The Express. — 1851-01-18 (London, England)

MTIAII4. Moray. The Odes and Boodes of Horace. Tran.loted Liteally and Ibtiormically. By W. ItsweiL, B , Fellow and  fab-Ilee‘or of Exrtrr Collefe, Oxford. Bohn. liorace; Odes, lepaits, andCarasess,rrulare. Trans int. d Into EnylisA Ve;sy. Be WHTTS MILVILLI, E q tato (Lir:terms Guards. Simpk,n, arsbali,4no Co Mr. Murray's Horace is one of those sumptuous and imperial editions of a clatsic, which, like Gilb.rt Wakefield's "Lucretius," and Ulivet's "Cicero," are filed (in the words of Gibbon) "fir the tables of the rich and the shelves of the learned." Here we have fine paper and printing, borders gay with colour, and illustrations (rem antique sources, to each separate song, satire, and epistle. Mr. Nlilmsn, in his capacity of editor, has availed himself of all the resources of modern scholarship; he is well backed by the profound industry of Germany ; be gives constant references to the latest discoveries and speculations, and we have even a letter by G. Dennis, E‘q., concerning li”race's country-house, which is at once lesrued and lively. Mr. Manua, as biographer, however, is not so exemplary ap. Ilion. There are two or three ways of *riting a " Life." 'foe lE.st are those vivid and hearty ones which recall the lost hero, and bring him before the eye; a hich are written from love and loyalty ; and where there is some real deep resemblance in character between writer and subject. Su.l is cos "Agricola"; such is that delirntful little book "Roper's Life of Sit Thomas More;" and such are the "Lives of Ina, Walton." But Mr. Milman is one of these biegrapt.ers who chronicle a a man as they would chronic:ld a 1).d,, with much correct external mutt. no diabr, and in good polished scholastic English. But where is the humanity—whene is the poetic iusight ? Mr. :Ullman ought to have had (like the ancient mouirc`i) some one at his elbow to remind him that he wsa a man—ant only an ediur, bat a flesh and blood brother of Ho ace's and Horace's' reader..  There is a tone of timidity in Mr. Milman's expreseioes of opinion which agrees only too well with occasional vapidity of style. We are told that " probably the must extensively opers'ive cause of the rapid decay of the Roman popular poetry was the dissolution of the Roman people." We should say very " probably," indeed, did we admit the latter fact, as Mr. Shims° seems to do. But airily there is much exaggera ion in the talk about this diesolutloo. The troops who conquered under the emperors, long after liorsee's time, sun ly gave proof of their old lt man lineage; and the number of private soldiers who destroyed themselves (as Tacque tells us), after the suicide of Otho, shows the mainten ince of .bat old Roman spirit abich Will propagated throin,:h the rice. The fact was, th it the old Roman poetry became history for the Roman people--history welch they believed, whatever criticism says to it now. Tory did not disci.se it as " Saturnian," nor argue Aix''t it as liter iture. It was' part and parcel of their life—it was hall their religion, and all their inspiration. This consideration has an important bearing on what Mr. Ntilman says of the want of a national poetry amang the Romans—when speskirg of what is certainly the fed, viz., that all the Roman writers fo•med therinelvis on the Greeks. Their history was their poetry. They did poems issued of writing them. They were stet. omen and law3ers and warriors—a kingly people, who had the rot of the world to sing to them, as they had daves to dance before them. 'Toil; primary fret recognised, it becomes superfluous to attribute th, it west of original lyric poetry to want of "scenic representation," &c. These are secondary coneideriviots :—to d• al with them as causes is as great a mistake as it would be to argue on the west of windmills among a people thus They have cot materials for sails; woed is dear, Oee. • the troth all the time being that the said people did not think of employing wind-agency in that way, and ground their corn by other methods, from the nature of their country. For our part, we have no doubt that the best spoken retry of Rome less in the speeches of its orators—practical poetry, as great oratory propaly is. On two imintis we heartily agree with Mr. ?stamen,  and Naomi him highly toiurithg them. let. That Horaoe's Wages, Glycers., and poetical mistresses  generally, had never any exicenee but in the seraglio of Lis imagination. 20d. That the didactio poetry of 1(30111 is the best in the world. To suppose tnat a philosopher. as Honor essentially ware temperate, worldly, speculative inan—S MOM what coarse old gen' tleman (we have:he her ad Brundisium in cur eye),was perpetually assoc!ating with romantic Gre.k singers and datcers—each lyric being addreecd to a new real one—appears to us quite monstrous. He would be prevented doing so, both by his virtues and failings —the sense that would make it preposterous—the homeliness that would make it dictums!.  Horace's writings alone would settle the second question. Its "Odes" we cannot (with Shelby in our head) call _poeery. But when we reed his " Satires" and "Epistles," then we recognise him, u the man of whom Coleridge says that he was " the i darling of the court of Augusta•, whose works have always been the pocket-oompantoa of those who pride them/elves on uniting the gentleman and the scholar."  Of old Home's personal character, it ought to be mid that no man ever better enstaiaed his personal dignity. One thinks of him, as an easy goodnatured men, of high culture, leading the life of a philosophic man of the world, with guslities better suited toe higher species of charaoter. The old religion he does not seem to have believed in—longer than each ode in which he celebrated its deities menpied his pen. He appears to have given his intellecteal assent to the stoics ; to have thought the epicaMSS reasonable and worthy of attention—acid to have led a life on good terms with both arste me as an jadependent literary mirtkmen. Tremslatiocs of Hones are usually only illustrations of the maxims laid down by Lamartane, in his "Discuses de Reception," at the French Academy.— Oa we &adult person's.. Let the reader who *cloys his Tennyson try and luxuriate in the Latin versions of his favourite, and he will then emnrathise with a Horatian who has to reed hie master in English. Herein Returns, like Ulysses, in the garb of a beggar. It moires, indeed, a faithful "Argue" to recognise him at all.