it is so desultory as to minister perpetual variety. It
starts from some subject of interest or importance, but
does not adhere to it with rigid pertinacity. The satire
of Horace allowed ample scope to follow out any train
of thought which it might suggest, but never to pro-
lixity. It was serious and gay, grave and light; it
admitted the most solemn and important questions
of philosophy, of manners, of literature, but touched
them in an easy and unaffected tone; it was full of
point and sharp allusions to the characters of the day;
it introduced in the most graceful manner the follies,
the affectations, even the vices of the times, but there
was nothing stern, or savage, or malignant in its tone;
we rise from the perusal with the conviction that
Horace, if not the most urbane and engaging-(not
the perfect Christian gentleman) - must have been
the most sensible and delightful person who could be
encountered in Roman society. There is no broad
buffoonery to set the table in a roar; no elaborate and
exhausting wit, which turns the pleasure of listening
into a fatigue; if it trespasses occasionally beyond the
nicety and propriety of modern manners, it may fairly
plead the coarseness of the times, and the want of
efficient female control, which is the only true chastener
of conversation, but which can only command respect,
where the females themselves deserve it.

The satiric form of poetry was not original; there
was something like it in the Silli of the Greeks, and
Lucilius had already introduced this style of writing
into Rome with great success. The obligations of
Horace to Lucilius it is impossible fairly to estimate.

HVERVER VERY VAR

and predominant aristocracy, or a court, which represents or leads the public taste. Rome was too populous to crowd into a theatre, where the legitimate drama could be effectively performed. The people required at least a Colosseum; and directly, as elsewhere, their theatres rivalled their amphitheatres, the art was gone. Society, too, in Rome was in its state of transition from the public spectacle to the private banquet or entertainment; and, as our own present mode of living requires the novel instead of the play, affords a hundred readers of a book to one spectator of a theatrical performance, so Roman comedy receded from the theatre, in which she had never been naturalized, and concentrated her art and her observation on human life and manners, in the poem, which was recited to the private circle of friends, or published for the general amusement of the whole society.

Lucilius, as Horace himself says, aspired to be in Rome what Eupolis, Cratinus, and Aristophanes had been in Athens (Sat. I. v. 1 et seqq.); and more than Cæcilius, Plautus, and Terence, excellent as the two latter at least appear to us, were at Rome.

The tone of society of which Horace is the representative, was that into which Rome, weary and worn out with civil contests, was delighted to collapse. The peace of the capital was no more disturbed; though the foreign disturbances in Spain and on the other frontiers of the empire, the wars with the sons of Pompey, and finally with Antony in the East, distracted the remoter world, Rome quietly subsided into the pursuits of peace. It was the policy no less than

the inclination of Augustus and his true friends, to soften, to amuse, to introduce all the arts, and tastes, and feelings which could induce forgetfulness of the more stirring excitements of the rostrum and the senate; to waken the song of the poet, that the agitating eloquence of the orator might cause less regret; to spread the couch of luxury, of elegant amusement, and of lettered ease, on which Rome might slumber away the remembrance of her departed liberties. Agrippa and Augustus himself may be considered as taking charge of the public amusements, erecting theatres, and adorning the city with magnificent buildings of every description, transmuting the Rome of brick into the Rome of marble; exhibiting the most gorgeous shows and spectacles; distributing sumptuous largesses; and compensating, by every kind of distraction and diversion, for the privation of those more serious political occupations in the forum, or at the comitia, which were either abolished by the new constitution, or had languished into regular and unexciting formalities. (4) Mæcenas in the mean time was winning, if not to the party, or to personal attachment towards Augustus, at least to contented acquiescence in his sovereignty, those who would yield to the silken charms of social enjoyment. Though in

(45) The pantomimes had begun to supersede the regular drama. Pylades was expelled by a faction, but recalled from exile by Augustus. In a dispute with Bathyllus, who was patronized by Mæcenas, Pylades cried out, It is well for you, Cæsar, that the people trouble themselves so much about us, the less therefore about you."-Dion. Cass. LIV. 17. See on the pantomimes of the Romans an excellent dissertation by E. J. Gryser. Rheinisches Museum, 1834.