s had passed, a race of which he had barely heard
by name as dwelling "quite beyond the confines of the world," would
cherish his name and read his writings with a grateful appreciation
even surpassing that of his contemporary Romans.

A few Odes remain, too casual to be classified; rejoicings over the
vanishing of winter and the return of spring (I, iv); praises of the
Tibur streams, of Tarentum (II, vi) which he loved only less than Tibur,
of the Lucretilis Groves (I, xvii) which overhung his Sabine valley,
of the Bandusian spring beside which he played in boyhood. We have the
Pindaric or historic Odes, with tales of Troy, of the Danaid brides,
of Regulus, of Europa (III, iii, v, xi, xvii); the dramatic address to
Archytas (I, xxviii), which soothed the last moments of Mark Pattison;
the fine epilogue which ends the book, composed in the serenity of
gained renown;

And now 'tis done: more durable than brass
My monument shall be, and raise its head
O'er royal pyramids: it shall not dread
Corroding rain or angry Boreas,
Nor the long lapse of immemorial time.
I shall not wholly die; large residue
Shall 'scape the Queen of funerals. Ever new
My after fame shall grow, while pontiffs climb
With silent maids the Capitolian height.
"Born," men will say, "where Aufidus is loved,
Where Danaus scant of streams beneath him bowed
The rustic tribes, from dimness he waxed bright,
First of his race to wed the Aeolian lay
To notes of Italy." Put glory on,
My own Melpomene, by genius won,
And crown me of thy grace with Delphic bay.

SWAN SONG

When a well-graced actor has left the stage amid trumpeted farewells
from an admiring but regretful audience, we somewhat resent his
occasional later reappearance. So, when a poet's last word has been
spoken, and spoken emotionally, an Afterword is apt to offend: and we
may wish that the fine poem just quoted had been reserved as finish to
the volume yet to come, which lacks a closing note, or even that the
volume itself had not been published. The fourth Book of the Odes was
written nearly ten years after the other three, and Horace wrote it not
as Poet but as Laureate. His Secular Hymn appeared in B.C. 17, when
he was forty-eight years old; and after it Augustus pressed him to
celebrate the victories of his two stepsons, Drusus and Tiberius, over
the tribes of the Eastern Alps. If he wrote unwillingly, his hand had
not lost its cunni