The concluding hit at Hermogenes Tigellius and his double is very characteristic of Horace's manner. When he has worked up his description of a vice to be avoided or a virtue to be pursued, he generally drives home his lesson by the mention of some well-known person's name, thus importing into his literary practice the method taken by his father, as we have seen, to impress his ethical teachings upon himself in his youth. The allusion to Calvus and Catullus, the only one anywhere made to these poets by Horace, is curious; but it would be wrong to infer from it, that Horace meant to disparage these fine poets. Calvus had a great reputation both as an orator and poet. But, except some insignificant fragments, nothing of what he wrote is left. How Catullus wrote we do, however, know; and although it is conceivable that Horace had no great sympathy with some of his love verses, which were probably of too sentimental a strain for his taste, we may be sure that he admired the brilliant genius as well as the fine workmanship of many of his other poems. At all events, he had too much good sense to launch a sneer at so great a poet recently dead, which would not only have been in the worst taste, but might justly have been ascribed to jealousy. When he talks, therefore, of a pair of fribbles who can sing nothing but Calvus and Catullus, it is, as Macleane has said in his note on the passage, "as if a man were to say of a modern English coxcomb, that he could sing Moore's ballads from beginning to end, but could not understand a line of Shakespeare,"--no disparagement to Moore, whatever it might be to the vocalist. Hermogenes and his ape (whom we may identify with one Demetrius, who is subsequently coupled with him in the same satire) were musicians and vocalists, idolised, after the manner of modern Italian singers, by the young misses of Rome. Pampered favourites of fashion, the Farinellis of the hour, their opinion on all matters of taste was sure to be as freely given as it was worthless. They had been, moreover, so indiscreet as to provoke Horace's sarcasm by running down his verses. Leave criticism, he rejoins, to men who have a right to judge. Stick to your proper vocation, and "To puling girls, that listen and adore, Your love-lorn chants and woeful wailings pour!" In the same Satire we have proof how warmly Horace thought and spoke of living poets. Thus:-- "In grave Iambic measures Pollio sings For our delight the deeds of mighty kings. The stately Epic Varius leads along, And where is voice so resonant, so strong? The Muses of the woods and plains have shed Their every grace and charm on Virgil's head." With none of those will he compete. Satire is his element, and there he proclaims himself to be an humble follower of his great predecessor. But while he bows to Lucilius as his master, and owns him superior in polish and scholarly grace to the satirists who preceded him, still, he continues--