Juvenal and Persius. Horace is merry; Persius serious; Juvenal
indignant. Thus, wit, philosophy and lofty scorn mark their respective
pages. The satire of Horace was playful and good natured. His arrows
were always dipped in oil. He was a fine specimen of an accomplished
gentleman. His sentiments were evidently modified by his associates.
He was an Epicurean and a stoic by turns. He commended and ridiculed
both sects. He practiced economy and praised liberality. He lived
temperate, and sang the praises of festivity. He was the favorite of
the court and paid for its patronage in compliments and panegyrics,
unsurpassed in delicacy of sentiment and beauty of expression. Horace
is every man's companion. He has a word of advice and admonition for
all. His criticisms constitute most approved canons of the
rhetorician; his sage reflections adorn the page of the moralist; his
humor and wit give point and force to the satirist, and his graver
maxims are not despised by the Christian philosopher. Juvenal is
fierce and denunciatory. His characteristics are energy, force, and
indignation; his weapons are irony, wit and sarcasm; he is a decided
character, and you must yield and submit, or resist. His denunciations
of vice are startling. He hated the Greeks, the aristocracy and woman
with intense hatred. No author has written with such terrible
bitterness of the sex. Unlike other satirists, he never relents. His
arrow is ever on the string, and whatever wears the guise of woman is
his game. The most celebrated of the modern imitators of Horace and
Juvenal are Swift and Pope."

The Odes, Satires and Epistles are his chief productions.

TO LICINIUS.

(_By Horace._)

Receive, dear friend, the truths I teach
So shalt thou live beyond the reach
Of adverse Fortune's power;
Not always tempt the distant deep,
Nor always timorously creep
Along the treacherous shore.

He that holds fast the golden mean,
And lives contentedly between
The little and the great,
Feels not the wants that pinch the poor,
Nor plagues that haunt the rich man's door,
Embittering all his state.

The tallest pines feel most the power
Of wintry blasts; the loftiest tower
Comes heaviest to the ground;
The bolts that spare the mountain's side,
His cloud-capt eminence divide,
And spread the ruin round.

The well-inform'd philosopher
Rejoices with an whole