Le pauvre en sa cabane, où le chaume le couvre, Et la garde qui veille aux barrières du Louvre De murmurer contre elle et perdre patience Vouloir ce que Dieu veut est la seule science, In exquisite finish of expression nothing finer than these lines can be desired; and there runs through them a vein of feeling more delicately tender than is to be found anywhere in Horace. This was probably due to the purer faith of the modern, which insensibly coloured the almost pagan tone of the poem. Malherbe says of himself, that he made Horace his breviary,—with what effect, these lines prove. ODE IX., page 16. Why does Horace in this Ode mention the snow on Soracte especially, when the whole Sabine range of hills was equally in view to any one looking from Rome? To mark, apparently, the severity of the season. Soracte, standing out alone upon the plain as it does, and reaching a much lower elevation than the Sabine hills, was often clear of snow, when they were swathed in it. When, therefore, it had donned a covering of white, this was a sure sign that winter was at its worst ; then the only thing to be done was to shut out the cold, and to get what comfort might be had—and that is not small-out of old logs, old wine, and old books. Allan Ramsay's paraphrase of this Ode has all the freshness and vigour of Horace, with added touches of his own, not unworthy of the original: "Look up to Pentland's tow'ring tap, Buried beneath great wreaths of snaw, Driving their ba's frae whins or tee, Nor douser fouk wysing ajee The byas bowls on Tamson's green. Then fling on coals, and rype the ribs, Good claret best keeps out the cauld, Leave to the gods your ilka care, If that they think us worth their while, They can a rowth o' blessings spare, Which will our fashious fears beguile. For what they have a mind to do, That will they do, though we gang wud; But soon as e'er they cry, Be quiet, Let neist day come as it thinks fit, The present minute's only ours ; Be sure ye dinna quit the grip Of ilka joy, when ye are young, Before auld age your vitals nip, And lay ye twafauld o'er a rung. Sweet youth's a blythe and heartsome time; Before it wither and decay. Watch the saft minutes of delight, When Jenny speaks beneath her breath, And kisses, laying a' the wyte On you, if she kep any skaith. 'Haith! ye're ill-bred!' she'll smiling say ; Her laugh will lead you to the place Now to her heaving bosom cling, These benisons, I'm very sure, Are of the gods indulgent grant ; Then, surly carles, whisht, forbear To plague us wi' your whining cant." Allan Ramsay attempted versions of other Odes, but this was his only success. ODE XI., page 19. When the old mode of divination by the flight of birds and the entrails of animals had begun to fall into disrepute among the Romans, their credulity found a vent in the idle speculations of astrology. The professors of that science thronged from the East to Rome, which, even in the time of Horace, was infested with them. In many families no event of importance occurred without their being consulted. If a child was born, or a daughter about to be married, the astrologer was called in to cast a horoscope. What value Horace attached to such prognostications this Ode very plainly shows. But if he rated them at their true worth, it is probable that in this, as in many other things, he stood above many even of the great men of his time. Augustus himself, according to Suetonius (August., § 94), had some reason to attach credit to the art. When a young man, during his retirement in Apollonia, he went with his friend Agrippa to visit Theogenes, a famous mathematician. Theogenes cast Agrippa's horoscope, and predicted for him a splendid career. Augustus, either incredulous or fearful of a less happy fortune, for a long time refused to furnish the date of his birth, without which, of course, the astrologer could do nothing. At length he yielded, when instantly Theogenes flung himself at his feet, and hailed him as the future master of the world. After such an incident, Augustus was likely enough to have been a believer in the Chaldean's art-as indeed were most of his successors. Despots, like all men who have cause to dread the future, are generally superstitious. Pope's "Godless Regent trembling at a star" is a character not extinct even in our own days. But, indeed, credulity and superstition never die. We have the Chaldeans, too, under a different name; and their practice is precisely what Apuleius described it to be in his days-" Ut adsolent, ad consulentis votum confinxerunt." The oracle shapes its responses according to the wishes of its votaries. Juvenal, in his appalling diatribe against the Roman women of his day (Sat. VII. 553), charges them with being the great supporters of these Chaldean charlatans. Chaldeis sed major erit fiducia, &c. "But chiefly in Chaldeans she believes; And again : "But flee The dame whose Manual of Astrology The curse is universal; high and low Are mad alike the future hour to know." In justice Juvenal should not have confined his charge to women. The history of the Empire is rich in proofs that then, as now, credulity in this particular was no less common in the robuster sex. Why denounce the curiosity of poor, simple, ill-taught Leuconöe, and let that of Agrippa, the statesman and warrior, go free? ODE XVI., page 29. Dindymené herself, &c. Cybele, an Asiatic goddess, styled by the Greeks "the mother of the gods," was called Dindymené, from Mount Dindymus in Phrygia. In works of art she generally appears as a grave and majestic matron. Her head is commonly crowned with towers; whence she is termed by Milton "the towered Cybele, mother of a hundred gods" ("Arcades," v. 21). She is often represented as roaming through the world in a chariot drawn by lions, attended by her priests, the Galli and Corybantes, who rushed about with hideous cries and cut themselves with knives, like the prophets of Baal (1 Kings xviii. 28). Their orgies were of a peculiarly wild and excited character, accompanied with loud music of flutes, cymbals, drums, tambourines, &c. Catullus's magnificent poem "Atys" breathes all the frenzy which was believed to inspire her votaries, and will keep alive the memory of their cult as long as Roman poetry has readers. ODE XVII., page 30. My own sweet Lucretilis, &c. Ustica's low vale. Monte Horace here invites the fair Tyndaris to visit him at his Sabine villa. Lucretilis and Ustica are hills in its neighbourhood. Gennaro has been named by writer after writer as the Lucretilis of the poet; but a claim, founded on great probability from the smaller scale of the mountain, as well as from its being nearer to Horace's farm, has of late years been set up in favour of Monte Corgnaleto (see note postea, Sat. II. 6). There can be no doubt that the Ustica of this poem is La Rustica, on the right side of the valley going upwards, which Horace has himself described with graphic minuteness in the 16th Epistle of the First Book of Epistles. Mr Newman, whose tenderness for Horace's |