fusion of figurines, vases, silks, perfumes and precious ornaments, not to mention couches, baths, dice-tables, books, and a fastidious cuisine) the leading Romans were closely followed by all others who could afford to imitate them, as, likewise, that the luxury and display of Rome generally, were at high water mark at this very period, may be readily gleaned from the entertaining pages of the learned Friedlaender. 27

So much for the luxury of this epoch, and the travelameliorations that Horace and his friends would doubtless have enjoyed on the present occasion, but, probably for good and sufficient reason, dispensed with, under a restraint which-like his reticence over the burning questions of the time-we may never find specifically explained. And yet, even in the absence of such explanation, one may reasonably surmise what the essential reason must have been. Indeed, it is odd enough, that, of all of the forty or more commentators, from the Scholiasts down to those of the present time, whose works have been examined for the purposes of this paper, none have advanced an hypothesis in this regard which seems at once most simple--and obvious, as well as here fully warranted.

This, of course, is that Maecenas and his party were thus purposely voyaging under studiously unobtrusive circumstances-in such manner, indeed, that if not reasonably likely to pass wholly incognito, with such an exalted personnel, and on such a frequented highway, there still might be a measurable freedom from sensational remark, and in any case, if need be a better scope for subsequent high official disavowal. That confidential errands of the sort must have been common enough, during these intriguing times, is as obvious as that, in the nature of things, they would seldom be recorded, or their records preserved. We find, however, Cicero's mention of Balbus, the younger, directly on the point: his "secret mission," namely, "to the Consul Lentulus, from Caesar, with a letter, a message, and a promise of a province."28

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Horace tells us of the haste to leave Fundi (perhaps, like Cicero's departure from Rome of a few years earlier, before daylight, to avoid all gazing and gossip ")"9 where lay in wait that officious Jack-in-office, Aufidius Lusco, who, by the way, does not appear to have been actually met, in person. But the poet has nothing whatever to say of any local, official-receptions, such as Maecenas would ordinarily have received along the route. In point of fact, the singular reticence of the narrative on all political or public matters, which has been sometimes rather captiously remarked, would seem to sufficiently indicate that there was ample need and excuse for the studied caution thus observed throughout and concerning the journey.

That Horace himself had abundant grounds for his guarded report and discreet comment, quite aside from what may have here been enjoined upon him, as likewise for the minutest circumspection of personal demeanor at this particular period, is equally obvious. The times were parlous; it behooved to gang warily. Especially if one valued one's head, where those of greater apparent consequence were falling, on all sides, like autumn leaves. 30 A bolder life, as at Philippi, like his shield on the same occasion, had been tried by our poet, and found wanting, 31 inconsistent, perhaps, with that epicurean philosophy he was about to more fully embrace. Then, too, he was but newly taken-on by the great Maecenas; must yet live down sundry awkward memories of his ill-fated attachment to Brutus, and also overcome an obscurity of origin which was only too apparent in the bright light of his present exalted associations.

Turning now, to the approximately metrical rendering of Sat. I, v, herewith supplied, it is hoped that this may find excuse in its close and self-denying observance of the text of the original story, and, in such aspect, sufficiently serve, as suggested, for the purpose of convenient present reference.

It finds its modest genesis in this apparent need, and

stands on the theory that rhymed versions are, generally, either meaningless jingles, or unwarrantable departures from, and inflations of, the original; that reasonably ap proximate metrical renderings, even if of slavish and awkward adherence to the meaning and the general order of the original text, are less repellent than mere unmeasured prose; and finally, that no English imitation consistent with these views is, as yet, elsewhere available.

M. Janin, it will be remembered, rightly asserts the unusualness of the particular product of the Horatian Muse here under consideration. Its author is said to have characterized it, in form, at least, as "rhythmical prose"; while Sir Theodore Martin, himself perhaps the best of the rhyming-translators, considers the work generally to be "mere narrative, relieved by humorous illustration." In any case, it will readily be observed that Satire I, V, sufficiently lends itself to the present form of close adherence, in English, and that, in turn, such treatment finds additional justification in fairly rendering the rough, and often trivial, features of its text. Here, too, fortunately for the present purpose, is an almost total lack of that amiable Horatian dogma; that half-satiric philosophizing on human and superhuman affairs, with deft and unexpected play of close-packed idea and metre, the well-known "Horatii curiosa felicitas," which ordinarily present such insuperable obstacles to adequate metrical, and other renderings of our old friend of the Sabine Farm. It is, in fact, the least attractive of the works of the poet, as well as one of the most difficult to agreeably present in English metrical form.

The long, seventeen-verse interlude of the Buffoons— which, of course, may readily be found, if desired, in any of the prose translations-is here designedly omitted. This on the theory that it is not essential to the present discussion, albeit interesting, and valuable, as a picture of men and manners of the time. Otherwise, however well such features may have served to awaken interest, in an environment of autre temps, autres mœurs, they alas-like the

ponderous humor of the Shakespeare clown; the famous "Grouse in the Gun-room," and a thousand other by-gone pleasantries-drift too heavily down our modern stream of tendency to make effective flotsam now.

M. Janin found this episode "peu plaisante"; Horace, however, that thanks to it, "Prorsus jucunde coenam produximus illam." But, nevertheless, even wretched horse-play of the kind, may, as already suggested, here have served a sufficient, and serious present purpose; possibly like other strain relaxing jests of equal Homeric bluntness, such as are common enough on tense strung waiting or battle lines, and other ragged edges of human anxiety, of whatever times. As for the physico-psychological mishap, one can only say, Delete.

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But the canal-boat episodes; the eye-smarting smoke, and threatened supper calamity; like the gritty bread, the rain-soaked travel-route, and even the stiff local yarn" designed for passing voyager's consumption— especially of the sort always and everywhere kept in stock by priests-are of those touches of nature that make the whole world kin. One may, indeed, find the modern counterpart of each and all of them, to-day, whether in American canal-packets, Chinese house-boats, rural-inns, or other concomitants of primitive travel at home or abroad. Even the black-anointed eyes are observable, as, for example, among the Indians of the Alaska coast, when these aborigines are on an outing.

Truly. as an old writer has said, "Horace had an admirable Talent of painting Things according to Nature and Truth".32

"Ad unguem factus homo": here is an oft-quoted phrase from the present satire which has crept into later languages in curiously distorted form. Thus, the English, "a man to his finger-tips," and the French equivalent of "jusqu'au bout des ongles," etc., although here originating in a widely different conception-an external perfection of flawless polish, namely, such as sculptors, and workers in artificially smoothed surfaces, sought

to determine by light application thereto of the nail-tips. Further, it is a somewhat curious fact that, owing to the peculiar texture of the local millstones, Swinburne, a modern traveler, finds the bread of Canusium still of gritty composition. Barium, the Bari of present times, remains as fishy as of yore, but, unhappily for some of us later, competing Christians, the Apella of nowadays no longer connotes a confiding simplicity.

We have seen that Gibbon (who, however, has been described as destitute of the "enthusiasm of humanity") failed to see much in Horace's homely narrative. That he did so fail, and as well that his was doubtless the prevailing point-of-view of his time, marks effectively how far we of to day, avid as we are of just such simple human revelations, have drifted from the older standards.

To us, the "drum and trumpet " style; the “celebration of the imposing events of history with congenial pomp of description," like the "ampullas et sesquepedalia verba," of which Horace speaks, no longer block the way of unadorned simplicity and human realism, where these appeal for sympathetic hearing.

But the old canons of "taste," and "elegance,” and "art" (like the notions of rhymed translation) die slowly. Nor is it, perhaps, to be expected that aloof workers among the arid materials of the academic closet will stop to consider picturesque possibilities. 33 Yet even these gentlemen, and our truly great historian too, would doubtless have awakened to some warmer glow of appreciation had Horace but substituted for his sorry Messius and Sarmentus stuff-as, alas, he might have done, but did not an equal number of lines concerning his and Vergil's freehand, private conversation.

One might halfway guess what this may have been, or, better, frame its semblance with apt quotations from the heap so freely afforded by their respective works, however much, in fact, the real thing must now, unhappily, remain another and an untold story. 34