Among the varied excellences of these gems of poetry, we shall select three, as those after which Horace most evidently sought. They are brevity, ease, life. In the first he is perhaps unequalled. It is not only that what he says is terse; in what he omits we recognise the master hand. He knows precisely what to dwell on, what to hint at, what to pass by. He is on the best understanding with his reader. He knows the reader is a busy man, and he says--"Read me! and, however you may judge my work, you shall at least not be bored." We recollect no instance in which Horace is prolix; none in which he can be called obscure; though there are many passages that require weighing, and many abrupt transitions that somewhat task thought. In condensed simplicity he is the first of Latin poets. Who that has once heard can forget such phrases as _Nil desperandum, splendide mendax, non omnis moriar, dulce et decorum est pro patria mori_, and a hundred others? His brevity is equalled by his ease. By this must not be understood either spontaneity of invention or rapidity of execution. We know that he was a slow, nay, a laborious workman.[59] But he has the _ars celare artem_. What can be more natural than the transition from the praises of young Nero to Hannibal's fine lament? [60] from those of Augustus to the speech of Juno? [61] Yet these are effected with the most subtle skill. And even when the digression appears more forced, as in the well-known instances of Europa [62] and the Danaides, [63] the incongruity is at once removed by supposing that the legend in each case forms the main subject of the poem, and that the occasional introductions are a characteristic form of preamble, perhaps reflected from Pindar. And once more as to his liveliness. This is the highest excellence of the _Odes_. It never flags. If the poet does not rise to an exalted inspiration, he at least never sinks into heaviness, never loses life. To cite but one ode, in an artistic point of view, perhaps, the jewel of the whole collection-- the dialogue between the poet and Lydia; [64] here is an entire comedy played in twenty-four lines, in which the dialogue never becomes insipid, the action never flags. Like all his love odes it is barren of deep feeling, for which reason, perhaps, they have been compared to scentless flowers. But the comparison is most unjust. Aroma, _bouquet:_ this is precisely what they do _not_ lack. Some other metaphor must be sought to embody the deficiency. At the same time the want is a real one; and exquisite as are the _Odes_, no one knew better than their author himself that they have no power to pierce the heart, or to waken those troubled musings which in their blending of pain and pleasure elevate into something that it was not before, the whole being of him that reads them.