Since it is in fact one of the least consecutive of Horace’s epistles, so expert a composer must have meant it to be taken, as it has been taken, not as a logical progress, but as a collection of _sententiæ_. These, whatever their particular source or sources,[37] may safely be taken as generally current in Græco-Roman literary circles. Thus they have the more significance; for Horace’s originality is hardly in conception. His contribution to criticism, like Cicero’s, is in finality of phrase. The maxims that have echoed so often down the corridors of criticism have the carrying power of simplicity. Denique sit quodvis, simplex dumtaxat et unum (23). Lucidus ordo (41). Non satis est pulchra esse poemata; dulcia sunto (99). Si vis me flere, dolendum est Primum ipsi tibi (102). Qualis ab incepto processerit, et sibi constet (127). Difficile est proprie communia dicere (128). Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus (139). Semper ad eventum festinat et in medias res Non secus ac notas auditorem rapit (148). Aut prodesse volunt aut delectare poetæ, Aut simul et iucunda et idonea dicere vitæ (333). Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci (343). Ut pictura poesis (361). Mediocribus esse poetis Non homines, non di, non concessere columnæ (372). Commonplaces some of these must have been even in Horace’s time; but they have persisted in criticism because he stamped them. The one that is most clearly a distinctive principle of poetic is the familiar “_Semper ad eventum festinat_,” etc. (148). The idea of so adjusting the time of the plot as to insure a significant beginning and a continuous and accelerated movement up to an issue is central in Greek drama. That Horace applies it to epic evinces no sharp discrimination of technic. _Ut pictura poesis_ (361) is not, as in Plutarch,[38] a comparison of the technic of poetry with that of painting; it merely insists that a poem, as a picture, be judged according to its kind, according to its specific object. Horace may, indeed, imply a vindication of his own poems beside those of longer reach and more sustained power; or he may be merely repeating his dominant idea of appropriateness; but in either case he is not formulating a principle of poetic. The rule of five acts (189), wherever he got it, is not vital. Though he spends more time on drama than on any other mode, though he uses Aristotle, he does not carry out the principle of dramatic movement. The conception of characterization is clearly rhetorical,