Spiritum quam si,” etc.,
furnishes a curious parallel to the words of Holy Writ, Prov. xvi. 32: “He that ruleth his spirit [is better] than he that taketh cities.” It is far from being the only passage in Horace which in spirit, if not in letter, suggests the inspired writers so strongly as to tempt one to believe that he must have had some acquaintance with them. Cf. Virgil’s Pollio.
[75]. Byron, however, if we are to take literally the well-known lines in Childe Harold, can scarcely rank with true lovers of our Horace:
“Then farewell, Horace, whom I hated so,
Not for thy faults, but mine; it is a curse
To understand, not feel, thy lyric flow,
To comprehend but never love thy verse.”
[76]. “Why is all journeyman-work of literature, as I may call it, so much worse done here than it is in France?... Think of the difference between the translations of the classics turned out for Mr. Bohn’s library and those turned out for M. Nisard’s collection!”—M. Arnold, Essays in Criticism, Am. ed., p. 51.
[77]. “I can understand that we must not make form everything in poetry. But why, in dealing with an art, we should take no account of the technique of that art, should make light of those who excel in its technique, I do not understand at all.”
[78].