Plus jam diligo, tu tuum sodalem
Ninnio videas strigosiorem—
but still it is scarcely possible not to feel an affection for him. Notwithstanding his selfish Epicureanism, he possessed those elements of character which constitute the popularity of men of the world. He was a gentleman in taste and sentiments. He would not have denied himself any gratification for the sake of others; but he would not willingly have caused any one a moment’s uneasiness, nor was he ever ungrateful to those who were kind to him. He was a pleasant friend and a good-humoured associate, adroit in using the language of compliment, but not a flatterer, because he was candid and sincere. He changed his politics, but he had good cause for so doing. The circumstances of the times furnished ample justification. His morals were lax, but not worse than those of his contemporaries: all that can be said is, that he was not in advance of his age. His principles will not bear comparison with a high moral standard; but he had good qualities to compensate for his moral deficiencies. He looked at virtue and vice from a worldly, not a moral point of view. With him the former was prudence, the latter folly. Vice, therefore, provoked a sneer of derision, and not indignation at the sin or compassion for the sinner; and for the same reason he was incapable of entertaining a holy enthusiasm for virtue.
Good-tempered as a man, he nevertheless showed that he belonged to the genus irritabile vatum. He was jealous of his poetical reputation; not, indeed, towards his contemporaries, but towards the poets of former ages. He either could not or would not see any merit in old Roman poetry. His prejudice cannot be ascribed only to his enthusiasm for Greek literature, for he did not even appreciate the excellences which the old school of poetry had in common with the Greeks. Party spirit had somewhat to do with it, for a feud on the subject divided the literary society of the day,[[649]] and hence Horace took his side warmly and uncompromisingly.
But the principal cause was jealousy—unless he ignored Lucilius and Catullus, he could not claim to have been the first follower of Archilochus of whom Rome could boast; or, as the representative of Roman lyric poetry, to have first tuned his lyre to Æolian song.
The scenes in which Horace passed his life are so interesting to every reader of his works, that a few words respecting his villa at Tivoli and his Sabine farm will not be out of place here. Tibur[[650]] is situated on one of the spurs of the Appennines, about fifteen or sixteen miles from Rome, on the left bank of the Anio (Teverone.) The river winds gently by the town, separating it from the villa of Horace, and then, falling in a sheet of water over an escarped rock, disappears beneath a rocky cavern. Its roaring echoes are heard far and wide, and justifies the epithet (resonans,) which Horace gives to the dwelling of Albunea, the Tiburtine Sibyl. The villa commanded fine views, and a garden sloped down from it to the river’s bank. From its grounds was visible the palace of Mæcenas: on the opposite shore the wooded Sabine hills sheltered it from the north; and the domain of the poet’s friend, Quintilius Varus, formed its western boundary.
About fifteen miles north-east of Tibur, nestling amongst the roots of Mount Lucretilis, lay the Sabine farm. Fragments of white marble, and mosaic, which have been found there, show that, notwithstanding the simple frugality which Horace delights to describe, it was built and embellished with elegance and taste. From the mountain side, which rises behind the house, trickles a clear stream, the source of which is now called Fonte Bello, and which afterwards becomes the river Digentia (Licenza,) and waters the beautiful valley of the sloping Ustica (Usticæ Cubantis.) This rill, the parent of Horace’s favourite river, the embellisher of that “riant angle of the earth,” is interesting as being probably the fountain of Bandusia, “more transparent than glass,”[[651]] with whose fresh and sparkling waters the poet tempered his wine.
M. de Chaupy[[652]] assumes that the Bandusian fountain, mentioned by Horace, was situated near the birthplace of Horace, on the Lucano-Apulian border. His opinion rests on the words of a grant made by Pope Pascal II. to the abbot of the Bantine monastery; and Mr. Hobhouse[[653]] considers this document as decisive in ascertaining its position. It is decisive as to the existence of a Bandusian fountain near Venusia; but it must be remembered that Horace never saw it after the days of his childhood, when his paternal estate passed away from him for ever, whilst he speaks of his Bandusian fountain as near him, when he writes, and promises to sacrifice a kid to the guardian genius of the spring. What, then, is more probable than the suggestion of Mr. Dunlop,[[654]] that the same pleasing recollections of his early years, which inspired him to relate his touching adventure, led him to “name the clearest and loveliest stream of his Sabine retreat after that fountain which lay in Apulia, and on the brink of which he had no doubt often sported in infancy?”[[655]] He has in one of his odes alluded to this affectionate desire to perpetuate reminiscences of home—a desire which is illustrated by the topographical nomenclature which has been adopted by colonists of every age and country.
Mr. Dennis, however, in a letter written at Licenza,[[656]] in sight of the pleasant shades of M. Lucretilis, although he makes no doubt of the Bandusian fountain being in the neighbourhood, does not identify it with the “Fonte Bello.” He asserts that, although he has traced every streamlet in the neighbourhood, the only one which answers to the classical description is one now called “Fonte Blandusia.” It rises in a narrow glen which divides the Mount Lucretilis from Ustica, which probably derives its modern name Valle Rustica from a corruption of the classical appellation. As you ascend the glen it contracts into a ravine with bare cliffs on either side; the streamlet with difficulty winds its way between mossy rocks (musco circumlita saxa,) overshadowed with dense woods which effectually exclude the heat of the blazing Dog-star. The water issues from a rock, and trickles into two successive natural basins. “The water is indeed splendidior vitro; nothing, not even the Thracian Hebrus, can exceed it in purity, coolness, and sweetness: ‘its loquacious waters still bubble;’ the very ilices still overhang the hollow rocks whence it springs.”
A reference to Horace’s description[[657]] will prove to the modern traveller through this classic region with what fidelity and accuracy the poet has described the natural features of the scenery. The mountain chain is continuous and unbroken (continui montes,) save by the well wooded and therefore shady valley of the Digentia, which intersects it in such a direction that—