MR. THEODORE MARTIN'S HORACE.*

To say anything new about Horace would not be easy, perhaps, considering the indefatigable, it may be said, the affectionate industry with which his works have been studied, would not be possible. But, on the other hand, the subject-matter is abund- antly full and perpetually fresh, and gives many opportunities, which Mr. Theodore Martin is quite ready to seize, for skilful arrangement and felicitous combinations. Every time one goes back to the familiar classic, the classic, it may be said, of English scholars, one is more struck with the distinctness with which the personality of the poet stands out before us. There is nothing like it in ancient literature, very little even in modern. Dr. Johnson as Boswell drew him, Montaigne as he drew him- self, may, perhaps, be compared with it ; but what pale shadows by his side are all his great Latin compeers,—Virgil, for instance, of whom we know little more than that he was tall and dyspeptic, and Ovid, though he tells us much about his parentage and history ! Even Cicero, though we possess a vast variety of in- formation about the externals of his public and private life, is, as regards the inner man, a problem. Were we to meet his very double, we might well fail to recognize it ; but Horace we all of us -seem to know as we know our most intimate friends,—not his out- side only, but his character, which all who study him estimate both as to its faults and its virtues with an unanimity that is pro- bably unique. It may seem strange, after saying so much, to ask the question, was he a genuine Roman after all ? He scarcely poasasses the Roman characteristics ; he certainly stands alone in Roman literature. Taking him as a poet, and so putting :aside for the time his " Satires " and "Epistles," though the general case does not, we think, fail at this point, we may say that the " Odes" are a singular phenomenon in literature. In them Horace follows no one, and is followed by none. He neglects the metres,—and the metre is, to a remarkable degree in Latin poetry, the exponent of thought,—used by his predecessors and contemporaries,—the elegiac which they had wrought from the Greek original to such an exquisite perfection of elegance, and the hendecasyllabic, which was peculiarly their own, as genuinely Roman as blank verse is English. And he had no imitators. The beauty and music of his lyrics never, if we except some few pieces of the very smallest importance, tempted those who came after him to essay the same flights. May he not have been Greek in origin ? He was born in that southern half of Italy which produced scarcely one great master of Roman literature, and which was largely occupied by the Greek race. Is it not possible that his father was not, as Mr. Theodore Martin calls him, a 4‘ born slave," but one of the victims of the social war? That conflict stirred into flame the embers of the wars of Pyrrhus as well as of that which the Samnites had waged against Rome. The elder Horace may very well have been one of those who, cherishing the traditions of liberty and independ- ence which lingered among the great Greek cities of the south, -were attracted to the cause of the allies, and were swept away in the ruin which overtook it.

It does not need, of course, any such theory to account for the part which Horace took in the last effort of the Republican party against the growing power of despotism. That was the side to which a young man of genius would naturally ally himself. But there certainly is something strange in the high position which he, a youth of twenty, without family claims, without military experience, and without anything that could be called wealth, took in the Republican army. Mr. Martin thinks that "be did not owe this ommand to any dearth of men of good family qualified to act as officers," and that "he was already recognized as a man of mark in the brilliant circle around him." The explanation does not satisfy us. Any distinction that the young man could have attained by this time must have been of a literary kind ; and Brutus, who knew what war meant, was not likely, except in default of more eligible candidates, to give a responsible post to a

* Ancient Classics for General Readers: Horace. By Theodore Martin. William Blackwood and SOWN Edinburgh and London. 1870.

brilliant young scholar, though he would be glad to attach him to his party. It is possible, indeed, that the post of military tribune,

as it was held by the poet, was almost honorary. It is certainly

overstating the case to say that "he was appointed to the command of a legion." There were six tribunes in the legion ; a distinction was recognized among them, and it may very well have been understood that Horace should hold his rank and receive pay, but not exercise command. Nor do we see that there is anything in the very vague expression "Meprimis urbis belli placuisse domique" to make us think otherwise. Our readers will get some notion

of how Mr. Martin deals with his subject if we quote the passage which treats of this portion of the poet's life :—

" In B.O. 43, Brutus, with his army, passed from Macedonia to join Cassius in Asia Minor, and Horace took his part in their subsequent active and brilliant campaign there. Of this we get some slight in- cidental glimpses in his works. Thus, for example (Odes, II. 7), we find him reminding his comrade, Pompeius Varus, how

'Full oft they sped the lingering day Quaffing bright wine, as in our tents we lay, With Syrian spikenard on our glistening hair.'

The Syrian spikenard, Malobathrunt Syricum, fixes the locality. Again, in the epistle to his friend Bulletins (Epistles, I. 11), who is making a tour in Asia, Horace speaks of several places as if from vivid recollec- tion. In his usual dramatic manner, he makes Ballatius answer his inquiries as to how he liken the places he has seen :—

You know what Lebedos is like; so bare, With Gabii or Fide= %would compare ; Yet there, methinks, I would accept mg lot, My friends forgetting, by my friends forgot, Stand on the cliff at distance, and survey The stormy sea-god's wild Titania play.'

"Horace himself had manifestly watched the angry surges from the cliffs of Lebedos. But a more interesting record of the Asiatic campaign, inasmuch as it is probably the earliest specimen of FIorace's writing which we have, occurs in the Seventh Satire of the First Book. Persius, a rich trader of Clazomene, has a lawsuit with Rupilius, one of Bratus's officers, who went by the nickname of 'King.' Brutus, in his character of quasstor, has to decide the dispute, which in the hands of the principals degenerates, as disputes so conducted generally do, into a personal squabble. Persius leads off with some Oriental flattery of the General and his suite. Brutus is 'Asia's sun,' and they the 'propitious stars,' all bat Rupilius, who was

'That pest, The Dog, whom husbandman detest.'

Rupilius, an old hand at slang, replies with a volley of rough sarcasms, such as among the vineyards fly,' and

Would make the pseser-by Shout filthy names, but shouting fly,'—

a description of vintage slang which is as true to-day as it was then. The conclusion is curious, as a punning allusion to the hereditary fame of Brutus as a puller-down of kings, which it must have required some courage to publish, when Augustus was omnipotent in Rome.

'Bat Grecian Persius, after he Had been besprinkled plenteously With gall Italic, cries, By all The gods above, on thee I call, Oh, Brutus, thou of old renown For putting kings completely down,

To save us! Wherefore do you not Despatch this King here on the spot?

One of the tasks is this, believe, Which you are destined to achieve!"

"This is just such a squib as a young fellow might be expected to dash off for the amusement of his brother officers, while the incident which led to it was yet fresh in their minds. Slight as it is, one feels mire its preservation by so severe a critic of his own writings as Horace was due to some charm of association, or possibly to the fact that in it he had made his first essay in satire."

The courage with which the poet spoke in after life of men and things which could hardly have had a welcome sound in the ears of an Imperial Court, is a feature in his character to which his biographers have scarcely done justice. Mr. Martin appreciates it properly ; at the same time, he vindicates the adhesion which he gave to Augustus when the cause of freedom had become mani- festly hopeless,—when, in the words of one who yielded to no one in his passionate love of Republican institutions, "Onuieni potestatem ad unum coVerri pads inlerfuit." The following observations are worth noting :— " Had Horace at once become the panegyrist of the Caesar, the sin- cerity of his convictions might have been open to question. But thirteen years at least had elapsed between the battle of Philippi and the com- position of the Second Ode of the First Book, which is the first direct acknowledgment by Horace of Augustus as the chief of the State. This ode is directly inspired by gratitude for the cessation of civil strife, and the skilful administration which had brought things to the point when the whole fighting force of the kingdom, which had so long been wasted in that strife, could be directed to spreading the glory of the Roman name, and securing its supremacy throughout its conquered provinces. The allusions to Augustus in this and others of the earlier Odes are somewhat cold and formal in their tone. There is a visible increase in glow and energy in those of a later date, when, as years went on, the Caesar established fresh claims on the gratitude of Rome by his firm, sagacious, and moderate policy, by the general prosperity which grew up under his administration, by the success of his arms, by the great public works which enhanced the splendour and convenience of the capital, by the restoration of the laws, and by his zealous endeavour to stem the tide of immorality which had set in during the protracted die- quietades of the civil wars. It is true that during this time Augustus was also establishing the system of Imperialism, which contained in itself the germs of tyranny, with all its brutal excesses on the one hand,

and its debasing influence upon the subject nation on the other. But we who have seen into what it developed must remember that these baneful fruits of the system were of lengthened growth ; and Horace, who saw no farther into the future than the practical politicians of his time, may be forgiven if he dwelt only upon the immediate blessings which the government of Augustus effected, and the peace and security which came with a tenfold welcome after the long agonies of the civil wars."

We cannot follow Mr. Martin through his excellent sketch of the poet's social and literary life. Generally, we may say that his criticism is judicious ; his pictures of life, whether it is that of the Roman capital in general or of Horace himself, vigorous and graphic. From some of few of his opinions we differ, and in some of his facts he is, we think, scarcely accurate. His estimate of the character of Maecenas, for instance, we cannot but consider too favourable. And we question the statement that Horace, having left the locality of his birth-place (the neighbourhood of Venusia) in early life, appears never to have revisited it. He was, as Mr. Martin himself remarks, a frequent visitor to Tarentum, and must, therefore, as he travelled thither by the Via Appia, have actually passed through Venusia. These blemishes, however, are but few and of little importance. Mr. Martin's book is worthy—and we can- not say more—of his fame as one of the most successful illustrators of Horace.