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PREFACE.

CONCERNING

O VID'S EPISTLES.

T

HE life of Ovid being already written in our language before the tranflation of his Metamorphofes, I will not prefume fo far upon myself, to think I can add any thing to Mr. Sandys his undertaking. The Englifh reader may there be fatisfied, that he flourished 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 ftudy 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 cause 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 feverity 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 searched 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 so 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 Marc Antony the triumvir, which is more fulfome than any paffage I have met with in our Poet. 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 questioned in a Poet. There is another guess of the grammarians, as far from truth as the firft from reafon : they will have him banished for fome favours, which, they say, 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 verses, 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 should our Poet make his petition to Ifis, for her fafe delivery, and afterwards condole her mifçarriage; 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 less than capital, especially 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 most confirms me against this opinion, is, that Ovid himself complains, that the true perfon of Carinna 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 thofe obfcure verses;

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 inceft of the emperor with his own daughter: for Auguftus was of a nature too vindicative, to have contented himfelt with fo fmall a revenge, or fo unfafe to himself, 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 so little fecrecy, as not to fhun the obfervation of any man. It feems more probable, that Ovid was either the confident of fome other paffion, or that he had ftumbled 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 chaftity, 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 re- . cited 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 wickednefs; and in the fame paper of verses alfo, that the cause was notoriously known at Rome, though it be left fo obfcure to afterages.

But to leave conjectures on a subject fo uncertain, and to write somewhat more authentic of this Poet: that he frequented the court of Auguftus, and was well received in it, is moft undoubted: all his Poems bear the character of a court, and appear to be witten, 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 noble men and ladies. He tells you himself, in a particular account of his own life, that Macer, Horace, Tibullus, Propertius, and many others of them, were his familiar friends, and that fome of them communicated their writings to him; but that he had only feen Virgil.

If the imitation of nature be the bufinefs of a Poet, I know no author, who can juftly be compared with ours, especially in the description of the paffions. And, to prove this, Ifhall need no other judges than the generality of his readers: for all paffions being inborn with us, we are almoft equally judges, when we are concerned in the reprefentation of them. Now I will appeal to any man, who has read this Poet, whether he finds not the natural emotion of the fame paffion in himself, which the Poet describes in his feigned perfons? His thoughts, which are the pictures and refults of thofe paffions, are generally fuch as naturally arise from thofe diforderly motions of our fpirits. Yet, not to fpeak too partially in his behalf, I will confefs, that the copiousness of his wit was fuch, that he often writ too pointedly for his fubject, and made his perfons fpeak more eloquently than the violence of their paffion would admit: fo that he is frequently witty out of feafon; leaving the imitation of nature, and the cooler dictates of his judgment, for the falfe applaufe of

fancy. Yet he feems to have found out this imperfection in his riper age for why elfe fhould he complain, that his Metamorphofes was left unfinished? Nothing fure can be added to the wit of that Poem, or of the reft: but many things ought to have been retrenched; which, I fuppofe would have been the business of his age, if his misfortunes had not come too faft upon him. But take him uncorrected, as he is tranfmitted to us, and it must be acknowledged, in fpite of his Dutch friends, the commentators, even of Julius Scaliger himself, that Seneca's cenfure will stand good against him;

Nefcivit quod bene ceffit relinquere ;

he never knew how to give over, when he had done well, but continually varying the fame fenfe an hundred ways, and taking up in another place, what he had more than enough inculcated before, he fometimes cloys his readers inftead of fatisfying them; and gives occafion to his tranflators, who dare not cover him, to blush at the nakedness of their father. This then is the allay of Ovid's writings, which is fufficiently recompenfed by his other excellencies: nay, this very fault is not without its beauties; for the most severe cenfor cannot but be pleased with the prodigality of his wit, though at the fame time he could have wifhed that the mafter of it had been a better manager. Every thing, which he does, becomes him; and, if fometimes he appears too gay, yet there is a fecret gracefulness of youth, which accompanies his writings, though the staidnefs and fobriety of age be wanting. In the most material part, which is the conduct, it is certain that he feldom has mifcarried: for if his Elegies be compared with thofe of Tibullus and Propertius, his cotemporaries, it will be found, that thofe poets feldom defigned before they writ and though the language of Tibullus be more polifhed, and the learning of Propertius, especially in his fourth book, more fet out to oftentation; yet their common practice was to look no further before them than the next line; whence it will inevitably follow, that they can drive to no certain point, but ramble from one fubject to another, and conclude with fomewhat, which is not of a piece with their beginning:

Pupureus latè qui splendeat unus & alter
Affuitur pannus,

as Horace fays though the verfes are golden, they are but patched into the garment. But our Poet has always the goal in

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