Horace Part 17

Horace then goes on to sketch the rise of poetry and the drama among the Romans, glancing, as he goes, at the perverted taste which was making the stage the vehicle of mere spectacle, and intimating his own high estimate of the dramatic writer in words which Shakespeare seems to have been meant to realise:--

"That man I hold true master of his art, Who with fict.i.tious woes can wring my heart; Can rouse me, soothe me, pierce me with the thrill Of vain alarm, and, as by magic skill, Bear me to Thebes, to Athens, where you will." (C.)

Here, as elsewhere, Horace treats dramatic writing as the very highest exercise of poetic genius; and, in dwelling on it as he does, he probably felt sure of carrying with him the fullest sympathies of Augustus. For among his varied literary essays, the Emperor, like most dilettanti, had tried his hand upon a tragedy. Failing, however, to satisfy himself, he had the rarer wisdom to suppress it. The story of his play was that of Ajax, and when asked one day how it was getting on, he replied that his hero "had finished his career upon a sponge!"--"_Ajacem suum in spongio incubuisse_."

From the drama Horace proceeds to speak of the more timid race of bards, who, "instead of being hissed and acted, would be read," and who, himself included, are apt to do themselves harm in various ways through over-sensitiveness or simplicity. Thus, for example, they will intrude their works on Augustus, when he is busy or tired; or wince, poor sensitive rogues, if a friend ventures to take exception to a verse; or bore him by repeating, unasked, one or other of their pet pa.s.sages, or by complaints that their happiest thoughts and most highly-polished turns escape unnoticed; or, worse folly than all, they will expect to be sent for by Augustus the moment he comes across their poems, and told "to starve no longer, and go writing on." Yet, continues Horace, it is better the whole tribe should be disappointed, than that a great man's glory should be dimmed, like Alexander's, by being sung of by a second-rate poet. And wherefore should it be so, when Augustus has at command the genius of such men as Virgil and Varius? They, and they only, are the fit laureates of the Emperor's great achievements; and in this way the poet returns, like a skilful composer, to the _motif_ with which he set out--distrust of his own powers, which has restrained, and must continue to restrain, him from pressing himself and his small poetic powers upon the Emperor's notice.

In the other poems which belong to this period--the Second Epistle of the Second Book, and the Epistle to the Pisos, generally known as the _Ars Poetica_--Horace confines himself almost exclusively to purely literary topics. The dignity of literature was never better vindicated than in these Epistles. In Horace's estimation it was a thing always to be approached with reverence. Mediocrity in it was intolerable. Genius is much, but genius without art will not win immortality; "for a good poet's made, as well as born." There must be a working up to the highest models, a resolute intolerance of anything slight or slovenly, a fixed purpose to put what the writer has to express into forms at once the most beautiful, suggestive, and compact. The mere trick of literary composition Horace holds exceedingly cheap. Brilliant nonsense finds no allowance from him. Truth--truth in feeling and in thought--must be present, if the work is to have any value. "_Scribendi recte sapere est et principium et fons_,"--

"Of writing well, be sure the secret lies In wisdom, therefore study to be wise." (C.)

Whatever the form of composition, heroic, didactic, lyric, or dramatic, it must be pervaded by unity of feeling and design; and no style is good, or ill.u.s.tration endurable, which, either overlays or does not harmonise with the subject in hand.

The Epistle to the Pisos does not profess to be a complete exposition of the poet's art. It glances only at small sections of that wide theme.

So far as it goes, it is all gold, full of most instructive hints for a sound critical taste and a pure literary style. It was probably meant to cure the younger Piso of that pa.s.sion for writing verse which had, as we have seen, spread like a plague among the Romans, and which made a visit to the public baths a penance to critical ears,--for there the poetasters were always sure of an audience,--and added new terrors to the already sufficiently formidable horrors of the Roman banquet.

[Footnote: This theory has been worked out with great ability by the late M. A. Baron, in his 'Epitre d'Horace aux Pisons sur l'Art Poetique'--Bruxelles, 1857; which is accompanied by a masterly translation and notes of great value.] When we find an experienced critic like Horace urging young Piso, as he does, to keep what he writes by him for nine years, the conclusion is irresistible, that he hoped by that time the writer would see the wisdom of suppressing his crude lucubrations altogether. No one knew better than Horace that first-cla.s.s work never wants such protracted mellowing.

Soon, after this poem was written the great palace on the Esquiline lost its master. He died (B.C. 8) in the middle of the year, bequeathing his poet-friend to the care of Augustus in the words "_Horati Flacci, ut mei, esto memor_,"--"Bear Horace in your memory as you would myself."

But the legacy was not long upon the emperor's hands. Seventeen years before, Horace had written:

"Think not that I have sworn a bootless oath; Yes, we shall go, shall go, Hand linked in hand, where'er thou leadest, both The last sad road below."

The lines must have rung in the poet's ears like a sad refrain. The Digentia lost its charm; he could not see its crystal waters for the shadows of Charon's rueful stream. The prattle of his loved Bandusian spring could not wean his thoughts from the vision of his other self wandering unaccompanied along that "last sad road." We may fancy that Horace was thenceforth little seen in his accustomed haunts. He who had so often soothed the sorrows of other bereaved hearts, answered with a wistful smile to the friendly consolations of the many that loved him.

His work was done. It was time to go away. Not all the skill of Orpheus could recall him whom he had lost. The welcome end came sharply and suddenly; and one day, when, the bleak November wind was whirling down the oak-leaves on his well-loved brook, the servants of his Sabine farm heard that they should no more see the good, cheery master, whose pleasant smile and kindly word had so often made their labours light.

There was many a sad heart, too, we may be sure, in Rome, when the wit who never wounded, the poet who ever charmed, the friend who never failed, was laid in a corner of the Esquiline, close to the tomb of his "dear knight Maecenas." He died on the 27th November B.C. 8, the kindly, lonely man, leaving to Augustus what little he possessed. One would fain trust his own words were inscribed upon his tomb, as in the supreme hour the faith they expressed was of a surety strong within his heart,--

NON OMNIS MORIAR.