Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 June 1883 — Treasures of Classic Lore. [ARTICLE]

Treasures of Classic Lore.

Theodore Martin, whom the Queer of England knighted, in honor of nis excellent literary work, has written a remarkably brilliant and entertaining volume on “Horace,” in the well-known series of “Ancient Classics for English Readers.” No writer of antiquity ha* taken a stranger hold upon the modem mind that Horace. The scholar, th* statesman, the soldier, the man of thi world, the town-bred man, the lover oi the country, the thoughtful and the careless, he who reads much and he who reads little, all tind in his pages moreoaloss to amuse their fancy, to touch their feelings, to quicken their observation, to nerve their convictions to put into happy phrase the deductions of their experience. His wisdom is deeper than it seems, so.. simple, jractical and direct as it is in its apilication. Over and above the mere iterary charm of his works, the warm heart and thoroughly urbane nature oi ,the man are felt instinctively by his readers. Dante ranks him next after Homer. Montaigne knows him by heart. Fenelon and Bonnet never weary of quoting him. La Fontaine polishes his awn exquisite style upon his model. Voltaire calls him “the best of preachers.” Lord Chesterfield tells us. “When I talked my beat I quoted Horace.” To Wordsworth he was equally dear. In Gibbon’s militia days “on every march” he says, “in •very journey, Horace was always in my pocket, and often in my hand.” And so it is; in many a pocket where it might be least expected, lies a wellthumUed Horace; and in many a de vout Christian heart the maxims of the gentle, genial pagan find a place near the liigber teadhings of a greater master. This entire keiries of “Classics” is most worthy to bn added to the a: tractions of every home. There are 27 volumes, heretofore published at $1 each, now reduced to the mere fraction of that cost. They are published by John B. Alden, W Vesey St., N. Y., who will send inscriptive catalogue Ires, oa request.