The works of Horace have maintained their popularity in all ages; his sententious sayings have become aphorisms; and to-day he is a greater favorite with scholars than ever. Few classical poets have been so fortunate in their translators.

ODE TO MECENAS.

“Strong doors, wakeful watch-dogs, securely had barred
Danaë in her tower of brass,

If Venus and Jove had not laughed at such guard
And the shower of gold caused to pass.

Through an army of guards will bright gold make its way;
It will pierce through the thickest of walls;
More power it has and may strike more dismay
Than the lightning from heaven that falls.

Through lucre the house of the Argive seer* fell:
Philip forced cities' gates with his gold;
The power of rivals with bribes he could quell:
We know, too, how fleets have been sold.

The increase of wealth ever brings with it care

And hungry ambition for more;

Thus, Mæcenas, O knight with whom none can compare!
Great fortune I ever forswore.

The more that a man to himself shall deny,

The more he shall have from the gods;

Poor, I seek for the home of contentment, and fly
With joy from the wealthy abodes.

With my stream of pure water, few acres of wood,
And secure that my harvest will pay,

A pleasure I have more substantial than could
Be to him that o'er Afric holds sway.

Though for me never works the Calabrian bee,

Though for me is no Formian wine,

Though no sheep in the pastures of Gaul feed for me,

Yet poverty never is mine.

* Amphiara'us, whose wife betrayed him for a pearl necklace, and was after ward murdered by her son.

VARIUS.TIBULLUS.

Much must that man want ever who much shall demand;
What he gains whets the covetous vice;
Happy he to whom God with a niggardly hand
Has granted what yet will suffice."-YARDLEY.

TO PYRRHA.

"What scented stripling, Pyrrha, wooes thee now
In pleasant cavern, all with roses fair?
For whom those yellow tresses bindest thou
With simple care?

Full oft shall he thine altered faith bewail,
His altered gods; and his unwonted gaze
Shall watch the waters darken to the gale
In wild amaze,

Who now believing gloats on golden charms;
Who hopes thee ever kind and ever void;
Nor, hapless! knows the changeful wind's alarms,
Nor thee, untried.

For me, let Neptune's temple wall declare
How, safe escaped, in votive offering
My dripping garments own, suspended there,
Him Ocean-king."
GLADSTONE.

375

Varius (74-14 B.C.).-Older than Horace or Virgil in the Augustan galaxy was Varius, the friend who introduced them both to Mæcenas. An epic on the death of Cæsar, highly esteemed by his countrymen, and a tragedy entitled "Thyestes," classed with the finest Greek dramas,—have won for Varius an enviable fame.

Both are lost; but we still have the benefit of the poet's labors as the editor of Virgil's Æneid.

Albius Tibullus (59-19 B.C.), another poet of the Augustan age, perfected the erotic elegy which Catullus had introduced from Greece. The meagre accounts that remain of his life inform us that he was a knight, and lost his estates near Rome for political reasons, after the overthrow of Pompey. These he partially recovered, it is supposed through the influence of

Messa'la, a noble of the old school, whose praises he never tired of sounding. As aide-de-camp, he accompanied Messala in his expedition against the rebellious Aquitanians, and doubtless figured in the triumph decreed his victorious friend by the emperor.

A peaceful life, however, was more in accordance with his tastes. The hills and dales, the corn-fields, vineyards, and meadows, possessed greater charms for him than the favor of Augustus, who vainly sought to attract Tibullus to his court. Hence we find the poet generally living at his country-seat, amid rural enjoyments.

The elegies of Tibullus preserve the names of two Roman beauties "Delia," the early mistress of his heart, and "Nem'esis," her successor. Delia, "with her queenly charms and golden locks," first brought him to her feet, and he wooed her in his most finished strains. But, like Catullus, he soon found occasion to lament his fair one's inconstancy. Delia jilted him for a richer lover, and Tibullus transferred his affections to the imperious Nemesis.

The style of Tibullus is sweet and polished. A pensive, almost melancholy tone pervades his verses. In the following plaintive elegy, the injured but forgiving poet recalls to his false one how tenderly he nursed her through a critical sickness, picturing his dream of happiness with her installed as the mistress of his rural home, and his rude awakening:

ELEGY TO DELIA.

"Oh! I was harsh to say that I could part

From thee; but, Delia, I am bold no more!
Driven like a top, which boys with ready art
Keep spinning round upon a level floor.

Burn, lash me, love, if ever after this

By me one cruel, blustering word is said;
Yet spare, I pray thee by our stolen bliss,
By mighty Venus and thy comely head.

PROPERTIUS.

When thou didst lie, by fell disease o'erpowered,
I rescued thee, by prayers, from death's domain;
Pure sulphur's cleansing fumes I round thee showered,
While an enchantress sung a magic strain.

Yes-and another now enjoys the prize,

And reaps the fruit of all my vows for thee:
Foolish, I dreamed of life 'neath golden skies,

Wert thou but saved-not such great heaven's decree.

I said--I'll till my fields, she'll guard my store
When crops are threshed in autumn's burning heat;
She'll keep my grapes in baskets brimming o'er,

And my rich must expressed by nimble feet.

She'll count my flock; some home-born slave of mine
Will prattle in my darling's lap and play :

To rural god ripe clusters for the vine,

Sheaves for my crops, cates for my fold, she'll pay.

Slaves-all shall own her undisputed rule;

Myself a cipher-how the thought would please!
Here will Messala come, for whom she'll pull
The sweetest apples from the choicest trees;

And, honoring one so great, for him prepare

And serve the banquet with her own white hands.
Fond dream! which now the east and south winds bear
Away to far Armenia's spicy lands."

CRANSTOUN.

377

Propertius. With the name of Tibullus is often linked that of Propertius, who was born about 50 B.C. at Assisium, among the Umbrian mountains. In this lovely spot he was prepared for the study of the law, which he afterward adopted as his profession at Rome. But Propertius found this calling distasteful; relinquishing it, accordingly, for the pursuits of literature, he aspired to be a Roman Callimachus, and grounded himself in the principles of Alexandrian verse. But too much study made him artificial, and his numerous mythological allusions and digressions encumber rather than embellish. He lacks the sweetness, simplicity, and tenderness, of Tibullus.

Catullus had his "Lesbia;" Tibullus, his "Delia ;" and Propertius, profiting not by the example of his brother bards, lavished his affections on the accomplished but fickle "Cynthia," who played him false as soon as a rich prætor laid a fortune at her feet. Cynthia was the single theme of our poet's love-lays, all rapture or gentle reproach. In an elegy to Mæcenas, who had pressed him to attempt an epic, he sings:

“You ask me why love-elegy so frequently I follow,

And why my little book of tender trifles only sings:
It is not from Calliope, nor is it from Apollo,
But from my own sweet lady-love my inspiration springs.

If in resplendent purple robe of Cos my darling dresses,
I'll fill a portly volume with the Coan garments' praise;
Or if her truant tresses wreathe her forehead with caresses,
The tresses of her queenly brow demand her poet's lays."

In another elegy he describes his Cynthia's charms:-
""Twas not her face, though fair, so smote my eye
(Less fair the lily than my love: as snows

Of Scythia with Iberian vermeil vie;

As float in milk the petals of the rose);

Nor locks that down her neck of ivory stream,

Nor eyes-my stars-twin lamps with love aglow;

Nor, if in silk of Araby she gleam

(I prize not baubles), does she thrill me so,

As when she leaves the mantling cup to thread
The mazy dance, and moves before my view,

Graceful as blooming Ariadne led

The choral revels of the Bacchic crew."

The death of Propertius is supposed to have taken place about 15 B.C. Of his elegies, there is none better than

LOVE'S DREAM REALIZED.

"Not in his Dardan triumph so rejoiced the great Atrides,
When fell the mighty kingdom of Laomedon of yore;
Not so Ulysses, when he moored his wave-worn raft beside hig
Beloved Dulichian island-home-his weary wanderings o'er;