and led wrong.

See the mad poet! never wight, though sick Of itch or jaundice, moon-struck, fanatic, Was half so dangerous: men whose mind is sound Avoid him; fools pursue him, children hound. Suppose, while spluttering verses, head on high, Like fowler watching blackbirds in the sky, He falls into a pit; though loud he shout "Help, neighbours, help!" let no man pull him out: Should some one seem disposed a rope to fling, I will strike in with, "Pray do no such thing: I'll warrant you he meant it," and relate His brother bard Empedocles's fate, Who, wishing to be thought a god, poor fool, Leapt down hot AEtna's crater, calm and cool. "Leave poets free to perish as they will: Save them by violence, you as good as kill. 'Tis not his first attempt: if saved to-day, He's sure to die in some outrageous way. Beside, none knows the reason why this curse Was sent on him, this love of making verse, By what offence heaven's anger he incurred, A grave denied, a sacred boundary stirred: So much is plain, he's mad: like bear that beats His prison down and ranges through the streets, This terrible reciter puts to flight The learned and unlearned left and right: Let him catch one, he keeps him till he kills, As leeches stick till they have sucked their fills."



NOTES.

PAGE 6.

Enough: you'll think I've rifled the scrutore Of blind Crispinus, if I prose on more.

Howes has a very similar couplet:—

But hold! you'll think I've pillaged the scrutore Of blear Crispinus: not one word then more!

I believe it however to be a mere coincidence on my part. The word "scrutore" is an uncommon one; but it was the recollection of an altogether different passage which suggested it to me here. At any rate, Howes is not the first who has used it in translating the present lines.

Now 'tis enough: lest you should think I've dipt in blear-eyed Crispin's ink, And stolen my work from his scrutore, I will not add a sentence more.

SMART.

PAGE 9.

Gives Varus' name to knock-kneed boys, and dubs His club-foot youngster Scaurus, king of clubs.

This is, of course, in no sense a translation: it is simply an attempt (a desperate one, I fear) to give point to a sentence which otherwise to an English reader would have no point at all.

PAGE 13.

Heal to your majesty! yet, ne'ertheless, Rude boys are pulling at your beard, I guess.

Those commentators are clearly right who understand "vellunt," not of what the boys are apt to do, but of what they are actually doing, while the Stoic is talking and making himself out to be a king.

PAGE 17.

Say, you're first cousin to that goodly pair, Caelius and Birrius, and their foibles share.

Caelius and Birrius were a couple of robbers, a fact distinctly mentioned in the Latin, and, I hope, capable of being inferred from the context of the English.

PAGE 35.

After life's endless babble they sleep well.

I need hardly refer to the well-known line in Macbeth.

PAGE 44.

Cassius the rake, and Maenius the buffoon.

This is nearly identical with a line in Howes, of which it may very possibly be an unconscious remembrance. Here and in other places I have called Nomentanus, metri gratia, by his family name Cassius, though it is nowhere, I believe, applied to him by Horace. Pantolabus is supposed to be the same as Maenius, whom Horace mentions elsewhere, and I have been only too glad to take the supposition for granted. Generally, where a Horatian personage is known to have had two names, I have used that one which the exigences of the verse recommended.

PAGE 61.

O heaven-abandoned wretch! is all this care. O inconsistent wretch! is all this coil. GIFFORD'S Juvenal, Sat. xiv.

PAGE 94.

And each man's lips are at his neighbour's ear.

Perhaps a recollection of Pope's line (Satires of Dr. Donne), "When half his nose is in his prince's ear."

PAGE 98.

Of studying truths that rick and poor concern, Which young and old are lost unless they learn.

This may seem borrowed from Cowper's "Tirocinium," —truths on which depend our main concern, That 'tis our shame and misery not to learn; but I believe the resemblance to be purely accidental. It may serve however to show that the more serious passages in Horace, as well as the lighter ones, are not unlike Cowper.

PAGE 103.

That makes Atrides and Achilles foes.

Almost verbatim from a line in Pope's "Odyssey," which is itself probably from one in Maynwaring's First Book of the "Iliad."

PAGE 110.

Not to admire, Numicius, is the best, The only way, to make and keep men blest.

Slightly altered from the later editions of Francis: Not to admire is of all means the best, The only means, to make and keep us blest. Ten lines lower down I have a couplet nearly coincident with one in Howes, but not intentionally so.

PAGE 124.

But what are Rhodes and Lesbos, and the rest.

This and the nine following lines are a considerable expansion of the Latin: but I was apprehensive of not bringing out the connexion, if I translated more closely.

PAGE 126.

Empedocles or the Stertinian school.

As Horace has chosen to take Stertinius here as a type of the Stoics, I thought I might avail myself of a similar licence, and call the Stoics as a school by his name.

PAGE 129.

The ox, unyoked and resting from the plough, Wants fodder, stripped from elm or poplar bough.

Horace merely has "strictis frondibus:" but the writers De Re Rustica, quoted by the commentators, tell us what the leaves in use were.

PAGE 131.

When Maenius, after nobly gobbling down His fortune, took to living on the town.

"Took to living on the town" is not meant as a version of "urbanus coepit haberi," but rather as an equivalent suggested by the context.

PAGE 134.

Each law, each right, each statute and each act.

Horace's object is evidently to give an exhaustive notion of the various parts of the law: and I have tried to produce the same impression by accumulating terms, without caring how far they can severally be discriminated.

PAGE 135.

I've shed no blood. You shall not feed the crow.

I'll have thee hanged to feed the crow. SCOTT, Lay of the Last Minstrel.

PAGE 136.

The wise and good, like Bacchus in the play.

Borrowed from Francis, with a slight change in the order of the words.

PAGE 140.

In sing-song drawl, or Gnatho in the play.

"Partes mimum tractare secundas" seems to mean "to act the stage parasite," who, according to Festus, wag the second character in almost every mime. I thought therefore that I might substitute for the general description the name of a particular parasite in Roman comedy.

PAGE 144.

Let temperate folk write verses in the hall Where bonds change hands.

Strictly speaking, there does not seem to have been a hall of exchange at the Puteal, which was apparently open to the sky: but the inaccuracy is not a serious one.

PAGE 151.

While all forlorn the baffled critic stands, Fumbling a naked stump between his hands.

I had originally written

By the old puzzle of the dwindling mound Bringing at last the critic to the ground,

which of course represents the Latin better: but it occurred to me that the allusion to the sophism of the heap, following immediately on the similar figure of the horse's tail, could only embarrass an English reader, and would therefore be out of place in a passage intended to be idiomatic. Howes has got over the difficulty neatly:—

Till my opponent, by fair logic beat, Shall find the ground sink fast beneath his feet.

PAGE 151.

Enjoys his ease, nor cares how he redeems The gorgeous promise of his peacock dreams.

I suppose the meaning to be this: Ennius, as appears from his own remains and the notices of him in other writers, began his Annals with a dream in which the spirit of Homer appeared to him, and told him that, after passing through various other bodies, including those of Pythagoras and a peacock, it was now animating that of the Roman poet himself. How this was connected with the subject of the Annals we do not know; probably not very artificially: Horace, as I understand him, means to ridicule this want of connexion, while he says that the critics are so indiscriminate in their praises that Ennius may well repose on his laurels, and not trouble himself as to whether there is any real connexion or no.

PAGE 152.

Just as an unfair sample, set to catch The heedless customer, mil sell the batch.

I believe I have given the exact force of the original, though the metaphor there is from a gang of slaves, where the best-looking is placed in front to carry off the rest. This interpretation, which the phrase "ducere familiam" seems to place beyond doubt, is as old as Torrentius: but the commentators in general reject or ignore it.

PAGE 157.

For, so he fills his pockets, nought he heeds Whether the play's a failure or succeeds.

Modern readers may wonder how the poet comes to fill his pockets if the play does not succeed. The answer is that he sold his play to the aediles before its performance. For the benefit of the same persons it may be mentioned, with reference to a passage a few lines lower down, that in a Roman theatre the curtain was kept down during the representation, raised when the play was over.

PAGE 166.

New phrases, in the world of books unknown, So use but father them, he makes his own.

I understand "quae genitor produxerit usus" not, with Orelli, "which shall be adopted into use at once, so that people shall fancy that they have been in use long before," but, with Ritter, "which shall have been already sanctioned by usage," the distinction being between words not only in common use but used in literature, and words in use, but not yet adopted into literature, and so relatively "nova." "Father" of course I use less strictly than Pope uses it in his well-known imitation of the passage, "For use will father what's begot by sense."

PAGE 172.

Attempts at ease emasculate my verse.

I find Dean Bagot has a line, "A want of nerve effeminates my speech."

PAGE 173.

In words again be cautious and select, And duly pick out this, and that reject.

I have adopted Bentley's transposition, simply because it happened to be convenient in translating.

PAGE 177.

Than alter facts and characters, and tell In a strange form the tale men know so well.

Many years ago I proposed this solution of a passage of admitted difficulty in the Classical Museum. I take "Difficile est proprie communia dicere" in its ordinary sense, "It is hard to treat hackneyed subjects with originality." Horace then goes on to say that it is better to give up the attempt altogether and simply copy (say) Homer, than to run the risk of outraging popular feeling by a new treatment of (say) the Trojan story, or a new view of the chief characters: but that if a writer still wishes to make the attempt, he may succeed by attending to certain rules, "si nec circa vilem," &c. &c. Thus I make "publica materies" identical with "communia," and "privati juris" with "proprie," contrary to Orelli's opinion.

PAGE 179.

Yet haste and chance may blink the obvious truth.

I am not sure whether this was the connecting link in Horace's mind; but I felt that the absence of any link would make the transition between the two sentences intolerably abrupt in English, and go I supplied a link as I best could. Macleane seems right in remarking that the remark "multa ferunt" &c. seems to be drawn forth by the dark picture of old age contained in the preceding verses, and has not much otherwise to do with the subject. Horace doubtless felt that he was passing middle life himself.

PAGE 182.

Yet so that none should ask it to resign The sixth, fourth, second places in the line.

Horace does not mention the sixth place: I have introduced it for the benefit of persons who, as actually happened to me when very young, may attempt to write Iambic trimeters with no guide but this passage, and may be in consequence in danger of making them scazons, as I actually did.

PAGE 188.

Entrust it first to Maecius' critic ears, Your sire's, and mine, and keep it back nine years.

Almost a verbal coincidence with Howes, but a coincidence only.

PAGE 189.

Then blush not for the lyre: Apollo sings In unison with her who sweeps its strings.

It is difficult to say whether the paragraph of which these lines are the conclusion is a sketch of the history of poetry in general or of lyric poetry in particular. The former would be rather inartistic after the other historical notices of poetry that have occurred in the poem: the latter is not easily reconciled with the mention of Homer. On the other hand, Horace's inexactness elsewhere makes either supposition quite possible. I have translated so as to leave the ground open to either.

PAGE 191.

A second Aristarch.

Before them marched that awful Aristarch. POPE, Dunciad, Book iv.

PAGE 191.

Leave poets free to perish as they will.

Following Mr. Howes and probably others who have written on the Ars Poetica, though apparently not the latest editors, I regard all the words from "Deus immortalis haberi" to the end as part of Horace's speech to the man who thinks of rescuing the mad poet. Much of the humour of what follows, e. g. "Nec semel hoc fecit," "Nec satis apparet," &c. would, it seems to me, be lost on any other supposition.