In speaking of the works of men, H. gracefully alludes to certain admirable works of Augustus.-60. Foliis, in (respect of) their leaves. Pronos, nearing their close: so pronus Orion. O. iii. 24. 18. This has been a favourite image with poets from the days of Homer: see Il. vi. l. 146, &c. Dante, Inf. 3. 112.-61. Etas generation.-63. From Simonides: Oaváry Távtes ópeṛλóμeda.-64. After the disasters inflicted on his fleet, A.U. 717, by Sextus Pompeius, Augustus, by Agrippa's advice, built a noble harbour at the extremity of the gulf of Baiæ, called the Portus Julius; opening a communication to this end between lakes Lucrinus and Avernus and the sea. The harbour is now nothing but a marsh, known under the name of Mar morto. -65. Regis regium, regale. Palus; note the quantity of the last syllable, contrary to rule, and not to be found in any other writer. The draining of the Pontine Marshes is said by the Scholiasts to be here meant; it certainly never took place; but it had been projected by Julius Cæsar, and adopted most probably as a plan by Augustus ; it is therefore as a project that we must suppose it to be here spoken of.-67 &c. Augustus said in his will: ricos aquarum compluribus locis vetustate latentes refeci. And Suetonius tells us that Augustus regulated the course of the Tiber by removing obstructions that had choked its bed, and opening a fuller passage for its waters. Cursum iniquum frugibus, by its overflowings; e. g. A.U. 732, to which allusion is made O. i. 2. 1. 13 &c.-69. Nedum = much less.-72. Observe that Horace here adds together term to term, expressive of the power of custom over the vocabulary of language. Arbitrium, arbitrary decision on; jus, conceded right over; norma (lit. the carpenter's square) regulation of. The foregoing observations on the unity to be observed in treating a subject; the causes that lead to defect of style in treating it; the importance of choosing a subject fitted to the writer's powers; on the value of order; on diction &c., are now followed by a notice of the different kinds of poetry, in subject and metre.-74. Numero = metre; that metre being the hexameter for an heroic or Epic poem.-75. Querimonia the complaint of the mourner: the metre being therefore called elegiac, Ayos being derived from, (a cry of grief), and Aéyev.-76. Voti sententia compos, the expression of gratified feelings; more particularly those of the lover. In these strains Mimnermus wrote. The gnomic, or didactic elegy of Solon and Theognis, and the warlike elegy of Tyrtæus, are not specially noticed, the other kinds being the more characteristic.-77. Exiguos; in comparison with the Epic poem, both in character of subject and range of treatment.-78. Some attributed the invention to Archilochus, others to Mimnermus ; but the greater number to Callinus of Ephesus; he is supposed to have lived about B.C. 730.-79. Proprio; as invented by him : see Epode 6. n. 13. 80. Soccus; cothurnus = comedy; tragedy, from the shoe or buskin, respectively used by the comic or tragic actor.-81. Alternis aptum &c. The more passionate scenes excepted, the dialogue (alterni sermones) in the Greek tragedies and comedies is ordinarily written in iambic trimeters. Populares vincentem strepitus: = altius in scena sonantem quam clamor populi est. Schol. Understand

=

by clamor the noise inseparable from the assemblage of thousands of people. This quality of the iambic is explained by Quintilian, ix. ch. 4. § 136.-82. Natum rebus agendis a good metre for practical purposes; so Arist. TракTIKÓν TI. Common matters of life could be well told in it.-83 &c. Lyric poetry is now noticed. Divos puerosque deorum &c. See O. iv. 2. n. 10 &c. which fully explains 11. 83-85. -85. Curas the love-cares.-86. Carefulness in the ad ptation of the measure and style to the subject, and in the keeping of the characters described both by writer and actor, is now enforced and illustrated. Servare vices the parts, or properties (of the several kinds of poetry just described, descriptas); so Sat. i. 10. 1. 12 defendente vicem. Operumque colores the characteristic tones.-87. Nequeo, per naturam; ignoro, per inscitiam artis.' Schol.-90. Privatis, homely, ordinary lines.-91. Cona Thyesto; an eminently tragic subject, şee O. i. 16. n. 17. and C. D. THYESTES.-92. Sortita quem secundum suam naturam nacta sunt. O.-94. Chremes, in the Heautontimorumenos of Terence, Act. v. scene iv.-95. Tragicus Telephus &c. =the tragedian's Telephus.-96. Telephus, the son of Hercules and Auge, and king of Mysia, was wounded by Achilles. Having consulted the oracle to know whether his wound was mortal, he was told that from the same spear that wounded him he would receive his cure. He therefore presented himself in the Greek camp, as a suppliant for his cure, or, as Euripides represents him (and for which Aristophanes ridicules him) as a beggar. Peleus, the father of Achilles, was obliged to quit his country for the part he took in the murder of his brother Phocus. Being cleared of this crime by Eurytion, king of Phthia, who gave him his daughter in marriage, he had the misfortune to kill his father-in-law in the chase of the Calydonian boar, and was obliged to go into exile a second time.97. Projicit, discards; does not make use of high and mighty phrases. True sorrow expresses itself simply. See Epist. i. 3. 14. Ampulla, lit. large bellied vessels = inflated diction. Sesquipedalia = a foot and a half long.-99. Dulcia = touching, finding their way to the heart.-101. Adsunt = respond (by expression) to their tears; Aristotle's ovvouoioпadovσiv.—103. Lædent, will pain.-104. Mandata what the poet has put into your mouth, your part.-107. Lasciva, sportive. 109. Habitum conditionem, statum. Juvat lætitia afficit.-113. Equites peditesque; all the spectators, without distinction; patricians and people. The term is formal: thus (Servius Tullius) edixit, ut omnes cives Romani, equites peditesque, in suis quisque centuriis, in Campo Martio prima luce adessent. Livy, i. ch. 44.-114. An heros &c. understand the great personages of Greek Tragedy &c., such as Edipus, Philoctetes, Orestes, Ajax, &c. Ajax, HEROS ab Achille secundus, Sat. ii. 3. 1. 193. Calmness and dignity befit the divus; the agitation of passion is found in the heros.-116. Potens; such as Atossa, Jocasta, Phædra. Sedula with her bustling affection for her charge; e. g. the nurse in Romeo and Juliet. 117. Mercator; a character to be found in the Philoctetes of Sophocles; as that of the cultor agelli (avrovoyòs) is in the Electra of Euripides.—118. Besides the differences of age and staPART II.

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tion, the poet ought to attend also to those of nation and race, and even to the shades by which different branches of the same people may be distinguished. The Colchian passed for savage and sanguinary; the Assyrians were considered luxurious and effeminate. The Persa, Septem contra Thebas, Medea, and Supplices, probably furnished H. at the moment with the special names which he has used in a general sense. -119. Famam, tradition; oral or written.— 120. Honoratum, renowned. Reponis = produce again upon the stage. -122. Nihil &c. = his right be might; his,

The good old rule, the simple plan,

That they should take, who have the power,

And they should keep, who can.-Wordsworth.

The misfortunes of Ino, wife

-123. Invicta (precibus) = inexorable. of Athamas, king of Thebes, are related in the Metamorphoses, iv. l. 146 &c. C. D. INO. She was the subject of one of Euripides' plays, no longer extant; as were Medea and Orestes.—124. Perfidus Ixion ; he was king of Lapithæ ; and is called perfidus, from the treacherous murder of his father-in-law; as well as his attempts upon Juno, after Jupiter's benefits to him. C. D. IXION. This subject was treated of both by Eschylus and Euripides. Io, daughter of Inachus, king of Argos, was driven by the jealousy of Juno from country to country (vaga) in the shape of a white heifer, and so, crossing the strait (now the straits of Constantinople) between the Euxine and Propontis, gave it the name of the Bosphorus. She is introduced in the Prometheus of Eschylus. C. D. Io. Orestes, having killed his mother Clytemnestra, as the avenger of his father (Agamemnon) whom she had murdered, was persecuted by the Furies; he appears on the stage, therefore, sometimes violently agitated, sometimes as a prey to gloomy despair.-125. Horace now refers to the sibi convenientia of 1. 119; and supposes the poet to create an entirely new character (personam notam) and one of which the idea is not furnished by history; in this case great care must be taken by the bold (audes) originator, that his new creation present, from first to last, the consistency of nature. Inexpertum (passively), not yet attempted by another.—126. Ad imum = extremum, to the end.-128. Difficile est proprie &c. Thus far characters have been considered; the question now is of subjects generally. 'It is difficult,' says H. 'to make a subject your ownand new, as such-which comes of the common stock; which, therefore, in its general features, all are more or less conversant with; it is difficult to succeed in individualizing such a subject, or to present it, as something that is your creation, to the people.' Tuque rectius &c.; and it would be wiser in you to give a dramatic form to the Iliad, with all its characters, as there already individualized and acknowledged,' &c.-130. Ignota, unknown; i.e. in composition.-131. Publica materies; such as came of the common lore of history and tradition &c. and was already in a definite shape; not the ‘communia’ of 1. 128-131. Privati juris you will have a right to call your own. -132. 'If you don't confine yourself to the stale and common round of subjects, nor think yourself bound (curabis) to translate word for word (from the Greek original); nor jump after the author you

follow-nec desilies imitator in arctum-into his well of space (allusion to the Fable of the Fox and Goat), and find yourself prevented either by what you consider due to him, or the nature of his work, from stirring a foot beyond his borders.' Observations on the choice of a subject are now followed by some on the mode of opening it.-136. Scriptor cyclicus; the poets, who wrote after Homer on subjects connected with his great poems, were called Cyclic by the Alexandrian Grammarians, as being writers keeping within the one great circle, or cycle, of the Trojan war, and its consequences.-137. The original of this line is unknown, Tanto hiatu in such a vaunting style. The assumption appears in the use of the first person cantabo (without invoking the Muse) and in nobile.—141 &c. A version of the beginning of the Odyssey.-143. It is not his way to begin in a flashy manner, and then go out in dulness; but after the natural courseof smoke first and fire after-from a quiet, sober beginning, to produce brilliant creations one after another.'-145. Antiphaten, Scyllamque &c. See for Antiphates, Odyss. x. 80 &c. Scylla and Charybdis, Od. xii. 85 &c. and the Cyclops, Od. ix. and S. C. D. -146 &c. Reditum Diomedis; it is uncertain what writer, and if any, is referred to in this line; the Scholiasts say Antimachus and his Thebaid; but that could not be, as the return of Diomede did not come within the scope of the Thebaid: unless possibly his return to Ætolia after the second Theban war be meant; but it is scarcely likely here. Dübner thinks the Diomedea of Julius Antonius is referred to (see Od. iv. 1.), for fable attributed to Diomede the foundation of several towns in Italy; and, according to a tradition preserved by Strabo, he was recalled into Greece before his scheme of colonization had been completed; and this return may be the 'reditus Diomedis' here intended. But is more needed with regard to both lines, than to suppose them imaginary illustrations of the absurd in beginning with the most remote possible beginning on any subject?-147. Gemino oro = Leda's two eggs; from one of which came Pollux and Helen (teterrima belli [Trojani] causa); from the other, Castor and Clytemnestra; the relative offspring of the eggs is sometimes differently stated. See Sat. ii. 1. 26; Tà Kúria, a Cyclic poem, the production of one Stasinus, or Hegesinus, is said to be referred to.-148. Eventum, the catastrophe.-149. Non secus ac notas = as if they were not strange to him. Et, quæ &c.: =what he feels cannot be made to please by being poetically treated; what, in fact, is not matter for poetry.-151. Ita mentitur = so shapes his fiction; founds it on and assimilates it to fact.'-152. Terence also thus uses ne after ita: Ita tu istæc tua misceto, NE me admisceas. Heaut. iv. 5. 1. 35–153. Tu, quid ego, &c. Horace now speaks more directly of pieces intended for the theatre; and begins by noticing the great importance of a dramatic wiiter's carefully observing the characteristic differences of age in the personæ produced upon the stage. See for this passage Arist. Rhet. ii. 12.-154. Auloa, the dropping (or rather, after their fashion, the raising) of the curtain, at the end of the piece. See Epist. ii. 1. n. 189.-155. Cantor (here) the actor; because they intoned. Vos plaudite; all the Latin pieces with which we are

acquainted close with this call upon the spectators.-157. Mobilibus, changing ever with their years. Decor id quod quemque decet, rò πрέжоν.-160. Temere, capriciously. In horas, every hour. - 161. Custode, naidaywy. See Sat. i. 6. 81. Remoto = no longer attending upon him; after, that is, the youth's assuming the toga virilis.-162. | Campi (Martii); where all the usual manly exercises took place.164. Utilium = of what is to be of service to him in the future.—165. Sublimis, of high aspirations. Cupidus, full of eager desires. Pernix, rapid. Σφόδρα μὲν ἐπιθυμοῦσι, ταχέως δὲ παύονται. Arist. 167. Inservit honori slaves after public distinction.-168. Caret, takes care not.-170. Quærit, acquires (wealth).-171. Gelide in cold blood, oi vioi Oɛpuoi riot. Arist.-172. Spe longus = slow to hope, little given to hope, dvormis. Iners, without energy.-175. Anni venire dicuntur ad quadragesimum sextum usque annum, inde abire, jam accedente senectute.' Schol.-176. Recedentes the abeuntes of the Schol. above. Ne forte &c., that we may not ascribe &c.-177. Partes (here) the characteristics.-178. Ero is connected also with adjunctis. 'We will (= let us) carefully confine ourselves to what characteristically belongs to and suits the particular age (we are describing).'-179. The question of what should be permitted to pass in action on the stage before the spectator, and what should be rather related to him, is now discussed. 180. Irritantrouse the attention and feelings.-182. Intus behind the scenes. The stage of the ancients represented a street, or a public place. 184. Facundia præsens one who presents himself on the stage full of the subject; as having been an eye-witness of what he relates. The word facundia,' however, may relate to the great beauty, with which many of these parts in the Greek plays are finished.-185 &c. Horace requires that whatever is horrible to the eye, and whatever contradicts natural probability, should be withheld from the stage: the one being too revolting to look upon; and the other destroying that illusion, without which no interest could be created or continued in the piece represented. In the Medea of Euripides the murder of the children takes place off the stage. In what plays the other deeds occur in the action of the plot is unknown. See C. D. ATREUS, PROCNE, &C.-188. Incredulus odi = I cannot believe in, and therefore turn away from the piece disgusted.-189. There follow now a few observations on the number of acts, of which a play should consist, and actors, on the chorus, and the music.-190. Reponi to continue on the stage.-191. Do not bring the gods down from heaven to your aid in the dénouement of the plot, except when such an interference alone will satisfy the difficulty; as, for instance, in the Philoctetes of Sophocles, where the intervention of Hercules was necessary to induce Philoctetes to join the Greeks at the siege of Troy. From this use (or abuse) of the gods in a play, the phrase 'Deus ex machina.' became proverbially applied to any unexpected extrication from a great embarrassment. Vindex; qui summo in periculo versantem subito liberat et eripit.' Gesner.-192. In Greek tragedy the dialogue is ordinarily confined to two of the three actors; if a fourth actor appeared on the stage (which very rarely happened) he took no part in the dialogue,-193. Constr.: Chorus defendat partes officiumque virile

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