matters are a little deficient, I commend the snug and homely fare, of sufficient resolution amidst mean provisions; but, if any thing be offered better and more delicate, I, the same individual, cry out, that ye are wise and alone live well, whose wealth and estate are conspicuous from the elegance of your villas.

EPISTLE XVI.

TO QUINCTIUS.91

He describes to Quinctius the form, situation, and advantages of his country-house: then declares that probity consists in the consciousness of good works; liberty, in probity.

Ask me not, my best Quinctius, whether my farm maintains its master with corn-fields, or enriches 92 him with olives, or with fruits, or meadow-land, or the elm-tree clothed with vines: the shape and situation of my ground shall be described to you at large.

There is a continued range of mountains, except where they are separated by a shadowy vale; but in such a manner, that the approaching sun views it on the right side, and departing in his flying car warms the left. You would commend its temperature. What? If my [very] briers produce in abundance the ruddy cornels and damsens? If my oak and holm-tree accommodate my cattle with plenty of acorns, and their master with a copious shade? You would say that Tarentum, brought nearer [to Rome], shone in its verdant beauty. A fountain too, deserving to give name to a river, insomuch that Hebrus does not surround Thrace more cool or more limpid, flows salubrious to the infirm head, salubrious

91 We may suppose, that Quinctius had often rallied our poet on the situation, extent, and revenues of his estate. After having satisfied all his questions in very few words, he throws himself into the moral, and touches upon certain points, probably, of much importance to Quinctius ; but all is pleasing, interesting, and instructive. The name of Augustus in the twenty-ninth line is a proof, that the letter was written after the year 726. SAN.

92 Opulentet is purely a country word derived from ops, terra. It is not easy to say, whether Horace invented the word, but at least he gave it credit, and it was afterwards used by Columella. SAN.

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to the bowels. These sweet, yea now (if you will credit me) these delightful retreats preserve me to you in a state of health [even] in the September season.

You live well, if you take care to support the character which you bear. Long ago, all Rome has proclaimed you happy: but I am apprehensive, lest you should give more credit concerning yourself to any one than yourself; and lest you should imagine a man happy, who differs from the wise and good; or, because the people pronounces you sound and perfectly well, lest you dissemble the lurking fever at meal-times, until a trembling seize your greased hands. The false modesty of fools conceals ulcers, [rather than have them cured]. If any one should mention battles which you had fought by land and sea, and in such expressions as these should soothe your listening ears; "May Jupiter, who consults the safety both of you and of the city, keep it in doubt, whether the people be more solicitous for your welfare, or you for the people's;" you might perceive these encomiums to belong [only] to Augustus: when you suffer yourself to be termed a philosopher, and one of a refined life; say, pr'ythee, would you answer [to these appellations] in your own name? To be sure-I

He

like to be called a wise and good man, as well as you. who gave this character to-day, if he will, can take it away to-morrow: as the same people, if they have conferred the consulship on an unworthy person, may take it away from him: " Resign; it is ours," they cry: I do resign it accordingly, and chagrined withdraw. Thus if they should call me rogue, deny me to be temperate, assert that I had strangled my own father with a halter; shall I be stung, and change colour at these false reproaches? Whom does false honour delight, or lying calumny terrify, except the vicious and sickly. minded? Who then is a good man? He who observes the decrees of the senate, the laws and rules of justice; by whose arbitration many and important disputes are decided; by whose surety private property, and by whose testimony causes are safe. Yet [perhaps] his own family and all the neighbourhood observe this man, specious in a fair outside, [to be] polluted within. If a slave should say to me, "I have not committed a robbery, nor run away:" "You have your reward; you are not galled with the lash," I reply. "I have not killed any man:" "You shall not | therefore] feed the carrion crows

L

on the cross." I am a good man, and thrifty :-your Sabine friend denies, and contradicts the fact. For the wary wolf dreads the pitfall, and the hawk the suspected snares, and the kite the concealed hook. The good, [on the contrary,] hate to sin from the love of virtue; you will commit no crime merely for the fear of punishment. Let there be a prospect of escaping, you will confound sacred and profane things together. For, when from a thousand bushels of beans you filch one, the loss in that case to me is less, but not your villany. The honest man, whom every forum and every court of justice looks upon with reverence, whenever he makes an atonement to the gods with a swine or an ox; after he has pronounced in a clear distinguishable voice, "O father Janus, O Apollo;" moves his lips as one afraid of being heard; "O fair Laverna,93 put it in my power to deceive; grant me the appearance of a just and upright man throw a cloud of night over my frauds." I do not see how a covetous man can be better, how more free than a slave, when he stoops down for the sake of a penny, stuck in the road [for sport].94 For he who will be covetous, will also be anxious: but he that lives in a state of anxiety, will never in my estimation be free. He who is always in a hurry, and immersed in the study of augmenting his fortune, has lost the arms, and deserted the post of virtue. Do not kill your captive, if you can sell him: he will serve you advantageously: let him, being inured to drudgery, feed [your cattle], and plough; let him go to sea, and winter in the midst of the waves; let him be of use to the market, and import corn and provisions. A good and wise man 95 will have courage to say, "Pentheus, king of

93 In a religion where every one made his own gods, it was natural that thieves and robbers, being persecuted upon earth, should seek the assistance of some divinity in heaven. That horror with which they are usually regarded, ought to have extended to the goddess who was their protectress; but as she was also the guardian of those who would not have their designs discovered, she was publicly worshipped, and her votaries were called "Laverniones." TORR. SAN.

94 Comp. Pers. Sat. v. 3, Inque luto fixum possis transcendere nummum. The allusion is to a trick of boys placing money on the ground, either fixed so tight that it cannot be removed, or secured by a string, by which they withdraw it when any passenger stoops to take it up. M'CAUL.

$5 A really good man is he, whom the loss of fortune, liberty, and life, cannot deter from doing his duty. The poet, with an unexpected spirit

Thebes, what indignities will you compel me to suffer and endure. 'I will take away your goods:' my cattle, I suppose, my land, my moveables and money: you may take them. 'I will confine you with hand-cuffs and fetters under a merciless gaoler.' The deity himself will discharge me, whenever I please." In my opinion, this is his meaning; I will die.96 Death 97 is the ultimate boundary 98 of human matters.

EPISTLE XVII.

TO SCEVA.

That a life of business is preferable to a private and inactive one; the friendship of great men is a laudable acquisition, yet their favours are ever to be solicited with modesty and caution.

THOUGH, Scævа, you have sufficient prudence of your own, and well know how to demean yourself towards your superiors; [yet] hear what are the sentiments of your old crony, who himself still requires teaching, just as if a blind man should undertake to show the way: however see, if even I can advance any thing, which you may think worth your while to adopt as your own.

If pleasant rest, and sleep till seven o'clock, delight you; if dust and the rumbling of wheels, if the tavern offend you; I shall order you off for Ferentinum. For joys are not the property of the rich alone: nor has he lived ill, who at his

and address, brings a god upon the stage under the character of this good The whole passage is almost an exact translation of a scene in the Bacchantes of Euripides. FRAN.

man.

96 This could not be the sense of Bacchus in Euripides, because he would have Pentheus acknowledge him a god, and of consequence immortal. Horace therefore leaves the Grecian poet, and explains the words conformably to his own design of showing that the fear even of death is not capable of shaking the courage of a good man, or obliging him to abandon the cause of virtue. SAN.

97 This does not mean, as it is generally understood, that death is an end of all things, but of all our misfortunes. Rerum for rerum malarum, as in Virgil, "fessi rerum, sunt lacrymæ rerum, trepida rerum." DUBL.

ED.

Linea, a trench drawn round the arena, to mark the course for those who entered the lists. TORR. SAN.

刨

2

Did

3

an

birth and at his death has passed unnoticed.99 If you are disposed to be of service to your friends, and to treat yourself with somewhat more indulgence, you, being poor, must pay your respects to the great.100 Aristippus, if he could dine to his satisfaction on herbs, would never frequent [the tables] of the great. If he who blames me, [replies Aristippus,] knew how to live with the great, he would scorn his vegetables. Tell me, which maxim and conduct of the two you approve; or, since you are my junior, hear the reason why Aristippus' opinion is preferable; for thus, as they report, he baffled the snarling cynic: "I play the buffoon for my own advantage,1 you [to please] the populace. This [conduct of mine] is better and far more honourable; that a horse may carry, and a great man feed me, pay court to the great: you beg for refuse, an inferior to the [poor] giver; though you pretend you are in want of nothing."2 As for Aristippus, every complexion 3 of life, every station and circumstance sat gracefully upon him, aspiring in general to greater things, yet equal to the present: on the other hand, I shall be much surprised, if a contrary way of life should become [this cynic], whom obstinacy clothes with a double rag. The one will not wait for

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99 Cf. Eur. Iph. Αul. 17, ζηλῶ δ' ἀνδρῶν ὃς ἀκίνδυνον βίον ἐξεπέρασ ἀγνώς, ἀκλεής. ORELLI.

100 Accedes siccus ad unctum. People of easy fortunes never lay down at the table without perfuming themselves with essences; from whence the words unctus and siccus were used to signify a rich and a poor man. TORR.

1 Aristippus does not acknowledge he was a buffoon, but makes use of the term to insult Diogenes, and dexterously puts other words of civiler meaning into the place of it, when he speaks of himself-Officium facio. My buffoonery, says he, procures me profit and honour yours leaves you in meanness, indigence, nastiness, and contempt. My dependence is on kings, to whom we are born in subjection: you are a slave to the people, whom a wise man should despise. SAN.

2 Aristippus pays his court to Dionysius, without making any request: Diogenes asks even the vilest things from the vilest of people. He would excuse himself, by saying he asks only because what he asks is of little value; but, if the person who receives an obligation is inferior, at that time, to the person who bestows it, he is inferior in proportion to the meanness of the favour he receives. DAC.

3 Omnis Aristippum decuit color. Mr. Sanadon understands color for dress or habit. You are the only person, says Plato to Aristippus, who can appear equally well-dressed in a coarse cloth, as in purple.

▲ Duplici panno. A Greek poet calls Diogenes,

Ο βακτροφόρος, διπλοείματος, αιθεροβόσκας,