two Indexes of all the characters mentioned in succeeding poems, the latter being confined to the poets. The second part contains the Works of Horace in the original. This consists of the simple text without note or comment, and also without any previous statement as to the authority on which the text is based, and without any recognition of the various readings; these two are certainly great omissions. Even supposing the text to be universally and infallibly correct, we should have been told by what process this happy certainty had been arrived at, and though a multitude of various readings might have increased the bulk of the volume inconveniently, the most important might have been given in three, or at the utmost four pages. This objection has peculiar weight in those cases where the reading, however good, and in many cases now popular, is only of a few years' standing, as far as the reading public are concerned. In some few instances, we feel convinced that the wrong reading has been adopted. We will mention the most striking cases, which we have observed, ere attempting to give some notion of the ornamental part of the work. In the first Ode of the first Book, at the end of the tenth line, we find a comma instead of a semicolon; this, though the old reading, is evidently not the right one, since the same individual is seldom both a yeoman farming his own estate, and an importer of foreign corn. The late political contest on the Corn Laws clearly proves the necessity for a semicolon. In the seventh line of the seventh Ode, though the reading Undique decerptam fronti præponere olivam, happens at present to be in fashion, we think that the reader has certainly a right to be informed of the existence of another, and, in our opinion, a better reading, namely, Undique decerptæ frondi præponere olivam. The third stanza of the third Ode of the second Book is pointed thus: Quo pinus ingens albaque populus Lympha fugax trepidare rivo? This appears to us to be downright nonsense. We trust that in another edition the text will be carefully revised; that an advertisement will be prefixed stating what authorities have been consulted, and that a short appendix will be added, giving the most celebrated various readings; this would give the work a com pleteness, which, with all its beauties and merits, it does not now possess. We proceed to the decorations. The first part of the volume is ornamented with handsome coloured borders; such is their variety, that it is not till the seventy-sixth page that we have noticed any one of them repeated, and then, when the patterns recur, the colours are different; and, even after that, the whole of the Fasti are surrounded with perfectly new borders. The Poems, on the contrary, are merely enclosed by an outer red line, and an inner black line, in the corners of which are four elegantly engraved corner-pieces, of continually varying design. The title-pages, however, of the different books of Odes, &c. are very gorgeous. The paper is fine, thick and stiff, though rather brittle; and the type good, though it would be better if the ink were blacker. The engravings abound from one end of the volume to the other. Thus, in the Life, at the head of the first chapter, we have Venusia; a little way on, Mount Voltore at the top of one page, and the Aufidus facing it on the other. Chapter II. is headed with Fons Bandusiæ, and so on. In the poems, almost every ode has an engraving at the beginning, and, at least, an ornament at the close; whilst, wherever there is an allusion capable of admitting one, an illustration is inserted immediately under the line in which it occurs. We will explain our meaning by a few examples. Thus, the first Ode is headed by a bust of that truly great man Mecænas, and concludes with the chariot race: thus, in the fifth, we have an exquisitely graceful figure of a "Nymph arranging her hair." At the commencement of the sixth is a head of Agrippa, at the close," Homer enthroned." In the third, we begin with a bust of Virgil; at "Diva potens Cypri" we have a Cyprian coin; two lines further on is " Ship with stars," and at the close Dædalus and Icarus. Take again the nineteenth of the Second Book, and we find below the first stanza, Bacchus and the Satyrs; after the fourth, the drunken phrenzy of Lycurgus; after the sixth stanza a Mænade, in full costume, with snake-bound hair; and the Ode closes with a representation of the Triumph of Bacchus. We have, of course, all the gods of Greece and Rome in every conceivable shape; all the great men of the day; all the different ceremonies, utensils, &c. to which allusion is made; nor are the least interesting illustrations those which represent the scenery of Horace. Amusing as the Iter ad Brundusium must always be, it assumes a higher character, when graced with its pictorial commentary. The head-piece, representing Via, is from the reverse of a coin of Trajan; after the first line, we have a VOL. XI.-NO. XXII.-JUNE, 1849. T sketch of Aricia, by Mr. Dennis, writer of the letter already mentioned; then at the twenty-sixth line comes Anxur, a noble sketch by the same author. Though it is now some years since we passed through Terracina, on our way from Rome to Naples, the engraving instantly recalled that striking scene deeply, vividly stamped on our memory. At 33 comes the bust of Mark Antony; at 37, a view of Mola di Gaëta,-the ancient Formiæ,-as correct, though, from the subject, not as striking, as that of Terracina; at 50, comes the villa of Cocceius, supposed to be the great grandfather of the celebrated Nerva; at 71, is seen a pleasing view of Beneventum, so famous in after ages. Little did the Roman wits of that luxurious court think of the stern barbarians who should one day rule over that beautiful land. At 79, we have a view of that place which was so unhappy as to possess a name inadmissible into hexameters: Equotutium therefore may rejoice, at having at last found its way into the text of Horace, instead of being condemned to an ignominious lodging in the cellars of the page; at 91, 97, and 104, respectively, we have sketches of Canusium, Bari, and Brundusium,-all of them doing great credit both to the limner, Mr. Dessoulary, and to the engraver. fact, our astonishment is raised even more strongly than our admiration, and we ask, how can such a book be sold for only two guineas? In And now we proceed to a consideration of the letter-press thus sold—English and Latin. The Prolegomena are ably compiled; the Life is in its way almost a master-piece; the biographer, indeed, deals, in our opinion, too leniently with his hero; but the narrative is interesting; the views are comprehensive; and the style, for the most part, extremely pleasing: when, indeed, have Mr. Milman's ease and grace ever deserted him in any of the various and multitudinous works which he has submitted to the eye of the public-to use the words of his Poet, his own Apollo? "Quando vati fefellit Apollo-" There are, however, in the present biographical sketch, two or three carelessly written passages, the awkwardness of which rather surprises us; for instance, the following, though sensible, is by no means graceful : "Even the parentage of the poet is connected with the difficult but important questions of the extent to which slavery in the Roman world was affected by manumission, and the formation of that middle class (the libertini), with their privileges, and the estimation in which they were held by society.”—p. 2. Mr. Milman too, strangely enough, is singularly infelicitous, at least, to our taste, when he renders isolated phrases into English; he has attempted this very seldom; but he has almost in every instance failed. The only passage of which he has given a metrical translation, is that wherein Horace describes an incident of his early childhood: thus-. Me fabulosa Volture in Apulo, Non sine Dis animosus infans. Mr. Milman renders it thus: Carm. III. iv. 9-20. Me, vagrant infant, on Mount Vultur's side, Did the poetic doves With young leaves cover. Spread the wondrous tale From the black viper safe, and prowling bear Not of the gods unwatch'd. We should certainly have expected something at once more graceful and more accurate from the author of "Fazio"-one of the most exquisitely graceful poems in our language. The whole passage is a failure; what can be more inelegant, for example, than the phrase "vagrant infant?" It summons up a host of unpleasant ideas, which, at last, centre on the urchin described in "The Haunted Man;" then we cannot speak in English of being fatigued by sleep; the idea, too, of Acherontia's sons hanging their tall nests, is absolutely ludicrous; and in the next two lines, three adjectives are needlessly coupled to one substantive-a variation from the original quite uncalled for. The style is, however, with very few exceptions, easy and perspicuous; and it is really marvellous to see how Mr. Milman has collected, compared, and condensed, the driest details from every possible quarter, and from them produced an essay which is not only interesting to the scholar, but also in the highest degree attractive to the general reader. The Indexes, too, and the letter, De Villâ Horatii, are excellent in their way. "The poetry of Horace," as this author justly observes at the commencement of his undertaking, "is the history of Rome during the great change from a republic into a monarchy, during the sudden, and almost complete revolution, from centuries of war and civil faction, to that peaceful period which is called the Augustan Age of Letters. His life is the image of his eventful times. In his youth he plunges into the fierce and sanguinary civil war; and afterwards subsiding quietly into literary ease, the partisan of Brutus softens into the friend of Mecænas, and the happy subject, if not the flatterer of Augustus." His parentage, and its effect upon his position in society, opens one field of inquiry regarding the conventionalism of his day; his life leads us through the history of his time, the outward chances and the inward changes of society; his poetry not only exhibits a reflection of his own character, showing us the causes which operated on his thoughts, feelings, and opinions, and made him what he was; but it also mirrors the public interests and private manners, the outward forms and inward motives of his age. For none can read his works without a conviction that Horace exhibits in himself a perfect specimen of "a man of the eighth century,” and gives us in his poems a true picture of things as they were. With reference to the birth of Horace, although aware of the weight of authority which supports Mr. Milman's hypothesis, we are compelled to disagree with him. We do not ourselves believe that his father was a freedman, but the son of a freedman. The poet himself describes him not as libertus, but libertinus; and the earlier meaning of that word is not a freedman, but the son of a freedman. This supposition explains the total absence of all reference to his former master, or that master's family, or his early slavery, or even the act of manumission, and it seems to agree, too, better with all that we do know of his life and character. Mr. Milman has graphically described the life and fortunes of Horace, his early home and its abiding associations, his school-days at Rome, his college life at Athens, his patriotism and consequent ruin, the short period of danger and distress which intervened between the loss of his public cause and private property, and his admission to the friendship of Mecænas; and, lastly, the time of |