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the experience of reading in Britain, from 1450 to 1945...

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Horace

  

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Horace : Satires

'He thus remarks on the Imitations of Horace's Satires: "Horace had perhaps less wit than Pope, but far more humour, far more variety, more sentiment, more thought. But that to which Horace chiefly owes his reputation, is his perfect good sense and self-knowledge, in whcih he exceeded all men."'

Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay      Print: Book

  

Horace : Works of Horace. Translated into English Prose, for the use of those who are desirous of acquiring or recovering a competent knowledge of the Latin language. By Christopher Smart

'In spring 1789 W[ordsworth]translated Horace's Ode to Apollo (Ode I xxxi) with the help of [Christopher] Smart's translation.'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth      Print: Book

  

Horace : Odes

'W[ordsworth]'s translation of Horace's Ode to the Bandusian Fountain (Ode III xiii) appears in a manuscript dating from his time at Windy Brow in 1794.'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth      Print: Book

  

Horace : Ode ("Exegi monumentum")

Byron to John Cam Hobhouse, 23 August 1810: 'I am learning Italian, and this day translated an ode of Horace "Exegi monumentum" into that language[.]'

Unknown
Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron      

  

Horace : De Arte Poetica

Byron to John Cam Hobhouse, 5 March 1811: 'I have begun an Imitation of the "De Arte Poetica" of Horace [became his Hints from Horace] ... The Horace I found in the convent where I have sojourned some months.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon Lord Byron      Print: Book

  

Horace : 

Branwell Bronte to Hartley Coleridge, 27 June 1840: 'I have ... striven to translate 2 books [of Horace] ... the first of which I have presumed to send you ...'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Patrick Branwell Bronte      Print: Book

  

Horace : Quinti Horatii Flacci opera. Interpretatione et notis illustravit Ludovicus Desprez, ... Huic editioni accessere vita Horatii cum Dacerii notis, ejusdem chronologia Horatiana, & praefatio de satira Romana

[Marginalia]: has a ms annotation (of 4 lines) on each inside cover, one in Latin and one possibly in Persian. These may or may not be related to the text. On various pages there are ink marks within the text, all of the same format, ex. p. 84 '- - |-vv-|-vv-|vv/--|-vv-|vv [with the numbers]123/4 [to the right]'

Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: John Drummond Erskine      Print: Book

  

Horace : The Art of Poetry an Epistle to the Pisos

'I finished this morning Horace's "Epistle to the Pisos", which I have been reading at intervals.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot (pseud)      Print: Book

  

Quintus Horace : [poems]

'For my private and sole use, seeing that my friends had no taste for poetry, I bought Mr. Pye's translation of Horace, and was well pleased with my purchase; for I found the old "Roman poet" to be a very lively and shrewd companion. I also ventured to spend a guinea in the purchase of "Kirke White's Remains": a large sum for one like myself to spend at one time in buying books; yet I had good reason to be satisfied; for the work was useful to me in the way of strengthening and confirming my habits of reading and observation.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carter      Print: Book

  

Horace : Epistola ad Augustum, annotated by Richard Hurd

'Read the "1st Epistle of Horace", Lib. 2 (the celebrated Epistle to Augustus) with the aid of Dacier's notes, and Hurd's Commentary...'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Green      Print: Book

  

Horace : Art of Poetry, annotated by Richard Hurd,

'Read Hurd's "Commentary on Horace's Art of Poetry"...'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Green      Print: Book

  

Horace : Book II Ode III

'I send you three translations of a bit of Horace, in order to hear what you think of the last measure.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson      Print: Book

  

Horace : [odes]

'read two odes of Horace'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin      Print: Book

  

Horace : [odes]

'read Locke and the Edinburgh review and two odes of Horace - S. reads Political Justice & Shakespeare and the 23rd Chap. of Gibbon'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin      Print: Book

  

Horace : [Works]

'I have read since last October a good deal of the history relating to the East ... : not much of books not connected with India. ... ; all Horace once over and many parts repeatedly; ...'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mountstuart Elphinstone      Print: Book

  

Horace : Odes

'Drawing Lesson - write - read Locke - & walk - Shelley reads Roscoe's life of Lorenzo de Medicis - Read Lucian and work in the evening. Read severy [for several)] odes of Horace'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin      Print: Book

  

Horace : Odes

'read Locke & the life of Lorenzo - Shelley reads it and finishes it - In the evenng he reads 25th chap. of Gibbon - read several odes of Horace'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin      Print: Book

  

Horace : [1st Ode]

'Read 1st ode of Horace - Aristippe'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley      Print: Book

  

Horace : [3rd Ode]

'Read 23 Canto of Ariosto & Gibbon - & the 3rd Ode of Horace - S. finishes the clouds - Reads Humes England aloud in the evening'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley      Print: Book

  

Horace : [Odes 6 and 7]

'Read 25 Canto of Ariosto - GIbbon & 6 & 7 odes of Horace - S. reads the Lysistratae of Aristophanes - finishes Gibbon - and reads Hume's England in the evening'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley      Print: Book

  

Horace : [Odes]

'finish the first book of Horace's odes - S reads and translates Plato's Symposium - he reads Peregrinus Proteus and Hume's England aloud in the evening'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley      Print: Book

  

Horace : Odes

'Copy S's Eclogue - Read Horace'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley      Print: Book

  

Horace : Odes

'Finish the II book of Horace & read Montaigne'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley      Print: Book

  

Horace : Odes

'Read Horace - work - S. reads B[eaumont] & F.[letcher] & Plato'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley      Print: Book

  

Horace : Odes

'Finish the 1st book of Horace's Odes'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley      Print: Book

  

Horace : First Epistle

'Muratori - Greek - With S. the first Epist. of Horace - Walk - He reads the Republic of Plato'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary and Percy Shelley     Print: Book

  

Horace : [unknown]

'Read Horace with S in the evening'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary and Percy Shelley     Print: Book

  

Horace : Odes

'He [Matthew Pilkington] was one Winter's Evening reading [italics] Horace [end italics], and said he would engage to write an Ode exactly in his Manner; so he directly set about it'.

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Matthew Pilkington      Print: Book

  

Horace : Odes

'The following Ode of [italics] Horace [end italics] bearing some Similitude to my then present Circumstances, I took the Liberty of paraphrasing and sent it to my husband, notwithstanding his former Lectures [that women should not write. There follows LP's version of 'The Seventh Ode of the Third Book of Horace']

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Laetitia Pilkington      Print: Book

  

Horace : Ars Poetica

'He appears, from his early notes or memorandums in my possession, to have at various times attempted, or at least planned, a methodical course of study, according to computation, of which he was all his life fond, as it fixed his attention steadily on something without, and prevented his mind from preying upon itself. Thus I find in his handwriting the number of lines in each of two of Euripides' Tragedies, of the Georgicks of Virgil, of the first six books of the Aeneid, of Horace's Art of Poetry, of three of the books of Ovid's Metamorphosis, of some parts of Theocritus, and of the tenth satire of Juvenal; and a table, shewing at the rate of various numbers a day (I suppose verses to be read), what would be, in each case, the total amount in a week, month, and year'.

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson      Print: Book

  

Horace : Ars poetica

'Dr. Johnson and Mr. Wilkes talked of the contested passage in Horace's "Art of Poetry", "[italics] Difficile est proprie communia dicere.[end italics]' Mr. Wilkes according to my note, gave the interpretation thus; "It is difficult to speak with propriety of common things; as, if a poet had to speak of Queen Caroline drinking tea, he must endeavour to avoid the vulgarity of cups and saucers". But upon reading my note, he tells me that he meant to say, that "the word [italics]communia [end italics], being a Roman law term, signifies here things [italics]communis juris [end italics], that is to say, what have never yet been treated by any body; and this appears clearly from what followed, "[italics]--Tuque Rectius Iliacum carmen deducis in actus Quam si proferres ignota indictaque primus." [end italics] "You will easier make a tragedy out of the Iliad than on any subject not handled before".'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson      Print: Book

  

Horace : Ars poetica

'Dr. Johnson and Mr. Wilkes talked of the contested passage in Horace's "Art of Poetry", "[italics] Difficile est proprie communia dicere.[end italics]' Mr. Wilkes according to my note, gave the interpretation thus; "It is difficult to speak with propriety of common things; as, if a poet had to speak of Queen Caroline drinking tea, he must endeavour to avoid the vulgarity of cups and saucers". But upon reading my note, he tells me that he meant to say, that "the word [italics]communia [end italics], being a Roman law term, signifies here things [italics]communis juris [end italics], that is to say, what have never yet been treated by any body; and this appears clearly from what followed, "[italics]--Tuque Rectius Iliacum carmen deducis in actus Quam si proferres ignota indictaque primus." [end italics] "You will easier make a tragedy out of the Iliad than on any subject not handled before".'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilkes      Print: Book

  

Horace : Odes

'He repeated a good many lines of Horace's "Odes", while we were in the chaise. I remember particularly the Ode [italics] Eheu fugaces [italics]. He said, the dispute as to the comparative excellence of Homer or Virgil was inaccurate. "We must consider (said he) whether Homer was not the greatest poet, though Virgil may have produced the finest poem. Virgil was indebted to Homer for the whole invention of the structure of an epick poem, and for many of his beauties".'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson      Print: Book

  

Horace : 

'The Bishop said, it appeared from Horace's writings that he was a cheerful contented man. Johnson. "We have no reason to believe that, my Lord. Are we to think Pope was happy, because he says so in his writings? We see in his writings what he wished the state of his mind to appear. Dr. Young, who pined for preferment, talks with contempt of it in his writings, and affects to despise everything that he did not despise".'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Jonathan Shipley      Print: Book

  

Horace : [Odes]

'He [Johnson] said, "the lyrical part of Horace never can be perfectly translated; so much of the excellence is in the numbers and the expression. Francis has done it the best; I'll take his, five out of six, against them all".'

Century:      Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson      Print: Book

  

Horace : Carmen Seculare

'My arrival interrupted for a little while the important business of this true representative of Bayes[a clergyman who wanted Johnson's opinions on his literary works]; upon its being resumed, I found that the subject under immediate consideration was a translation, yet in manuscript, of the "Carmen Seculare" of Horace, which had this year been set to musick, and performed as a publick entertainment in London, for the joint benefit of Monsieur Philidor and Signor Baretti. When Johnson had done reading, the authour asked him bluntly, "If upon the whole it was a good translation?" Johnson, whose regard for truth was uncommonly strict, seemed to be puzzled for a moment, what answer to make; as he certainly could not honestly commend the performance: with exquisite address he evaded the question thus, "Sir, I do not say that it may not be made a very good translation." Here nothing whatever in favour of the performance was affirmed, and yet the writer was not shocked. A printed "Ode to the Warlike Genius of Britain", came next in review; the bard was a lank bony figure, with short black hair; he was writhing himself in agitation, while Johnson read, and shewing his teeth in a grin of earnestness, exclaimed in broken sentences, and in a keen sharp tone, "Is that poetry, Sir?--Is it Pindar?" JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, there is here a great deal of what is called poetry".'

Century:      Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson      Manuscript: Unknown

  

Horace : [ode] 'Parcus deorum cultur et infrequens

'Horace having been mentioned; BOSWELL. "There is a great deal of thinking in his works. One finds there almost every thing but religion". SEWARD. "He speaks of his returning to it, in his Ode 'Parcus Deorum cultor et infrequens'" JOHNSON. "Sir, he was not in earnest: this was merely poetical".'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson      Print: Book

  

Horace : [ode] 'Parcus deorum cultur et infrequens

'Horace having been mentioned; BOSWELL. "There is a great deal of thinking in his works. One finds there almost every thing but religion". SEWARD. "He speaks of his returning to it, in his Ode 'Parcus Deorum cultor et infrequens'" JOHNSON. "Sir, he was not in earnest: this was merely poetical".'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Mr Seward      Print: Book

  

Horace : 

'Horace having been mentioned; BOSWELL. "There is a great deal of thinking in his works. One finds there almost every thing but religion". SEWARD. "He speaks of his returning to it, in his Ode 'Parcus Deorum cultor et infrequens'" JOHNSON. "Sir, he was not in earnest: this was merely poetical".'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: James Boswell      Print: Book

  

Horace : '8th Ode'

'I was however turning over Horace yesterday to look for the Expression [italics] tenui fronte [end italics] in Vindication of my Assertion to Johnson that low Foreheads were classical, when the 8th Ode of the 1st Book of Horace struck me so, I could not help Imitating it while the Scandal [of Pacchierotti and Lady Mary Duncan] was warm in my head.' [the verses follow]

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Thrale      Print: Book

  

Horace : Epistles

'[from a letter from Mary Ward to her father] I have been reading Joubert's "Pensees" and "Correspondance" lately, with a view to the Amiel introduction. You would be charmed with the letters and some of the [italics] pensees [end italics] are extraordinarily acute. Now I am deep in Senancour, and for miscellaneous reading I have been getting through Horace's Epistles and dawdling a good deal over Shakespeare. My feeling as to him gets stronger and stronger, that he was, strictly speaking, a great poet, but not a great dramatist! [she discusses this at length, concluding] I have always felt it most strongly in Othello, and of course in the last act of Hamlet, which, in spite of the magnificent poetry in it, is surely a piece of dramatic bungling'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Ward      Print: Book

  

Horace : Odes, 2:13

Robert Southey to Thomas Phillips Lamb, 28 October 1792: '"Ille & nefasto te posuit die,/ Quicumque primum, & sacrilega manu/ Produxit, arbos, in nepotum/ Perniciem." so said Horace to the tree that fell upon him — if you like to look at the original it is the 13th ode of the 2nd book.

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey      Print: Book

  

Horace : Odes, 2:14

Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 6 December 1792: 'I have been reading Eheu fugaces & your translation this moment together. the three last stanzas are certainly best but altogether it is in my opinion very good — tho ‘th’unpardoning God’ I do not like the epithet is rather prosaic — (you see I will point out what appears to me as faulty) a better may easily be found. & now as I have picked your bone take mine to pick cum notis Sancti Basilii.'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey      Print: Book

  

Horace : Odes

Robert Southey to Charles Collins, 12-13 January 1793: 'I have read all Juvenal with pleasure it is a manly stile more adapted to me than the sly sarcasms of Horace but I have no time for more church is ready & I go to hear a sermon very probably about right divine sedition & impiety which last are always linked together in the pulpit.'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey      Print: Book

  

Horace : Odes 4:4

Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 16-21 January 1793: 'This day has been a most unpleasant one all except the earlier part of the morning when I read your favourite Horace. That beginning Qualem ministrum fulminis alitem struck me as well adapted to the present times & I think I shall attempt it this week — certain of falling as much short of Horace as his subject will be inferior to mine. notwithstanding the admiration with which I read his works there is a something in the character of the little fat parasite which sullies it very much.'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey      Print: Book

  

Horace : 

'[Mrs Ward's average day at Stocks began] at 5.30 a.m, with the reading of Greek, or writing of letters, or much reading, for the reading of many books was still her greatest solace and delight. "For reading, I have been deep in Emile Faguet's "Dix-huitieme siecle", she wrote to Mrs Creighton in August, 1908, "comparing some of the essays in it with Sainte-Beuve, the reactionary with the Liberal; reading Raleigh's Wordsworth, and Homer and Horace as usual. If I could only give three straight months to Greek now I should be able to read most things easily, but I never get time enough - and there are breaks when one forgets what one knew before". Greek literature meant more and more to her as the years went on, and though she could give so little time to it, the half-hour before breakfast which she devoted, with her husband, to Homer, or Euripides, or the "Agamemnon", became gradually more precious to her than any other fraction of the day'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Augusta ward      Print: Book

  

Horace : 

From the 1806-1840 Commonplace book of an unknown reader. 'The intrepidity of a just and good man nobly set forth by Horace. "The man resolved and steady to his trust,/ Inflexible to ill and obstinately just,/ May the rude rabble's insolence despise"...Spec. Vol.8 No. 615.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: anon      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Horace : [unknown]

'In reading Horace at breakfast, planned the form in which to gather my work on him'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin      Print: Book

  

Horace : unknown

'Strong breeze and weather agreeable so far from Karachi. Green's "History", Macaulay, Ruskin, "Oxford Book [of English Verse]" and Horace every day.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Ronald Storrs      Print: Book

  

Horace : The Odes of Horace, Books i-iv, and the Saecular Hymn

'After arranging for the little gunner captain to go straight through from Fas so as to be in Kuweit [sic] by 8, and testing Marris' verse translation of Horace's "Odes", a creditable if unlovely performance, I had set, pressed and appreciated my new camp-bed.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Ronald Storrs      Print: Book

  

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