[19] I doubt whether he was ever a good royalist at heart; he frequently, perhaps unconsciously, betrays a lurking dissatisfaction; but having, as Johnson says of a much greater man, "tasted the honey of favor," he did not choose to return to hunger and philosophy. Indeed, he was not happy; in the country he sighs for the town, in town for the country; and he is always restless, and straining after something which he never obtains. To float, like Aristippus, with the stream, is a bad recipe for felicity; there must be some fixed principle, by which the passions and desires may be regulated.
[20] He is careful to disclaim all participation in public affairs. He accompanies Mæcenas in his carriage; but their chat, he wishes it to be believed, is on the common topics of the day, the weather, amusements, etc. Though this may not be strictly true, it is yet probable that politics furnished but a small part of their conversation. That both Augustus and his minister were warmly attached to him, can not be denied; but then it was as to a plaything. In a word, Horace seems to have been the "enfant gaté," of the palace, and was viewed, I believe, with more tenderness than respect.
[21] Mr. Drummond has given this passage with equal elegance and truth:
"With greater art sly Horace gain'd his end,
But spared no failing of his smiling friend;
Sportive and pleasant round the heart he play'd,
And wrapt in jests the censure he convey'd;
With such address his willing victims seized,
That tickled fools were rallied, and were pleased."
[22] Dusaulx accounts for this by the general consternation. Most of those, he says, distinguished for talents or rank, took refuge in the school of Zeno; not so much to learn in it how to live, as how to die. I think, on the contrary, that this would rather have driven them into the arms of Epicurus. "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die," will generally be found, I believe, to be the maxim of dangerous times. It would not be difficult to show, if this were the place for it, that the prevalency of Stoicism was due to the increase of profligacy, for which it furnished a convenient cloak. This, however, does not apply to Persius.
[23] I believe that Juvenal meant to describe himself in the following spirited picture of Lucilius:
"Ense velut stricto quoties Lucilius ardens
Infremuit, rubet auditor, cui frigida mens est
Criminibus, tacita sudant præcordia culpa."
[24] This is an error which has been so often repeated, that it is believed. What liberty was destroyed by the usurpation of Augustus? For more than half a century, Rome had been a prey to ambitious chiefs, while five or six civil wars, each more bloody than the other, had successively delivered up the franchises of the empire to the conqueror of the day. The Gracchi first opened the career to ambition, and wanted nothing but the means of corruption, which the East afterward supplied, to effect what Marius, Sylla, and the two triumvirates brought about with sufficient ease.
[25] This is a very strange observation. It looks as if Dusaulx had leaped from the times of old Metellus to those of Augustus, without casting a glance at the interval. The chef d'œuvres of Roman literature were in every hand, when he supposed them to be neglected: and, indeed, if Horace had left us nothing, the qualities of which Dusaulx speaks might still be found in many works produced before he was known.
[26] I have often wished that we had some of the pleadings of Juvenal. It can not be affirmed, I think, that there is any natural connection between prose and verse in the same mind, though it may be observed, that most of our celebrated poets have written admirably "solutâ oratione:" yet if Juvenal's oratory bore any resemblance to his poetry, he yielded to few of the best ornaments of the bar. The "torrens dicendi copia" was his, in an eminent degree; nay, so full, so rich, so strong, and so magnificent is his eloquence, that I have heard one well qualified to judge, frequently declare that Cicero himself, in his estimation, could hardly be said to surpass him.