"Calvus, if those now silent in the tomb Can feel the touch of pleasure in our tears For those we loved, that perished in their bloom, And the departed friends of former years-- Oh, then, full surely thy Quinctilia's woe For the untimely fate, that bids thee part, Will fade before the bliss she feels to know How very dear she is unto thy heart!" Horace, the bachelor, revered the marriage-tie, and did his best, by his verses, to forward the policy of Augustus in his effort to arrest the decay of morals by enforcing the duty of marriage, which the well-to-do Romans of that day were inclined to shirk whenever they could. Nay, the charm of constancy and conjugal sympathy inspired a few of his very finest lines (Odes, I. l3)--"_Felices ter et amplius, quos irrupta tenet copula_," &c.,--the feeling of which is better preserved in Moore's well-known paraphrase than is possible in mere translation:-- "There's a bliss beyond all that the minstrel has told, When two that are linked in one heavenly tie, With heart never changing, and brow never cold, Love on through all ills, and love on till they die! One hour of a passion so sacred is worth Whole ages of heartless and wandering bliss; And oh! if there be an Elysium on earth, It is this, it is this!" To leave the _placens uxor_--"the winsome wife"--behind, is one of the saddest regrets, Horace tells his friend Posthumus (Odes, II. 14), which death can baring. Still Horace only sang the praises of marriage, contenting himself with painting the Eden within which, for reasons unknown to us, he never sought to enter. He was well up in life, probably, before these sager views dawned upon him. Was it then too late to reduce his precepts to practice, or was he unable to overcome his dread of the _dotata conjux_, and thought his comfort would be safer in the hands of some less exacting fair, such as the Phyllis to whom the following Ode, one of his latest (IV. 11), is addressed?-- "I have laid in a cask of Albanian wine, Which nine mellow summers have ripened and more; In my garden, dear Phyllis, thy brows to entwine, Grows the brightest of parsley in plentiful store. There is ivy to gleam on thy dark glossy hair; My plate, newly burnished, enlivens my rooms; And the altar, athirst for its victim, is there, Enwreathed with chaste vervain and choicest of blooms. "Every hand in the household is busily toiling, And hither and thither boys bustle and girls; Whilst, up from the hearth-fires careering and coiling, The smoke round the rafter-beams languidly curls. Let the joys of the revel be parted between us! 'Tis the Ides of young April, the day which divides The month, dearest Phyllis, of ocean-sprung Venus, A day to me dearer than any besides.