BOOKS.
HORACE AND HIS AGE..
No man can escape the influence of the age in which he lives. Ha environment affects and, as it were, colours his every word and act, so that to form a just estimate or a true picture of hiatork personages we ought, says Professor D'Alton, to set them against what he calls " an historical background." Great writers, and above all great poets—for poetry is ever reaching out to the universal—often, no doubt, almost wholly transcend their age. They are, in feet, " great " just because they rise above the limita- tions of time and circumatence and raise us along with them. Yet although much of the noblest poetry—the Hebrew Penner, for example—seems independent of an historic background, some even of the greatest poets, Virgil, say, or Dante, or Milton, can assuredly only be half understood without it ; and in the case of a poet of lesser range, such as Horace, who never soars, never rises into the empyrean, but is a Roman of the Romans, it might be thought that, in order to be understood, no man ever more nestled to be put in his proper historical setting. And yet, perhaps, no one ever needed it less. For of all the figures of the Augustan Age the one we seem to understand beet and to picture to ourselves moat clearly is, beyond doubt, that of Horace. No writer, except possibly Montaigne, has ever written more frankly about himself; no one has put his thoughts into words more Ideid or more simple; and no one has drawn such lively sketches of the time ; so that to form a clear picture both of himself and of his surroundings ht, as twenty centuries. have proved, a very easy matter, and a aeries of chapters that describe his relation to " Roman Politic a," "The Augustan Revival," "Religion and Philosophy," "Social Problems," or " Popular Beliefs " rather blur the clear image presented by his writings than bring it into more impressive relief. He has said himself all that he wishes to say on these matters with such felicity that the reader is apt to resent any attempt to improve upon it. A discussion, for instance, whether, becalm lie said that Augustus would be " hailed as a god " when he had conquered Parthia and the Britons," Horace was or was not " an aggressive Imperialist " can do little but vex his old admirers. Nor will an inquiry into the doctrine of Apotheosis and its con- nexion with Stoic theories about the soul being "a spark of divine fire " and " of the same substanoe as the stars," so that an Emperor's soul might become " a star-god," make us understand what Horace really thought about the matter. He talked, no doubt, about Maws ea its Age: it Study Iffikaleol Brtekomemd. Ily T. P. 'YAW*,
Professor at Chowito, St. PottloWs College, Moy000th, London: Looginro, and Co: Len. fief.]
the Janina aide., and about Augustus quaffing nectar in heaven in...puree ore—whatever that means—just as he talked of himself as turning into a swan ; but, after all, he had really dined with this future deity, and what a sane Emperor really thought on the subject is sufficiently expressed by the dying Vespasian in four words : Pac, polo dens fie. And the case is not much different as regards Horacc's views on religion and philosophy. What he writes appeals to us so intimately just because it is so natural and, so human ; but the attempt to systematize it seems to destroy the naturalness and the humanity, so that when Professor D'Alton emphasizes the influence of " the Augustan Revival " on Horace, or speaks of his " conversion," the very words " conversion " and " revival " at once bring with them a sense of incongruity. For Horace was, no doubt, in many ways a serious man ; not only had he studied much, but he had certainly reflected much, and when he deplores the decline of morals or of religious belief beyond question he is in earnest. But his mind was not Teutonic, and he had more wit than to be awed by Caesar in the pulpit or be much moved by an Emperor as a revivalist. Of course as Poet Laureate he had to produce official Odes, and many of them almost possess that " sublimity " which hail been defined as " the echo of a great soul," because he puts in noble words the simple thoughts of an honest heart. But to argue from- such Odes that a mats such as Augustus was had really made " a convert " of him' seems to verge perilously on tho absurd. And assuredly in the humbler region of morality the Emperor's reforming zeal had little power over him either as a poet or a man. For road this, from the Carmen Saeculare, about the Julian laws on marriage:—
" Diva, producas subolem ; Patrumque Prosperes demote super iugandis Feminis prolisque novae fermi Loge merits."
Shade of Sappho ! Was there ever a worse Sapphic stanza written
in the world There is nothing here of the " passion that breathes from Aeolian strings," but the dull, heavy lines reflect the real feelings of a confirmed bachelor when compelled to put a clause from an Act of Parliament enforcing wedlock somehow into verse. And than as to his philosophy. When in Od. I. 34 he tells us that he has " heard thunder in a clear sky," and therefore proposes to give up " vain philosophy " and believe in God, does a lengthy ttscuasion of his relation to the system of Epicurus really help us 1 The poet 1111.9 written an Ode of sixteen lines, in which few would detect any particular merit or importance ; it is a pretty enough little thing in its way ; but surely it is to make too much of it to find in it a solemn profession of faith, a declaration that Epicureanism " strikes at the root of all religion," and that he " definitely renounces his allegiance to Lucretius." For once start this inquisitorial examination into a man's beliefs and it may lead to strange results. The story, for example, of the Town Mouse and the Country Mouse as told by Horace (Sat. I. 8) has delighted generations of incurious readers, but it now seems that the critical student might discover, in it tendencies to a philo- sophic " reaction " because " the city mouse, the exponent of Epicureanism," comes to " a disastrous ending." One can only murmur to oneself : " Parturient montea."
• But, indeed, the whole theory of providing Horace with an historical background may easily be pushed too far. Ho rather Illustrates history than needs illustration by it. The Satires and Epistles are themselves pictures which—except as regards details—require little explanation to the ordinary reader of intelligence, and much the same is true of four-fifths of the Odes. There are some of them, it is true, such as the Cleopatra Ode (I. 37), that on the Ship of State (I. 4), and those written " by command " in connexion with public events, which do require some knowledge of the Augustan Age, and the more a man knows about it the better he will understand them. But apart from these particular Odes, Horace tells you himself all you really want to know. He talks to you about all that was of human interest in his day with such understanding, such liveliness, such a happy mixture of jest and earnest, that you feel as if he were a friend you had strolled with in Piccadilly or dined with at the club. He is not an expert en religion, or philosophy, or politics, or indeed anything, and he does not require you to l i one either. If he did, he would cease to be Horace and become a bit of a bore, so that the difficulty which the writer of a volume like the present has necessarily to face is that he is in danger of coming, as it were, between ourselves and our old friend. And that is a danger which Professor D'Alton 110013 not altogether avoid. For what he has done is not so much to furnish " a background to Horace—and to depict the Augustan Age would need an immense canvas--as to examine minutely his views on a number of subjects, so that from the result we miy form a sort of reconstructed image of him. In a volume of two hundred and ninety pages, with something like a score of references at the foot of every page, he brings together what Horace his said on this theme or on that along with what many learned men have written about it, and then bids us see Horace more distinctly. And to a certain extent he is successful, for he has groat knowledge andlreat-love of his subject, he writes admirably, and throws light on many particular points; but the total effect is that he presents the reader rather with an excellent book of reference than with an effective portrait. But, after all, who can improve on masterpiece's ? And what sketches of " his age " or what picture of " Horace " can be clearcr and more livery than his own inimitable work ?
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