Page:The works of Horace - Christopher Smart.djvu/265

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

he pleases the young prince and his attendants. If he shall say, well; first congratulate him, then remember to whisper this admonition in his ears: As you, Celsus, bear your fortunes, so will we bear you.


EPISTLE IX.

TO CLAUDIUS TIBERIUS NERO.[1]

He recommends Septimius to him.

Of all the men in the world Septimius surely, O Claudius, knows how much regard you have for me. For when he requests, and by his entreaties in a manner compels me, to undertake to recommend and introduce him to you, as one worthy of the confidence and the household of Nero, who is wont to choose deserving objects, thinking I discharge the office of an intimate friend; he sees and knows better than myself what I can do. I said a great deal, indeed, in order that I might come off excused: but I was afraid, lest I should be suspected to pretend my interest was less than it is, to be a dissembler of my own power, and ready to serve myself alone. So, avoiding the reproach of a greater fault, I have put in for the prize of town-bred confidence.[2] If then you approve of modesty being superseded at the pressing entreaties of a friend,

  1. Among all the duties of civil life, there is not any that requires more discretion and delicacy, than that of recommending a friend, especially to a superior. This letter is a proof of the remark. The poet was compelled to write by a sort of violent importunity, which yet is not inexcusable in Septimius, persuaded as he was of our author's interest with Tiberius. There is through the whole letter a certain happy mixture of that manly zeal, which a friend has a right to demand, and that modest respect due to a great prince. It may be a pleasure to the reader to know, that it had all the success it deserved, for Septimius was afterward honored with the confidence and affection both of Tiberius and Augustus. We may date the letter to 732, for Tiberius was sent the year before to visit and regulate the government of the eastern provinces. San.
  2. After all the disputed explanations of this expression, I think there is but little difficulty in understanding a “gentlemanly confidence,” a freedom from mauvais honte, as the quality to which the poet lays claim. The phrase is perhaps slightly ironical.