Alone I saunter, as by fancy led, I cheapen herbs, or ask the price of bread, I watch while fortune-tellers fate reveal, Then homeward hasten to my frugal meal, Herbs, pulse, and pancakes (each a separate plate), While three domestics at my supper wait. A bowl on a white marble table stands, Two goblets, and a ewer to wash my hands, And hallowed cup of true Campanian clay My pure libation to the gods to pay. I then retire to rest, nor anxious fear Before dread Marsyas early to appear. I lie till ten; then take a walk, or choose A book, perhaps, or trifle with the muse. For cheerful exercise and manly toil Anoint my body with the pliant oil-- Yet not with such as Natta's, when he vamps His filthy limbs and robs the public lamps. But when the sun pours down his fiercer fire, And bids me from the toilsome sport retire, I haste to bathe, and in a temperate mood Regale my craving appetite with food (Enough to nourish nature for a day); Then trifle my domestic hours away. Such is the life from bad ambition free; Such comfort has one humble born like me: With which I feel myself more truly blest, Than if my sires the quæstor's power possessed. FOOTNOTES: [H] Horace (Q. Horatius Flaccus), who was born near Venusia, in Apulia, in 65 B.C., and died in 8 B.C., was a southern Italian. When twenty, Horace was a student of philosophy at Athens. A period of poverty-stricken Bohemianism followed his return to Rome, till acquaintance with Virgil opened a path into the circle of Mæcenas and of the emperor. His literary career falls into three divisions--that of his "Epodes" and "Satires," down to 30 B.C.; that of his lyrics, down to 23 B.C., when the first three books of the "Odes" appeared; and that of the reflective and literary "Epistles," which include the famous "Art of Poetry," and, with sundry official odes, belong to his later years. Horatian "satire," it should be observed, does not imply ferocious personal onslaughts, but a miscellany containing good-humoured ridicule of types, and lively sketches of character and incident. So varied a performance as satirist, lyrist, moralist and critic, coupled with his vivid interest in mankind, help to account for the appeal which Horace has made to all epochs, countries, and ranks. Of the translations of Horace here given, some are by Prof. Wight Duff, and have been specially made for this selection, whilst a few are by Milton, Dryden, Cowper, and Francis. _Horace and the Bore_ SCENE.--_Rome, on the Sacred Way. The poet is walking down the street, composing some trifle, in a brown study, when a person, known to him only by name, rushes up and seises his hand_. BORE (_effusively_): How d'ye do, my dear fellow?