, 
1809.] 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
LYCEUM OF ANCIENT LITERA- 
TURE.—-No. XXV. 
HORACE. 
HE interval is immense between 
Pindar, the last and greatest of the 
Grecian, and Horace, one of the earliest 
and best of the Roman, Lyrics. More 
than four centuries elapsed from the de- 
cline of lyric poetry in the one country, 
and its revival in the other. Nor was 
this decline peculiar to lyric poetry. 
From the age of Pindar, the literature 
of Greece does not supply a single name, 
that we can rank among the poets of 
more illustrious days. The Greeks had 
lost their independence. With their li- 
berty, their genius also appeared to have 
taken its flight. Alternately eusiaved or 
liberated, for a time, as the different 
policy of the successors of Alexander 
predominated, they could only exlnbit, 
at their final conquest by the Romans, 
the intéresting monuments of their de- 
parted glory, and the memorials of their 
former greatness. 
The progress of most nations in. lite- 
rature and science is generally observed 
to be gradual and slow, and their de- 
cline from eminence is marked by the 
same easy gradations. But it is ob- 
servable of the Romans, that there was 
but one period during which the politer 
arts were encouraged among them. This 
was not owing so much to a defect of ge- 
nius, as to the fundamental principles of 
their government and religion, which in- 
culcated the love of their country, as the 
sole duty of each individual. They ne- 
glected every study but that of their laws ; 
and, ambitious of no fame but that which 
~was derived from valour and skill in mili- 
tary tactics, they considered every other 
pursuit as useless, if not dangerous, to 
the commonwealth. ‘They  prehibited 
the introduction of the gentler arts of 
peace, to which they inseparably an- 
nexed the ideas of effemimacy, corrup- 
tiun, and sloth. Ina poor state, it may 
be admitted, that improvements are 
useless, because all are superfluous that 
are not immediately conducive to its sup- 
port and preservation, or capable of con- 
tributing to its advancement. Thus, all 
states are, in their infancy, strangers to 
polite learning ; and Rome had little ac- 
quaintance with the sciences for the first 
500 years. And even where the state 
happens to be rich and powerful, If its 
inhabitants be individually poor, the 
arts will make but slow advances, and 
Montuty Mae, No. 192. 
Lyceum of Ancient Literature,—No. XXV. 
457 
like a tender plant, sicken and die for 
want of culture and nourishment. 
But when the destruction of Carthage 
had opened a wider field to their ambt- 
tion ; when, no longer confined to their 
own shores, they sailed, in pursuit of fame 
and conquest, to more distant countries, 
they insensibly imbibed the manners, 
and courted the applause, of the very 
people whom they had enzlaved. The 
first incursion of the Romans, indeed, 
upon the classic ground of Greece, was 
a mere incoad of barbarians, who de. 
stroyed whatever was valuable, and ne- 
glected what they could not destroy.* 
But, in process of time, they became 
more docile to the mental superiority of 
their new subjects; and the Greeks had. 
still the glory of imparting to their rug 
ged conquerors some portion of those 
lights of philosophy and science, to which 
they had hitherto been strangers. Ail 
the authority of the Roman Senate could 
not festrain the youth of the consular 
and patrician families, from resorting to 
Athens, as the attractive centre of lite= 
rature and the arts. The first crude ef- 
forts of Livius Andronicus, Ennius, 
Nevius, Jucius, and Lucilius, soon con« 
vinced the Romans, that their genius _ 
and language were susceptible of improves . 
ment.- They prepared the way for that 
enlightened age, when Augustus, having 
artfully availed himself of those civil dis- 
sentions, which always accompany the 
expiring freedom of a state, disguised, 
and, in some measure, justified, his usur- 
pation, by his magnificent patronage of 
learned and ingenious men. 
Ainong those who conferred honoug 
upon that illustrious period, was the ce- 
lebrated poet now before us ;_ so cele- 
brated indeed, and so universally known, 
that, in commencing this account of 
his life and writings, little reom seema: 
mere 
* The Consul Mummius, it is true, put a 
stop to these barbarities, during the sack of 
Corinth 5; but when he sent some statues and 
paintings to Rome, as trophies of his conguest, 
go little conception had he of their inestima- 
ble value, that he informed those who had 
the charge of their conveyance, that if they 
lost or injured any of them, they should 
make others in their stead !-—Paterc. i. ¢. 13. 
+ The first introduction of learning is sup- 
posed to have been, by some, immediately 
after the first Punic war; but it was not till 
after the conquest of Greece, that the Ro- 
mans began to inquire. 
Quid Sophocles, et. Thespis, et Aischylus 
utile ferrent. 
3N te 
