made a Roman citizen by Pompey, and took his name, which descended to the Grosphus of the ode as son or grandson. In Epist. i. 12, Horace commends him to Iccius, then acting as superintendent or steward to Vipsanius Agrippa's estates in Sicily, as one whom Iccius might willingly oblige, for he would never ask anything not honest and just. CARM. XVI. Otium divos rogat in patenti Otium bello furiosa Thrace, Grosphe, non gemmis neque purpura ve- Non enim gazæ neque consularis Vivitur parvo bene, cui paternum Quid brevi fortes jaculamur ævo Horace here, as elsewhere, distinguishes .the comparative poverty of a small independence from absolute neediness and squalor. The poverty he praises is not without its own modest refinements. The board may be simple, but still it can display the old family salt-cellar, kept with religious care. If the owner has not increased the paternal fortune, he has not diminished it. Why crave new suns? What exile from his country Diseased Care1 ascends the brazen galley, The mind, which now is glad, should hate to carry With easy smile should sweeten: nought was ever Untimely death snatched off renowned Achilles ; And haply what the Hour to thee shall grant not Around thine home a hundred flocks are bleating, 4 To me the Fate, that cannot err, hath given Of the mean vulgar. 1. Vitiosa cura.' In the translation, Orelli's interpretation of 'vitiosa,' 'morbosa '-i.e. morbid or diseased, from the vice of the mind whence it springs—is adopted. But this hardly gives the full force of the word. Horace means that Care, which spoils or infects every thing, ascends the galley, &c. 2 Turmas equitum.' This properly refers to the horsemen riding to battle made anxious by the hope of booty or the fear of death.' -ORELLI. With "turmas equitum" is usually compared "post equitem sedet atra cura," but the sense there is a little different. Here he speaks of care following a man to the field of battle; there he refers to the rich man ambling on his horse.'-MACLEANE. I think, with Orelli, that this simply means, Fortune, or the Hour, Sole mutamus? Patriæ quis exsul Scandit æratas vitiosa naves Cura, nec turmas equitum relinquit,2 Lætus in præsens animus quod ultra est Abstulit clarum cita mors Achillem, Te greges centum Siculæque circum Vestiunt lanæ : mihi parva rura, et 4 Parca non mendax dedit, et malignum will perhaps give something of good to me which she denies to you; and I dissent altogether from the usual interpretation-viz., Time may perhaps give me a longer life than it concedes to you.' That interpretation would be very little in keeping with Horace's general politeness in addressing a friend. Nothing can well be worse-bred than telling a man that perhaps you will live longer than he will. Besides, Horace immediately proceeds to define that which is granted peculiarly to himself in opposition to the riches bestowed upon Grosphus. ''Parca non mendax'-'sure,' 'unfailing in the fulfilment of their decrees.' Compare 'veraces,' C. Sæcul. 25, and Persius, v. 42, 'Parca tenax veri.'-So ORELLI. 'Genius is represented as the gift of Fate in Pind. Od. ix. 26, 28; also in Nem. iv. 41-43, where the poet infers from it his own eventual triumph over detraction; as Horace may be said to do here.'-YONGE. ODE XVII. TO MECENAS. This ode is addressed to Mæcenas in illness, but the date of the illness is necessarily uncertain in the life of a valetudinarian like Mæcenas. Though, as Macleane observes, the last two lines of this ode, showing that Horace had not yet paid the sacrifice he had vowed to Faunus for his preservation from death, make it most probable that it was written not long after C. 13 of this book, the composition of which has been assigned, with some hesitation, to A. U. C. 728. Mæcenas was subject to what appears to have been a low nervous fever, attended with loss of sleep. According to the verses attributed to him, and censured with a stoic's lofty disdain by Seneca (Epp. 101), Mæcenas had a passionate and clinging desire for life, very uncommon in a Roman, deeming that, under any suffering or infirmity, life was still dear 'Vita Why destroyest thou me with the groan of thy sufferings? Neither I nor the gods will let thee die before me, O Maecenas, the glory and grace, And the column itself, of my life. Ah! if some fatal force, prematurely bereaving, And the fragment of what was a whole ? No! in thy life is mine; both, the same day shall shatter. We will take, we will take, side by side. Vita dum superest bene est : Si sedeam cruce sustine.'1 If this sentiment was sincerely expressed, the pathos of the poem is increased. A man so dreading death may well desire a companion in the last journey. And it is not un likely that the melancholy view which Horace habitually takes of the next world, and his exhortations to make the best of this one, may have been coloured, perhaps insensibly to himself, by his conversations and intercourse with Mæcenas. CARM. XVII. Cur me querelis exanimas tuis ? Grande decus columenque rerum. 1 The fragment is thus very happily rendered into English by Mr. Farrar in the biographical essay on Seneca, which forms the larger portion of his impressive and eloquent work, The Seekers after God' :— 'Numb my hands with palsy, Rack my feet with gout, Still, if life be granted, |