Horace sprang from the ranks of the people. His father had been a
slave, and he was himself cradled among "the huts where poor men lie."
Like these great lyrists, too, Horace was proud of his origin. After
he had become the intimate associate of the first men in Rome--nay,
the bosom friend of the generals and statesmen who ruled the world--he
was at pains on more occasions than one to call attention to the fact
of his humble birth, and to let it be known that, had he to begin life
anew, he was so far from desiring a better ancestry that he would,
like Andrew Marvell, have made "his destiny his choice." Nor is this
done with the pretentious affectation of the parvenu, eager to bring
under notice the contrast between what he is and what he has been, and
to insinuate his personal deserts, while pretending to disclaim them.
Horace has no such false humility. He was proud, and he makes no
secret that he was so, of the name he had made,--proud of it for
himself and for the class from which, he had sprung. But it was his
practice, as well as his settled creed, to rate at little the
accidents of birth and fortune. A stronger and higher feeling,
however, more probably dictated the avowal,--gratitude to that slave-
born father whose character and careful training had stamped an
abiding influence upon the life and genius of his son. Neither might
he have been unwilling in this way quietly to protest against the
worship of rank and wealth which he saw everywhere around him, and
which was demoralising society in Rome. The favourite of the Emperor,
the companion of Maecenas, did not himself forget, neither would he
let others forget, that he was a freedman's son; and in his own way
was glad to declare, as Beranger did of himself at the height of his
fame,


"Je suis vilain, et tres vilain."