that the Latin of Lucilius was too archaic in its tone for the Augustan writer. The lyrical poems of Catullus may breathe a freer atmosphere than that in which the Horatian odes expanded and flourished; yet the perfect form of Alcaic or Sapphic measure demanded for its reception in a western land, not merely a severe discipline of the Latin tongue, but almost its reconstruction. Lines from Ennius might find a place in Lucretian poems, or in the Eneid; but they were too rough for the delicacy of the lighter muse; and Horace, in a scarcely less degree than Dante or Milton, was the creator of the language needed for Latin lyric song. Of the second epistle of the second book, and the Epistle to the Pisos, generally known as the Ars Poetica, Mr. Martin says: 'The dignity of literature was never better vindicated than in these epistles. In Horace's estimation it was a thing always to be approached with reverence. Mediocrity in it was intolerable. Genius is much, but genius without art will not win immortality; "for a good poet's "made, as well as born." There must be a working up to the highest models a resolute intolerance of anything slight or slovenly-a fixed purpose to put what the writer has to express into forms at once the most beautiful, suggestive, and compact. The mere trick of literary composition Horace holds exceedingly cheap. Brilliant nonsense finds no allowance from him. Truth-truth in feeling and in thought— must be present, if the work is to have any value. "Scribendi recte "sapere est et principium et fons:" "Of writing well, be sure the secret lies In wisdom, therefore study to be wise." Whatever the form of composition-heroic, didactic, lyric, or dramatic -it must be pervaded by unity of feeling and design; and no style is good, or illustration endurable, which either overlays or does not harmonise with the subject in hand.' Soon after this poem' (the Epistle to the Pisos) 'was written, the great palace on the Esquiline lost its master. He died in the middle of the year 8 B.C., bequeathing his poet-friend to the care of Augustus, in the words "Horâti Flacci, ut mei, este memor." But the legacy was not long upon the emperor's hands. Seventeen years before, Horace had written :— "Think not that I have sworn a bootless oath : Yes, we shall go, shall go, Hand linked in hand, where'er thou leadest, both The lines must have run in the poet's ears like a sad refrain. The Digentia lost its charm; he could not see its crystal waters for the shadows of Charon's rueful stream. The prattle of his loved Bandusian spring could not wean his thoughts from the vision of his other sel wandering unaccompanied along that "last sad road." We may fancy VOL. CXXXIII. NO. CCLXXII. NN that Horace was thenceforth little seen in his accustomed haunts. He who had so often soothed the sorrows of other bereaved hearts, answered with a wistful smile to the friendly consolations of the many that loved him. His work was done. It was time to go away. Not all the skill of Orpheus could recall him whom he had lost. The welcome end came sharply and suddenly; and one day, when the bleak November wind was whirling down the oak-leaves on his well-loved brook, the servants of his Sabine farm heard that they should no more see the good, cheery master, whose pleasant smile and kindly word had so often made their labours light. There was many a sad heart too, we may be sure, in Rome, when the wit who never wounded, the poet who ever charmed, the friend who never failed, was laid in a corner of the Esquiline, close to the tomb of his "dear knight Mæcenas." He died on the 27th of November, B.C. 8, the kindly, lonely man leaving to Augustus what little he possessed. One would fain trust his own words were inscribed upon his tomb, as in the supreme hour the faith they expressed was of a surety strong within his heart "NON OMNIS MORIAR.' Virgil, in his last moments, desired his friends to commit to the flames the epic poem on which he had spent so many studious hours, bestowed so much archaic lore, and which he clad in measures so majestic and mellifluous. Did he pronounce this sentence because he regarded the labour of years as still an imperfect work? or because, at the solemn period of final self-examination, he repented of the praise he had lavished on one whose hands had been so deeply stained with Roman blood, whose rule was incompatible with Roman liberty? Ovid had good reason to regret that he had blotted so little, even if one at least of his poems were not among the causes of his long and hopeless exile. The other elegiac poets of that time probably thought that if their soft andamorous ditties' pleased a polite and not very scrupulous audience, it was enough: yet Propertius may have lamented, if he lived long enough to see the success of Ovid's Fasti, that he did not persevere in his own work on the Roman legends and calendar. But such retrospect touched not Horace. In all his writings, even in those which the more scrupulous taste of modern times regards with a sigh or a blush, he had enforced the duties of moderation and manly virtue, held up to a selfish generation the great examples of Regulus and Cato, and laboured to show, both by precept and example, the superiority of simple and inexpensive pleasures to prodigality and excess. Like Shakspeare, he left no heirs of his genius. No lyric poet after him is endurable; after his, the alcaics and sapphics of Statius, in other respects a genuine poet-read like a school-boy's exercise, and that not of the best kind. No epistles in verse succeeded the Horatian; and if satire, in Juvenal's hands, reached at times a higher mode, yet the sermones of the earlier poet exhibit a refinement and grace denied to the censor of Aquinum. Horace was perhaps the severest critic of his own writings. He weighed maturely his powers: no unhealthy lust for applause seduced him from the course he laid down for himself. Urged to celebrate Cæsar's glory in war, he declined: such high themes suited stronger or more ambitious bards. And his exceeding great reward' is to be the poet of ages, instead of one period and one people; to be read in lands never overshadowed by the Roman eagles; and to be cherished, by the descendants of races whom he accounted barbarous, as a sage instructor, a genial companion, and, wherever the ancient classics exist- a possession for all time.' ART. X.-1. A Tactical Retrospect. Translated from the German by Colonel OUVRY, C.B. 2nd edition. 2nd edition. London: 1870. 2. Rapports de M. le Baron Stoffel, adressés au Gouvernement français. Paris: 1871. 3. The Organisation of the Prussian Army. By Lieut. GERALD TALBOT, 2nd Prussian Dragoon Guards. Berlin: 1870. 4. Des Causes qui ont amené la Capitulation de Sédan. Par un Officier de l'État-Major [Napoleon III.]. Bruxelles : 1870. . 5. Der Krieg um die Rheingrenze, 1870. Von W. RÜSTOW. 1ste, 2te und 3tte Abtheilung. Zürich: 1870-71. 6. Der deutsch-französische Krieg. Von Oberst BORB1ste Lieferung. Berlin: 1871. STAEDT. WHEN the battle of Waterloo was fought and won, astonishing the victors themselves with the magnitude of its results; when they saw the army which had been the terror of Europe broken, and the Empire which it had created destroyed, it was natural that in the completeness of so great a triumph imperfections of detail should be forgotten and individual errors condoned. Mistakes of judgment--and there were many-were purposely passed over; errors in conduct-and of such there were not a few-were tacitly forgiven; and the allied armies pressed on to finish their work in the restoration of the Bourbons, content to let the world for the time believe that their achievements in the four days' campaign had been marked by no doubt or blemish. The first hasty narratives which appeared convey the impression of the time accurately enough, breathing patriotism, confidence, and triumph over the defeated enemy, with unmixed admiration of the allied generals and their troops. They show little appreciation of the gigantic conception with which the exiled Emperor had opened his campaign, or of the fine conduct of those who followed him to his ruin. It was reserved for the critics of later yearssome guided by national or personal sentiment, some by the higher spirit of truth-to do justice to the fallen, and to show to the world those weaknesses of his adversaries on which Napoleon had vainly reckoned for success. Thus, too, it is now in a measure with those who would review at this early date the late war on the Continent. We are as unable to criticise it fully and fairly as to forecast the political results which Europe has yet to see developed. The Germans have shown such a marvellous superiority to their ancient enemies alike in organisation, strategy, and tactics, that attempts to compare the two seem to run naturally into blind adulation of the victors. Their conquest of Gaul has been as unbroken and complete as Cæsar's ancient triumphs over its divided tribes. When we look back to compare this with former wars between the same nations, we are almost driven, in despair of better explanation, to adopt the easy theory of the complete degeneracy of the people of France, and to believe that those who now fill that land are no true children of the warriors that sixty years since gave law to Europe, but a mean and debased progeny, unfit to bear arms, or to boast of their country's greatness. Yet from Solferino to Sedan is but a small space in the life of a man. It is but ten years since, as we not long ago pointed out,* that a Prussian prince, high in his country's service, found his comrades gravely anxious as to the possible results of a collision with the French flushed with their Italian triumphs. Casting his thoughts into burning words for the benefit of his country, he gave the keynote to that regeneration of the national army which has made the vision of German unity a reality, and buried German democracy, at least for a while, in the new empire of the sword. Not that all that has been done since 1850 for the success of Prussian arms is the fruit of Prince Frederic Charles's labours, or the result of his teaching. But he was the first to *Edin. Rev. October, 1870. T point the way to the glories since won by the army in which he serves; he filled the national want of his time by showing Prussia how to meet the threatened danger, and to draw from the adversary's example the means of safety and of victory. If his profession be, as we write, the most prominent in this age of arms, and his own service the highest example of its perfection, the credit which is due to one who can both think and work, who can draw practical lessons from events studied though not witnessed, is surely his in the highest degree. Let those, however, who have forgotten in the glare of the recent victories of Germany her adversary's former renown, turn back to the Prince's historic pamphlet to know what was thought of the French but ten years since by one of the chief soldiers of Prussia. Confidence he had even then in the qualities of his comrades; but his confidence was conditional on their coming change of system, amd was unmixed with one thought of contempt for the armies or the generals of France. On the other hand, France, as we before briefly showed, had no such guiding spirit among her soldiers; and if she found in their ranks a critic so keen and honest as General Trochu, it was but to misjudge him as a traducer of her traditional renown and to leave him in obscurity, whilst sycophants were promoted to high offices. So the army that had overthrown Austrian domination in Italy reposed on its laurels, and retrograded in efficiency with each advancing year: whilst Prussia, on the other hand, reformed and strengthened her system from year to year, and braced herself to action under the stirring pressure of two victorious campaigns. Had the rough school of constant war been open to the French, had their army been once more traversing Europe in successive campaigns under a Napoleon, the wants now so patent in its organisation would have been met by the pressure of circumstances, personal qualifications would have produced an efficient staff by the process of selection, and the national quickness of perception, brought out by practical training, might have compensated in the mass for the lack of high professional teaching. But even Algeria had ceased to be of use as a school. After the surrender of Abd-el-Kader the operations there became limited, infrequent, and partial. Their Mexican experience was the chief lesson any of the French received, and the too easy success gained over the Republican levies of Juares, only misled those who shared it as to what an European war would mean in these days of improved weapons and diligent training. Even Niel, the most far-sighted of the Imperialist generals, |