They
were a garment put on and off, sometimes partly hiding, but never for
long, the original cloak of simplicity. It is not necessary to think its
wearer insincere when, constrained by social circumstance, he put it on.
As in most dualities not consciously assumed, both Horaces were genuine.
When Davus the slave reproaches his master for longing, while at Rome,
to be back in the country, and for praising the attractions of the city,
while in the country, it is not mere discontent or inconsistency in
Horace which he is attacking. Horace loved both city and country.
And yet, whatever the appeal of the city and its artificialities,
Horace's real nature called for the country and its simple ways. It is
the Horace of Venusia and the Sabines who is the more genuine of the
two. The more formal poems addressed to Augustus and his house-hold
sometimes sound the note of affectation, but the most exacting critic
will hesitate to bring a like charge against the odes which celebrate
the fields and hamlets of Italy and the prowess of her citizen-soldiers
of time gone by, or against the mellow epistles and lyrics in which the
poet philosophizes upon the spectacle of human life.
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