Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/228

 from his own remains and the notices of him in other writers, began his Annals with a dream in which the spirit of Homer appeared to him, and told him that, after passing through various other bodies, including those of Pythagoras and a peacock, it was now animating that of the Roman poet himself. How this was connected with the subject of the Annals we do not know; probably not very artificially: Horace, as I understand him, means to ridicule this want of connexion, while he says that the critics are so indiscriminate in their praises that Ennius may well repose on his laurels, and not trouble himself as to whether there is any real connexion or no.

Just as an unfair sample, set to catch The heedless customer, will sell the batch. I believe I have given the exact force of the original, though the metaphor there is from a gang of slaves, where the best-looking is placed in front to carry off the rest. This interpretation, which the phrase "ducere familiam" seems to place beyond doubt, is as old as Torrentius: but the commentators in general reject or ignore it.

For, so he fills his pockets, nought he heeds Whether the play's a failure or succeeds. Modern readers may wonder how the poet comes to fill his pockets if the play does not succeed. The answer is that he sold his play to the ædiles before its performance. For the benefit of the same persons it may be mentioned, with reference to a passage a few lines lower down, that in a Roman theatre the curtain was kept down during the representation, raised when the play was over.

New phrases, in the world of books unknown, So use but father them, he makes his own.