MR. VERRILL'S STUDIES IN HORACE. 4 HORACE is for scholars what

Burns is for Scotchmen, and a book so good as this about the most popular poet of antiquity would be welcome at any time. It is doubly welcome now, when the genius of classical scholarship is being sent (apparently) without much sighing from the springs it has hitherto haunted in England. Nothing better of its kind has been published in England since the appearance of Mr. Munro's Elucidations of Oatullus ; and if Mr. Verrall's scholarship is not quite so accurate as was that of the distinguished editor of Lucretius, his literary criticisms are quite as brilliant. And we must lay some considerable stress upon the brilliancy and suggestiveness of the "Studies" before us, because we cannot believe that the main points which Mr. Verrall strives to make with regard to Horace are tenable. It would, however, we may say at once, be quite impossible to deal controversially with this book within the limits of a notice like the pre- sent. If, therefore, the tone of our remarks may seem at times to be too dictatorial, we must beg the reader to attri- bute this rather to the necessities of enforced brevity than to arrogance. For though space will not .allow us to 4liscuss Mr. Verrall's main positions at any length, we must contradict some of them at least rather peremptorily. His literary criticisms, indeed, even when they fail to command our assent, nearly always command our admiration ; but his historical criticisms seem occasionally to come within reach of Butunann's censure, and a perusal of that scholar's judicious essay on "The Historical References and Allusions in Horace" is the best antidote we can suggest to all that portion of Mr. Verrall's volume, which strikes us as wiredrawn and erroneous. The English scholar's position is summed up in his assertion that when we can find a complete biography and pedigree of Murena, then, and not before, we shall be in a position to complete a commentary on the Odes. The German scholar's position may be inferred from the fact that he would not give a fig for such a biography and such a pedigree. Buttmann, in fact, to put the case very briefly, takes Horace at his word ; Mr. Verrall suspects him of mystification. If the latter be right, Horace was laughing • Studies, Litoraru and Historical, in the Odes of Horace. By A. W. Terra% M.A. London : Macmillan and Co. 1884.

in his sleeve when he claimed immortality for himself as a lyric poet. His " monumentum tore perennius " was "with characteristic irony, advertised as a successful experiment in the metres of the Greek erotics," but was in reality "a monument of sympathy with a sorely-stricken benefactor, and a monument also of an ever-memorable passage in the history of mankind." We must refer the reader to the essay headed "Murena " for an explanation of these dark sayings, and leave him to compare the arguments there used with the conclusion reached by Buttmann. We have little doubt ourselves that Mr. Verrall has altogether over-estimated the effect of Murena's fate on Horace's mind, and that the poet was proud, with no after-thought, of the skill which made him Rome's champion lyric poet (" Romana3 fidicen lyra3"), and never "dreamed of his Odes as materials for patching up a domestic chronicle of his own family and that of MEecenas and certain of their friends." Mr. Verrall would scarcely accept this last sentence as fairly representing his own view ; but it goes to the root of the matter, for instance, so far as his explanation of the famous "Quantum distet ab macho" ode is concerned. And Mr. Verrall's solemn commentary on that merry drinking- song may be taken as a gauge of the general quality of his historical studies, for it really falls within the category of one of those "intellectual exercises" which Buttmann says may be "no mean part of an instructor's office, but ought not to be sent to the press." We have no space, we repeat, for minute criti- cism; but we must enter an emphatic protest against the ingenuity and learning that are wasted over the expressions "Da luna3 propere nov " and " Sparge rosas" in that ode. That Mr. Verrall has mistaken its scope and meaning entirely we feel is certain ; but we can more easily illustrate what we take to be the radical vice of his theory of Horatian interpretation from his essay on " Lamia." He expounds the well-known

" Aeli, vetusto, &c.," in a way which has no merit but that of novelty, for he contends that the person addressed in that ode is Horace's steward, and that the poet is good-humouredly chaffing this supposed " Lamia," as one might chaff, at the present day, a negro " Scipio " or "Pompey." But the illustration which Mr. Verrall adduces in favour of this astonishing misconception is of a character that may well make us doubt him to be a trustworthy guide in these matters. We must give it in his OWD words :— " To the steward on the poet's farm is addressed the 14th Epistle of the first Book :— • Villice silvarnm et mill me redentis agelli,' The Epistle consists, it will be remembered, of an argument in favour of the country against the town, for which the steward, formerly a town slave, is supposed to have a mistaken preference. This 'thorn in the mind,' this morbid dissatisfaction with the present, his master professes to extirpate by philosophy, and will prove, if possible, a more skilful 'weeder' in the moral field, than the steward in the material. There is a circumstance which makes the discussion some- what 'nal a propos, but Horace is disposed to push it nevertheless :—

• Certemns spinas animone ego forting an ta Evellas agro et melior sit Horatins an res- Me gnamvis Lamiae pietas et curs moratnr Fratrem mrerentis, rapto de fratre doleutis tamen istne mens animnegne

Pert et amat spat us obstantia rnmpere elanstra- Mire ego Tiventem, tn dials in nrbe beatnm,' &e.

Who is this Lamia, the thought of whose grief for the loss of a brother makes the poet pause for a moment before urging upon his steward the commonplaces of his moral diseourse ? Surely it can be no other than the steward himself. What other person's grief—"

But we need not follow Mr. Verrall any further into his quag- mire. He interprets " moratur " and " istuc" as no one else ever did or will, and misses the obvious meaning of one of the plainest passages in his author. For we are almost ashamed, both for his sake and our own, to remind Mr. Verrall that Horace is merely explaining the cause which keeps him (moratur) at Rome—viz., the affliction of his friend, Aelius Lamia.—while his mind is ever fixed (isiuc) on his villa, and is eager for the country. His purpose is, of course, to forestall an obvious retort from his steward ; and we may learn from the

blindness of a scholar like Mr. Verrall to so plain a matter as this how liable men are to stumble in broad daylight when they are " viewy," and when they are writing under the influence of a fad. Mr. Verrall displays even worse scholarship when arguing in support of " apricum " for " apricus " (in I., viii., 3), and it is easy to see that he lays far too much weight on the

functions of " Melpomene " in his first essay. No one after reading with attention the ode beginning with " Qnem tu, Melpomene," and comparing it with the subsequent acknow- ledgments paid by the bard to Phoebus, or the " doctne arguta3

fidicen Thalise," will have much difficulty in coming to the con- clusion that Horace's " Melpomene " was no such "lady of sorrows" as Mr. Verrall would have ifs suppose. And as to- bis question why it is that "since there is no lack of sadness in Horace we do not find him tragic, as his contemporaries did," we

answer by saying that his contemporaries did nothing of the- sort. There are no signs in Quintilian's famous appreciation of the poet of his having done so, and we are not disposed to accept Mr. Verrall's unsupported assertion that the Odes of

Horace struck his contemporaries as tragic, any more than they strike ourselves, or than they struck Quintilian. But we have- said enough to show the nature of our disagreement with Mr.

Verrall. The far more pleasant task remains of quoting some of his more brilliant contributions to Horatian literary criticism; and we shall begin with a passage in which he breaks a lance with Mr. Munro. That very able critic- has somewhat unfairly depreciated Horace, in his anxiety to vindicate Catullus from the late Professor Conington's attack. He had, of course, no difficulty in showing that as a love poem, "Integer vitae" was poor indeed in comparison with

the impassioned "Acmen Septimius ;" but Mr. Verrall sets the- matter right when he deprecates the comparison itself as altogether unfair and misleading. "I will not believe," he says,.

"that Horace would have dreamed of a comparison between the poems, unless it were to heighten by contrast the playful effect of his own delicate rhodomontade." It would be difficult to find a happier phrase than this; and it points a piece of very sound criticism very prettily. We cannot, however, refrain from suggesting to Mr. Verrall that the sermon in disguise which he discovers in "Quantum distet ab Inacho " is really nothing more than "bacchanalian rhodomontade," and we cer- tainly could wish for no better phrase to express our own con- ception of that much-disputed ode. It is a phrase, too, that might have saved Mr. Verrall from some very strange strictures on that dithyramb in miniature—" Quo me, Bacche, rapis tui plenum "—and saved him from the pedantry of describing the "high jinks " with which Numida's return from Spain was to be celebrated as a "bestial orgy," and of stig- matising Horace and his friend, Quinctius Hirpinus, as "two withered and hoary old reprobates," because when they called for their wine, they also, like old King Cole, called for their fiddler,—for such, of course, was the " Lyde," whom Mr. Verrall very unjustly charges with "masquerading as a maid of Sparta." It is time, however, that we should. bring this notice to an end by quoting a passage which fairly represents the vivacity and ingenuity of Mr. Verrall's critical powers, though here, too, as in so many other passages in this extremely suggestive writer, it may be felt that the author's view, though well worth hearing, is not to be accepted in its integrity.

He is defending the famous "Donee gratus eram " against Mr. Munro's depreciative remarks :—

"This little drama," be says, "is taken as of course to present a liaison, the personages to have been formerly am ants, to have had other amants, and to be now renewing their amour. If this be so, I do not see, for all its cunning workmanship, it can claim a better verdict than Mr. Munro's,—' a neat enough mosaic? He and she began with looee charges, these charges are con- fessed, and they are quite happy. The details, too, are false.

Romans, vigui clarior Ilia ' is the lady's description of her happy days. 'The fame of Roman Ilia! What's Ilia to her, or she to Ilia?' asks Mr. Munro ; and I do not see how to answer, except by finding a character for Lydia which shall make this a reasonable comparison. Now, as Ilia was in the Roman calendar the type of matronhood, and commemorated in the festival of the Matronalia, it seems that the 'fame of Roman Ilia' should mean wifely fame,' and that Lydia's quarrel is presumably a matrimonial quarrel. And upon this view it is not impossible to think the poem true as well as skilful. Mr. Munro- misses in it the lyrical passion' of Catullns. But was Horace aiming at this and not rather at the different and inconsistent effect of humour ? The passion of a man who praises Chloe for skill on the harp, and then declares that he would die for her sake, is false passion, and if Horace meant it for true, his admirable verses are bad poetry. But if it is meant for false, and if all the self-accusations are false and known to be so ? While I possessed yon to myself,' says the husband, with that amiable desire to be provoking which (on the stage, of course) husbands are known to exhibit, was wealthier than the King of the East.'—' And I,' says the wife, preferring (as on the stage always) retort to denial, was the glory of matrons till you cared less for Lydia than for Chloe,'—a name apparently thrown out very much at hazard.—' Chloe is my queen,' says the husband, seeing his oppor- tunity, and embellishing the portrait suitably, an artiste, an exquisite musician ! I would die for her.' (Is it in human nature that any one but a wife should be alarmed or even annoyed by such language as this ?) Oh, I have a lover, too,' says she, he is So-and-so (name very full), and I would die for him, too, twice.' Lydia being now sufficiently out of temper, and the point scored, the tormentor offers peace ; and so of course an end, the whole thing being a mere- flash of petulance on both sides."