- Clubb John L
- Huntt D
rHenry.
“Minuentur atrae Carmine curae.” Mr Clubb is the Messenger to
the Office of the Secretary of the
Senate, and brought me this morning the set of twenty-one
Volumes in the Folio of Gales and
Seaton’s collection of
American State Papers, to which as a former President of the United
States I am entitled, and for which I signed a receipt; having before
received another set as a Member of the House of Representatives— This
is an invaluable collection for the History of the Country, and has been
published at great expense by order of Congress— Dr Huntt was
here this morning and is apparently recovering, and Mrs W. S.
Smith called after dinner, expecting her husband back from New-York
where he has been this fortnight— I received a Letter from my Son which I forthwith answered;
and wrote also to Lewis Tappan at
New-York— I took the Papers of the two Pension claims of Jerusha Ripley and Hulday Penniman, to the Commissioner of Pensions who said he
would have them examined this day— There were two Strangers at the
office with him— I varied the order of my exercise; took the short walk
in the morning, and the long one after dinner, round to the Potowmack
bridge, and twice across the Tiber— Evening Cards— There is certainly
something in the atmosphere of Spring that sets my brain in commotion
for the composition of verses— Of the multitude of Rhymes that I have
written, which have now become voluminous, I believe four fifths have
been written in the Spring; excepting the versions of Wieland’s Oberon, and of the
Psalms, each of which occupied me more than a year— Being still in
search of thoughts for autographs I this day composed a Love-song, which
if I could give it to a youth just out of his teens, to insert in his
mistress’s Album would be very suitable, and not destitute either of
Passion or of Harmony; but perfectly unfit for me to write, either as an
Autograph, or in an Album. As I was again poaching in Horace for a thought, I met with the sentence
at the head of this page; being part of the last two lines of the 11th. Ode of the 4th. book—to Phyllis— An
invitation to a festival, to be kept by him about the middle of April;
being the birthday of Maecenas,
which he tells her is to him almost as sacred as his own— He describes
all the preparations for the sacrifice of a lamb—the altar decked with
chaste vervein—the boys and girls (a hired choir I suppose ) running to
and fro—the flame and curling smoke of the altar— He tells Phyllis that
her passion for Telephus, a young man
much above her in rank, is useless, for that a rich and wanton young
woman has possession of him, and he reminds her of the fate of Phaeton
and Bellerophon for aspiring too high That she is the last of his loves,
for that he will never catch fire for any other woman— So that she had
better come, and learn with him to sing with her beloved voice his
verses— And then comes that beautiful sentence with which the Ode
concludes “Minuentur atrae Carmine curae”— Carking cares, assuaged by
Song— This is an Ode of Horace; and what is an Ode? Sentiment clothed
with imagery, and delivered in measure— Is not this a just definition of
all Poetry— Now the mythology of Phaëton and Bellerophon—the Roman manners; the sacrifice of the lamb
on the patron’s birth-day—the invitation by a bachelor to a courtezan,
for such Phyllis must have been, to come, and join him in a pious and
religious orgie, to drink wine and sing his verses with him telling her
that it is idle for her to think of catching Telephus, but that she
shall be the last of his Horace’s loves—all this has passed off and
given way to other modes of existence—but the minuentur
264“minuentur atrae Carmine curae” will last as long
as the human race. It is the intermixture of such Sentiments with
antient manners, loose morals an extinguished religion and language that
constitute the charm of Horace’s Poetry— The Sapphick Stanza with the
Adonic closing line was evidently his favourite measure, and is the only
one of his measures which falls harmoniously upon my ear.— I took up
this day an old Newspaper; the Tablet of 4. August 1795. printed at
Boston, and was about tearing it up, when casting my eye upon a
Selection—not naming the author, I saw, it was an Ode on the Pleasure
arising from Vicissitude, and upon reading it found it was part of
Gray’s fragment, which on the
23d of last Month I copied from Matthias’s Edition of his works in
the Congress Library— Here again is harmonious Sentiment clothed in
imagery— Why did he not finish it?