His motive for his sea-side trips is amusingly set forth in one of the most lively and characteristic of his Epistles—­the fifteenth of the first book.  In this he inquires of a friend what sort of winter weather is to be found at Velia and Salernum; two cities, one on the Adriatic, the other on the Mediterranean seaboard of Italy—­what manner of roads they had—­whether the people there drank tank-water or spring-water—­and whether hares, boars, crabs, and fish were with them abundant.  He adds, he is not apprehensive about their wines—­knowing these, as we may infer, to be good—­although usually, when from home, he is scrupulous about his liquors; whilst, when at home, he can put up almost with anything in the way of potations.  It is quite plain Horace went down to the sea just in the spirit in which a turtle-fed alderman would transfer himself to Cheltenham; or in which a fine lady, whose nerves the crush, hurry, and late hours of a London season had somewhat disturbed, would exchange the dissipations of Mayfair for the breezy hills of Malvern, or the nauseous waters of Tunbridge Wells.

This certainly explains, and perhaps excuses, the grossly uncivil terms in which alone he notices the sea.  One of the worst of Ulysses’ troubles was, according to him, the numerous and lengthy sea-voyages which that Ithacan gadabout had to take.  Horace wishes for Maevius, who was his aversion, no worse luck than a rough passage and shipwreck at the end of it.  His notion of a happy man—­ille beatus—­is one who has not to dread the sea.  Augustus, whose success had blessed not only his own country, but the whole world, had—­not the least of his blessings—­given to the seamen a calmed sea—­pacatum mare.  Lamenting at Virgil’s departure for Athens, he rebukes the impiety of the first mariner who ventured, in the audacity of his heart, to go afloat and cross the briny barrier interposed between nations.  He esteems a merchant favoured specially by the gods, should he twice or thrice a year return in safety from an Atlantic cruise.  He tells us he himself had known the terrors of ‘the dark gulf of the Adriatic,’ and had experienced ‘the treachery of the western gale;’ and expresses a charitable wish, that the enemies of the Roman state were exposed to the delights of both.  He likens human misery to a sea ’roughened by gloomy winds;’ ‘to embark once more on the mighty sea,’ is his figurative expression for once more engaging in the toils and troubles of the world; Rome, agitated by the dangers of civil conflict, resembles an ill-formed vessel labouring tempest-tossed in the waves; his implacable Myrtale resembles the angry Adriatic, in which also he finds a likeness to an ill-tempered lover.  All through, from first to last, the gentle Horace pelts with most ungentle phrases one of the noblest objects in nature, provocative alike of our admiration and our awe, our terror and our love.

And even Shakspeare must be ranged in the same category.  The most English of poets has not one laudatory phrase for