PREFACE

CONCERNING

OVID'S EPISTLES.

THE life of Ovid being already written in our language before the translation of his Metamorphofes, I will not presume fo far upon myself, to think I can add any thing to Mr. Sandys his undertaking. The English reader may there be fatisfied, that he flourifhed in the reign of Auguftus Cæfar; that he was extracted from an ancient family of Roman Knights; that he was born to the inheritance of a fplendid fortune; that he was defigned to the study of the law, and had made confiderable progrefs in it, before he quitted that profeffion, for this of Poetry, to which he was more naturally formed. The caufe of his banishment is unknown; because he was himself unwilling further to provoke the emperor, by afcribing it to any other reason, than what was pretended by Auguftus, which was, the lafcivioufnefs of his Elegies, and his Art of Love. It is true, they are not to be excused in the severity of manners, as being able to corrupt a larger empire, if there were any, than

that of Rome: yet this may be faid in behalf of Ovid, that no man has ever treated the paffion of love with fo much delicacy of thought, and of expreffion, or fearched into the nature of it more philofophically than he. And the emperor, who condemned him, had as little reafon as another man to punish that fault with fo much severity, if at least he were the author of a certain Epigram, which is afcribed to him, relating to the cause of the first civil war betwixt himself and Mark Antony the triumvir, which is more fulfome than any paffage I have met with in our Poct. To pafs by the naked familiarity of his expreffions to Horace, which are cited in that author's life, I need only mention one notorious act of his, in taking Livia to his bed, when she was not only married, but with child by her husband then living. But deeds, it feems, may be juftified by arbitrary power, when words are queftioned in a Poet. There is another guefs of the grammarians, as far from truth as the firft from reafon: they will have him banished for fome favours, which, they fay, he received from Julia, the daughter of Auguftus, whom they think he celebrates under the name of Corinna in his Elegies: but he, who will obferve the verfes, which are made to that mistress, may gather from the whole contexture of them, that Corinna was not a woman of the highest quality. If Julia were then married to Agrippa, why fhould our Poet make his petition to Ifis, for her fafe delivery, and afterwards condole her mifcarriage; which, for ought he knew, might be by her own hufband? Or, indeed,

how durft he be fo bold to make the leaft difcovery of fuch a crime, which was no lefs than capital, efpecially committed against a person of Agrippa's rank. Or, if it were before her marriage, he would fure have been more difcreet, than to have published an accident which must have been fatal to them both. But what moft confirms me against this opinion is, that Ovid himself complains, that the true perfon of Corinna was found out by the fame of his verses to her which if it had been Julia, he durft not have owned; and, befides, an immediate punishment must have followed. He feems himself more truly to have touched at the caufe of his exile in those obfcure verfes;

Cur aliquid vidi, cur noxia lumina feci? &c.

Namely, that he had either feen, or was confcious to fomewhat, which had procured him his difgrace. But neither am I fatisfied, that this was the incest of the emperor with his own daughter: for Auguftus was of a nature too vindicative, to have contented himself with fo fmall a revenge, or fo unfafe to himfelf, as that of fimple banishment; but would certainly have secured his crimes from public notice, by the death of him who was witness to them. Neither have hiftorians given us any fight into fuch an action of this emperor: nor would he (the greatest politician of his time) in all probability, have managed his crimes with fo little fecrecy, as not to fhun the obfervation of any man. It seems more probable, that Ovid was either the confident of fome other paffion,

or that he had stumbled by fome inadvertency upon the privacies of Livia, and feen her in a bath: for the words

Sine vefte Dianam

agree better with Livia, who had the fame of chastity, than with either of the Julia's, who were both noted of incontinency. The first verses, which were made by him in his youth, and recited publicly, according to the custom, were, as he himself affures us, to Corinna: his banishment happened not till the age of fifty from which it may be deduced, with probability enough, that the love of Corinna did not occafion it; nay, he tells us plainly, that his offence was that of error only, not of wickedness; and in the fame paper of verses also, that the cause was notoriously known at Rome, though it be left so obscure to afterages.

But to leave conjectures on a fubject fo uncertain, and to write fomewhat more authentic of this Poet: that he frequented the court of Auguftus, and was well received in it, is most undoubted: all his Poems bear the character of a court, and appear to be written, as the French call it, Cavalierement: add to this, that the titles of many of his Elegies, and more of his letters in his banishment, are addreffed to perfons well known to us, even at this distance, to have been confiderable in that court.

Nor was his acquaintance lefs with the famous Poets of his age, than with the noblemen and ladies, He tells you himself, in a particular account of his