" "Horace may be said to pervade the literature of the
eighteenth century in three ways: as a teacher of political and social
morality; as a master of the art of poetry; and as a sort of _elegantiae
arbiter_." Richardson, Sterne, Smollett, and Fielding, Gay, Samuel
Johnson, Chesterfield, and Walpole, were all familiar with and fond of
Horace, and took him unto themselves.
In the nineteenth century, Wordsworth has an intimate familiarity with
Virgil, Catullus, and Horace, but loves Horace best; Coleridge thinks
highly of his literary criticism; Byron, who never was greatly fond of
him, frequently quotes him; Shelley reads him with pleasure; Browning's
_The Ring and the Book_ contains many quotations from him; Thackeray
makes use of phrases from the _Odes_ "with an ease and facility which
nothing but close intimacy could produce"; Andrew Lang addresses to him
the most charming of his _Letters to Dead Authors_; and Austin Dobson is
inspired by him in many of his exquisite poems in lighter vein. These
names, and those in the paragraphs preceding, are not all that might be
mentioned. The literature of England is honey-combed with the classic
authors in general, and Horace is among the foremost.
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