Page:The works of Horace - Christopher Smart.djvu/97

laughed at Acrisius, the anxious keeper of the immured maiden: [for they well knew] that the way would be safe and open, after the god had transformed himself into a bribe. Gold delights to penetrate through the midst of guards, and to break through stone-walls, more potent than the thunderbolt. The family of the Grecian augur perished, immersed in destruction on account of lucre. The man of Macedon cleft the gates of the cities and subverted rival monarchs by bribery. Bribes enthrall fierce captains of ships. Care, and a thirst for greater things, is the consequence of increasing wealth. Therefore, Mæcenas, thou glory of the [Roman] knights, I have justly dreaded to raise the far-conspicuous head. As much more as any man shall deny himself, so much more shall he receive from the gods. Naked as I am, I seek the camps of those who covet nothing; and as a deserter, rejoice to quit the side of the wealthy: a more illustrious possessor of a contemptible fortune, than if I could be said to treasure up in my granaries all that the industrious Apulian cultivates, poor amid abundance of wealth. A rivulet of clear water, and a wood of a few acres, and a certain prospect of my good crop,