Studies in the Poetry of Italy, Part I. Roman

by Frank Justus Miller

Horace well sustains the character of preacher whose function it has already been said that satire performs. He found in his world the same frail human nature which had aroused the righteous scorn of Lucilius, and had led him to those bitter attacks upon the follies of his time for which his satire was justly dreaded. But Horace is cast in a different mold from Lucilius. While he sees just as clearly the shortcomings of society, he has a realizing sense that he himself is a part of that same society, guilty of the same sins, subject to the same criticism.

This consciousness of common frailty leads to moderation on the part of the preacher. He manifests a kindly sense of human brotherhood for better or for worse, which forms one of his most charming characteristics, and differentiates him from his great predecessor as well as from those who followed in the field of satire. It is true that Horace is sufficiently strenuous and severe in his polemics against the prevalent frailties of society as he saw them; but he has a habit of taking his hearers into his confidence at the end of his lecture, and reassuring them by some whimsical jest or the information that the sermon was meant as much for himself as for them. He had no idea of reforming society from the outside as from a separate world; but he proceeded upon the principle that, as real reformation and progress must be the result of reformed internal conditions, so the reformer himself must be a sympathetic part of his world.

It was in a homely and wholesome school that our poet learned his moral philosophy. In a glowing tribute of filial affection for his father, he tells us how that worthy man, who was himself only a freedman—a humble collector of debts by trade, or possibly a fishmonger, away down in his provincial home in Apulia—decided that his son should have a better chance in life than had fallen to his own lot. The local school in the boy's native village of Venusia, where the big-boned sons of retired centurions gained their meager education, was not good enough for our young man. He must to Rome and afterward to Athens, and have all the chances which were open to the sons of the noblest families of the land. And so we have the pleasing picture of the sensible old father, not sending but taking his boy to Rome, where he was the young student's constant companion, his "guide, philosopher, and friend," attending him in all his ways, both in school and out.

Horace tells us how this practical old father taught him to avoid the vices of the day. No fine-spun, theoretical philosophy for him; but practical illustration drove every lesson home. The poet dwells with pleasure upon this element in his education.

That Horace was a worthy son of a worthy father is proved in many ways, but in none more clearly than when, in after years, as a welcome member of the most exclusive social set in Rome, he affectionately recalls his father's training, and tells his high-born friends that, if he had the chance to choose his ancestry, he would not change one circumstance of his birth.

The practice of personal observations of the life around him, which he learned from his father, the poet carried with him through life, and is the explanation of the intensely practical and realistic character of his satire. See him as he comes home at night and sits alone recalling the varied happenings of the day. These are some of the thoughts, as he himself tells us, which come to him at such times, and find half-unconscious audible expression:

Now that's the better course.—I should live better if I acted along that line.—So-and-so didn't do the right thing that time.—I wonder if I shall ever be foolish enough to do the like.

It is after such meditations as these that he takes up his tablets and outlines his satires. We are reminded in this of the practice of the great Cæsar, who is said to have recalled, as he rested in his tent at night, the stirring events of each day, and to have noted these for his history.

This method of composition from practical observation explains many peculiarities of the style of Horace's satires. They are absolutely unpretentious, prevailingly conversational in tone, abounding in homely similes and colloquialisms, pithy anecdotes, familiar proverbs, and references to current people and events which make up the popular gossip of the day. He also has an embarrassing habit of suddenly turning his "thou-art-the-man" search-light upon us just when we are most enjoying his castigation of our neighbors. He employs burlesque and irony also among his assortment of satiric weapons. He is, above all, personal, rarely allowing the discourse to stray from the personality of himself and his audience.

The following outline of one of his "sermons" will afford a good illustration of his style and method of handling a discourse. Its subject is the sin and folly of discontent and greed for gain, a sin which he frequently denounces, not alone in his satires, but in his odes as well. This satire is addressed by way of compliment to his patron Mæcenas, and is placed at the beginning of his two books of satires.