HORACE.
Horace was born 65 B.C. and died 8 B.C. His father gave him a good education. About the age of seventeen he lost his father, and afterwards his property was confiscated. He had to write for bread—Paupertas impulit audax ut versus facerem—and in so doing gained much reputation, and sufficient means to purchase the place of scribe in the Quæstor's office. He now made his acquaintance with Virgil and Varius, and by them was introduced to that munificent patron of scholars, Mæcenas, who gave to our poet a place next to his heart, while he, in return, is never weary of acknowledging how much he owes to his illustrious friend.
The following happy remarks on the Roman Satirists are by Professor Sanborn, formerly Professor of Latin in Dartmouth College, and now in the University of St. Louis: "The principal Roman Satirists were Horace, Juvenal and Persius. Horace is merry; Persius serious; Juvenal indignant. Thus, wit, philosophy and lofty scorn mark their respective pages. The satire of Horace was playful and good natured. His arrows were always dipped in oil. He was a fine specimen of an accomplished gentleman. His sentiments were evidently modified by his associates. He was an Epicurean and a stoic by turns. He commended and ridiculed both sects. He practiced economy and praised liberality. He lived temperate, and sang the praises of festivity. He was the favorite of the court and paid for its patronage in compliments and panegyrics, unsurpassed in delicacy of sentiment and beauty of expression. Horace is every man's companion. He has a word of advice and admonition for all. His criticisms constitute most approved canons of the rhetorician; his sage reflections adorn the page of the moralist; his humor and wit give point and force to the satirist, and his graver maxims are not despised by the Christian philosopher. Juvenal is fierce and denunciatory. His characteristics are energy, force, and indignation; his weapons are irony, wit and sarcasm; he is a decided character, and you must yield and submit, or resist. His denunciations of vice are startling. He hated the Greeks, the aristocracy and woman with intense hatred. No author has written with such terrible bitterness of the sex. Unlike other satirists, he never relents. His arrow is ever on the string, and whatever wears the guise of woman is his game. The most celebrated of the modern imitators of Horace and Juvenal are Swift and Pope."
The Odes, Satires and Epistles are his chief productions.
TO LICINIUS.
(By Horace.)
Receive, dear friend, the truths I teach
So shalt thou live beyond the reach
Of adverse Fortune's power;
Not always tempt the distant deep,
Nor always timorously creep
Along the treacherous shore.
He that holds fast the golden mean,
And lives contentedly between
The little and the great,
Feels not the wants that pinch the poor,
Nor plagues that haunt the rich man's door,
Embittering all his state.
The tallest pines feel most the power
Of wintry blasts; the loftiest tower
Comes heaviest to the ground;
The bolts that spare the mountain's side,
His cloud-capt eminence divide,
And spread the ruin round.