The spirit of caricature speaks in these lines. There are passages of Horace, too, in reading which the picture forms itself before the mind; and the poet supplies the very words which caricaturists usually employ to make their meaning more obvious. In the third satire of the second book a caricature is exhibited to the mind's eye without the intervention of pencil. We see the miser Opimius, "poor amid his hoards of gold," who has starved himself into a lethargy; his heir is scouring his coffers in triumph; but the doctor devises a mode of rousing his patient. He orders a table to be brought into the room, upon which he causes the hidden bags of money to be poured out, and several persons to draw near as if to count it. Opimius revives at this maddening spectacle, and the doctor urges him to strengthen himself by generous food, and so balk his rapacious heir. "Do you hesitate?" cries the doctor. "Come, now, take this preparation of rice." "How much did it cost?" asks the miser. "Only a trifle." "But how much?" "Eightpence." Opimius, appalled at the price, whimpers, "Alas! what does it matter whether I die of a disease, or by plunder and extortion?" Many similar examples will arrest the eye of one who turns over the pages of this master of satire. The great festival of the Roman year, the Saturnalia, which occurred in the latter half of December, we may almost say was consecrated to caricature, so fond were the Romans of every kind of ludicrous exaggeration. This festival, the merry Christmas of the Roman world, gave to the Christian festival many of its enlivening observances. During the Saturnalia the law courts and schools were closed; there was a general interchange of presents, and universal feasting; there were fantastic games, processions of masked figures in extravagant costumes, and religious sacrifices. For three days the slaves were not merely exempt from labor, but they enjoyed freedom of speech, even to the abusing of their masters. In one of his satires, Horace gives us an idea of the manner in which slaves burlesqued their lords at this jocund time. He reports some of the remarks of his own slave, Davus, upon himself and his poetry. Davus, it is evident, had discovered the histrionic element in literature, and pressed it home upon his master. "You praise the simplicity of the ancient Romans; but if any god were to reduce you to their condition, you, the same man that wrote those fine things, would beg to be let off. At Rome you long for the country; and when you are in the country, you praise the distant city to the skies. When you are not invited out to supper, you extol your homely repast at home, and hug yourself that you are not obliged to drink with any body abroad. As if you ever went out upon compulsion! But let Mæcenas send you an invitation for early lamp-light, _then_ what do we hear? _Will no one bring the oil quicker? Does any body hear me?_ You bellow and storm with fury.