De. Denique
Inspicere tamquam in speculum in vitas omnium
Iubeo atque ex aliis sumere exemplum sibi.
'Hoc facito.' Sy. Recte sane. De. 'Hoc fugito.' Sy. Callide.
De. 'Hoc laudist.' Sy. 'Istaec res est.' De. 'Hoc vitio datur.'[20]
Again, the remonstrance of Micio to Demea,
Si esses homo,
Sineres nunc facere, dum per aetatem licet,
expresses the philosophy of many of his love poems and his drinking songs. The Epicurean sentiment and reflexion borrowed from Menander were congenial to one side of Horace's nature, as the manly independence and serious spirit of Lucilius were to another: and in his own style he has incorporated the conversational urbanity of the one writer no less than the intellectual vigour of the other. But Horace was much richer and more varied in the subjects of his art, as he was larger and more penetrating in his knowledge of the world, and more manly and serious in his view of life, than the comic poet who died so early in his career.
But not Horace only, but some of the best judges and greatest masters of style both in ancient and modern times have been among his chief admirers. Cicero frequently reproduces his expressions, applies passages in his plays to his own circumstances, and refers to his personages as typical representatives of character[21]. Julius Caesar characterises him as 'puri sermonis amator.' Quintilian applies to his writing the epithet 'elegantissimus,' and in that connexion refers to the belief that his plays were the work of Scipio Africanus. Cicero, on the other hand, speaks of the belief that they were the work of Laelius, 'cuius fabellae propter elegantiam sermonis putabantur a C. Laelio scribi[22].' The imputation in the poet's own time, which he does not altogether disclaim, appears to have been that both friends assisted him in his task.