HORACE'S SATIRES AND EPIS TLES. The and Epistles> of Horace, each in two books, appeared at irregular inter vals from 35 ac., when the poet was 30 years of age, to almost the close of his life in 8 B.C. They are the products of a mature and well balanced mind and spirit, and are most fully appreciated by readers of philosophic age. In spite of the dual title, the variety of their subject matter and the length of experience they represent, they form a homogeneous body of literature. Horace himself calls them all sermons, which may be translated or causeries; thus testifying to their likeness in. his mind. There is less per sonal satire and more formal philosophy and literary criticism in the Epistles than in the Satires; but they are essentially one. The Epistles are only Satires rendered by advancing age and experience more mellow in spirit and more urbane in manner. The same form is em ployed throughout the four books; they are all in hexameter, the author disclaiming any pre tension to verse in the lofty style and professing a natural freedom and simplicity, yet holding to the ideal of urbanity and purity. The con tent also is homogeneous; the prevailing theme is human life. The Satires and Epistles are most of all a revelation of human nature First, there is the self-revelation of the author himself. These compositions tell us not only most of what we know of Horace's origin and of his rise from the humblest of positions to a place in the friendship and esteem of the best and greatest men of the age; they have the more important effect of making us intimately acquainted with one of the most sympathetic personalities in the literature of all time. The Horace of the Odes is on the whole the court poet, the exquisite product of the higher cul ture of Rome and Athens; in the Satires and the Epistles it is the simple, direct and natural Horace of ordinary Italian manners and ideals, who appears only occasionally in the Odes and whom we may call the real Horace, that is everywhere face to face with the reader. No poet establishes so easily and so completely the personal relation with us. There are few ex pressions of self in all literature so spontane ous, so sincere and unreserved, so complete and so engaging. Horace becomes the reader's familiar and friend— °the friend of my friends and of so many generations of as Andrew Lang addresses him. In the second place, the
Satires and Epistles are a revelation of the poet's milieu. In every composition he is ad dressing some one of his great number of friends, and in this way holds the mirror up to a wide diversity of character and circum stance in one of the greatest ages in The Satires and Epistles are kaleidoscopic scenes not only from the larger life of the tin: but also from the daily life of men in to humbler walks of existence. Their pages an golden with the poet's own reasoned contem plation of the faots of life in beautiful and fruit ful Italy, and with the homely thought, precept and action of the common man as well. The story of the town mouse and the country mouse find its best telling in Horace.
Again, the Satires and Epistles reveal the reader to himself. This is their greatest charm and their greatest value. They are timeless; they are universal. Their vignettes from na ture, their miniatures of the life of men, their tributes to friendship, their homely anecdotes, precepts and aphorisms, their sound common sense, their quiet humor, and, above all, their genial philosophy of life, belong to the com mon stock of human experience. Even those epistles which are devoted for the most part to literary criticism, far-reaching as their influ ence upon letters has been, owe their effect hardly more to their exposition of critical prin ciples than to a certain fund of good sense that applies to life in general. In a word, Horace in the Satires and Epistles is an en gaging personality with the gift of art — the man of wide and deep experience in a stirring age who not only looks upon life with under standing and sympathy, but is able to give at tractive and effective expression to his thoughts. For keen but genial and charitable contempla tion of the human comedy, for kindly humor ous and winning expression of the philosophy of life, Horace has no equal. His works, especially the Satires and Epistles, are one of the rare crystallizations of life into art.
The best Satires are I-1, 4, 5, 6, 9; II 1, 6, 8. These and all of the Epistles should be read in connection with the more personal and philosophic Odes, such as 1-9, 11, 31, 35; II — 2, 3, 6, 10, etc. The verse translations of Theodore Martin and Conington are well known.