Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 7.djvu/36

 16 ARTISTS AND AUTHORS the belief of the Christian world. Virgil lived, it may be sa'id, at the parting of the ways. The old gods, who were goodly and glad, had become discredited ; the world was no longer young, no longer fresh and fair and hopeful ; it had passed through ages of war and misery, it was harassed by doubt, the general feeling was what we would now call pessimistic, and a resigned melancholy, a keen sense of there being something wrong in the universe, can be felt in every line of Virgil, and there are tears in his voice. In person Virgil was tall, his complexion dark, and his appearance that of a rustic. He was modest, retiring, loyal to his friends. The liberality of Mae- cenas and Augustus had enriched him, and he left a considerable property and a house on the Esquiline Hill. He had troops of friends, all the accomplished men of the day ; he was quite free' from jealousy arid envy, and of amiable tem- per. No one speaks of him except in terms of affection and esteem. He used his wealth liberally, supporting his parents generously, and his father, who became blind in his old age, lived long enough to hear of his son's fame and feel the ef- fects of his prosperity. HORACE By J. W. Mackail (65-8 B.C) Q' jUINTUS HORATIUS FLACCUS [HORACE], Latin poet and satirist, was born near Venusia, in Southern Italy, on December 8, 65 b.c. His father was a manumitted slave, who as a collector of taxes or an auctioneer had saved enough money to buy a small estate, and thus belonged to the same class of small Italian freeholders as the parents of Virgil. Apparently Horace was an only child, and as such re- ceived an education almost beyond his father's means ; who, instead of sending him to school at Venusia, took him to Rome, provided him with the dress and attendance customary among boys of the upper classes, and sent him to the best masters. At seventeen or eighteen he proceeded to Athens, then the chief school of philosophy, and one of the three great schools of oratory, to complete his education ; and he was still there when the murder of Julius Caesar, March 15, 44 b.c, rekindled the flames of civil war.