Horace is an instance of a kind of writer more common in modern than in ancient times, who was equally eminent as a satirist, moralist and critic, and as an idealising and creative poet. He combines, in a measure greater than any of his countrymen, the Italian practical understanding with the Italian receptivity of Greek art and culture. Had he lived in recent times he would probably have been as accomplished a writer of prose as of verse. The subjects of his Satires are essentially prosaic. They deal with the material of daily life in a style as nearly as possible approaching to the language of familiar conversation or correspondence.

The question might be asked whether the Odes or the familiar writings were the truer expression of the man. Was his habitual mood that of the shrewd and amused spectator, the moralist and critic of human life, or that of the lyrical artist and enthusiast? The review of his life shows that though the ‘ingeni benigna vena’ was never altogether dried up within him, yet it was not to him as it was to Virgil, the source which through all his life fed the main current of his thoughts. It was only in the meridian of his career that the pure poetical gift asserted itself as his master faculty. The work accomplished by him then demanded a laborious and sustained effort, arid a frequent withdrawal from his ordinary interests and associations.