Laws were originally written in verse, and graved on wood. The Roman laws were engraved on copper. DACIER.
595.—TYRTAEUS.] An ancient Poet, who is said to have been given to the Spartans as a General by the Oracle, and to have animated the Troops by his Verses to such a degree, as to be the means of their triumph over the Messenians, after two defeats: to which Roscommon alludes in his Essay on translated Verse.
When by impulse from Heav'n, Tyrtaeus sung,
In drooping soldiers a new courage sprung;
Reviving Sparta now the fight maintain'd,
And what two Gen'rals lost, a Poet gain'd.
Some fragments of his works are still extant. They are written in the Elegiac measure; yet the sense is not, as in other Poets, always bound in by the Couplet; but often breaks out into the succeeding verse: a practice, that certainly gives variety and animation to the measure; and which has been successfully imitated in the rhime of our own language by Dryden, and other good writers.
604.—_Deem then with rev'rence, &c]
Ne forte pudori Sit tibi MUSA, Lyrae solers, & Cantor Apollo.
The author of the English Commentary agrees, that this noble encomium on Poetry is addressed to the Pisos. All other Commentators apply it, as surely the text warrants, to the ELDER PISO. In a long controversial note on this passage, the learned Critick abovementioned also explains the text thus. "In fact, this whole passage [from et vitae, &c. to cantor Apollo] obliquely glances at the two sorts of poetry, peculiarly cultivated by himself, and is an indirect apology for his own choice of them. For 1. vitae monstrata via est, is the character of his Sermones. And 2. all the rest of his Odes"—"I must add, the very terms of the Apology so expressly define and characterize Lyrick Poetry, that it is something strange, it should have escaped vulgar notice." There is much ingenuity in this interpretation, and it is supported, with much learning and ability; yet I cannot think that Horace meant to conclude this fine encomium, on the dignity and excellence of the Art or Poetry, by a partial reference to the two particular species of it, that had been the objects of his own attention. The Muse, and Apollo, were the avowed patrons and inspirers of Poetry in general, whether Epick, Dramatick, Civil, Moral, or Religious; all of which are enumerated by Horace in the course of his panegyrick, and referred to in the conclusion of it, that Piso might not for a moment think himself degraded by his attention to Poetry.
In hoc epilago reddit breviter rationem, quare utilitates à poetis mortalium vitae allatas resenfuerit: ne scilicet Pisones, ex nobilissimd Calpurniorum familiâ ortos, Musarum & Artis Poeticae quam profitebantur, aliquando paniteret.
DE NORES.
Haec, inquit, eo recensui, ut quam olim res arduas poetica tractaverit, cognoscas, & ne Musas coutemnas, atque in Poetarum referri numerum, erubescas.