_Hints from Horace_, through a curious perversity of judgment, was always a great favorite with Byron, and was estimated by him as one of his finest performances. His mature opinion of it and a possible cause for his preference are given in a letter to Murray, March 1, 1821: “Pray request Mr. Hobhouse to adjust the Latin to the English: the imitation is so close that I am unwilling to deprive it of its principal merit--its closeness. I look upon it and my Pulci as by far the best things of my doing.”[129] On September 23, 1820, when he had published portions of his masterpiece, _Don Juan_, he said, referring to the period of _Hints from Horace_: “I wrote better then than now.”[130] No intelligent reader will be likely to agree with Byron’s preposterous verdict on his own work, for _Hints from Horace_, although designed as a sequel to _English Bards_, is so much less vigorous and brilliant that it suffers decidedly by a comparison with the earlier satire. The poet, far from the scenes and associations where his rage had been aroused, has lost the angry inspiration which raised _English Bards_ above mere ranting, and the white heat of his passion has cooled with the flight of time. The praise which Byron bestowed upon his poem is additional testimony to the often repeated assertion that authors are incompetent critics of their own productions. Byron’s boastful claim for the accuracy of _Hints from Horace_ as a version of the _Ars Poetica_ may possibly lead to some misconceptions. Professor A. S. Cook, in his _Art of Poetry_, has pointed out some particular passages in which the English poet imitated his model, and has proved that he followed Horace, in places, with reasonable closeness. But _Hints from Horace_ is far from being, like Byron’s version of the first canto of Pulci’s _Morgante Maggiore_, a mere translation. It must be remembered that Byron, in his secondary title, defined the _Hints_ in three different ways in as many manuscripts, as “an Allusion,” as an “Imitation,” and as a “Partial Imitation.” The fact seems to be that the work conforms, in general, to the structure and argument of the _Ars Poetica_, in many cases translating literally the phrasing of the original, but altering and reorganizing the satire to fit current conditions.