: not long after, he was possessed of a RUS and villula in the Sabine valley and charmed with the scenery of Tibur, which on his way from Rome into the Sabine country he often halted to admire, he finally became master of a cottage with a garden to it in the precincts of Tibur or as it is now called Tivoli. It was on this latter spot, if I may be allowed to anticipate, that he dedicated the pine-tree to Diana, (3 C. XXII. Montium custos...) in an ode remarkable also for its contiguity in position to that beautiful ode to Phidyle, Cœlo supinas... which will be found to bear such decisive evidence to the very same locality. May we not also with some probability suppose, that of the two passages in which a fondness for building is imputed to Horace, the first, 2 S. III, 308. Edificas, &c., must be referred to the new erection or repairs required for his comfort in the Sabine valley; while the second, 1 E. 1,100. Diruit, ædificat, &c., written at a latter period, naturally carries our thoughts to improvements at Tivoli, in which he might then be engaged. And here at setting out, let me avow that I feel no scruple in imputing the FIRST great source of confusion and error to that unlucky expression in the Life attributed to Suetonius. "Vixit plurimum in secessu RURIS sui Sabini aut Tiburtini: domusque ejus ostenditur circa Tiburni luculum." And the phrase itself, Sabini aut Tiburtini, had its origin, there can be no doubt, in the Iambic Scazons of Catullus Ad Fundum. XL. O Funde noster, seu Sabine, seu Tiburs, Nam te esse Tiburtem autumant, quibus non est The author, whoever he was, of that Life, apparently quite ignorant of the Sabine valley, never seems to have supposed, that Horace had any rural residence except at Tivoli, or any property and estate except in that place or just across the Sabine border. Mr. Gifford, indeed, in his preface to Persius, considers the lives under the name of Suetonius as compilations from different Scholia of unequal value. But allowing Suetonius himself to have been the author, yet even he lived and wrote a full century after the death of Horace. And to a spot in Horace's own time evidently so little known and frequented as the vale of Digentia, (now called Licenza,) unless Suetonius had gone from curiosity and on purpose, it was very improbable in the common course of things that he should ever pay a visit at all; situated as that spot was in the mountains, fifteen miles above Tivoli, and four miles out of the line of the Via Valeria. In the course too of a hundred years or more, the inhabitants of a place circumstanced like Tivoli, might very easily lose all account of the Poet's estate and habitation lying so far out of their way; of his residence on their own spot the tradition, if founded in truth, was little likely for a very long time to be forgotten. The words therefore, domusque ejus ostenditur circa Tiburni luculum, whenever written, show expressly that the people of Tivoli continued to claim the honour of having had Horace as a sojourner, and to point out with pride the very house in which he lived. It is true, that the site of the Poet's dwelling cannot now be determined with anything more than probable conjecture: but what has that difficulty at this day to do with the distinct tradition of the second or third century? Ages upon ages of change and revolution since then have made sad havock with the palaces as with the cottages of Tivoli. The SECOND great source of dispute and difficulty is of a more recent date and rises in a contrary direction to the former. The Life imputed to Suetonius seemed to fix the RUS with the domus of Horace at Tivoli or in its immediate neighbourhood. When therefore the Avvocato D. Domenico 2 de Sanctis first, and after him the Abbe Capmartin de Chaupy, had succeeded in demonstrating once for all that the RUS and the villa lay in the Sabine vale of Licenza; our obligation to the rival discoverers would have been complete, and all would have ended delightfully well, if they had been content to stop there. But led astray by their favourite conceit of unicity, Satis beatus unicis Sabinis. 2 C. xv111. 14. (which in the Poet's meaning carried only unicity of RUS or Estate,) they proceeded to demolish every vestige of property, or of habitation involving property, any where else; of course therefore house and garden at Tivoli entirely disappear. But without such a residence granted to the Poet, there will soon be occasion to show, that we shall be constantly at fault in the localities of his poetry; from the 1st Ode of the 1st book, -Me gelidum nemus, Nympharumque leves cum Satyris chori, to the d Ode of the 4th, Sed quæ TIBUR aqua fertile præfluunt, Et spissæ nemorum comæ, Fingent Æolio carmine nobilem. In the meanwhile, as it is far more gratifying to the ingenuous enquirer, to acknowledge himself anticipated, than to wrangle for prior title or to assert originality, in ascertaining the truth; I bring forward with pride a third authority * Dissertazione della Villa di Orazio Flacco, in Ravenna, 1784, is perhaps the latest edition. It first appeared at Rome in 1761, and a second time in 1768. 1769. Decouverte de la Maison de Campagne d' Horace, 3 Vol. à Rome 1767, on this Tivoline question, decisively in agreement with every previous judgment and notion of my own. The learned Signori Abbati Cabral, e del Ré, in their Ricerche delle Ville, &c. della Città e del Territorio di Tivoli. Roma. 1779. Cap. iii. par. 1. § 5. and in their Nuove Ricerche, pag. 94. maintain the existence there of a Villa of Horace, but consisting only in un tenue rural soggiorno in un Casino entro un Orto. A modest rural abode, a Cottage within a garden, there, is precisely, after his house at Rome and his Villa in the Sabine country, the one place needful to complete the Poet's list of accommodations; equally needful, let me add, to render his writings, especially the Odes, intelligible and consistent to an inquisitive reader. My own mind unquestionably was first set a thinking on the subject of his Tivoline residence by that noble emendation of Nicholas Hardinge; which comes down to us recommended by Markland, approved by Bentley, and applauded by Parr. Eripe te moræ ; Ur semper-udum Tibur et Æsulæ Telegoni juga parricidæ. 3 C. XXIX. 5-8. That emendation itself I first saw in Markland's Explicationes veterum aliquot auctorum (p. 258-267) subjoined to his edition of the Supplices Mulieres: but having since read the suggested change in a Letter from Nicholas Hardinge to a friend of his then making the tour of Italy, I prefer to record it here in the very words of that Vir capitalis ingenii, as he is justly styled by Markland in the passage referred to. "Ne semper udum, &c., I suspect to be a false reading in all the Editions and MSS." a Vid. Domenico de Sanctis. u. s. p. 33. and in Risposta all' Appendice dei Signori Abb. Cabral, e del Ré, p. 3. "For as Horace invites Mæcenas from Rome to his Tibur, it seems inconceivable that he should press him to make haste, lest he should be always taking a view of Tibur. How much properer would it have been to recommend his departure from Rome that he might enjoy the scenes of Tibur! I therefore change NE to UT. N. H." To a great variety of disquisitions, more or less intelligent and entertaining on this text and on the topics naturally connected with it, the references below given a will direct the reader; if any of the books happen to be within his reach. But here it may be as well to add, however, that the combination of semper with udum, so essential to the establishment of the new reading, is happily defended not only in general by his own expression, (1. E. xvIII, 98,) Nec te semper-inops agitet vexetque cupido; but by the specific authority of Ovid where he describes his natalia rura.—Fasti IV, 686. Parva sed assiduis uvida semper aquis. Having thus secured the compliment due to an Etonian and King's man for starting the question so vitally important to the Lyric bard of Tivoli, I shall not however proceed on credit taken for his emendation being true: I shall rather appeal for corroboration of its truth to the internal evidence which the 1st, 2d, and 3d books of Odes, the 1st book of Epistles, and the 4th book of Odes in that order, all contribute to yield, not only of Horace's often visiting Tivoli, but of his residing in that quiet town very much and often during a great part of his latter days. I.. -me gelidum nemus, Nympharumque leves cum Satyris chori 1 C. 1. 30-32. * Nichols's Illustrations of the Literary History of the xv111th century, Vol. 1. p. 654. pp. 720-736.—Poems, Latin, Greek and English by N. Hardinge, pp. 222-236.- Classical Journal. No. XXXII. pp. 383--387. J. T.— Gentleman's Magazine, April, 1818. pp. 291, 2. J. T. |