"Let no care trouble you; for poor That man is not, who can insure Whate'er for life is needful found. Let your digestion be but sound, Your side unwrung by spasm or stitch, Your foot unconscious of a twitch; And could you be more truly blest, Though of the wealth of kings possessed?" It must have been pleasant to Horace to find even one among his friends illustrating in his life this modest Socratic creed; for he is so constantly enforcing it, in every variety of phrase and metaphor, that while we must conclude that he regarded it as the one doctrine most needful for his time, we must equally conclude that he found it utterly disregarded. All round him wealth, wealth, wealth, was the universal aim: wealth, to build fine houses in town, and villas at Praeneste or Baiae; wealth, to stock them with statues, old bronzes (mostly fabrications from the Wardour Streets of Athens or Rome), ivories, pictures, gold plate, pottery, tapestry, stuffs from the looms of Tyre, and other _articles de luxe_; wealth, to give gorgeous dinners, and wash them down with the costliest wines; wealth, to provide splendid equipages, to forestall the front seats in the theatre, as we do opera-boxes on the grand tier, and so get a few yards nearer to the Emperor's chair, or gain a closer view of the favourite actor or dancer of the day; wealth, to secure a wife with a fortune and a pedigree; wealth, to attract gadfly friends, who will consume your time, eat your dinners, drink your wines, and then abuse them, and who will with amiable candour regale their circle by quizzing your foibles, or slandering your taste, if they are even so kind as to spare your character. "A dowried wife," he says (Epistles, I. 6), "Friends, beauty, birth, fair fame, These are the gifts of money, heavenly dame; Be but a moneyed man, persuasion tips Your tongue, and Venus settles on your lips." (C.) And to achieve this wealth, no sacrifice was to be spared--time, happiness, health, honour itself. "_Rem facias, rem! Si possis recte, si non, quocunque modo rem:_"-- "Get money, money still, And then let Virtue follow, if she will."