In the (aroi to the first three books of the his 'mike confidence in their abiding fame, and with this achievement his lyri•al impulse seems to have satisfied itself. A new series of 'talks' engaged his attention, east, however. in a different literary form, that of the letter. 'I hese Epist/cs, of whiell the first book ap peared the end of .20, or. at the latest, in It), lint differ much from the Satires in the subjects discussed. Conduct is more than ever 'three-fourths of life.' But the years of reading and reflation have brought truer insight and greater breadth of view. lie is still a searcher after the philosophy of life (his mind was far too independent to accept any creed formulated by others). hut he urges with tactful insistence the elementary principles of whose truth he has become convinced. The humor is kindlier and more subtle; in fact, one is often in doubt whether he is speaking in jest or contest, so that he has the in xhaustible Omni' of one whose secret is never wholly surprised. lie is no ideal ist: it is rather the doctrine of the mean, the aurea megliorritas, that he so winningly incul cates. Not even virtue itself is to be sought beyond the bounds of reason. as indeed Aristotle bad claimed long before him. Both the lan guage and the metre of the Epistles show the effects of the seven years devoted to lyric com position. There is the same wealth of terse and hai,py phrase. and the hexameter. which even in the Satires was an immense advanee upon the rhythm of Lueilins. is always smooth and often musical.
The death of Vergil in 19 left TIorace by gen eral consent the greatest living poet : and it as such that in 17 Augustus him to write the hymn for the religious festival of the Seenlar Comes. The result. to modern ears may seem rather stiff and unimaginative in spne of the technical excellence of the verse, but to the great Roman audience—we mulct remember that the rarnien Sa.rulare was chanted in the open air •—there must have been something peculiarly imnressive in the linking of the old liturgical for mulas with the new faith in the city's imperial destiny. Two years later, at the personal re quest of the Emperor, he composed two odes in celebration of the victories of Drusus and Ti berius, the step-sons of Augustus, over the Rh2eti and Viudelici, and, about the same time, two others in praise of the beneficent results of the reign for Daly. But Horace, though he had long been a sincere supporter of the new regime, was ill fitted for work of this kind, and these poems, especially the first two, show the laboriousness that not infrequently attaches to the official odes of a poet laureate, To give them permanence, he added eleven fugitive pieces (one of which, however, the seventh, is a perfect gem), and published this fourth book of the Odes in 13.
According to Suctonius, the charming bit of literary criticism which opens the second book of the Epistles was written to meet a complaint of Augustus that to him alone Horace had ded icated nothing. It is in substance an attempt to show that no true parallel could be drawn between the development of 'poetry in Greece and that at Rome, and that the work of the modern school, of which he regarued Vergil, Varius, and himself as the best representatives, marked the highest level yet reached of artistic achievement. In the second of the two epistles of this boot: he sets forth at length with characteristic irony and indirection the reasons why henceforth lyric poetry must give place to the "rhythms and har monies of real life." The latest of his letters and the one which is most nearly a formal essay is that addressed to the Pisos. It is generally known as the art of Poetry (Liber de Arte Poctica), though this title seems not to have been given to it by Horace himself, and i:, indeed, scarcely appropriate, for only one branch, that of the drama, receive: any systematic treatment. The discussion has all the sanity and breadth of judgment that mark the moral epistles. and is, in effect, another defense of the poetic ideals of the Augustan school.
Of the details of the closing years of his life we have no record. The death of nrcenas, who in his last words commended his life-long friend to Aup-,nstus. was a severe shock. Horace. who had once (C. ii., 17) prayed that they might not be separated in death, did not long survive him, dying on the 27th of November. c.c. S. when he had nearly completed his fifty-seventh year. He was buried on the Esquiline, close to the tomb of Mlecenas.
Sir. Mackail has admirably' summed up the significance of his work: "Among the many amazing achievements of the Greek genius in the field of human thought were a lyrical poetry of unexampled beauty. a refined critical faculty. and, later than the great thinkers and outside the strict schools, a temperate philosophy such as we see afterwards in the beautiful personality of Plutarch. In all these three Horace inter preted Greece to the world, while adding that peculiarly Roman urbanity—the spirit at once of the grown man as distinguished from children. of the man of the world, and of the gentleman— which up till now has been a dominant ideal over the thought and life of Europe." BIBLIOGRAPHY. The rditio prineeps was pubBibliography. The rditio prineeps was pub- lished at Venice in 1470. The most important editions before Bentley were those of Lambinus (last edition, Coblenz, 1829), Cruquius (Ant werp, 1578). and Heinsius (Leyden, 1612). Richard Bentley's edition, first published at Cambridge in 1711 (3d ed., Berlin, 1869), made a new era in Horatian criticism. The best criti cal edition of the text is that of Keller and Holder (2 vols., Leipzig, 1864-70). Keller is sued a second edition of the first volume (Odes, Epodes, and Carmen Smeltlore) in 1899, and also a supplementary volume of text discussion, Epi legomena zu Horaz (Leipzig, 1879-80). The best general editions are those of Orelli revised by Hirschfelder and Mewes (4th ed., 2 vols., Ber lin, 1886-02, with Latin notes and complete word index) ; Kiessling (2d ed., 3 vols., Berlin, 1890 97; vol. i. in 3d ed., 1898) ; Mailer, Odes and Epodes (Leipzig, 1900), Satires and Epistles (1891-93) Wickham, Odes and Epodes (3d ed., Oxford, 1896), Satires and Epistles (1891) ; Schiitz (Berlin, 1880-83; vol. i. containing Odes and Epodes, 3d ed., 1SS9). The Odes have been edited separately by Nauck (13th ed.. Leipzig, 1889), Page (4th ed., London, 1890). Smith (Boston, 1895), Shorcy (Boston, 1898) ; the Satires by Kruger (14th ed., Leipzig, 1597), Palmer (London, ISS3) ; the Epistles by Wilkins (3d ed., London, 1889)' Porphyrion's Scholia have been edited by Holder (Innsbruck. 1894).
The translations of Horace are all inferior to the original. Among the best are those of Fran cis, entire (London, 1778) ; Lord Ravensworth, Odes (London, 185S ) ; Martin. entire ( Edinburgh, 188S, with an interesting memoir tend good illus trative notes) : Conington. Odes and Epodes (3d cd., London, 1565), Satires and Epistles (1892) ; Lord Lytton. Odes and Epodes (London. 1869) ; Gladstone. Odes (New York. 1894) ; Cooper. Odes by various hands (London, 1880) : Sargent, Odes (Boston, 1893) ; De Vere, Selected Odes and Epodes (London. 1893). A sumptuous edition of the Odcs and Epodes is that of the Bibliophile Society (6 vols., Boston, 1901-02), with intro duction. life. and Latin text, translated and anno tated by 'eminent scholars, statesmen, and poets.' Pope's Satires and Epistles of Horace imitated is very brilliant (best edition by Pattison).
The most valuable literary treatment of Horace Sellar's Horace and the Elegiac Poets (Oxford. 1892). Good also are Boissier's The Country of Horace and Vergil (translated from the French, London. 1896), and Pliiss. Horazstudien (Leip zig, 1SS2). There are good chapters on Horace in Nettleship, Lectures and Essays. first series (Oxford. 1S85) : Patin. Etudes .cur la poesie latinc (3d ed., Paris, 1SS3) ; Mackail, Latin Lit erature (New York, 1900) ; Tyrrell, Latin Poetry (Boston, 1595).