When at any time Virgil came to Rome, if the people, as was commonly the case, crowded to gaze upon him, or pointed at him with the finger in admiration, he blushed, and stole away (173) from them; frequently taking refuge in some shop. When he went to the theatre, the audience universally rose up at his entrance, as they did to Augustus, and received him with the loudest plaudits; a compliment which, however highly honourable, he would gladly have declined. When such was the just respect which they paid to the author of the Bucolics and Georgics, how would they have expressed their esteem, had they beheld him in the effulgence of epic renown! In the beautiful episode of the Elysian fields, in the Aeneid, where he dexterously introduced a glorious display of their country, he had touched the most elastic springs of Roman enthusiasm. The passion would have rebounded upon himself, and they would, in the heat of admiration, have idolized him. HORACE was born at Venusia, on the tenth of December, in the consulship of L. Cotta and L. Torquatus. According to his own acknowledgment, his father was a freedman; by some it is said that he was a collector of the revenue, and by others, a fishmonger, or a dealer in salted meat. Whatever he was, he paid particular attention to the education of his son, for, after receiving instruction from the best masters in Rome, he sent him to Athens to study philosophy. From this place, Horace followed Brutus, in the quality of a military tribune, to the battle of Philippi, where, by his own confession, being seized with timidity, he abandoned the profession of a soldier, and returning to Rome, applied himself to the cultivation of poetry. In a short time he acquired the friendship of Virgil and Valerius, whom he mentions in his Satires, in terms of the most tender affection. Postera lux oritur multo gratissima: namque Plotius et Varius Sinuessae, Virgiliusque, Occurrunt; animae, quales neque candidiores Terra tulit, neque queis me sit devinctior alter. O qui complexus, et gaudia quanta fuerunt! Nil ego contulerim jucundo sanus amico.--Sat. I. 5. Next rising morn with double joy we greet, For Plotius, Varius, Virgil, here we meet: Pure spirits these; the world no purer knows, For none my heart with more affection glows: How oft did we embrace, our joys how great! For sure no blessing in the power of fate Can be compared, in sanity of mind, To friends of such companionable kind.--Francis.