126 A LOGICAL DISQUISITION ON EXALTED GENIUS. 



hog-,* a knave, and other equally opprobrious names, + as nothing, 

 in my estimation, but the acute sense of so capital an error (fault, if 

 you prefer the term) as that which he committed could justify : but 

 there are (as I just now said) some passages in his Odes that show- 

 he had formerly practised better, nor need we go further than the 

 first for presumptive proof: 



" Sublimi feriam sidera vertice." 



Now this is so extraordinary a " rant," lhat it is impossible to take 

 it literally, and can mean no more, according to our former method 

 of taking down the flights of poets, than that, " if Maecenas should 

 place him among the lyric poets, he would strike his head against 

 the roof of his garret for joy." This, I take it, is a very natural ex- 

 plication, and any other would be wild and absurd. But the next 

 instance I bring is much more forcible, as it is extracted from an 

 ode entirely designed to describe his poverty ! 



" Non meo renidet in domo LACUNAR." 



The idea of what they call a " rafter v could only be suggested by 

 a garret ; and as for any difficulty arising from the word domo, any 

 needy and petty publisher could instantly and easily solve it. But 

 the verses I am just now going to quote will put the matter beyond 

 dispute : 



" Mutor in alitem, 



Superne; nascunturque leves 

 Per digitos, humerosque pluma?." 



The plain English of which is, " I am changed into a bird (not a 

 bard), and my feathers are growing on my shoulders and hands." 

 Here then is a plain avowal of his poverty ; for every one knows 

 that it is commonly said of a man in rags, " that he looks as if he were 

 going to fly." This shows, albeit, what an excellent courtier Horace 

 must have been; for he permits his great friend to see " not 

 through the wan, pale glimpses of the moon," his necessities, without 

 seeming to blame him for them ; and I am not a long way off the 

 golden copula of St. Paul's (the grandest and most aerial garret in 

 town), if all antiquity can produce so polite and gentlemanlike an 

 address ; or so " handsome " a method of letting a patron know his 

 wants. 



Nevertheless, whatever might have been the sentiments or prac- 

 tice of this great critic and poet, we certainly have enough of 

 " authority" to support our opinion. What age, what nation has not 

 acknowledged its garrets filled with its best spirits ? When did the 

 uninterrupted succession fail? Or when was " Learning" itself so 

 famous, that garrets were not so too ? For my part J never enter 

 upon mine that I do not find myself inspired by the situation, and 

 fancy myself in the very midst of the " Heroes of Literature" it has 

 either received or formed. What prodigies of genius have we not 

 known in our own time! politicians, how sublime! poets, how 



* Epicuri de grege porcuiw. f Nebulones. 



