In approaching the criticism of Horace, the first thing which strikes us is, that in him we see two different poets. There is the lyricist winning renown by the importation of a new kind of Greek song; and there is the observant critic and man of the world, entrusting to the tablets, his faithful companions, his reflections on men and things. The former poet ran his course through the _Epodes_ to the graceful pieces which form the great majority of his odes, and culminated in the loftier vein of lyric inspiration that characterises his political odes. The latter began with a somewhat acrimonious type of satire, which he speedily deserted for a lighter and more genial vein, and finally rested in the sober, practical, and healthy moralist and literary critic of the _Epistles_. It was in the former aspect that he assumed the title of poet; with characteristic modesty he relinquishes all claim to it with regard to his _Epistles_ and _Satires_. We shall consider him briefly under these two aspects.
No writer believed so little in the sufficiency of the poetic gift by itself to produce a poet. Had he trusted the maxim _Poeta nascitur, non fit_, he would never have written his _Odes_. Looking back at his early attempts at verse we find in them few traces of genuine inspiration. Of the _Epodes_ a large number are positively unpleasing; others interest us from the expression of true feeling; a few only have merits of a high order. The fresh and enthusiastic, though somewhat diffuse, descriptions of country enjoyments in the second and sixteenth Epodes, and the vigorous word-painting in the fifth, bespeak the future master; and the patriotic emotion in the seventh, ninth, and sixteenth, strikes a note that was to thrill with loftier vibrations in the Odes of the third and fourth books. But as a whole the _Epodes_ stand far below his other works. Their bitterness is quite different from the genial irony of the _Satires_, and, though occasionally the subjects of them merited the severest handling, [41] yet we do not like to see Horace applying the lash. It was not his proper vocation, and he does not do it well. He is never so unlike himself as when he is making a personal attack. Nevertheless to bring himself into notice, it was necessary to do something of the kind. Personal satire is always popular, and Horace had to carve his own way to fame. It is evident that the series of sketches of which Canidia is the heroine, [42] were received with unanimous approval by the _beau monde_. This wretched woman, singled out as the representative of a class which was gaining daily influence in Rome, [43] he depicts in colours detestable and ignominious, which do credit to his talent but not to his courteous feeling. Horace has no true respect for woman. Nothing in all Latin poetry is so unpleasant as his brutal attacks on those _hetaerae_ (the only ladies of whom he seems to have had any knowledge) whose caprice or neglect had offended him. [44] This is the one point in which he did not improve. In all other respects his constant self-culture opened to him higher and ever widening paths of excellence.
