The works of Horace : with English notes, critical and ... - Cristo Raul

Ul'E OP HORACE. XXV
ruled the world, could not but awaken intellectual powers of the
liighest order. The force and vigor of the Roman character are man-
liest in the fragments of their early poetry. However rude and inharmonious
these translations (for, after all, they are translations),
they are full of bold, animated, and sometimes picturesque expressions
; and that which was the natural consequence of the domiciliation
of a foreign literature among a people of strong and masculine
minds invariably took place. Wherever their masters in the art had
attained to consummate perfection, wherever the genius of the peo-
ple had been reflected in their poetry with complete harmony, there,
however noble might be the emulation of the disciple, it weis impossible
that he should approach to his model, especially where his own
genius and national eharacter were adverse both to the form and to
the poetic conception.
Hence, in the genuine epic, in lyric, in dramatic poetry, the Greeks
stood alone and unapproachable. Each of these successive forms of
the art had, as it were, spontaneously adapted itself to the changes
in Grecian society. The epic was that of the heroic age of the
warrior-kings and bards ; the lyric, the religious, that of the temple
and the public games ; the dramatic, that of the republican polity, the
exquisite combination of the arts of poetry, music, gesture, and spectacle,
before which the sovereign people of Athene met, which was
presided over by the magistrate, and maintained either at the public
cost or at that of the ruling functionary, which, in short, was the
great festival of the city.
But the heroic age of Rome had passed away, as before observed,
without leaving any mythic or epic song, unless already transmuted
into history. Her severe religion had never kindled into poetry, ex-
cept in rude traditional verses, and short songs chanted during the
solemn ceremony. The more domestic habits of her austere days
had been less disposed to public exhibitions ; theatrical amusements
were forced upon her, not freely developed by the national taste.
No doubt, from the close of the second Punic war to the age of Augustus,
dramatic entertainments were more or less frequent in Rome.
The tragedies of Noevius, Ennius, Pacuvius, and Accius, as well eis
the comedies of Plautus, C:Bcilius, Afranius, and Terence, formed
part of the great games which were celebrated during periods of
public rejoicing. The fame of ^sopus and Roscius as actors im-
plies great popular interest in the stage. Still, as has been said, almost
all, if not all, the tragedies, and most of the comedies, were
translations 'or adaptations from the Greek.' The ovation and the
triumph were the great spectacles of Rome ; and, when these became
more rare, her relaxation was the rude Atellan farce, or thd
ooarse mirne ; but her passion was the mimic war, the amphitheatre
with its wild beasts and gladiators..the proud spectacle of barbarian
1. Lange, in his " VindicitB Romanad TragoQdlse," and Welcker (" Griechiscbe
IVagcedie") are indignant at the general, and, a^ Uiey oseert unjust disparagement
oi Kdinau tj'aj^Bdv