xiv LIFE AND WRITINGS OF VIRGIL. agriculture, science, and letters. The Sicilian Greek, Theocritus, was at this time his favorite author, and it was from him that the general plan, though not the individual character, of the Bucolics was derived. The minor poems, such as the Culex, Ciris, &c., which have been appended to the works of Virgil, and which are sometimes reckoned among his earlier productions, are ascribed to him on very insufficient grounds. The Eclogues were commenced about B. c. 42, at the request of C. Asinius Pollio, who was then acting as the lieutenant of Antony in Gaul. Pollio was himself distinguished as a poet, and not less as a scholar, orator, and historian. Under his patronage the Eclogues numbered in the present arrangement 2, 3, and 5, had already been written, when the literary labors and the peaceful life of the poet were suddenly interrupted. The veteran legions of Octavian, on returning from Philippi, and demanding the allotments of land which had been promised them as a reward for their services in the civil war, were authorized to take possession of eighteen Italian cities, with the district of country pertaining to each. The cities thus treated were those which had espoused the side of Brutus; for this the unhappy occupants of the adjacent country were forced to give up their hereditary estates to the rapacious soldiery. As the lands of Cremona, which was one of the condemned cities, were not sufficient to satisfy the legionaries to whom they had been assigned, they took violent possession also of a part of the country belonging to the neighboring city of Mantua. Virgil, whose farm was in this district, and was thus endangered, had recourse at first to Pollio, and for a time was secure under his protection. But when that commander, in B. c. 41, marched with his troops to the aid of L. Antonius in the Perusian war, Virgil was compelled to seek relief from Octavian in person, and for this purpose visited Rome. It was the kind reception given him by the emperor on this occasion which inspired the grateful and glowing eulogy contained in the first Eclogue. After the close of the Perusian war the Mantuan country was again disturbed by the demands of the veterans, and our poet in vain, though at the risk of his life, attempted to maintain his rights against the centurion Arrius. Fleeing again for succor to Octavian, he was reinstated, though not without long and anxious delay, in the possession of his farm. During this period of delay and depressing uncertainty, he wrote the ninth Eclogue, in which he bewails his unhappy lot. But on obtaining at length the object of his petition, his joy and grati tude found utterance in the beautiful hymn called the fourth Eclogue, in which he hails the auspicious times just dawning on the world, and initiated by the consulship of his friend and patron Pollio. The sixth Eclogue was composed in the following year, B. c. 39, in fulfilment of a promise made to Varus. The eighth was written in the autumn of the same year in honor of Pollio, who had gained a brilliant victory over the Parthini, a people of Dalmatia. The two remaining Eclogues, the seventh and tenth, were probably composed in the two following years. The Eclogues established the reputation of the poet, and gained him at once ardent friends and admirers among the most powerful and the most cultivated of the Romans. Among these, besides his early and fast friend, Pollio, were Octavian, Maecenas, Varius, Horace, and Propertius. These and all other educated Romans of the day regarded Virgil as already superior in many respects to any poet who had yet appeared. It was most of all in the exquisite finish and harmony of his hexameters that he excelled all who had preceded him. The hexameter verse had been first introduced into the Latin language, at the close of the second Punic war, by the soldier and poet Ennius. But though distinguished by originality, strength, and vigor, the poetry of Ennius was harsh and rugged to a degree which rendered it to the more cultivated tastes of later generations almost intolerable. Nor by the poets who succeeded Ennius had any such improvement been made in the composition of Latin verse, as to admit of any comparison between them and their Grecian models. It was reserved for two great poets of Rome, two congenial spirits, xvi LIFE AND WRITINGS OF VIRGIL. filled with the most lively admiration of each other, laboring side by side, both striving earnestly for the same object,—it was reserved for Virgil and Horace to elevate the national poetry to a character worthy of Rome, to develop all the resources of their noble language, and to make it flow both in heroic and lyric verse with all the grace and dignity which had hitherto been characteristic of the Greek alone. After the publication of the Eclogues, Virgil appears to have passed the remainder of his life chiefly at Naples. His feeble health was probably the occasion of this. It was here that he composed the Georgics, a didactic poem in four books, in which he endeavors to recall the Italians to their primitive, but long neglected pursuit of agriculture. In point of versification this is the most finished of the works of our poet, and, indeed, as Addison remarks, it may be regarded as in this respect the most perfect of all poems. In the first book he treats of the management of fields, in the second of trees, in the third of horses and cattle, and in the fourth of bees. He has gathered into this poem all the experience of the ancient Italians on these subjects, and he has contrived to make them attractive by associating them with wonderful beauty of diction and imagery, and with charming variety of illustration. Having devoted seven years, from B. c. 37 to B. c. 30, to the writing of this work, and conscious that his poetic labors must be ended by an early death, he now entered upon the long cherished plan of composing an Epic in the Homeric style, which should at once commemorate the glory of Rome and of Octavian, and win back the Romans, if possible, to the religious virtues of their progenitors. He chose for his theme the fortunes of Aeneas, the fabled founder of the Julian family; and, hence, called his epic the Aeneid, which he divided into twelve books. He had already been employed eleven years upon this great work, and had not yet put to it the finishing hand, when he was overtaken by his last sickness. Having made a voyage to Greece, with the intention of visiting Attica and Asia, on arriving at Athens he met Octavian, who happened to be at that time returning from Asia Minor to Italy. Virgil was easily persuaded by his friend and patron to return with him immediately to Rome, which, however, he was not destined again to see. His malady had continually increased during the voyage, and a few days after landing at Brundusium he expired. His death occurred in B. c. 19. His remains were conveyed from Brundusium to Naples, and buried on the hill of Posilippo, in the tomb still preserved and revered as the "tomb of Virgil." It is said that Virgil, a short time before his death, desired to burn up his Aeneid, in consequence of the imperfect state in which it would necessarily be left. But being dissuaded from this purpose by his friends, Tucca and Varius, he directed them in his will to strike out all the verses which were incomplete, but to add nothing. It does not appear, however, that any thing was erased by them, unless we admit the account of some of the grammarians, who alleged that Tucca and Varius rejected the four verses, Ille ego, etc., commonly placed at the beginning, and the passage 567-588 in the second book. The Aeneid, though thus left unfinished, and though liable to the charge of close imitation of Homer in many passages, and of borrowing not a little from earlier Roman poets, has nevertheless always been, and always will be considered one of the noblest poems of antiquity. Virgil found some difficulty in making the calm excellences of goodness and piety, with which he wished to characterize his most prominent personage, appear heroic and striking; and, like Milton, he has from the necessity of the case suffered the fury and unbridled passion of some of his characters to make a more lively and enduring impression than the central personage of his poem. For it must be admitted that the Turnus of the Aeneid, and the Satan of Paradise Lost, take a more powerful hold upon our imaginations, and come nearer to Homer's conception of a hero, than the calm majesty of Miltor's Saviour, or the patient suffering and religious obedience of Virgil's Aeneas. xviii LIFE AND WRITINGS OF VIRGIL. But whatever defects there may be in the Aeneid, it is replete with all the qualities which are essential to a great work of art. It is great in conception and invention. It is wonderfully diversified in scenes, incidents, and characters, while it never departs from the vital principle of unity. It is adorned with the finest diction and imagery of which language is capable. In discoursing of great achievements and great events, it never comes short of the grandeur which befits the epic style; in passages of sorrow and suffering it takes hold of our sympathies with all the power of the most heartrending tragedy. What a sublime epic of itself is the account of the sack of Troy! what a tragedy of passion and fate is presented in the death of Dido! Indeed the student will find in the Aeneid many dramatic scenes, many vivid pictures of life and manners, many lively narratives of adventure, any one of which would be of itself a poem, and would secure to its author an enviable fame. Of the preeminent worth of Virgil's poems, and of their importance as literary studies, the most striking proof is presented in the fact that so many of the classics of modern poetry, in all cultivated languages, have manifestly been produced under the moulding and refining influence of this great master of the art. Dante, who felt all the power of “the Mantuan," ascribes to him whatever excellence he has himself attained in beauty of style; and, in the generous avowal of his indebtedness, he utters one of the noblest eulogies ever bestowed by any poet upon a brother poet. Oh delli altri poeti onore e lume! Vagliami 'l lungo studio, e il grande amore, Tu sei lo mio maestro e il mio autore; Tu sei solo colui, da cu' io tolsi Lo bello stile, che mi a fatto onore.* *Dante's Inferno. Canto L. |