1. RELIGIOUS. Between the classic and the Christian hymn, as Matthew Arnold has reminded us, there is a great gulf fixed. The Latin conception of the gods was civic; they were superior heads of the Republic; the Roman church was the invisible Roman state; religion was merely exalted patriotism. So Horace's addresses to the deities for the most part remind them of their coronation oaths, of the terms on which they were worshipped, their share in the bargain with humanity, a bargain to be kept on their side if they expected tribute of lambs and piglings, of hallowed cakes and vervain wreaths. Very little of what we call devotion seasons them. In two Odes (I, ii, xii), from a mere litany of Olympian names he passes to a much more earnest deification of Augustus. Another (III, xix) is a grace to Bacchus after a wine-bout. Or Faunus is bidden to leave pursuing the nymphs (we think of Elijah's sneer at Baal) and to attend to his duties on the Sabine farm, of blessing the soil and protecting the lambs (III, xviii). The hymn to Mercury recounts mythical exploits of the winged god, his infantile thefts from Apollo, his guiding Priam through the Grecian camp, his gift of speech to men, his shepherding souls to Hades (I, x). Venus is invoked in a dainty prayer to visit the chapel which Glycera is building for her (I, xxx): O come, and with thee bring thy glowing boy, The Graces all, with kirtles flowing free, Youth, that without thee knows but little joy, The jocund nymphs and blithesome Mercury. The doctrine of an overruling Providence Horace had expressly rejected in the Satires (Sat. iv, 101), holding that the gods are too happy and too careless in their superior aloof security to plague themselves with the affairs of mortals. But he felt sometimes, as all men feel, the need of a supreme celestial Guide: in the noble Ode which Ruskin loved he seems to find it in Necessity or Fortune (Od. I, xxxv); and once, when scared by thunder resounding in a cloudless sky, recants what he calls his "irrational rationalism," and admits that God may, if He will, put down the mighty and exalt the low (I, xxxiv). So again in his hymn for the dedication of Apollo's Temple on the Palatine (I, xxxi) a serious note is struck. He will not ask the God for rich cornfields and fat meadow land, for wines of Cales proffered in a golden cup. A higher boon than these his prayer demands: O grant me, Phoebus, calm content, Strength unimpaired, a mind entire, Old age without dishonour spent, Nor unbefriended of the lyre.