One cannot read his works carefully without noticing that his affection for his country estate goes on constantly increasing.  At first, when he had passed a few weeks there, the memory of Rome used to re-awaken in his thoughts.  Those large towns, which we hate when we are forced to live in them, have only to be left in order to be regretted!  When Horace’s slave, taking an unfair advantage of the liberty of the Saturnalia, tells his master so many unpleasant things, he reproaches him with never being pleased where he is:—­

     “Romae rus optas, absentem villicus urbem
     Tollis ad astra levis?”

He was himself very much vexed at his inconstancy, and accused himself of “only loving Rome when he was at Tibur, and only thinking of Tibur from the moment he found himself in Rome.”  However, he cured himself at last of this levity, which annoyed him so much.  To this he bears witness in his own favor in the letter addressed to his farmer, where he strives to convince him that one may be happy without having a public-house next door.  “As for me,” he tells him, “thou knowest that I am self-consistent, and that each time hated business recalls me to Rome I leave this spot with sadness.”  He doubtless arranged matters so as to live more and more at his country house.  He looked forward to a time when it would be possible for him scarcely ever to leave it, and counted upon it to enable him to bear more lightly the weight of his closing years.

They are heavy, whatever one may do, and age never comes without bringing many griefs.  Firstly, the long-lived must needs leave many friends upon the way.  Horace lost some to whom he was very tenderly attached.  He had the misfortune to survive Virgil and Tibullus ten years.  What regrets he must have felt on the death of the great poet, of whom he said he “knew no soul more bright, and had no better friend”!  The great success of Virgil’s posthumous work could only have half consoled him for his loss, for he regretted in him the man as well as the poet.  He had also great cause to grieve for Maecenas, whom he so dearly loved.  This favorite of the Emperor, this king of fashion, whose fortune all men envied, finished by being very unhappy.  It is all very well to take every kind of precaution in order to insure one’s happiness—­to fly from business, to seek pleasure, to amass wealth, to gather clever men about one, to surround one’s self with all the charms of existence; however one may try to shut the door on them, troubles and sorrows find a way in.  The saddest of it all is that Maecenas was first unhappy through his own fault.  Somewhat late in life this prudent, wise man had been foolish enough to marry a coquette, and to fall deeply in love with her.  He had rivals, and among them the Emperor himself, of whom he dared not be jealous.  He who had laughed so much at others afforded the Romans a comedy at his own expense.  His time was passed in leaving Terentia and taking her back again.