CHAPTER III.

HORACE AS A MORALIST.

Epistles. Book I.

THE Epistles belong essentially to the same branch of literature as the Satires. To both Horace applies the term 'sermones,' to distinguish them from the Odes, which he calls. 'carmina.' They are both written in hexameter verse, in a style more akin to the urbanity and conversational ease of Terence, than to the tones of elevated poetry or high-pitched rhetoric. They make little demand on that pure but not very abundant spring of feeling and imagination, which seems to have flowed only scantily and intermittently during the years when the Satires were composed, and which Horace himself felt was becoming less active at the time when he wrote the dedicatory introduction to the first book of the Epistles. But the epistolary form gave a freer outlet than any other form adopted by him, to that observation of the ways and course of life, that constant reflexion on himself, that sympathy with and power of probing the inner life of others, that informal didactic tendency, which mingle with the social and personal criticism of the Satires, and are an important element in his lyrical poetry, but which formed the main current of his intellectual being at the time when the first book of the Epistles was composed.

While the Epistles are a new and more original product of the intellectual faculties which produced the Satires, they belong to a different stage in his intellectual development, and indicate a considerable change in his social relations, his literary position, his habits of life, his spirit and temper. He is no longer, as

he appears in the earlier Satires, one among many rivals, struggling for his position in the world of letters, making enemies as well as friends in the struggle, having to defend every position by polemical criticism, finding out by tentative efforts the true bent of his own powers, living himself in the world and sharing in the follies which he criticises. He has now to complain more of servile imitation than of jealous rivalry. The ten years which intervened between the publication of the second book of the Satires and of the first book of the Epistles wrought a change in his whole view of life. The ordinary pleasures of life had lost much of their zest for him, but he had found ample compensation for them in the pleasures of the mind. Though still an amused spectator of life, he had outlived the animosities as well as the other passions of his earlier manhood. He had in the composition of the Odes of Books ii and iii assumed a higher position than that of negative criticism or indulgent toleration. Without falling into any ascetic extreme, he had realised by experience and reflexion that his own happiness and that of the cultivated classes, to whom his teaching is addressed, depended on a true understanding and wise direction of the inner life. He professes to regard even his lyrical art, in which he had found his happiness and his vocation, as a mere light amusement in comparison with the study how to regulate conduct and build up character.

What chiefly distinguishes the Epistles from the Satires is their more definite ethical purpose. They aim at effecting, not that mere reformation in outward life and manners which may be indirectly forwarded by acting on the sense of ridicule, but a change of heart, by acting on the higher nature, by substituting 'culture' in the Latin, not the English, sense of the word— for the disorderly desires and passions of the natural man. the Epistles Horace deals with the problems of life more searchingly than in the Satires, more systematically than in the Odes. Though not in form, they are in substance and spirit essentially didactic. To teach the true end and wise regulation of life,

In

and to act on character from within, are the motives of the more formal and elaborate Epistles. And in those of a lighter and more purely personal meaning, which with his artistic love of variety he intermingles with those of a graver sort, by some incidental remark he seems to probe some weakness of character or to hint the way to a better and wiser life.

The epistolary form, while avoiding the pretention of a set philosophical discourse, is well suited to his object. It enables him to apply the different aspects of his philosophy to different circumstances and to individual cases; and at the same time to give expression to the feelings by which he was attached to many of his contemporaries, and the interest which he took in younger men entering upon life. It served as a medium for that frank communicativeness about his own tastes and habits which was seen to be one of the great literary charms of the Satires and the Odes. The original suggestion of the form may have been due to Archilochus; or perhaps to a still older poet, who in the lines addressed to Perses gave the first specimen of didactic poetry. Some of the Satires of Lucilius were written in the form of letters. There was, too, a still older instance of this form in Latin literature, the humorous verses addressed by Sp. Mummius to his friends at Rome during the siege of Corinth, which Cicero had often heard quoted by the grandson of Mummius. Two of the elegiac poems of Catullus are written in the form of letters to personal friends. Many of Horace's own Odes, expressing maxims of conduct and reflexions on life, are short lyrical epistles, addressed to persons whose position or character suggested the reflexions. The art of letter-writing was essentially Roman, not Greek, because to the Romans, constantly separated from their friends and from the chief centre of their interests by absence in distant provinces, it was a necessity of social and political life. The recent publication of the most interesting collection of letters in any language, the correspondence of Cicero, must have gained for the epistle recognition such as it had not hitherto enjoyed in literature. To a man of Horace's friendly and social temper,

living, partly from taste, partly owing to failing health, on his Sabine farm or in such favourite resorts as Tibur and Tarentum', it was natural that he should wish to maintain his relations with his friends in Rome and with others engaged in business or official duties, or simply travelling for pleasure in the provinces. By using verse instead of prose as his vehicle, he was able to impart to the epistle a finer literary grace without sacrifice of the frankness and familiarity which give life to the 'colloquia absentium amicorum.' By the use of the epistolary form he adds human interest to his moral teaching, applying it to each individual whom he addresses and the circumstances in which he is placed. By acting on the principle that a different kind of admonition is suited to men in different circumstances and of different character, he can write without inconsistency, at one time in the spirit of a Stoic, inculcating independence of the world; at another in the spirit of a disciple of Aristippus, who understands from watching rather than from sharing in the game of life how to win or lose it; more often simply as a friend, expressing friendly sympathy, performing some friendly office, or offering friendly counsel. The Epistles thus combine the interest of unsystematic discourses or essays on the conduct of life by a man of much reading, observation, and reflexion, with the charm of a collection of actual letters, written to many persons, whose individual traits are indicated as those of Cicero's correspondents are in the letters addressed to them. They have thus a natural charm, entirely wanting to the formal ethical epistles of Seneca, in which only the individuality of the writer is present. These Epistles vary considerably in length and importance. A few extend to between ten and twenty lines only; a considerable number to between thirty and fifty; a few of those in which he is more expressly didactic from about seventy to about one hundred. The shortest among them is simply a letter of introduction

1

Mihi iam non regia Roma,

Sed vacuum Tibur placet aut imbelle Tarentum.

Ep. i. 7. 44, 45.

similar to those of which we have so many in the thirteenth book of Cicero's correspondence. This letter is interesting as showing Horace's relation to the future Emperor Tiberius, then a young man beginning to gain that experience and distinction in military and diplomatic service which prepared him for the great position he had afterwards to fill. It is written in behalf of Septimius, for whom, if he is the Septimius of the Odes, Horace entertained an especial affection. It is in its tone-its tact, its self-depreciating yet self-respecting irony, and self-forgetful interest in his friends-an admirable specimen of his urbanity, and a model of what a letter of introduction to a social superior ought to be. Another short letter, in which his tact and irony are conspicuous, is the thirteenth, addressed to Vinius, to whom he had intrusted the three books of Odes ('signata volumina') to be conveyed to Augustus, then apparently absent from Italy'.

The eighth is a short letter of congratulation addressed to Celsus Albinovanus, a young man on the staff of Tiberius, on his appointment as secretary. It is written apparently in bad health, and dissatisfaction with his own infirmity of purpose and restlessness of spirit. Here, as so often in the Satires, he admits his own liability to the moral maladies which his teaching is intended to heal. Perhaps his self-reproach was partly meant to soften the caustic admonition with which he concludes--one which successful young men at all times would do well to bear in mind-

Ut tu fortunam, sic nos te, Celse, feremus.

The fifteenth is also written by Horace in bad health, but in

1 'Si denique poscet' seems to imply that Augustus was expecting to receive the poems. The directions given to Vinius imply a longer journey than from the Sabine farm to Rome, and Horace was more likely to have his copies of the work in Rome than at his Sabine farm. The words' simul ac perveneris illuc' imply that the letter is supposed to be addressed to Vinius, at some intermediate place before he reached his destination. Augustus went to Sicily in B. C. 22; thence to the East, from which he did not return till 19 B. C. Thus this letter could not be written before the latter half of 22 B. C. Is it likely that the Odes had been given to the world some time before Horace ventured to send them to Augustus, or is it more natural to suppose that one of the earliest copies was sent to him?