th to enjoy the blessings sent_
F_rom heaven; a mind unclouded, strong_;
A_ cheerful heart; a wise content_;
A_n honored age; and song_."

II. HORACE THROUGH THE AGES

INTRODUCTORY

Thus much we have had to say in the interpretation of Horace. Our
interpretation has centered about his qualities as a person: his broad
experience, his sensitiveness, his responsiveness, his powers of
assimilation, his gift of expression, his concreteness as a
representative of the world of culture, as a son of Italy, as a citizen
of eternal Rome, as a member of the universal human family.

Let us now tell the story of Horace in the life of after times. It will
include an account of the esteem in which he was held while still in the
flesh; of the fame he enjoyed and the influence he exercised until Rome
as a great empire was no more and the Roman tongue and Roman spirit
alike were decayed; of the way in which his works were preserved intact
through obscure centuries of ignorance and turmoil; and of their second
birth when men began to delight once more in the luxuries of the mind.
This will prepare the way for a final chapter, on the peculiar quality
and manner of the Horatian influence.

1. HORACE THE PROPHET

Horace is aware of his qualities as a poet. In an interesting blend, of
which the first and larger part is detached and judicial estimation of
his work, a second part literary convention, and the third and least a
smiling and inoffensive self-assertion, he prophesies his own
immortality.

From infancy he has been set apart as the child of the Muses. At birth
Melpomene marked him for her own. The doves of ancient story covered him
over with the green leaves of the Apulian wood as, lost and overcome by
weariness, he lay in peaceful slumber, and kept him safe from creeping
and four-footed things, a babe secure in the favor of heaven. The sacred
charm that rests upon him preserved him in the rout at Philippi, rescued
him from the Sabine wolf, saved him from death by the falling tree and
the waters of shipwreck. He will abide under its shadow wherever he may
go,--to his favorite haunts in Latium, to the far north where fierce
Britons offer up the stranger to their gods, to the far east and the
blazing sands of the Syrian desert, to rude Spain and the streams of
Scythia, to the treeless, naked fields of the frozen pole, to homeless
lands under the fiery car of the too-near sun. He will rise superior to
the e