flower,
the unpretending maker of verse, fashioning his songs with only toil and
patience. He believes in the file, in long delay before giving forth to
the world the poem that henceforth can never be recalled. The only
inspiration he claims for _Satire_ and _Epistle_, which, he says,
approximate the style of spoken discourse, lies in the aptness and
patience with which he fashions his verses from language in ordinary
use, giving to words new dignity by means of skillful combination. Let
anyone who wishes to be convinced undertake to do the same; he will find
himself perspiring in a vain attempt.

And if Horace did not always conceive of his inspiration as purely
ethereal, neither did he always dream of the path to immortality as
leading through the spacious reaches of the upper air. At forty-four, he
is already aware of a more pedestrian path. He has observed the ways of
the public with literature, as any writer must observe them still, and
knows also of a certain use to which his poems are being put. Perhaps
with some secret pride, but surely with a philosophic resignation that
is like good-humored despair, he sees that the path is pedagogical. In
reproachful tones, he addresses the book of _Epistles_ that is so eager
to try its fortune in the big world: But if the prophet is not blinded
by disgust at your foolishness, you will be prized at Rome until the
charm of youth has left you. Then, soiled and worn by much handling of
the common crowd, you will either silently give food to vandal worms, or
seek exile in Utica, or be tied up and sent to Ilerda. The monitor you
did not heed will laugh, like the man who sent his balky ass headlong
over the cliff; for who would trouble to save anyone against his will?
This lot, too, you may expect: for a stammering old age to come upon you
teaching children to read in the out-of-the-way parts of town.

2. HORACE AND ANCIENT ROME

That Horace refers to being pointed out by the passer-by as the minstrel
of the Roman lyre, or, in other words, as the laureate, that his satire
provokes sufficient criticism to draw from him a defense and a
justification of himself against the charge of cynicism, and that he
finally records a greater freedom from the tooth of envy, are all
indications of the prominence to which he rose. That Virgil and Varius,
poets of recognized worth, and their friend Plotius Tucca, third of the
whitest souls of earth, introduced him to the attention of Maecenas,