Juvenal, employing the form of Horace and substituting for his
content of mellow contentment and good humor the bitterness of an
outraged moral sense, is the last Roman and the first modern satirist.
The _Odes_ found more to imitate them, but none to rival. The most
pronounced example of their influence is found in the choruses of the
tragic poet Seneca, where form and substance alike are constantly
reminiscent of Horace. Two comments on the _Odes_ from the second half
of the first century are of even greater eloquence than Seneca's example
as testimonials to the impression made by the Horatian lyric. Petronius,
of Nero's time, speaks of the poet's _curiosa felicitas_, meaning the
gift of arriving, by long and careful search, at the inevitable word or
phrase. Quintilian, writing his treatise on Instruction, sums him up
thus: "Of our lyric poets, Horace is about the only one worth reading;
for he sometimes reaches real heights, and he is at the same time full
of delightfulness and grace, and both in variety of imagery and in words
is most happily daring." To these broad strokes the modern critic has
added little except by way of elaboration.
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