fields, in the Aeneid, where he dexterously introduced a glorious display
of their country, he had touched the most elastic springs of Roman
enthusiasm. The passion would have rebounded upon himself, and they
would, in the heat of admiration, have idolized him.

HORACE was born at Venusia, on the tenth of December, in the consulship
of L. Cotta and L. Torquatus. According to his own acknowledgment, his
father was a freedman; by some it is said that he was a collector of the
revenue, and by others, a fishmonger, or a dealer in salted meat.
Whatever he was, he paid particular attention to the education of his
son, for, after receiving instruction from the best masters in Rome, he
sent him to Athens to study philosophy. From this place, Horace followed
Brutus, in the quality of a military tribune, to the battle of Philippi,
where, by his own confession, being seized with timidity, he abandoned
the profession of a soldier, and returning to Rome, applied himself to
the cultivation of poetry. In a short time he acquired the friendship of
Virgil and Valerius, whom he mentions in his Satires, in terms of the
most tender affection.

Postera lux oritur multo gratissima: namque
Plotius et Varius Sinuessae, Virgiliusque,
Occurrunt; animae, quales neque candidiores
Terra tulit, neque queis me sit devinctior alter.
O qui complexus, et gaudia quanta fuerunt!
Nil ego contulerim jucundo sanus amico.--Sat. I. 5.

Next rising morn with double joy we greet,
For Plotius, Varius, Virgil, here we meet:
Pure spirits these; the world no purer knows,
For none my heart with more affection glows: