and wild woodlands are reclaimed by the plow. [To what end all this?] He, that has got a competency, let him wish for no more. Not a house and farm, nor a heap of brass and gold, can remove fevers from the body of their sick master, or cares from his mind. The possessor must be well, if he thinks of enjoying the things which he has accumulated. To him that is a slave to desire or to fear, house and estate do just as much good as paintings to a sore-eyed person, fomentations to the gout, music to ears afflicted with collected matter. Unless the vessel be sweet, whatever you pour into it turns sour. Despise pleasures: pleasure bought with pain is hurtful. The covetous man is ever in want: set a certain limit to your wishes. The envious person wastes at the thriving condition of another: Sicilian tyrants' never invented a greater torment than envy. He who will not curb his passion, will wish that undone which his grief and resentment suggested, while he violently plies his revenge with unsated rancor. Rage is a short madness. Rule your passion, which commands, if it do not obey; do you resti ain it with a bridle, and with fetters. The groom forms the docile horse, while his neck is yet tender, to go the way which his rider directs him the young hound, from the time that he barked at the deer's skin in the hall, campaigns it in the woods. Now, while you are young," with an untainted mind imbibe instruction: now apply yourself to the best [masters of morality]. A cask will long preserve the flavor, with which when new it was once impregnated. But if you lag behind, or vigorously push on before,20 I neither wait for the loiterer, nor strive to overtake those that precede me.

18 Such as Phalaris, Agathocles, and the Dionysii. The saying was almost proverbial. Cf. Cicer. Acc. 5, 66, “Sicilia tulit quondam multos et crudeles tyrannos." ORELLI.

19 These expressions of sanus, puro pectore, and puer, can be justly applied only to a youth. The younger Lollius went with Augustus to the war of Spain, when he was about sixteen years of age, as we shall find in the eighteenth Epistle, which is addressed to him. SAN.

20 If you will run the race of wisdom with me, let us run together; for if you either stop, or endeavor to get before me, I shall neither wait for you, nor strive to overtake you. When we enter the lists of virtue, to wait for those behind us is indolence; too earnestly to pursue those be fore us is envy. TORR. DAC.

After inquiring about Claudius Tiberius Nero, and some of his friends, he exhorts Florus to the study of philosophy.

I LONG to know, Julius Florus, in what regions of the earth Claudius, the step-son of Augustus, is waging war. Do Thrace and Hebrus, bound with icy chains, or the narrow sea running between the neighboring towers," or Asia's fertile plains and hills detain you? What works is the studious train planning? In this too I am anxious-who takes upon himself to write the military achievements of Augustus ?23 Who diffuses into distant ages his deeds in war and peace? What is Titius about, who shortly will be celebrated by every Roman tongue; who dreaded not to drink of the Pindaric spring, daring to disdain common waters and open streams: how does he do? How mindful is he of me? he employ himself to adapt Theban measures to the Latin lyre, under the direction of his muse? Or does he storm and swell in the pompous style of tragic art? What is my Celsus doing? He has been advised, and the advice is still often to be repeated, to acquire stock of his own, and forbear to touch whatever writings the Palatine Apollo has received:

Does

21 Florus attended Tiberius in his Dalmatian expedition. This prince continued some years visiting and regulating the Eastern provinces, until he had orders to lead his troops into Armenia, while Augustus proposed to march against the Parthians through Syria. Our poet here marks the route of Tiberius through Thrace, the Hellespont, and Asia Minor, and thus makes his epistle a kind of public, historical monument. We may fix the date of this epistle in the year 733. SAN.

22 Vicinas inter currentia turres. Musæus names two cities, Sestos and Abydos, on the opposite shores of Europe and Asia.

23 Quid studiosa cohors. The young gentlemen who attended Tiberius in this expedition, at once to form his court and to guard his person, were men of letters and genius, from whence they are called "studiosa cohors." FRAN.

24 i. e. use a lofty style, more or less prone to exaggeration. The phrase is derived from the saying of Aristophanes concerning the prologues of Euripides, λnkútov dпúλɛσɛ. Ran. 1208. ORELLI.

25

lest, if it chance that, the flock of birds should some time or other come to demand their feathers, he, like the daw stripped of his stolen colors, be exposed to ridicule. What do you yourself undertake? What thyme are you busy hovering about? Your genius is not small, is not uncultivated nor inelegantly rough. Whether you edge your tongue for [pleading] causes, or whether you prepare to give counsel in the civil law, or whether you compose some lovely poem; you will bear off the first prize of the victorious ivy. If now you could quit the cold fomentations of care; whithersoever heavenly wisdom would lead you, you would go. Let us, both small and great, push forward in this work, in this pursuit: if to our country, if to ourselves we would live dear.

26

You must also write me word of this, whether Munatius is of as much concern to you as he ought to be? Or whether the ill-patched reconciliation in vain closes, and is rent asunder again? But, whether hot blood, or inexperience in things, exasperates you, wild as coursers with unsubdued neck, in whatever place you live, too worthy to break the fraternal bond," a devoted heifer is feeding against your return.

25 Whether you form your eloquence for the public pleadings at the bar, or give advice and counsel to your clients. Civica jura respondere paras, which our poet in another place expresses, 'Clientis promere jura." TORR.

26 The commentator thinks that ambition, riches, power, were those cold remedies that Horace means, which only soothe, not allay the distemper. But, since he has not mentioned what they were, we can only say that Florus could not mistake them, and consequently must have felt the moral which the poet draws from them. ED. DUBL.

27 Fraternum rumpere fœdus. This does not say, as it is generally understood, that they were really brothers, but that they lived in an union such as ought to be preserved between brothers. There was not at this time any person at Rome who bore the name of Julius, except Augustus, whose family was greatly distinguished from that of Munatius; nor does it appear that Munatius ever took the surname of Florus. Mr. Dacier imagines, with reason, that Florus was of some principal family, whom Julius Cæsar permitted to take his name, when he made them citizens of Rome. Tacitus speaks of three Julii in Gallia Belgica in the time of Tiberius, one of whom was called Florus. From whence it is not improbable that the person to whom this letter is written, was of that nation. RODELLIUS. SAN.

EPISTLE IV.

TO ALBIUS TIBULLUS.

He declares his accomplishments; and, after proposing the thought of death, converts it into an occasion of pleasantry.

ALBIUS, thou candid critic of my discourses, what shall I say you are now doing in the country about Pedum? Writing what may excel the works of Cassius Parmensis; or sauntering silently among the healthful groves, concerning yourself about every thing worthy a wise and good man? You were not a body without a mind. The gods have given you a beautiful form, the gods [have given] you wealth, and the faculty of enjoying it.

What greater blessing could a nurse solicit for her beloved child, than that he might be wise, and able to express his sentiments; and that respect, reputation, health might happen to him in abundance, and decent living, with a never-failing purse?

In the midst of hope and care, in the midst of fears and disquietudes, think every day that shines upon you is the last. [Thus] the hour, which shall not be expected, will come upon you an agreeable addition.

When you have a mind to laugh, you shall see me fat and sleek with good keeping, a hog of Epicurus' herd.

EPISTLE V.

TO TORQUATUS.

He invites him to a frugal entertainment, but a cleanly and cheerful one.

IF you can repose yourself as my guest upon Archias couches, and are not afraid to make a whole meal on all sorts

28 Opuscula. The term alludes only to his lesser writings, such as elegies, epigrams, etc. Thus Pliny, Epist. viii. 21: "Liber fuit et opusculis varius et metris." The other interpretation arose from the confounding of Cassius Parmensis with Cassius Etruscus. WHEELER.

20 Such is the reading of all the manuscripts; "priscorum quantum

A.0. C 725

30

of herbs from a moderate dish; I will expect you, Torquatus, at my house about sun set. You shall drink wine poured into the vessel in the second consulship of Taurus, produced between the fenny Minturnæ and Petrinum of Sinuessa. If you have any thing better, send for it; or bring your commands. Bright shines my hearth, and my furniture is clean for you already. Dismiss airy hopes, and contests about riches, and Moschus'" cause. To-morrow, a festal day on account of Cæsar's birth," admits of indulgence and repose. We shall have free liberty to prolong the summer evening with friendly conversation. To what purpose have I fortune, if I may not use it? He that is sparing out of regard to his heir, and too niggardly, is next neighbor to a madman. I will begin to drink and scatter flowers, and I will endure even to be accounted foolish. What does not wine freely drunken enterubique est codicum," says Dr. Bentley; and both the Scholiasts tell us, that Archias was a person who made beds of a lower, shorter kind. Besides, Archaicis has the second syllable long; nor is it, indeed, a Latin word. ED. DUBL.

30 The second consulship of Taurus was in the year 728, so that this, wine must be four or five years old. SAN.

31 The Scholiasts inform us, that Moschus was a rhetorician of Pergamus, whose defense Torquatus undertook when he was accused of poisoning. ED. DUBL.

32 Cras nato Cesare. Dacier and Masson are here, in Dr. Bentley's language, upon another occasion, at daggers-drawing, digladiantur, in defense of Julius Cæsar and Augustus. The latter was born the twenty-third of September, which could not be justly called a summer's night, aestivam noctem. The other on the twelfth of July. Two years after his death, the triumvirs ordered that his birthday should be celebrated by the people crowned with laurel, and that whosoever neglected it should be devoted to the vengeance of Jupiter and the deceased god himself. But, as the Apollinarian games were annually celebrated, and that it was forbidden to mix the festivals of any other god with those of Apollo, Cæsar's birthday was ordered to be solemnized on the 11th. Thus we have not only the year and month, but the very day when this letter was written, the 10th of July. D. DUBL.

This opinion is at least as old as Porphyrion, who says, "Divi Cæsaris natalem significat." Torrentius thinks Horace means the birth of some young prince, grandson of Augustus, which the words will indeed very well bear. Nato Cesare, for ob Cesarem recens natum. To give this conjecture a kind of certainty, Rodellius and Mr. Sanadon proclaim this festival in honor of Caius Cæsar, eldest son of Agrippa and Julia. But Caius was born in the beginning of September, and the critics probably forgot the circumstance of lengthening the summer night. ED. DUBL. Orelli de termines in favor of Augustus.

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