says too little, nor too much.” * up the verses he left imperfect. the beginning of the First Book. Nor could any one ever fill There is one supplied near Virgil left the verse thus, Hic illius arma, Hic currus fuit the rest is none of his. He was so good a geographer that he has not only left us the finest description of Italy that ever was, but, besides, was one of the few ancients who knew the true system of the earth, its being inhabited round about, under the torrid zone, and near the poles. Metrodorus, in his five books of the Zones," justifies him from some exceptions made against him by astronomers. His rhetoric was in such general esteem, that lectures were read upon it in the reign of Tiberius, and the subject of declamations taken out of him. Pollio himself, and many other ancients, commented him. His esteem degenerated into a kind of superstition. The known story of Mr. Cowley is an instance of it.† But the sortes Virgiliana were condemned by St. Austin and other casuists. Abienus, by an odd design, put all Virgil and Livy into iambic verse; and the pictures of those two were hung in the most honourable place of public libraries; and the design of taking them down, and destroying Virgil's works, was looked upon as one of the most extravagant amongst the many brutish frenzies of Caligula. "Essay on Poetry," by Sheffield, Marquis of Normanby, originally Earl of Mulgrave, and afterwards Duke of Buckingham. + The Sortes Virgiliana were a sort of augury, drawn by dipping at random into the volume, and applying the line to which chance directed the finger, as an answer to the doubt propounded. Cowley seems to have been a firm believer in this kind of soothsaying. When at Paris, and secretary to Lord Jermyn, he writes to Bennet his opinion concerning the probability of concluding a treaty with the Scottish nation; and adds, “And, to tell you the truth, which I take to be an argument above all the rest, Virgil has told the same thing to that purpose.' There is a story that Charles I. and Lord Falkland tried this sort of divination at Oxford concerning the issue of the civil war, and that the former lighted upon this ominous response: Jacet ingens littore truncus, Avulsumque humeris caput, et sine nomine corpus. Lord Falkland drew an answer equally prophetic of his fate. These follies seem to have been founded upon the vulgar idea, still current at Naples, that Virgil was a magician. Gervase of Tilbury was an early propagator of this scandal, which was current during the Middle Ages, so that Naudæus thinks it necessary to apologise for Virgil, among other great men accused of necromancy. These legends formed the contents of a popular romance. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE HUGH, LORD CLIFFORD, BARON OF CHUDLEIGH.* MY LORD, I HAVE found it not more difficult to translate Virgil, than to find such patrons as I desire for my translation. For, though England is not wanting in a learned nobility, yet such are my unhappy circumstances, that they have confined me to a narrow choice. To the greater part I * This was the son of Lord Treasurer Clifford, a member of the Cabal administration, to whom our author dedicated Amboyna (see vol. v. p. 4). Hugh, Lord Clifford, died in 1730. † Dryden alludes to his religion and politics. I presume, Hugh, Lord Clifford, was a Catholic, like his father, and entertained the hereditary attachment to the line of Stuart; thus falling within the narrow choice to which Dryden was limited. have not the honour to be known; and to some of them I cannot show at present, by any public act, that grateful respect which I shall ever bear them in my heart. Yet I have no reason to complain of fortune, since, in the midst of that abundance, I could not possibly have chosen better than the worthy son of so illustrious a father. He was the patron of my manhood, when I flourished in the opinion of the world; though with small advantage to my fortune, till he awakened the remembrance of my royal master. He was that Pollio, or that Varus,* who introduced me to Augustus: and, though he soon dismissed himself from State affairs, yet, in the short time of his administration, he shone so powerfully upon me, that, like the heat of a Russian summer, he ripened the fruits of poetry in a cold climate, and gave me wherewithal to subsist, at least, in the long winter which succeeded. What I now offer to your Lordship is the wretched remainder of a sickly age, worn out with study, and oppressed by fortune; without other support than the constancy and patience of a Christian. You, my Lord, are yet in the flower of your youth, and may live to enjoy the benefits of the peace which is promised Europe: I can only hear of that blessing; for years, and, above all things, want of health, have shut me out from sharing in the happiness. The poets, who condemn their Tantalus to hell, had added to his torments if they had placed him in Elysium, which is the proper emblem of my condition. The fruit and the water may reach my lips, but cannot enter; and, if they could, * The well-known patrons of Virgil. It is disputed which had the honour to present him to the Emperor. |