arises the difficulty of translating them.

The characteristics ascribed by Horace to Pindar in his ode, 'Pindarum
quisquis,' &c. are not found in his extant writings. Horace had many
lyrical effusions of the Theban bard which we have not. How graceful is
Horace's modesty in his 'Ego _apis_ Matinae More modoque,' as contrasted
with the Dircaean Swan! Horace is my great favourite: I love him dearly.

I admire Virgil's high moral tone: for instance, that sublime 'Aude,
hospes, contemnere opes,' &c. and 'his dantem jura Catonem!' What
courage and independence of spirit is there! There is nothing more
imaginative and awful than the passage,

'----Arcades ipsum
Credunt se vidisse Jovem,' &c.[255]

In describing the weight of sorrow and fear on Dido's mind, Virgil shows
great knowledge of human nature, especially in that exquisite touch of
feeling[256],

'Hoc visum nulli, _non ipsi effata sorori.'_

The ministry of Confession is provided to satisfy the natural desire for
some relief from the load of grief. Here, as in so many other respects,
the Church of Rome adapts herself with consummate skill to our nature,
and is strong by our weaknesses. Almost all her errors and corruptions
are abuses of what is good.

I think Buchanan's 'Maiae Calendae' equal in sentiment, if not in
elegance, to anything in Horace; but your brother Charles, to whom I
repeated it the other day, pointed out a false quantity in it[257].
Happily this had escaped me.

[255] _Aen_. viii. 352.

[256] _Ibid._ iv. 455.

[257] If I remember right, it is in the third line,

'Ludisque dicatae, jocisque;'

a strange blunder, for Buchanan must have read Horace's,

'Quid dedicatum poscit Apolliuem,'

a hundred times.

When I began to give myself up to the profession of a poet for life, I
was impressed with a conviction, that there were four English poets whom
I must have continually before me as examples--Chaucer, Shakspeare,
Spenser, and Milton. These I must study, and equal _if I could_; and I
need not think of the rest[258].

[258] This paragraph was communicated by Mr. H.C. Robinson.

I have been charged by some with disparaging Pope and Dryden. This is
not so. I have committed much of both to memory. As far as Pope goes, he
succeeds; but his Homer is not Homer, but Pope.

I cannot account for Shakspeare's low estimate of his own writings,
except from the sublimity, the superhumanity, of his genius. They were
infinitely below