And now to offer Faunus in the shadow of the groves Pale Death th' impartial prince or clown from court or cottage hales, Life's span is all too short on which far-reaching hopes to found, And Pluto's empty house, and Night. But then you will not use Nor marvel at young Lycidas whom now the boys admire, For another specimen of a metre used only once in the Odes I select the twelfth ode of Book III. How much I wish that Horace had found occasion to sing this particular tune again and again. It is the pathetic soliloquy of the girl Neobule, who has fallen hopelessly in love with the bright beauty of the boy Hebrus, and sorrowfully laments the unhappy lot of girls. I can but illustrate the peculiar charm of the metre by relating an experience of a certain Eton master who came into a boy's room after twelve and found him learning the Neobule ode by heart. As the boy was the reverse of industrious, the master asked whether the ode had been given him to learn as a punishment. 'No,' said the boy rather crossly. 'A saying lesson, then?' said the master. Again the boy said 'No,' and eventually admitted rather reluctantly that he was learning it for fun because he liked the tune. Yet as a rule this boy was turned in saying lesson. I think that Horace could not fail to like this story. This time I give my own tune first : Воок III., ODE 12 Unhappy girls, we may not play with love or wash our cares away With honeyed wine, for if we do, we're scared to death by uncles, who Will lash us with the tongue. And Cytherea's wingéd boy has stolen Neobule's ploy, And Hebrus all the zest she had in grave Minerva's tools, a lad From Etna, bright and young; Was never one so trim and brave, fresh from a plunge in Tiber's wave : Bellerophon was not so good a rider, and what boxer could Defeat him? Who so fleet ? And who so deft to kill as he, when all the deer are breaking free Across the plain, and who so quick the boar, that in the brushwood thick Was sheltering, to meet ? Now follows Conington's tune; my musical readers after hearing both can decide for themselves which of the two they prefer : How unhappy are the maidens who with Cupid may not play, At an uncle, and the scourging of his tongue ! O! to see him when anointed he is plunging in the flood ! As a boxer, as a runner, past compare ! When the deer are flying blindly all the open country o'er, As it crouches in the thicket unaware. ... My own feeling about Conington's versions is not very unlike Quintilian's feeling about Horace's lyrics: Insurgit aliquando verbis felicissime audax ('He is occasionally sublime and most successful in his daring phrases '). As a rule Conington is moderately good; but a phrase here and there is admirable; two delightful examples will suffice: 'And the faith that keeps no secrets with a window in its mind' (perlucidior vitro) and 'Youth that lacking thee lacks charm' (parum comis sine te juventas). I will end with one personal recollection which above all else endears Horace to me. A quarter of a century ago Henry Evelyn Platt, then an Eton boy in ' remove,' was construing the ode in my pupil room in Jordley's Place after ten ('construing 'as a preparation for school had not in those days been abolished), and to my surprise and intense delight he gave me 'rich palaces built out into the sea' as his rendering of ' Exstructis in altum Divitiis.' I hesitated for a moment, speechless for pleasure, and then expressed myself to this effect: 'I do not think your rendering is possible, but it is quite one of the most delightful that I have ever heard.' Fifteen years later he wrote to me from the trenches in France: 'Three Etonians in this squadron want to share a Horace, a pocket one, with perhaps a crib for the hard words.' There was a postscript of which I can guarantee the sense, but not the exact words, to this effect: There is an old Harrovian in my company who is always quoting Horace, and we want (amongst other things) to be even with him. Of course the Eton Horace went out to him immediately. I think Conington's translation accompanied it, but I am not quite sure of that. It seems an odd thing, at first hearing, that Eton boys should write for Horace, rather than for Keats or Shelley or Burns; but I have no doubt whatever that this was no exceptional case. The classics came into their own in the war. I recall another pupil of mine, Robert Baillie, reading Æschylus among the sand dunes in Palestine, and recording his tribute of praise to the Agamemnon a few weeks before he was mortally wounded in that unsparing war. Ignorant and prejudiced people talk of the time wasted at school in reading Latin and Greek; but I believe that Macaulay was right when he wrote (I quote from memory): 'We can never be like them, because they were so long before.' That is a simple and true account of the whole matter. Many centuries have passed since the death of Horace, and almost every century has borne witness to him, so that now his name recalls to us not himself alone, but our own poets, our own statesmen, our own kith and kin, who from generation to generation have admired and loved and quoted him. I am publishing a translation of the Odes of Horace before long; it is this labour of love which has endeared him to me and has helped me to understand him a little. HUGH MACNAGHTEN. 1925 SOME UNPUBLISHED LETTERS OF DAVID HUME IN bringing forward these letters of Hume, never hitherto published, I do not claim to show the philosopher in a new light. Their interest lies rather in the fact that they are intensely characteristic of the man as he is already known to us. These epistles, four in number, were written, like many others, to William Mure of Caldwell, Baron of the Scotch Exchequer-a friend who, in the words of Hume's biographer, Burton, 'was among those who seem to have earliest secured and longest retained Hume's esteem.' They were apparently not seen either by Burton when he published his Life in 1846 or by Colonel William Mure, who edited the Family Papers of Mure of Caldwell in 1854. I can only conjecture that they came to England with my great-grandfather (the younger son of Baron Mure), but it is curious that he should have forgotten their existence, as it is on record that his memory supplied his nephew with many interesting facts and anecdotes for his edition of the Caldwell Papers. At all events, they lay undisturbed until I happened to discover them hidden in a tin box last summer. The first letter, dated 1764, is written from Paris, where Hume was thoroughly enjoying life in the capacity of secretary to the British Ambassador, Lord Hertford. He had at first been a little shy of accepting this position, 'afraid that the gay company of Paris would prove disagreeable to a person of my age' (he was then fifty-two) 'and humour.' Once there, however, his own correspondence and that of his contemporaries shows clearly that he took to his new surroundings like a duck to water, and that the water was even more affectionately disposed towards the duck. His popularity with French society, and particularly with French women, is the subject of astonished (dare I murmur jealous ?) comment from more than one of his own sex. Horace Walpole is thoroughly peevish about it, and Grimm observes in a passage worth requoting, though probably familiar : Ce qu'il y a du plaisant, c'est que toutes les jolies femmes se le sont arraché, et que ce gros philosophe Ecossais s'est plu dans leur société. C'est un excellent homme, que David Hume; il est naturellement serein, il entend finement, il dit quelquefois avec sel, quoiqu'il parle peu; mais il est lourd, il n'a ni chaleur ni grâce, ni agrément dans l'esprit, ni rien qui soit propre à s'allier au ramage de ces charmantes petites machines qu'on appelle jolies femmes. O que nous sommes un drôle de peuple ! But it is time to let Hume speak for himself on the subject. The letter opens, characteristically, with the matter of a service which Hume is good-naturedly undertaking for his friend-that of helping him to choose a tutor for his sons : MY DEAR BARON : I am very much hurry'd and a little out of humour; so you need expect nothing but Business from me. I shall take another more serene day, when I have more leisure, to write you of Vanities and Gallantries, which I see you have your heart set upon. I immediately sent Lord Mareschal's Letter to Monsr. Meuron, and desird to have a Conversation with him. He came and he appeard to me a genteel young Man in his Person, and modest and sensible in his Behaviour. I found, that he livd at present in the House of a Swiss Banker with whom I am acquainted. I went to the Banker, who spoke well of his Conduct and Morals. I had a second Conversation with the young Man, and was confirmd in my former Opinion of him. I find, that he is much inclind to come to you; but he desird time to see and consult his Father, without whose Consent and Approbation, he is resolvd to take no Resolution. I fancy you will have him and that he will serve the purposes intended. He seems to speak French with a good Accent. I told him, that I did not believe you was in any hurry about his coming to a Resolution, and this I conjectured from the great Youth of your Son, who could not stand much in need of a Tutor for some time. Your Cousin Hutchy1 Mure's Son, came here a few days ago. I introduc'd him to Lord Hertford, who told him the same thing, that I did, that Paris is the worst Place in the World for a young Man to learn the Language or get into good Company. Their own young Men, of the best Families, are not at Mr. Mure's Age, admitted into Company. If a Lady keeps a Correspondence with anyone, that is not approaching to thirty, she conceals it carefully, and would be ashamd to produce as her Gallant a Boy of one or two and twenty, who is not yet supposed to be form'd for rational Conversation. We old Gallants, you may believe, all support this Topic; and cry out Shame upon any Lady that favours a young, giddy Debauchee. Indeed I never almost meet with any such in Company. If all places were not almost alike for Happiness and Enjoy 1 Hutchison. |