PREFACE, TO THIS REVISED EDITION, BY MR. PYE. WHEN it was first proposed to give a small edition of Francis's translation of Horace, it was not deemed necessary to encumber the page with the notes, which would only serve to swell the bulk of the volume, without being of any use to the English reader; as they chiefly illustrate phrases, and establish particular readings in the original, to which they always refer, and therefore can only be intelligible to the Latin scholar, who has a Latin edition before him; and indeed that edition only which is usually printed with this translation. All the labour of the Editor has been directed towards correcting some of the errors, and retranslating such Odes and such passages in the Satires and Epistles as seemed to detract from the general merit of the work; for, to give equal excellence to so long and so varied a series of composition as the poems of Horace seems almost beyond the span of the human intellect. It however has occurred, that short notes explanatory of the subject of some of the poems, and of various customs of the Romans to which they allude, would be satisfactory to the reader; and this has been attempted. The Editor has also occasionally given his reasons for altering certain passages in the translation of Francis, and shown how often that gentleman has suffered his better judgment to be led astray by the absurd refinements of the French critics, and especially by Sanadon; many of whose remarks are eminently absurd. The swelling of the notes to a considerable extent has been carefully avoided. Though in a multitude of counsellors there may be wisdom, in a multitude of words there is not always precision; and when the eye is perpetually drawn down to read long dissertations at the bottom of the page, while only two or four lines of the text are printed at the top of it, no attention whatever can comprehend the connexion of the parts, or discover that lucid order which our poet lays down as absolutely essential to every perfect composition. ODES. BOOK I. ODE I. [Mæcenas, the favourite and chief minister of Augustus, was supposed to be descended from the ancient kings of Etruria. He was so celebrated for his encouragement of Virgil, Horace, and other poets, that even now a patron of literature is often figuratively called a Mæcenas.] TO MECENAS. O THOU, whose birth illustrious springs Mæcenas, to whose guardian name I owe my fortune and my fame; Earth's masters.' That is, the Romans; which appears to me the obvious sense, though some suppose it means the gods. While in their several wishes bless'd, When loud the winds and waters wage Soon rigs his shatter'd bark again. No mean delights possess his soul, Ere half the course of day be run; The trumpet-sound, the clarion-voice: Be mine, amid the breezy grove, To see the nymphs and satyrs bound, While all the tuneful Sisters join But if you rank me with the choir II. [It is recorded in history (Dion.) that the night after the name of Augustus was conferred on Octavius Cæsar, there happened an uncommon inundation of the Tyber; to which this Ode probably alludes.] TO AUGUSTUS. ENOUGH of snow, and hail, the' immortal Sire We saw, push'd backward to his native source, |