Ere Time thy April youth have changed To sourness. Park and public walk Attract thee now, and whispered talk At twilight meetings prearranged. Hear now the pretty laugh that tells In what dim corner lurks thy love, And snatch a bracelet or a glove From wrist or hand that scarce rebels.[72] [Sidenote: The first book of Epistles.] After the three books of _Odes_ were published in 23 B. C., Horace returned to his previous manner of composition in hexameters, but gave to the collection of twenty poems which he published in 20 B. C., the form of letters or _Epistles_. These are sometimes real letters to his friends, sometimes satires or “talks” in the form of letters. The subjects of these poems are as various as those of the _Satires_, but it is evident that the poet is turning more toward philosophy. He advises his friends to take things as they find them, without allowing themselves to be troubled or excited (vi), he teaches the Stoic doctrine that virtue suffices to make men happy (xvi), he advocates calmness and the avoidance of care, and urges Tibullus (iv, 13) to live as if each day were to be his last. But he also sings the praise of wine (v, 16 ff.) and of the quiet life in the country (x, xiv). In two epistles he gives practical advice concerning intercourse with persons of high station, and various practical suggestions are found scattered through the other poems. In a letter to Mæcenas (xix) he ridicules his imitators and mocks at his critics. The twentieth poem is an address to his book as he sends it into the world. In it he foretells the various fortunes of the book, and at the end he gives his age, saying that he has seen four times eleven Decembers in the year of the consulship of Lepidus and Lollius. In these letters Horace reveals his character more fully and with a more delicate touch than in any of his other works. The _Odes_ are the works by which he will always be best known, and to which he owes his great fame as a poet, but nowhere so fully as in the _Epistles_ does he disclose his kindly and genial, yet serious views of life as they ripened with his advancing years.