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

LIFE OP IIOKACE. xHj
ness of writing poo.ry, whioh had seized all ranke, and thus having
cast aside the mass of bad modern poetry, ho nobly asserts the dignity
and independence of the poetic function. He then returns, by a
nappy transition, to the barbarous times which had given birth to the
old Roman poetry ; oontreists the purity of the noble Greek models
with their rude Roman imitators, first in tragedy, and then in comedy
; and introduces, without effort, the emperor's favorite Plautus,
and even Dossennus, to whose farces Augustus had probably listened
vpith manifest amusement. He does not, however, dwell on that
delicate topic; he hastens away instantly to the general bad taste
of the Roman audience, who preferred pomp, spectacle, noise, and
procession, to the loftiest dramatic poetry ; and even this covert insinuation
against the emperor's indifferent taste in theatrical amusement
is balanced by the praise of his judgment in his patronage of
Virgil and of Varius, and (though with skillful modesty he affects to
depreciate his own humbler poetry) of Horace himself.
The Epistle to the Pisos was already, in the time of Quintilian,
called the Art of Poetry ; but it is rather an epistle of poetry composed
in a seemingly desultory manner, yet with the utmost felicity
of transition from one subject to another, than a regular and systematic
theory. It w^as addressed to Lucius Fiso and his two sons.
The elder Piso was a man of the highest character, obtained a
triumph for victories in Thrace, but was chiefly distinguished for the
dignity and moderation with w^hich he afterward exercised for a long
period the high and dangerous office of prisfect of the city.
The happy conjecture of Wj^nd had been anticipated by Colman,
that the epistle was chiefly addressed to the elder of the sons of Piso,
who aspired to poetical fame without very great poetical genius. It
was intended to be at once dissuasive and instructive ; to show the
difficulties of writing good poetry, especially in a refined and fastidt
ious age ; and, at the same time, to define some of the primary laws
of good composition. It maintains throughout the superiority of the
modern, and what we may call the Grecian, school of Roman poetry.
After all, the admiration of Horace for the poetry of Greece waf
by no means servile; though he wished to introduce its forms, its
simplicity of composition, and exquisite purity of style, hs would
have even tragedy attempt Roman subjects. And, with Horace, we
must acknowledge that even if the poet had felt ambition, it was now
indeed too late for Rome to aspire to originaUty in the very highest
branches of poetry. She was conquered, and could only bear the
yoke with as much nobleness and independence as she might. To
give her song a Roman character, if it still wore a Grecian form, was
all which was now attainable. Literature was native, as it were, to
Greece, at least the higher branches, poetiy and history. It princi-
pally flourished when the political institutions of Greece were in the
highest state of development and perfection ; being a stranger and
foreigner at Rome; it was only completely domiciliated when the
national institutions, and, with them, the national character, had ex
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