Poor Lyce indeed! what had she done to be so scourged? One address we miss: there is no ode in this book to Maecenas, who was out of favour with Augustus, and had lost all political influence. But the friend is not sunk in the courtier. The Ides or 13th of April is his old patron's birthday--a nativity, says Horace, dearer to him almost than his own, and he keeps it always as a feast. With a somewhat ghostly resurrection of voluptuousness dead and gone he bids Phyllis come and keep it with him. All things are ready, a cask of Alban nine years old is broached, the servants are in a stir, the altar wreathed for sacrifice, the flames curling up the kitchen chimney, ivy and parsley gathered to make a wreath for Phyllis' hair. Come then, sweet girl, last of my loves; for never again shall this heart take fire at a woman's face--come, and learn of me a tune to sing with that dear voice, and drive away dull care. I am told that every man in making love assures the charmer that no woman shall ever succeed her in his regards; but this is probably a veritable amorous swan-song. He was older than are most men at fifty-two. Years as they pass, he sadly says, bereave us one by one of all our precious things; of mirth, of loves, of banquets; at last the Muse herself spreads wings to follow them. "You have sported long enough," she says, "with Amaryllis in the shade, you have eaten and drunk your fill, it is time for you to quit the scene." And so the curtain falls. * * * * * To our great loss there is no contemporary portrait of Horace. He tells us himself (Ep. II, ii, 214; I, xx, 29) that he was short of stature, his hair black but early tinged with grey; that he loved to bask in sunshine, that his temper was irascible but easily appeased. In advanced life he became fat; Augustus jests with him rather coarsely on his protuberant figure. The portrait prefixed to this volume is from a Contorniate, or bronze medallion of the time of Constantine, representing the poet's likeness as traditionally preserved amongst his countrymen three hundred years after his death.