and statements about himself as about the world. He did not want to think himself, or to allow others to think him better than in his heart he knew himself to be. We have to remember also that in his various works we have pictures of himself painted at different periods. And there is perhaps an apparent discrepancy between these pictures. We find a difficulty in realising that the author of some of the Epodes is the same man who wrote the first book of the Epistles. In trying to picture to ourselves his personal appearance, we must take into account not only his ironical selfdepreciation, but the outward changes which time produced upon him. Thus, when he speaks of himself, at the age of forty or forty-five, as 'pinguem et nitidum bene curata cute' and as corporis exigui, praecanum,' and hints at his indolent and valetudinarian habits, we do not easily associate such a figure with the enthusiasm of a great lyrical poet, or with the wreaths of flowers which play so conspicuous a part in his convivial Odes. But we can correct this picture by glimpses which he affords us of his appearance in youth-of'the black hair clustering round his narrow forehead' (a trait of beauty in a Roman, as their busts show that their foreheads were generally low and broad)—and by the thought of the days when his 'soft accents and graceful smile' were welcome at the banquet, and when it became him to wear a toga of delicate texture,' and to have 'his hair' (after the Roman fashion of the time) 'glistening with unguents.' We have to remember also that if it was not in his graceful youth that he sang of love and wine, it was then that he lived the life which he afterwards revived in his lyrical art. At the stage when we know him best, that is, in the maturity of his productive powers, with the grace and adventurous activity of youth he had lost also much of its fire and passion; but he regarded the loss as well compensated by the philosophic mind which years had brought, and by the consciousness of becoming a kindlier and better man, ‘lenior et melior.' It is at this stage of his career that we gain the best image of the man, though we can trace through all his career how he became what he then was. His most marked characteristic is his self-dependence. He judged of things for himself, and refused to measure what was good or evil by the standards common among his countrymen (Ep. i. 1. 70, &c.). While he thankfully enjoyed all outward advantages, his aim was to be independent of them for his happiness. He desired to regulate his life by reason, to introduce consistency into his desires and pursuits, to know what he really cared for, and to limit his efforts to attaining it. To 'live for himself'—that is, not to live in selfish isolation, but to be true to his own nature, to be what he was meant to be, and not to try to be or seem anything else—and to be independent of fortune, is the sum of his philosophy. This doctrine was not learned from the schools, though it combined what was most real in the teaching of Epicureanism and Stoicism, but was gathered from reflexion on the experience of life. He learned something from the teaching of his father, from the example and precepts of such men as Ofellus. But the spirit of independence was inborn in him. We trace it in the account he gives of his way of life in Rome and in the country. We see it, combined with the poetic impulse, in his love for lonely rambles among the hills and woods, such as he describes in the twenty-second Ode of the first book and the twenty-fifth of the third. But, so far as his choice of a mode of life was influenced by books, it is to the record of his own life by Lucilius that we should ascribe one at least of the forces which moulded the character of Horace. The attraction which the satirist of the Republic had for the satirist of the Augustan age was personal as well as literary. There is a tone of sympathy with the man in those often-quoted lines, Ille velut fidis arcana sodalibus olim All that is known of Lucilius from ancient testimony and from the fragments of his writings-his self-criticism, and his critical attitude to the world around him, his intimacy with the best men of his time, his love of independence, his enjoyment of society, and the pleasure which he found in withdrawing himself into some quiet haven,' his contentment and love of simple fare, his freedom from all pedantry and asceticism—seems to be the counterpart of what Horace was in his ordinary prosaic mood. When Horace says that he would not exchange his independent ease for all the wealth of Arabia, he writes in the spirit, almost the tone of Lucilius. Horace, indeed, had none of the fierce indignation' of Lucilius, which reappeared long afterwards, under different circumstances, in Juvenal. Nor had Lucilius any of the 'ingeni benigna vena,' which was the chief endowment of Horace. But in their ordinary tastes and habits there was a real affinity between the 'vafer Flaccus,' the friend of Maecenas, and the 'comis et urbanus Lucilius,' the friend of Scipio and Laelius. This resolute spirit of self-dependence influences his relation to others and determines his deepest convictions. He maintains the attitude in presence of both Maecenas and Augustus, though ungrudging in the expression of his gratitude to the one and his loyal admiration for the other. It enabled him to live on an intimate footing with many distinguished contemporaries without being absorbed by any of them. While confessing, in a vein of humorous exaggeration, to innumerable follies arising from his love of pleasure, in the earlier part of his career, he never, as Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius did, allows his happiness and peace of mind to be at the mercy of any one. In his attitude to the leaders of the philosophic schools, he does not, like Lucretius, give way to any excess of hero-worship, but acknowledges allegiance to no school or master. He judges them all candidly, and can take from all of them what he finds true in his own experience. But the only philosophical teacher by whom he seems personally attracted is the Cyrenaic Aristippus. He recognises in him that same detachment from alien influences which he recognised in Lucilius, and which he cultivated in himself. So too in his art, while knowing how to turn to the best account the master-pieces of Greek lyrical poetry, he proclaims his own reliance on himself Qui sibi fidit His success is due to the union of absolute trust in his own powers with perfect knowledge of their limit. We see the same spirit manifesting itself in his contemplation of the ultimate mysteries of human life. He is as free as Lucretius from the superstitions which disturbed the peace of many of his contemporaries Somnia, terrores magicos, miracula, sagas, He seems half to believe in a Power, uncontrollable by man. which determines the destinies of individuals, to which he gives the various names of Fortune, God, Jove,-a Power which gives and takes away the blessings of life according to its own will or caprice (for in different moods he regards it as a righteous will or a mocking caprice)-but even of this Power he claims to be independent, not indeed for external goods, but for his happiness Sed satis est orare Iovem quae donat et aufert; Det vitam, det opes, aequum mi animum ipse parabo In the midst of all his contentment with his lot, he never forgets the inevitable end. But he seeks no comfort outside himself. He does not, like Virgil, meet the thought of inexhaustible melancholy' with the vague hope of a spiritual life hereafter. He accepts it with a resignation calmer than, if not so lofty as that of Lucretius. Like Montaigne, he seems to feel that the way to 'fight death' is to 'disarm him of his novelty and strangeness, to converse and be familiar with him,' and that the 'premeditation of death is the premeditation of liberty.' He draws from this premeditation the lesson rightly to use and wisely to enjoy that which alone is at his command, the present hour. This self-dependent attitude seems to be the central quality in the character of Horace, and the chief source of his intel lectual and moral power. But this after all explains only one side of his nature. No one, of whom we know so much, seems to have combined in the same degree the capacity of being happy alone, with aptitude for and enjoyment of social life. While the first was the condition of his inspiration, of his meditative habit, and of his literary excellence, to the second he owed many of the materials of his art, and also the sanity of his genius, the moderation and truth of his judgment, his immunity from the weaknesses and extravagance of the literary temperament. His relations to society were determined by reflexion as much as by impulse. In his lonely musings he considered not only how he should be true to himself, but how he should be dulcis amicis.' His early admission into a social circle inheriting the traditions of a governing aristocracy, implies the possession of some great social charm; and the nature of that charm is indicated not only in the humour and gaiety of many of his writings, but in the manifold proofs which he gives in his Odes and Epistles of appreciation and consideration for others, and in the evidence which all his writings afford of tact and good sense, of freedom from vanity and self-assertion. His satire indeed made enemies, and he was feared and disliked by those who felt themselves to be exposed to it. But the exercise of this faculty was restrained in him by a high sense of honour. There is no charge which he repels with more grave earnestness than that of taking pleasure in hurting the feelings of others. There is no character which he describes with such concentrated scorn as that of the slanderer and backbiter Absentem qui rodit amicum, Qui non defendit alio culpante, solutos Qui captat risus hominum famamque dicacis; Qui nequit; hic niger est, hunc tu, Romane, caveto. Among the breaches of honour which he most strongly condemns is the betrayal of a secret, and among the qualities to which he assigns the highest place is faithful silence. He professes to use his satiric stilus' only in self-defence or |