220. Hircum: this was the prize.

237. Et audax... talentum: 'and the impudent Pythias, who spunged old Simo out of his money.'-Pythias was a maid servant in a play of Lucilius.-Emuncto: cunningly overreached.' 254. Non ita pridem: nor is it long ago.' Spondees were admitted in the odd places; but an iambus was retained in the

even.

294. Præsectum... unguem: i. e. and which its author has not corrected ten times. This is a figure borrowed from the polishers of marble, who tried its smoothness by passing their nails over it.

295. Ingenium... Democritus: 'because Democritus considered genius superior to art, and excludes every man in his senses from Helicon.'

301. O ego... horam: 'foolish fellow that I was! if I had not by physic cured myself of the spleen in the spring.' 314. Conscripti: 'a senator.'

320. Nullius veneris: without grace or beauty.'

324. Præter... avaris: desiring nothing but fame.'

340. Lamia: the Romans pretended that there was a frightful sorceress of this name who devoured children. Horace, no doubt, alludes to some poet who had introduced in a play a child that had been devoured by this Lamia, and taken out of her alive.-Pransa: 'who had eaten it;' taken actively.

6

345. Hic... Sosiis: 'such a book brings again to the Sosii :' they were bookbinders and booksellers. See Epist. I. XX. 2. 354. Ut scriptor ... caret : as an amanuensis, who constantly commits the same blunder, though cautioned against it, deserves no pardon.'

357. Charilus: a miserable versifier.

372. Mediocribus ... columnæ: neither gods, men, nor the booksellers' shops, allow of mediocrity in poetry.' Columnæ are the pillars of the piazzas, under which the booksellers had their shops.

383. Liber... nummorum: 'I am free, well-born, and have a knight's estate; ' i. e. quadringenta millia æris.

387. Metii: Metius was one of the judges appointed to examine poetry, and the claims of authors. See Sat. I. X. 38. 388. Et Patris: and of your father;' i. e. Piso the elder. 414. Pythia: sc. carmina.

417. Occupet extremum scabies: a plague take the hindmost;' a kind of adage.

437. Sub vulpe latentes: 'concealed under the guise of a fox; alluding to the fable of the fox and the crow.

470. Utrùm... incestus: whether he has profaned his father's ashes, or sacrilegiously removed the bounds of some consecrated place.'

THE END.