Varius, the tragic and epic poet, will with more addrefs fing the atchievements of Agrippa. Horace is only fit to celelebrate revels, and take pictures from middle life. BRAVE and victorious in the fight,

Our Varius with Mæonian flight

Shall thine atchievements blaze,
Whate'er, beneath thy great command,
The troops have done by fea and land,
In fierce defire of praise.

Agrippa, I cannot attain
The grandeur of the epic ftrain,

Tho' rous'd by deeds like thine,
Nor colour up the glowing page
With Peleus fon's immortal rage,
Nor reach the great defign

That artful hero to recount,

Who could by fea fuch toils furmont 3
Nor fing the barbrous race

Of Pelops, while the bashful lyre
Thy praise and Cæfar's on the wire

Forbids me to disgrace.

PROSE INTERPRETATION.

to depreciate the praises of illuftrious Cæfar and your's, through the deficiency of my talent. Who, with equal dig

nity,

Quis Martem tunicâ tectum adamantinâ
Digne fcripferit? aut pulvere Troïco
Nigrum Merionen? aut ope Palladis
Tydiden fuperis parem?

Nos convivia, nos prælia virginum,
Sectis in juvenes unguibus acrium
Cantamus, vacui, five quid urimur,
Non præter folitum leves.

PROSE INTERPRETATION.

nity fhall ever write Mars covered with his adamantine coat of mail, or Meriones black with Trojan duft, or the son of Tydeus, a match for the Gods by the affiftance of Pallas! I, whether idle, or if any where enamoured with levity, by no

means,

What mortal pen can Mars recite,
In adamantine armour bright,
Or with the life compare

Meriones in duft involv'd,
Or him, Menerva's aid refolv'd

The Gods themselves to dare?

I fing of sports and amʼrous play,
(For all these things are in my way)

And nymphs of sportive veins,

That are fo apt to scratch and tear
With nails which to the quick they pare

Against their fav'rite fwains.

PROSE INTERPRETATION.

means, contrary to cuftom, fing of revellings; I the battles of maids fierce to fcratch young fellows with their nails, first carefully pared.

ODE

AD MUNATIUM PLANCUM CONSULAREM. Alii alias laudant civitates & regiones, Horatius vero reliquis anteponit Tibur, ubi natus eft Plancus, quem ad diluendas vino curas cohortatur.

LAUDABANT alii claram Rhodon,aut Mitylenen,
Aut Ephefum, bimarifve Corinthi
Moenia: vel Baccho Thebas, vel Apolline Delphos
Infignes, aut Theffala Tempe.

Sunt quibus unum opus eft, intactæ Palladis urbem
Carmine perpetuo celebrare, &
Undique decerptam fronti præponere olivam.
Plurimus, in Junonis honorem,

Aptum dicit equis Argos, ditesque Mycenas,
Me nec tam patiens Lacedæmon,
Nec tam Lariffæ percuffit campus opimæ,
Quam domus Albuneæ refonantis,
Et præceps Anio, & Tiburni lucus & uda
Mobilibus pomaria rivis.

PROSE INTERPRETATION.

Others fhall praise the celebrated Rhodes, or Mitylene, or Ephefus, or the walls of double-fead Corinth, or Thebes remarkable for Bacchus, or Delphi for the oracle of Apollo, or the Theffalian Tempe. There are fome whose fole work it is to blazon, in one continued ftrain, the city of the spotless Pallas, and to prefix to their forehead the olivecrown plucked from all quarters. Many a one in honour of Juno mentions Argos apt for horfes, and wealthy Mycena. Neither patient Lacedemon fo much took with me, nor fo much the plain of fertile Lariffa, as the house of refounding Albania and the precipitate Anio, and the grove of Tiburs,

and

TO MUNATIUS PLANCUS, A PERSON OF CONSULAR DIGNITY*.

Some writers praise one city or region, and fome another. Horace prefers Tibur to all the world, in which place Plancus was born, whom he exhorts to the washing away of care by wine.

LET others fing the praise of famous Rhodes

Or Mytilene, or th' Ephefian pride,

Or chant the walls of Corinth in their odes,
Wash'd by a different fea on either fide,
Or Thebes for Bacchus, Delphi juftly fam'd

For Phoebus, or Theffalian Tempe's vale;
Some make the feat of Pallas, nymph unblam'd,
The theme of one uninterrupted tale,
And run all lengths to wear an olive-crown
Many for Juno, with poetic zeal,

Argus fo apt for cavalry renown,

And, rich Mycenae, boast thy public weal, With me nor patient Sparta, nor the plains

Of high-manur'd Lariffa e'er cou'd take, As where Albunea's tinkling fount remains, Or Anio roaring down into the lake. * Munatius Plancus, upon the death of Cafar, at firft fided with Octavius, and was conful with M. Lepidus, in the year of Rome, 712. After that he went over to Antony, and did not return to Auguftus till 722, who, in confideration of what was past, perhaps not

VOL. I.

putting any great confidence in him, made no ufe of him in the war, which that very year was denounced against Antony and Cleopatra. Plancus upon this, being in a ftate of chagrin, flood in need of that confolation which Horace endeavours to give him in this ode.

D