THEWORKS OF VIRGIL,TRANSLATEDINTO ENGLISH VERSE.

Has winter caused thee, friend, to change thy seat,And seek in Sabine air a warm retreat.—P.268.

All the studious, and particularly the poets, about the end of August, began to set themselves on work, refraining from writing during the heats of the summer. They wrote by night, and sat up the greatest part of it; for which reason the product of their studies was called their elucubrations, or nightly labours. They who had country-seats retired to them while they studied, as Persius did to his, which was near the port of the Moon in Etruria; and Bassus to his, which was in the country of the Sabines, nearer Rome.

Now sporting on thy lyre the loves of youth.—P.268.

This proves Cæsius Bassus to have been a lyric poet. It is said of him, that by an eruption of the flaming mountain Vesuvius, near which the greatest part of his fortune lay, he was burnt himself, together with all his writings.

Who in a drunken dream beheld his soulThe fifth within the transmigrating roll.—P.269.

I call it a drunken dream of Ennius; not that my author, in this place, gives me any encouragement for the epithet, but because Horace, and all who mention Ennius, say he was an excessive drinker of wine. In a dream, or vision, call you it which you please, he thought it was revealed to him, that the soul of Pythagoras was transmigrated into him; as Pythagoras before him believed, that himself had been Euphorbus in the wars of Troy. Commentators differ in placing the order of this soul, and who had it first. I have here given it to the peacock; because it looks more according to the order of nature, that it should lodge in a creature of an inferior species, and so by gradation rise to the informing of a man. And Persius favours me, by saying, that Ennius was the fifth from the Pythagorean peacock.

My friend is shipwrecked on the Brutian strand.—P.270.

Perhaps this is only a fine transition of the poet, to introduce the business of the satire; and not that any such accident had happened to one of the friends of Persius. But, however, this is the most poetical description of any in our author; and since he and Lucan were so great friends, I know not but Lucan might help him in two or three of these verses, which seem to be written in his style; certain it is, that besides this description of a shipwreck, and two lines more, which are at the end of the second satire, our poet has written nothing elegantly. I will, therefore, transcribe both the passages, to justify my opinion. The following are the last verses, saving one, of the second satire:

Compositum jus, fasque animi; sanctosque recessusMentis, et incoctum generoso pectus honesto.

The others are those in this present satire, which are subjoined:

----trabe rupta, Bruttia SaxaPrendit amicus inops, remque omnem, surdaque votaCondidit Ionio: jacet ipse in littore; et unaIngentes de puppe Dei: jamque obvia mergisCosta ratis laceræ.——

From thy new hope, and from thy growing store,Now lend assistance, and relieve the poor.—P.270.

The Latin is,Nunc et de cespite vivo, frange aliquid. Casaubon only opposes thecespes vivus, which, word for word, is the living turf, to the harvest, or annual income; I suppose the poet rather means, sell a piece of land already sown, and give the money of it to my friend, who has lost all by shipwreck; that is, do not stay till thou hast reaped, but help him immediately, as his wants require.

Nor beg with a blue table on his back.—P.270.

Holyday translates it a green table: the sense is the same; for the table was painted of the sea-colour, which the shipwrecked person carried on his back, expressing his losses, thereby to excite the charity of the spectators.

Or without spices lets thy body burn.—P.270.

The bodies of the rich, before they were burnt, were embalmed with spices; or rather spices were put into the urn with the relics of the ashes. Our author here names cinnamum and cassia, which cassia was sophisticated with cherry-gum, and probably enough by the Jews, who adulterate all things which they sell. But whether the ancients were acquainted with the spices of the Molucca Islands, Ceylon, and other parts of the Indies, or whether their pepper and cinnamon, &c. were the same with ours, is another question. As for nutmegs and mace, it is plain that the Latin names for them are modern.

Cæsar salutes the queen and senate thus:—My arms are on the Rhine victorious.—P.271.

The Cæsar, here mentioned, is Caius Caligula, who affected to triumph over the Germans, whom he never conquered, as he did over the Britons; and accordingly sent letters, wrapt about with laurels, to the senate and the Empress Cæsonia, whom I here call queen; though I know that name was not used amongst the Romans; but the word empress would not stand in that verse, for which reason I adjourned it to another. The dust, which was to be swept away from the altars, was either the ashes which were left there after the last sacrifice for victory, or might perhaps mean the dust or ashes which were left on the altars since some former defeat of the Romans by the Germans; after which overthrow, the altars had been neglected.

The goodly empress.—P.271.

Cæsonia, wife to Caius Caligula, who afterwards, in the reign of Claudius, was proposed, but ineffectually, to be married to him, after he had executed Messalina for adultery.

The captive Germans, of gigantic size,Are ranked in order, and are clad in frize.—P.271.

He means only such as were to pass for Germans in the triumph, large-bodied men, as they are still, whom the empress clothed new with coarse garments, for the greater ostentation of the victory.

Know, I have vowed two hundred gladiators.—P.271.

A hundred pair of gladiators were beyond the purse of a private man to give; therefore this is only a threatening to his heir, that he could do what he pleased with his estate.

----Shouldst thou demand of meMy torch, when I in course run after thee.—P.272.

Why shouldst thou, who art an old fellow, hope to outlive me, and be my heir, who am much younger? He who was first in the course or race, delivered the torch, which he carried, to him who was second.

Well fed, and fat as Cappadocian slaves.—P.273.

Who were famous for their lustiness, and being, as we call it, in good liking. They were set on a stall when they were exposed to sale, to show the good habit of their body; and made to play tricks before the buyers, to show their activity and strength.

Then say, Chrysippus.—P.273.

Chrysippus, the Stoic, invented a kind of argument, consisting of more than three propositions, which is calledsorites, or a heap. But as Chrysippus could never bring his propositions to a certain stint, so neither can a covetous man bring his craving desires to any certain measure of riches, beyond which he could not wish for any more.

WORKS OF VIRGIL.

This great work was undertaken by Dryden, in 1694, and published, by subscription, in 1697. One hundred and one subscribers gave five guineas each to furnish the engravings for the work; if indeed this was any thing more than a genteel pretext for increasing the profit of the author; for Spence has informed us, that the old plates used for Ogleby's "Virgil," were retouched for that of his great successor. Another class of subscribers, two hundred and fifty-two in number, contributed two guineas each. As the names of those who encouraged this great national labour have some claim to distinction, the reader will find, prefixed to this edition, an accurate copy of both lists, as they stand in the first folio edition. On 28th June, 1697, the following advertisement appeared in the London Gazette:

"The Works of Virgil; containing his Pastorals, Georgics, and Eneis, translated into English verse, by Mr Dryden, and adorned with one hundred cuts, will be finished this week, and be ready next week to be delivered, as subscribed for, in quires, upon bringing the receipt for the first payment, and paying the second. Printed for Jacob Tonson, &c."

In 1709, Tonson published a second edition of Dryden's "Virgil," with the plates reduced, in three volumes, 8vo; and various others have since appeared. In 1803, a new edition was given to the public, revised and corrected by Henry Carey, LL.D. This is so correct, that, although it has been uniformly compared with the original edition of Tonson, I have thought it advisable to follow the modern editor in some corrections of the punctuation and reading. In other cases, where I have adhered to the folio, I have placed Dr Carey's alteration at the bottom of the page. It is hardly worth while to notice, that there is a slight alteration of the arrangement of Dryden's prolegomena; the Dedication to the "Pastorals" being placed immediately before that class of poems, instead of preceding the Life, as in the original folio. Dryden's Notes and Observations, which, in the original, are printed together at the end of the work, are, in this edition, dispersed and subjoined to the different Books containing the passages to which they refer.

EACH SUBSCRIPTION BEING FIVE GUINEAS.

PASTORALS.

GEORGIC I.

GEORGIC II.

GEORGIC III.

GEORGIC IV.

ÆNEID I.

ÆNEID II.

ÆNEID III.

ÆNEID IV.

ÆNEID V.

ÆNEID VI.

ÆNEID VII.

ÆNEID VIII.

ÆNEID IX.

ÆNEID X.

ÆNEID XI.

ÆNEID XII.

Whene'er great Virgil's lofty verse I see,The pompous scene charms my admiring eye.There different beauties in perfection meet;The thoughts as proper, as the numbers sweet;And, when wild Fancy mounts a daring height,Judgment steps in, and moderates her flight.Wisely he manages his wealthy store,Still says enough, and yet implies still more:For, though the weighty sense be closely wrought,The reader's left to improve the pleasing thought.Hence we despaired to see an English dressShould e'er his nervous energy express;For who could that in fettered rhyme inclose,Which, without loss, can scarce be told in prose?But you, great Sir, his manly genius raise,And make your copy share an equal praise.Oh! how I see thee, in soft scenes of love,Renew those passions he alone could move!Here Cupid's charms are with new art exprest,And pale Eliza leaves her peaceful rest—Leaves her Elysium, as if glad to live,}To love, and wish, to sigh, despair, and grieve,}And die again for him that would again deceive.}Nor does the mighty Trojan less appearThan Mars himself, amidst the storms of war.Now his fierce eyes with double fury glow,And a new dread attends the impending blow:The Daunian chiefs their eager rage abate,And, though unwounded, seem to feel their fate.Long the rude fury of an ignorant age,With barbarous spite, profaned his sacred page.The heavy Dutchmen, with laborious toil,Wrested his sense, and cramped his vigorous style.No time, no pains, the drudging pedants spare,But still his shoulders must the burden bear;While, through the mazes of their comments led,We learn, not what he writes, but what they read.Yet, through these shades of undistinguished night,Appeared some glimmering intervals of light;Till mangled by a vile translating sect,Like babes by witchesin effigierackt:Till Ogleby, mature in dulness, rose,And Holbourn doggrel, and low chiming prose,His strength and beauty did at once depose.But now the magic spell is at an end,Since even the dead, in you, have found a friend.You free the bard from rude oppressors' power,And grace his verse with charms unknown before.He, doubly thus obliged, must doubting stand,Which chiefly should his gratitude command—Whether should claim the tribute of his heart,The patron's bounty, or the poet's art.Alike with wonder and delight we viewedThe Roman genius in thy verse renewed:We saw thee raise soft Ovid's amorous fire,And fit the tuneful Horace to thy lyre:We saw new gall embitter Juvenal's pen,And crabbed Persius made politely plain.Virgil alone was thought too great a task—What you could scarce perform, or we durst ask;A task, which Waller's Muse could ne'er engage;A task, too hard for Denham's stronger rage.Sure of success, they some slight sallies tried;But the fenced coast their bold attempts defied:With fear, their o'ermatched forces back they drew,Quitting the province Fate reserved for you.In vain thus Philip did the Persians storm;A work his son was destined to perform.O! had Roscommon[269]lived to hail the day,And sing loud Pæans through the crowded way,When you in Roman majesty appear,Which none know better, and none come so near;The happy author would with wonder see,His rules were only prophecies of thee:And, were he now to give translators light,He'd bid them only read thy work, and write.For this great task, our loud applause is due;We own old favours, but must press for new:Th' expecting world demands one labour more;And thy loved Homer does thy aid implore,To right his injured works, and set them freeFrom the lewd rhymes of grovelling Ogleby.Then shall his verse in graceful pomp appear,Nor will his birth renew the ancient jar:On those Greek cities we shall look with scorn,And in our Britain think the poet born.

We read, how dreams and visions heretoforeThe prophet and the poet could inspire,And make them in unusual rapture soar,With rage divine, and with poetic fire.

II.

O could I find it now!—Would Virgil's shadeBut for a while vouchsafe to bear the light,To grace my numbers, and that Muse to aid,Who sings the poet that has done him right.

III.

It long has been this sacred author's fate,To lie at every dull translator's will:Long, long his Muse has groaned beneath the weightOf mangling Ogleby's presumptuous quill.

IV.

Dryden, at last, in his defence arose:The father now is righted by the son;And, while his Muse endeavours to discloseThat poet's beauties, she declares her own.

In your smooth pompous numbers drest, each line,Each thought, betrays such a majestic touch,He could not, had he finished his design,Have wished it better, or have done so much.

VI.

You, like his hero, though yourself were free,And disentangled from the war of wit—You, who secure might others' danger see,And safe from all malicious censure sit—

VII.

Yet, because sacred Virgil's noble Muse,O'erlaid by fools, was ready to expire,To risk your fame again, you boldly chuse,Or to redeem, or perish with your sire.

VIII.

Even first and last, we owe him half to you:For, that his Æneids missed their threatened fate,Was—that his friends by some prediction knew,Hereafter, who, correcting, should translate.

IX.

But hold, my Muse! thy needless flight restrain,Unless, like him, thou could'st a verse indite:To think his fancy to describe, is vain,Since nothing can discover light, but light.

'Tis want of genius that does more deny;'Tis fear my praise should make your glory less;And, therefore, like the modest painter, IMust draw the veil, where I cannot express.

Henry Grahme.

No undisputed monarch governed yet,With universal sway, the realms of wit:Nature could never such expence afford;Each several province owned a several lord.A poet then had his poetic wife,One Muse embraced, and married for his life.By the stale thing his appetite was cloyed,His fancy lessened, and his fire destroyed.But Nature, grown extravagantly kind,With all her treasures did adorn your mind;The different powers were then united found,And you wit's universal monarch crowned.Your mighty sway your great desert secures;And every Muse and every Grace is yours.To none confined, by turns you all enjoy:Sated with this, you to another fly,So, sultan-like, in your seraglio stand,While wishing Muses wait for your command;Thus no decay, no want of vigour, find:Sublime your fancy, boundless is your mind.Not all the blasts of Time can do you wrong—Young, spite of age—in spite of weakness, strong.Time, like Alcides, strikes you to the ground;You, like Antæus, from each fall rebound.

H. St. John.

'Tis said, that Phidias gave such living graceTo the carved image of a beauteous face,That the cold marble might even seem to beThe life—and the true life, the imagery.You pass that artist, Sir, and all his powers,Making the best of Roman poets ours,With such effect, we know not which to callThe imitation, which the original.What Virgil lent, you pay in equal weight;The charming beauty of the coin no less;And such the majesty of your impress,You seem the very author you translate.'Tis certain, were he now alive with us,And did revolving destiny constrainTo dress his thoughts in English o'er again,Himself could write no otherwise than thus.His old encomium never did appearSo true as now: "Romans and Greeks, submit!Something of late is in our language writ,More nobly great than the famed Iliads were."

'Tis said, that Phidias gave such living graceTo the carved image of a beauteous face,That the cold marble might even seem to beThe life—and the true life, the imagery.

You pass that artist, Sir, and all his powers,Making the best of Roman poets ours,With such effect, we know not which to callThe imitation, which the original.

What Virgil lent, you pay in equal weight;The charming beauty of the coin no less;And such the majesty of your impress,You seem the very author you translate.

'Tis certain, were he now alive with us,And did revolving destiny constrainTo dress his thoughts in English o'er again,Himself could write no otherwise than thus.

His old encomium never did appearSo true as now: "Romans and Greeks, submit!Something of late is in our language writ,More nobly great than the famed Iliads were."

Ja. Wright.

As flowers, transplanted from a southern sky,But hardly bear, or in the raising die,Missing their native sun,—at best retainBut a faint odour, and but live with pain;So Roman poetry, by moderns taught,}Wanting the warmth with which its author wrote,}Is a dead image, and a worthless draught.}While we transfuse, the nimble spirit flies,Escapes unseen, evaporates, and dies.Who then attempts to shew the ancients' wit,Must copy with the genius that they writ:Whence we conclude from thy translated song,So just, so warm, so smooth, and yet so strong,Thou heavenly charmer! soul of harmony!That all their geniuses revived in thee.Thy trumpet sounds: the dead are raised to light;New-born they rise, and take to heaven their flight;Deck'd in thy verse, as clad with rays, they shine,All glorified, immortal, and divine.As Britain, in rich soil abounding wide,Furnished for use, for luxury, and pride,Yet spreads her wanton sails on every shore,For foreign wealth, insatiate still of more;To her own wool, the silks of Asia joins,And to her plenteous harvests, Indian mines;So Dryden, not contented with the fameOf his own works, though an immortal name——To lands remote he sends his learned Muse,The noblest seeds of foreign wit to chuse.Feasting our sense so many various ways,Say, is't thy bounty, or thy thirst of praise,That, by comparing others, all might see,Who most excelled, are yet excelled by thee?

George Granville.

FOOTNOTES:[269]Essay of Translated Verse, p. 26.

[269]Essay of Translated Verse, p. 26.

BY KNIGHTLY CHETWOOD, D.D.[270]

Virgil was born at Mantua, which city was built no less than three hundred years before Rome, and was the capital of the New Hetruria, as himself, no less antiquary than poet, assures us. His birth is said to have happened in the first consulship of Pompey the Great, and Licinius Crassus: but, since the relater of this presently after contradicts himself, and Virgil's manner of addressing to Octavius implies a greater difference of age than that of seven years, as appears by his First Pastoral, and other places, it is reasonable to set the date of it something backward; and the writer of his Life having no certain memorials to work upon, seems to have pitched upon the two most illustrious consuls he could find about that time, to signalize the birth of so eminent a man. But it is beyond all question, that he was born on or near the 15th of October, which day was kept festival in honour of his memory by the Latin, as the birth-day of Homer wasby the Greek poets. And so near a resemblance there is betwixt the lives of these two famous epic writers, that Virgil seems to have followed the fortune of the other, as well as the subject and manner of his writing. For Homer is said to have been of very mean parents, such as got their bread by day-labour; so is Virgil. Homer is said to be base-born; so is Virgil. The former to have been born in the open air, in a ditch, or by the bank of a river; so is the latter. There was a poplar planted near the place of Virgil's birth, which suddenly grew up to an unusual height and bulk, and to which the superstitious neighbourhood attributed marvellous virtue: Homer had his poplar too, as Herodotus relates, which was visited with great veneration. Homer is described by one of the ancients to have been of a slovenly and neglected mien and habit; so was Virgil. Both were of a very delicate and sickly constitution; both addicted to travel, and the study of astrology; both had their compositions usurped by others; both envied and traduced during their lives. We know not so much as the true names of either of them with any exactness; for the critics are not yet agreed how the wordVirgilshould be written, and of Homer's name there is no certainty at all. Whosoever shall consider this parallel in so many particulars, (and more might be added,) would be inclined to think, that either the same stars ruled strongly at the nativities of them both; or, what is a great deal more probable, that the Latin grammarians, wanting materials for the former part of Virgil's life, after the legendary fashion, supplied it out of Herodotus; and, like ill face-painters, not being able to hit the true features, endeavoured to make amends by a great deal of impertinent landscape and drapery.

Without troubling the reader with needless quotations now, or afterwards, the most probable opinion is, that Virgil was the son of a servant, or assistant, to a wandering astrologer, who practised physic: formedicus,magus, as Juvenal observes, usually went together; and this course of life was followed by a great many Greeks and Syrians, of one of which nations it seems not improbable that Virgil's father was. Nor could a man of that profession have chosen a fitter place to settle in, than that most superstitious tract of Italy, which, by her ridiculous rites and ceremonies, as much enslaved the Romans, as the Romans did the Hetrurians by their arms. This man, therefore, having got together some money, which stock he improved by his skill in planting and husbandry, had the good fortune, at last, to marry his master's daughter, by whom he had Virgil: and this woman seems, by her mother's side, to have been of good extraction; for she was nearly related to Quintilius Varus, whom Paterculus assures us to have been of an illustrious, though not patrician, family; and there is honourable mention made of it in the history of the second Carthaginian war. It is certain, that they gave him very good education; to which they were inclined, not so much by the dreams of his mother, and those presages which Donatus relates, as by the early indications which he gave of a sweet disposition and excellent wit. He passed the first seven years of his life at Mantua, not seventeen, as Scaliger miscorrects his author; for theinitia ætatiscan hardly be supposed to extend so far. From thence he removed to Cremona, a noble Roman colony, and afterwards to Milan; in all which places, he prosecuted his studies with great application. He read over all the best Latin and Greek authors; for which he had convenience by the no remote distance of Marseilles, that famous Greek colony, which maintained its politeness and purity of language in the midst of all those barbarous nations amongst which it was seated; and some tincture of the latter seems to have descended from them down to the modern French. He frequented the most eminent professors of the Epicurean philosophy, which was then much in vogue, and will be always, in declining and sickly states.[271]But, finding no satisfactory account from his master Syron, he passed over to the Academic school; to which he adhered the rest of his life, and deserved, from a great emperor, the title of—The Plato of Poets. He composed at leisure hours a great number of verses on various subjects; and, desirous rather of a great than early fame, he permitted his kinsman and fellow-student, Varus, to derive the honour of one of his tragedies to himself. Glory, neglected in proper time and place, returns often with large increase: and so he found it; for Varus afterwards proved a great instrument of his rise. In short, it was here that he formed the plan, and collected the materials, of all those excellent pieces which he afterwards finished, or was forced to leave less perfect by his death. But, whether it were the unwholesomeness of his native air, of which he somewhere complains; or his too great abstinence, and night-watchings at his study, to which he was always addicted, as Augustus observes; or possibly the hopes of improving himself by travel—he resolved to remove to the more southern tract of Italy; and it was hardly possible for him not to take Rome in his way, as is evident to any one who shall castan eye on the map of Italy. And therefore the late French editor of his works is mistaken, when he asserts, that he never saw Rome till he came to petition for his estate. He gained the acquaintance of the master of the horse to Octavius, and cured a great many diseases of horses, by methods they had never heard of. It fell out, at the same time, that a very fine colt, which promised great strength and speed, was presented to Octavius; Virgil assured them, that he came of a faulty mare, and would prove a jade: Upon trial, it was found as he had said. His judgment proved right in several other instances; which was the more surprising, because the Romans knew least of natural causes of any civilized nation in the world; and those meteors and prodigies, which cost them incredible sums to expiate, might easily have been accounted for by no very profound naturalist. It is no wonder, therefore, that Virgil was in so great reputation, as to be at last introduced to Octavius himself. That prince was then at variance with Marc Antony, who vexed him with a great many libelling letters, in which he reproaches him with the baseness of his parentage, that he came of a scrivener, a rope-maker, and a baker, as Suetonius tells us. Octavius finding that Virgil had passed so exact a judgment upon the breed of dogs and horses, thought that he possibly might be able to give him some light concerning his own. He took him into his closet, where they continued in private a considerable time. Virgil was a great mathematician; which, in the sense of those times, took in astrology; and, if there be any thing in that art, (which I can hardly believe,) if that be true which the ingenious De la Chambre asserts confidently, that, from the marks on the body, the configuration of the planets at a nativity may be gathered, and the marks mightbe told by knowing the nativity, never had one of those artists a fairer opportunity to show his skill than Virgil now had; for Octavius had moles upon his body, exactly resembling the constellation calledUrsa Major. But Virgil had other helps; the predictions of Cicero and Catulus,[272]and that vote of the senate had gone abroad, that no child, born at Rome in the year of his nativity, should be bred up, because the seers assured them that an emperor was born that year. Besides this, Virgil had heard of the Assyrian and Egyptian prophecies, (which, in truth, were no other but the Jewish,) that about that time a great king was to come into the world. Himself takes notice of them, (Æn. VI.) where he uses a very significant word, now in all liturgies,hujus in adventu; so in another place,adventu propioreDei.

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