Si esses homo, Sineres nunc facere, dum per aetatem licet, expresses the philosophy of many of his love poems and his drinking songs. The Epicurean sentiment and reflexion borrowed from Menander were congenial to one side of Horace's nature, as the manly independence and serious spirit of Lucilius were to another: and in his own style he has incorporated the conversational urbanity of the one writer no less than the intellectual vigour of the other. But Horace was much richer and more varied in the subjects of his art, as he was larger and more penetrating in his knowledge of the world, and more manly and serious in his view of life, than the comic poet who died so early in his career. But not Horace only, but some of the best judges and greatest masters of style both in ancient and modern times have been among his chief admirers. Cicero frequently reproduces his expressions, applies passages in his plays to his own circumstances, and refers to his personages as typical representatives of character[21]. Julius Caesar characterises him as 'puri sermonis amator.' Quintilian applies to his writing the epithet 'elegantissimus,' and in that connexion refers to the belief that his plays were the work of Scipio Africanus. Cicero, on the other hand, speaks of the belief that they were the work of Laelius, 'cuius fabellae propter elegantiam sermonis putabantur a C. Laelio scribi[22].' The imputation in the poet's own time, which he does not altogether disclaim, appears to have been that both friends assisted him in his task. His works were studied and learned by heart by the great Latin writers of the Renaissance, such as Erasmus and Melanchthon: and Casaubon, in his anxiety that his son should write a pure style, inculcates on him the constant study of Terence. Montaigne applies to him the phrase of Horace,-- Liquidus puroque simillimus amni. He speaks of 'his fine expression, elegancy, and quaintness,' and adds, 'he does so possess the soul with his graces that we forget those of his fable[23].' It is among the French, the great masters of the prose of refined conversation, that his merits have been most appreciated in modern times. Sainte-Beuve, in his 'Nouveaux Lundis,' devotes to him two papers of delicate and admiring criticism. He quotes Fenelon and Addison, 'deux esprits polis et doux, de la meme famille litteraire,' as expressing their admiration for the illimitable beauty and naturalness of one of his scenes. Fenelon is said to have preferred him even to Moliere. Sainte-Beuve calls Terence the bond of union between Roman urbanity and the Atticism of the Greeks, and adds that it was in the seventeenth century, when French literature was most truly Attic, that he was most appreciated. M. Joubert is quoted[24] as applying to him the words 'Le miel Attique est sur ses levres; on croirait aisement qu'il naquit sur le mont Hymette.'