labria lie
spread before us, we see the yellow Tiber at flood, the rushing Anio,
the deep eddyings of Liris' taciturn stream, the secluded valleys of the
Apennines, the leaves flying before the wind at the coming of winter,
the snow-covered uplands of the Alban hills, the mead sparkling with
hoar-frost at the approach of spring, autumn rearing from the fields her
head decorous with mellow fruits, and golden abundance pouring forth
from a full horn her treasures upon the land. It is real Italy which
Horace cuts on his cameos,--real landscape, real flowers and fruits,
real men.

"What joy there is in these songs!"

writes Andrew Lang, in _Letters to Dead Authors_, "what delight of life,
what an exquisite Hellenic grace of art, what a manly nature to endure,
what tenderness and constancy of friendship, what a sense of all that is
fair in the glittering stream, the music of the water-fall, the hum of
bees, the silvery gray of the olive woods on the hillside! How human are
all your verses, Horace! What a pleasure is yours in the straining
poplars, swaying in the wind! What gladness you gain from the white
crest of Soracte, beheld through the fluttering snowflakes while the
logs are being piled higher on the hearth!... None of the Latin poets
your fellows, or none but Virgil, seem to me to have known as well as
you, Horace, how happy and fortunate a thing it was to be born in Italy.
You do not say so, like your Virgil, in one splendid passage, numbering
the glories of the land as a lover might count the perfections of his
mistress. But the sentiment is ever in your heart, and often on your
lips. 'Me neither resolute Sparta nor the rich Larissaean plain so
enraptures as the fane of echoing Albunea, the headlong Anio, the grove
of Tibur, the orchards watered by the wandering rills.' So a poet should
speak, and to every singer his own land should be dearest. Beautiful is
Italy, with the grave and delicate outlines of her sacred hills, her
dark groves, her little cities perched like eyries on the crags, her
rivers gliding under ancient walls: beautiful is Italy, her seas and her
suns."

_ii_. THE INTERPRETER OF ITALIAN LIVING

Again, in its visualization of the life of Italy, Horace's art is no
less clear than in the presentation of her scenery. Where else may be
seen so many vivid incidental pictures of men at their daily occupations
of work or play? In _Satire_ and _Epistle_ this is to be expected,
though there are sat