These islands were supposed to be in the far west, and were probably the poetical amplification of some voyager's account of the Canaries or of Madeira. There has always been a region beyond the boundaries of civilisation to which the poet's fancy has turned for ideal happiness and peace. The difference between ancient and modern is, that material comforts, as in this epode, enter largely into the dream of the ancient, while independence, beauty, and grandeur are the chief elements in the modern picture:-- "Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies, Breadth of Tropic shade and palms in cluster, knots of Paradise. Never comes the trader, never floats an European flag, Slides the bird o'er lustrous woodland, droops the trailer from the crag; Droops the heavy-blossomed bower, hangs the heavy-fruited tree, Summer Isles of Eden lying in dark-purple spheres of sea." To the same class of Horace's early poems, though probably a few years later in date, belongs the following eulogium of a country life and its innocent enjoyments (Epode 2), the leading idea of which was embodied by Pope in the familiar lines, wonderful for finish as the production of a boy of eleven, beginning "Happy the man whose wish and care A few paternal acres bound." With characteristic irony Horace puts his fancies into the mouth of Alphius, a miserly money-lender. No one yearns so keenly for the country and its imagined peace as the overworked city man, when his pulse is low and his spirits weary with bad air and the reaction of over-excitement; no one, as a rule, is more apt to tire of the homely and uneventful life which the country offers, or to find that, for him at least, its quietude does not bring peace. It is not, therefore, at all out of keeping, although critics have taken exception to the poem on this ground, that Horace makes Alphius rhapsodise on the charms of a rural life, and having tried them, creep back within the year to his moneybags and his ten per cent. It was, besides, a favourite doctrine with him, which he is constantly enforcing in his later works, that everybody envies his neighbour's pursuits--until he tries them. ALPHIUS. Happy the man, in busy schemes unskilled, Who, living simply, like our sires of old, Tills the few acres, which his father tilled, Vexed by no thoughts of usury or gold; The shrilling clarion ne'er his slumber mars, Nor quails he at the howl of angry seas; He shuns the forum, with its wordy jars, Nor at a great man's door consents to freeze. The tender vine-shoots, budding into life, He with the stately poplar-tree doth wed, Lopping the fruitless branches with his knife, And grafting shoots of promise in their stead; Or in some valley, up among the hills, Watches his wandering herds of lowing kine, Or fragrant jars with liquid honey fills, Or shears his silly sheep in sunny shine;