Of horrid war; or guides with ease
The happier times of honest peace.
Firm, united, let us be, etc.

Behold the chief who now commands,
Once more to serve his country stands-
The rock on which the storm will beat,
The rock on which the storm will beat;
But armed in virtue firm and true
His hopes are fixed on heaven and you.
When hope was sinking in dismay,
And glooms obscured Columbia's day
His steady mind from changes free
Resolved on death or liberty.

Firm, united, let us be, etc.

HORACE (QUINTUS HORATIUS FLACCUS), a Roman poet, born at Venusia, about two hundred miles southwest of Rome, in 65 B.C.; died at Rome in 8 B.C. His father was a freedman, who appears to have been a servus publicus, or bondman of the community, who took his distinctive name from the Horatian tribe to which the community belonged. After his manumission he was made a coactor, a term designating a collector of the revenue and an auctioneer at public sales. The elder Horace appears to have exercised both these functions, and acquired a moderate competency, including a small farm, upon which his son was born. When the boy was about twelve his father took him to Rome, his means being sufficient to give him the education of a gentleman. It does not appear that either father or son ever revisited their former home. Of this slave-born father, Horace, as will be seen, speaks in terms of the highest admiration and veneration. At about eighteen Horace was sent by his father to Athens. to complete his education. For some four years he devoted himself to the study of philosophy. After the assassination of Julius Cæsar (44 B.C.), Brutus arrived at Athens on his way to the Eastern provinces, to the command of which he had been assigned, in conjunction with Cassius. Brutus remained some time at Athens, ostensibly engaged in philosophical studies, but really recruiting of

ficers for his army from the young Romans who were studying there. Among those whom he enlisted was Horace, who was made a military tribune, and placed in command of a legion, at the head of which he took part in the battle of Philippi (42 B.C.). Believing that there was no hope of continuing the struggle, Horace "threw away his shield," and made his way back to Rome. The general amnesty which had been proclaimed assured him personal safety. But as he himself says:

"Bated in spirit, and with pinions clipped,

Of all the means my father left me stripped,
Want stared me in the face, so then and there
I took to scribbling verse in sheer despair."

His first productions were lampoons, of which he soon became thoroughly ashamed, designating them as "smart and scurrilous lines," most of which he succeeded in suppressing. But one poem, written in 40 B.C., when he was in his twentyfourth year, and addressed to "The Roman People," is pitched on a loftier key than anything else which he ever wrote. The civil war was raging with more fierceness than ever, and there was reason to apprehend that Rome itself would be taken and sacked by the hostile faction. Horace urged all worthy citizens to flee from the doomed city, and take ship and sail for those Islands of the Blest which were fabled to lie far out in the unknown Western Ocean.

TO THE ROMAN PEOPLE.

Another age in civil wars will soon be spent and worn, And by her native strength our Rome be wrecked and overborne :