A hundred cups Mæcenas drink!

Where must he put them all d'ye think? Pray have the critics all so blunder'd, That none of 'em correct this hundred?

"Not that I know has any one Had any scruple thereupon: And for what reason pray should you? The reading, to be sure, is true; A hundred cups-that is to say➡ Mæcenas come and drink away."

If that was all the poet meant,
It is express'd without the cent:
Sume Mæcenas cyathos-

Does it full well without the dose,
The monstrous dose in cup or can,
That suits with neither bard nor man.

"Nay, why so monstrous? Is it told How much the cyathus would hold? You think perhaps it was a mug As round as any Jonian jug:

Thy drank all night: if small the glass, Would centum mount to such a mass?"

Small as you will, if 'twas a bumper, Centum for one would be a thumper: It's balk Horatian terms define, Vates attonitus' with nine; Gratia-forbidding more than threcThey were no thimbles you may see.

"Not in that ode-in this they might Intend a more diminish'd plight; And then Mæcenas and the bard That night, I warrant ye, drank hard; Perfer in lucem-Horace cries;

To what a pitch might numbers rise!"

A desperate long night! my friend,
Before their hundred cups could end;
Nor does the verse invite, throughout,
Macenas to a drunken bout:
Perfer in lucem comes in view
With procul omnis clamor too.

"Was it no bout, because no noise
Should interrupt their midnight joys?
Horace, you read, with annual tap,
Notes his escape from dire mishap:
Must he, and friends conven'd, be sober,
Because 'twas March, and not October?"

Sober or drunk is not the case,
But word and meaning to replace,
Both here demolish'd: did they, pray,
Do nothing else but drink away?
For friends conven'd had Horace got
No entertainment, but to sot?

"Yes to be sure; he might rehearse
Some new or entertaining verse;
Might touch the lyre, invoke the Muse;
Or twenty things that he might choose;
No doubt but he would mix along
With cup, and talk, the joyous song."

Doubtless he would; and that's the word, For which a centum so absurd

Hor. lib. 3. ode 19. v. 14.

Has been inserted, by mistake

Of his transcribers, scarce awake;

Which, all the critics, when they keep,

Are, quoad hoc, quite fast asleep.

"For that's the word"-" What word d'ye mean?

For song does centum intervene?

Song would be-O, I take your hint,
Cantum, not centum, you would print;
Sospitis cantum-but the clause

Can have no sense with such a pause."

Pause then at sospitis, nor strike
The three cæsuras all alike;
One cup of Helicon but quaff,
The point is plain as a pike-staff;
The wine, the song, the lustre's light-
The verse, the pause, the sense is right.

"Stay, let me read the Sapphic out Both ways, and then resolve the doubt"

"Sume Mæcenas cyathos amici
Sospitis centum-et vigiles lucernas
Perfer in lucem-procul omnis esto
Clamor et ira.

"Sume Mæcenas cyathos amici
Sospitis-cantum, et vigiles lucernas
Perfer in lucem-procul omnis esto
Clamor et ira."

Well, I confess, now I have read,
The thing is right that you have said;
One vowel rectify'd, how plain
Does Horace's intent remain !"

-NONUMQ. prematur in annum.

HOR. Art. Poet. 1. 388.

YE poets, and critics, and men of the schools, Who talk about Horace, and Horace's rules; Ye learned admirers, how comes it, I wonder, That none of you touch a most tangible blunder? I speak not to servile, and sturdy logicians, Who will, right or wrong, follow printed editions; But you, that are judges, come rub up your eyes, And unshackle your wits, and I'll show where it lies.

Amongst other rules, which your Horace has To make his young Piso for poetry fit, [writ, He tells him, that verses should not be pursu'd, When the Muse (or Minerva) was not in the mood; That whate'er he should write, "he should let it descend

To the ears of his father, his master, his friend ';" And let it lie by him-now prick up your ears→→→→ Nonumque prematur in annum-nine years.

Nine years! I repeat-for the sound is enough,
With the help of plain sense, to discover the stuff.
If the rule had been new, what a figure would nine
Have made with your Pisos, ye masters of mine?
Must a youth of quick parts, for his verse's per-
fection,
[rection?
Let it lie for nine years-in the House of Cor-

1-In Mettii descendat judicis aures,
Et patris et nostras.-

Nine years if his verses must lie in the leaven, Take the young rogue himself, and transport him for seven.

To make this a maxim, that Horace infuses, Must provoke all the laughter of all the nine Muses.

How the wits of old Rome, in a case so facetious, Would have jok'd upon Horace, and Piso, and Metius,

If they all could not make a poetical line

Ripe enough to be read, 'till the year had struck nine!

Had the boy been possest of nine lives, like a cat, Yet surely he'd ne'er have submitted to that.

"Vah!" says an old critic, "indefinite numberTo denote many years"-(which is just the same lumber)touch 2"

Quotes a length of Quintilian for "time to re-
But wisely stops short at his biaming-too much.
Some took many years, he can instance-in fine,
Isocrates ten-poet Cinna just nine;
Rare instance of taking, which, had he been cool,
Th' old critic had seen, never could be a rule.

"Indeed," says a young one," nine years, confess,

Is a desperate while for a youth to suppress;
I can hardly think Horace would make it a point;
The word, to be sure, must be out of its joint;
Lie by with a nonum!-had I been his Piso, [so.
I'd have told little Flaccy, mine never should lie
Had he said for nine months, I should think them
enoo;

This reading is false, sir-pray tell us the true."

"Do you think,' they cry out, that with so little wit

Such a world of great critics on Horace have writ? That the poets themselves, were the blunder so plain,

In a point of their art too, would let it remain?” For you are to consider, these critical chaps Do not like to be snubb'd; you may venture, perhaps, [amiss; An amendment, where they can see somewhat But may raise their ill blood, if you circulate this."

"It will circulate, this, sir, as sure as their

blood,

"Why, you are not far off it, if present conjec

ture

May furnish the place with a probable lecture; For by copies, 1 doubt, either printed, or written,

The hundreds of editors all have been bitten. Nine months you allow"-"Yes"-" Well, let us, for fear

Of affronting Quintilian, e'en make it a year: Give the critics their numque, but as to their no— You have one in plain English more fit to bestow."

"I take the correction-unumque prematur Let it lie for one twelvemonth-ay, that may hold And time enough too for consulting about [water; Master Piso's performance, before it came out. What! would Horace insist, that a sketch of a boy Should take as much time, as the taking of Troy? They, that bind out the young one, say, when the old fellow

Took any time like it, to make a thing mellow;
"Tho' correct in his trifles"---" Young man you
say right,

And to them that will see, it is plain, at first sight;
But eritics that will not, they hunt all around
For something of sameness, in sense, or in sound;
It is all one to them; so attach'd to the letter,
That to make better sense makes it never the
better:
[own 'em;
Nay, the more sense in readings, the less they will
You must leave to these sages their mumpsimus

The last, if you like, and, along with the youth, Prefer to nonumque poetical truth,

Then blot out the blunder, now here it is hinted, And by all future printers unumque be printed.

Nunc et CAMPUS et AREÆ

Lenesque sub noctem susurri
Composita repetantur horâ.

HOR. lib. i. ode ix. v. 13.

BY Campus, and by Areæ, my friends,
The question is what Horace here intends?
For such expression with the current style
Of this whole ode is hard to reconcile:
Nay, notwithstanding critical pretence,
Or I mistake, or it can have no sense.

The ode, you find, proceeding to relate
A winter's frost, in its severest state,
Calls out for fire, and wine, and loves, and dance,
And all that Horace rambles to enhance;
But how can this fair weather phrase belong
To such a wintry, Saturnalian song?

A learned Frenchman quotes these very lines As really difficult; and thus refines— "We use these words" (says monsieur Sanadon) "For nightly meetings, hors de la maison; But 't is ridiculous in frost, and snow, Of keenest kind, that Horace should do so."

Right, monsieur, right; such incoherent stuff Is here, no doubt, ridiculous enough: The Campus Martius, and its active scenes, Which commentators say th' expression means, Have here no place; nor can they be akin To scenes, not laid without doors, but within.

[mark)

nonum.

Now inattentive critics too, I say, Are caught, sometimes, in their dogmatic way: United here, we must divide, forsooth, The time of winter from the time of youth; When all expressions of Horatian growth Do, in this ode, 't is plain, refer to both.

Youthful th' amusements, and for frosty week; From drinking-dancing-down to-hide and seek: But Campus comes, and Areæ, between, By a mistake too big for any skreen: And how nonsensically join'd with lispers, By assignation met, of nightly whispers ?

1

Strange, how interpreters retail the farce, That Campus, here, should mean the Field of Mars; [o'er, When, in their task, they must have just read Contrast to this, the very Ode before; Where ev'ry manly exercise, disclos'd, To love's effeminacy stands oppos'd.

In this, no thought of any field on Earth, But warm fire-side, and Roman winter's mirth: No thought of any but domestic ring; Where all Decembrian customs took their swing: And where-but come-that matter we'll suppress

There should be something for Cantabs to guess.

I'll ask anon-from what has now been said, If emendation pops into your head: Or if you 'll teach me how to comprehend That all is right; and nothing here to mend. Come, sharpen up your Latin wits a bit;

What are they good for else these Odes that Horace writ?

Meaning and metre both arrange,
And small, if possible, the change?"
Smaller and better, to be sure,

Into their place amendments fall:
What first occurs will here secure
Meaning and metre, change and all.
May it not be that for divitiis
Th' original had æ--dificiis?

If you object that sep'rate æ

Makes in one word an odd division, Horace, I answer to that plea,

Has more than once the like elision: Give us a better, if ye can. In short, upon correction's plan,

Non est meum, si mugiat Africis
Malus procellis, ad miseras preces
Decurrere, et votis pacisci,
Ne Cypriæ Tyriæque merces
Addant avaro divitias mari;
TUM me biremis præsidio scapha
Tutum per Ægæos tumultus
Aura FERET geminusq. Pollux.

HOR. lib. iii. ode ix. v. 57.

THIS passage, sirs, may put ye, one would think,

In mind of him, who, in a furious storm Told, that the vessel certainly would sink, Made a reply in the Horatian form; "Why let it sink then, if it will," quoth he, "I'm but a passenger, what is 't to me."

Cedes coemptis saltibus, et domo,
Villâque, flavus quam Tiberis lavit,
Cedes; et EXTRUCTIS IN ALTUM
DIVITIIS potietur hæres.

HOR. lib. ii. ode iii. v. 17.

THIS phrase of "riches built on high"
Has something in it, at first sight,
Which, if the Latin language try,

Must needs appear not to be right:
Produce an instance, where before
'T was ever us'd, I'll say no more.
Talk not of "riches pil'd on heaps,"
To justify the Latin phrase;
For if you take such critic leaps,
You jump into dog Latin days;
And I shall answer to that trick
In meâ mente non est sic.

That lands were here the poet's thought,
And house along the river's side,
And lofty villa built, or bought,

Is much too plain to be deny'd.
These high extructed spires he writ
That mortal Dellius must quit.

"Well, sir, supposing this the case,

And structures what the poet meant;
How will you fill the faulty place
With phrase that suited his intent?

To purchase calm with wretched vows and

pray'rs;

Let them who freight the ship be thus devout,
I'm not concern'd in any of its wares.
May not one ask, if common sense will read,
Was ever jest and earnest more agreed?
"Nay but you see the reason," 't is reply'd,

Why he rejects the bargaining of pray'r;
His little skiff will stem the raging tide

With double Pollux, and with gentler air. This is his moral," say his under-pullers, "The poor and innocent are safe in scullers."

Why so they may be, if they coast along,

And shun the winds that make a mast to moan; But here, according to the critic throng,

Horace was in the ship, tho' not his own. Suppose a sculler just contriv'd for him, When the ship sunk, would his biremis swim? Can you by any construing pretenceIf you suppose, as commentators do, Him in the ship-make tolerable sense

Of his surviving all the sinking crew?
With winds so boist'rous, by what cunning twist
Can his clear stars, and gentle air resist?
The gifts of Fortune Horace had resign'd,

And poor and honest, his just fancy'd case,
Nothing to do had be with stormy wind,
Nor in Egean seas to seek a place.
How is it likely then, that he should mean
To paint himself in such an awkward scene!

"Why, but, tum me biremis-must suppose, By then escaping, that he sure was in 't; And feret too, that comes into the close,

In all the books that we have here in print-" Both words are wrong tho', notwithstanding that, Tum should be cum, and feret be ferat.

The sense, or moral if you please, is this,
Henceforth be probity, tho' poor, my lot;
The love of riches is but an abyss

Of dangerous cares, that now concern me not.
Caught in its storms, let avarice implore,
I thank my stars, I'm rowing safe to shore.

HOR. Lib. iii. Ode xviii.

WHENE'ER this Horace comes into one's hand, One meets with words full hard to understand: If one consult the critics thereupon, Some places have a note, some others none; And, when they take interpretating pains, Sometimes the difficulty still remains.

To you that see, good friends, where I am blind, Let me propose a case of either kind: Premising first, for both relate to weather, That Winter and December come together: The Romans too, as far as I remember, Have join'd together Winter and December.

In Book the Third of Horace, Ode Eighteen, Ad Faunum-these two Sapphics here are scen:

"Ludit herboso pecus omne campo, Cum tibi nonæ redeunt Decembris: Festus in pratis vacat otioso

Cum bove pagus.

"Inter audaces lupus errat agnos;
Spargit agrestes tibi silva frondes;
Gaudet visam pepulisse fossor
Ter pede terram.”

Now in December, if we reason close,
Are fields poetically call'd herbose?

Is that the month, tho' Faunus kept the fold,
For daring lambs to frisk about so bold?

Leaves I would add too-but the learn'd Dacier
Has made this point elaborately clear;
As one that artful Horace interweaves-
"The trees in Italy then shed their leaves;
And this the poet's artifice profound,
The trees themselves for Faunus strew'd the

[ground."

It is we'll say, a fine Horatian flight, But is the herbage, are the lambs so right? Is there in all the ode a single thing, That makes the Winter differ from the Spring? Nones of December are indeed hybernal, But all the rest is absolutely vernal.

"Lenis incedis per aprica rura❞— Does this begin like Winter?-but quid plura? Read how it all begins, goes on, or ends, Nothing but nones is winterly, my friends; Neither in human, nor in brutal creatures, One trace observ'd of Winter's stormy features. May not there be then, tho' the critics make No hesitation at it, a mistake?

The diggers dancing too has somewhat spissyGaudet invisam terram pepulisse."

He in revenge (say comments) beats the soil, Hated, because it gave him so much toil.

As oft the diggers, whom we chance to meet,
Turn up the ground, and press it with their feet;
Horace himself, perhaps we may admit,
Inversam terram, not invisam writ;

But this at present our demand postpones
Pray solve the doubt on these Decembrian nones.

Ut tuto ab atris corpore viperis Dormirem et URSIS,

HOR. lib. iii. ode iv.

HORACE, an infant, here he interweaves,

In rambling ode, where no design coheres, By fabled stock-doves cover'd up with leaves, Kept safe from black skinn'd vipers, and from bears: But, passing by the incoherent ode,

I ask the critics where the bears abode?

The leaves indeed, that stock-doves could convey, Would be but poor defence against the snakes, And sleeping boy be still an easy prey

To black pervaders of the thorny brakes; The bears, I doubt too, would have smelt him out, If there had been such creatures thereabout.

The snakes were black, the bears, I guess, were white,

(Or what the vulgar commonly call bulls)
Bears had there been; another word is right,
That has escap'd the criticising skulls,
Who suffer bears as quietly to pass,
As if the bard had been of Lapland class.

A word, where sense and sound do so agree,
That I shall spare to speak in its defence;
And leave absurdity so plain to see,

With due correction, to your own good sense: 'Tis this in short, in these Horatian verses, For bears read goats-pro ursis, lege hircis.

Romæ, principis urbium
Dignatur soboles inter AMABILES
Vatum ponere me choros.

HOR. lib. iv. ode iii.'
THIS is one ode, and much the best of two,
Fam'd above all for Scaliger's ado:
"I rather would have writ so good a thing
Than reign," quoth he, "an Arragonian king."
Had he been king, and master of the vote,

I doubt the monarch would have chang'd his note;
And loading verses with an huge renown,
Would still have kept his Arragonian crown.

This ode, howe'er, tho' short of such a rout,
He show'd some judgment, when he singled out;
Compar'd with others, one is at a stand [band:
To think how those should come from the same
For if they did, 't is marvellous enough,
That such a Muse with such a breath should puff;
That such a delicate harmonious Muse
Should catch the clouds, or sink into the stews.

But Fame has sold them to us in a lot,
And all is Horace, whether his, or not.
For his, or whose you will then, let them pass,
What signifies it who the author was?