William Young Sellar and James Gow

“ There is indeed nothing more remarkable in Horace than the independence, or rather the self-dependence, of his character. The enjoyment which he drew from his Sabine farm consisted partly in the refreshment to his spirit from the familiar beauty of the place, partly in the “otia liberrima” from the claims of business and society which it afforded him. His love poems, when compared with those of Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius, show that he never, in his mature years at least, allowed his peace of mind to be at the mercy of any one. ”

“ The cause of all this aimless restlessness and unreasonable desire is summed up in the words “Strenua nos exercet inertia.”
In his Satires and Epistles Horace shows himself a genuine moralist, a subtle observer and true painter of life, and an admirable writer. But for both of these works he himself disclaims the title of poetry. He rests his claims as a poet on his Odes. They reveal an entirely different aspect of his genius, his spirit and his culture. He is one among the few great writers of the world who have attained high excellence in two widely separated provinces of literature. ”

“ He is, though in a different sense from Lucretius, eminently a philosophical and reflective poet. He is also, like all the other poets of the Augustan age, a poet in whose composition culture and criticism were as conspicuous elements as spontaneous inspiration. In the judgment he passes on the older poetry of Rome and on that of his contemporaries, he seems to attach more importance to the critical and artistic than to the creative and inventive functions of genius. It is on the labour and judgment with which he has cultivated his gift that he rests his hopes of fame. ”

“ It suited the class who cared for literature—a limited circle of educated men, intimate with one another, and sharing the same tastes and pursuits. While giving expression to lessons applicable to all men, he in this way seems to address each reader individually, with the urbanity of a friend rather than the solemnity of a preacher. In spirit the Epistles are more ethical and meditative than the Satires. Like the Odes they exhibit the twofold aspects of his philosophy, that of temperate Epicureanism and that of more serious and elevated conviction. ”

“ A great proof of his mastery over rhythm is the skill with which he has varied his metres according to the sentiment which he wishes to express. Thus his great metre, the Alcaic, has a character of stateliness and majesty in addition to the energy and impetus originally imparted to it by Alcaeus. The Sapphic metre he employs with a peculiar lightness and vivacity which harmonize admirably with his gayer moods.
Again in regard to his diction, if Horace has learned his subtlety and moderation from his Greek masters, he has tempered those qualities with the masculine characteristics of his race. ”

“ In his whole religious attitude he seems to stand midway between the consistent denial of Lucretius and Virgil’s pious endeavour to reconcile ancient faith with the conclusions of philosophy. His introduction into some of his Odes of the gods of mythology must be regarded as merely artistic or symbolical. Yet in some cases we recognize the expression of a natural piety, thankful for the blessing bestowed on purity and simplicity of life, and acknowledging a higher and more majestic law governing nations through their voluntary obedience. ”

“ His intimacy with Maecenas was strengthened and he had become the familiar friend of the great minister. He was treated with distinction by Augustus, and by the foremost men in Roman society. He complains occasionally that the pleasures of his youth are passing from him, but he does so in the spirit of a temperate Epicurean, who found new enjoyments in life as the zest for the old enjoyments decayed, and who considered the wisdom and meditative spirit—“the philosophic mind that years had brought”—an ample compensation for the extinct fires of his youth. ”

“ Horace also followed Lucilius in the variety of forms which his satire assumes, and especially in the frequent adoption of the form of dialogue, derived from the “dramatic medley” which was the original character of the Roman Satura. This form suited the spirit in which Horace regarded the world, and also the dramatic quality of his genius, just as the direct denunciation and elaborate painting of character suited the “saeva indignatio” and the oratorical genius of Juvenal. ”

“ Horace is so much of a moralist in all his writings that, in order to enter into the spirit both of his familiar and of his lyrical poetry, it is essential to realize what were his views of life and the influences under which they were formed. ”

“ Still there was in Horace a robuster fibre, inherited from the old Italian race, which moved him to value the dignity and nobleness of life more highly than its ease and enjoyment. In some of the stronger utterances of his Odes, where he expresses sympathy with the manlier qualities of character, we recognize the resistent attitude of Stoicism rather than the passive acquiescence of Epicureanism. ”

“ In his more vigorous years, when he lived much in Roman society, he claims to have acted in all his relations to others in accordance with the standard recognized among men of honour in every age, to have been charitably indulgent to the weakness of his friends, and to have been exempt from petty jealousies and the spirit of detraction. ”

“ In the Epistles he finds the secret spring of the social vices of the age in the desire, as marked in other times as in those of Horace, to become rich too fast, and in the tendency to value men according to their wealth, and to sacrifice the ends of life to a superfluous care for the means of living. ”

“ It is interesting to trace the growth of Horace in elevation of sentiment and serious conviction from his first ridicule of the paradoxes of Stoicism in the two books of the Satires to the appeal which he makes in some of the Odes of the third book to the strongest Roman instincts of fortitude and self-sacrifice. A similar modification of his religious and political attitude may be noticed between his early declaration of Epicurean unbelief and the sympathy which he shows with the religious reaction fostered by Augustus ”

“ The composition of these Odes extended over several years, but all the most important among them belong to the years between the battle of Actium and 24 B.C. His lyrical poetry is thus, not, like that of Catullus, the ardent utterance of his youth, but the mature and finished workmanship of his manhood. The state of public affairs was more favourable than it had been since the outbreak of the civil war between Caesar and Pompey for the appearance of lyrical poetry. ”

“ The concluding stanzas of the address to Lollius (Ode iv. 9) exhibit the Epicurean and Stoical view of life so combined as to be more worthy of human dignity than the genial worldly wisdom of the former school, more in harmony with human experience than the formal precepts of the latter. ”

“ In his self-portraiture, far from wishing to make himself out better or greater than he was, he seems to write under the influence of an ironical restraint which checks him in the utterance of his highest moral teaching and of his poetical enthusiasm. ”

“ It suited his circumstances in the latter years of his life, when his tastes inclined him more to retirement and study, while he yet wished to retain his hold on society and to extend his relations with younger men who were rising into eminence. ”