The Horatian thought, “Time flies irrevocable.” so well depicted by Otho Vænius in his Emblemata (edition 1612, p. 206), has only general parallels in Shakespeare; and yet it is a thought with which our various dissertations on Shakespeare and the Emblematists may find no unfitting end. The Christian artist far excels the Heathen poet. Horace, in his Odes (bk. iv. carmen 7), declares,—
“Immortalia ne speres, monet annus & almum
Quæ rapit hora diem:
Frigora mitescunt Zephyris: Ver proterit Æstas
Interitura, simul
Pomifer Autumnus fruges effuderit: & mox
Bruma recurrit iners.”
i.e. “Not to hope immortal things, the year admonishes, and the hour
which steals the genial day. By western winds the frosts grow mild; the
summer soon to perish supplants the spring, then fruitful autumn pours forth