HORACE ON THREATENED CIVIL WAR. [To THE EDITOR OF THE

"SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Do any of our statesmen still read Horace ? It is doubtful—but to any who do I would commend the Seventh Epode. It is curiously—almost uncannily—apposite to the present case. Only Horace knew, by personal experience, the shame and the horror of civil war; the lapse of nearly three centuries has let us forget them : that is the only difference. You may, Sir, for convenience care to print the lines. I have merely altered the names—mutate nomine de to

"Quo, quo scelesti ruitis ? ant car dexterit aptantur enses conditi ?

parnnme campis atque Neptuno super

fnsum est Ifiberni sanguinis ? non ut superbas invidae Germaniae

Britannus arces ureret,

intactus aut Batavus ut descenderet Sacra catenatus via, sed ut, secundum vota Teutonum, sus, urbs haec perirct dextera.

neque hic lupis mos nec fuit leonibus umquam nisi in dispar feris. furorne caecns an rapit vis acrior

an culpa ? responsum date. Went, et albus ora pallor inficit mentesque perculsae stupent. Sic est: acerba fata nos Angles agunt scelusque fraternae necia, ut immereutis fltucit in terrain Path saner nepotibus cruor."

"What havoc mean ye, men of blood ? Why draw, Ah ! why, the sleeping sword?—

Enough, enough, by field and flood and shore

Has Erin's blood been poured—

Nay, not to chasten with good English steel The envious German's pride, Or bring ungovernable Boers to heel, And march them down Cheapside :

Nay, but that death (as Teutons pray) our breed By its own hand may find.

Not so do wolves or lions—fierce indeed, Yet not to their own kind.

What frenzy blinds ye? What mad impulse goads?

What curse of sin P—Reply.

What ? tongue-tied?—Cheeks are blanched: the mind forbodes:

Horror can petrify ! Even so! our folk are fey '—the doom is set For guilt of brethren slain : The soil long since with innocent blood is wet—.

And crime breeds crime again."