177. Quem tulit ad Scenam ventoso gloria curru, Exanimat lentus Spectator, &c. to v. 182.] There is an exquisite spirit of pleasantry in these lines, which hath quite evaporated in the hands of the critics. These have gravely supposed them to come from the person of the poet, and to contain his serious censure of the vanity of poetic fame. Whereas, besides the manifest absurdity of the thing, its inconsistency with what is delivered elsewhere on this subject [A. P. v. 324.] where the Greeks are commended as being praeter laudem nullius avari, absolutely requires us to understand them as proceeding from an objector; who, as the poet hath very satirically contrived, is left to expose himself in the very terms of his objection. He had just been blaming the venality of the Roman dramatic writers. They had shewn themselves more sollicitous about filling their pockets, than deserving the reputation of good poets. And, instead of insisting further on the excellency of this latter motive, he stops short, and brings in a bad poet himself to laugh at it.
“And what then, says he, you would have us yield ourselves to the very wind and gust of praise; and, dropping all inferior considerations, drive away to the expecting stage in the puffed car of vain-glory? For what? To be dispirited, or blown up with air, as the capricious spectator shall think fit to enforce, or withhold, his inspirations. And is this the mighty benefit of your vaunted passion for fame? No; farewel the stage, if the breath of others is that, on which the silly bard is to depend for the contraction or enlargement of his dimensions.” To all which convincing rhetoric the poet condescends to say nothing; as well knowing, that no truer service is, oftentimes, done to virtue or good sense, than when a knave or fool is left to himself, to employ his idle raillery against either.
These interlocutory passages, laying open the sentiments of those against whom the poet is disputing, are very frequent in the critical and moral writings of Horace, and are well suited to their dramatic genius and original.
210. Ille per extentum funem, &c.] The Romans, who were immoderately addicted to spectacles of every kind, had in particular esteem the funambuli, or rope-dancers;
Ita populus studio stupidus in FUNAMBULO
Animum occuparat.
Prol. in Hecyr.
From the admiration of whose tricks the expression, ire per extentum funem, came to denote, proverbially, an uncommon degree of excellence and perfection in any thing. The allusion is, here, made with much pleasantry, as the poet had just been rallying their fondness for these extraordinary atchievements.
Ibid. Ille per extentum funem, &c. to v. 214.] It is observable, that Horace, here, makes his own feeling the test of poetical merit. Which is said with a philosophical exactness. For the pathos in tragic, humour in comic, and the same holds of the sublime in the narrative, and of every other species of excellence in universal poetry, is the object, not of reason, but sentiment; and can be estimated only from its impression on the mind, not by any speculative or general rules. Rules themselves are indeed nothing else but an appeal to experience; conclusions drawn from wide and general observation of the aptness and efficacy of certain means to produce those impressions. So that feeling or sentiment itself is not only the surest, but the sole ultimate arbiter of works of genius.