JAMES HENRY, M. D.

FELLOW OF THe king's and QUEEN'S COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS IN IRELAND.

DRESDEN,

PRINTED BY MEINHOLD AND SONS.

1853.

298. c. 32.

PREFATORY REMARKS.

SI.

MSS. and rare books examined by myself personally, and quoted in the course of this work:

1. The Medicean; in the Laurentian Library in Florence; examined by me personally only with respect. to En. IV. 436. In all other places I have quoted this MS. from Foggini's fac-simile. The MS. itself is in a state of perfect preservation, except that the ink has become very pale, and that, besides wanting the first Eclogues, it wants also one leaf of the Eneis; happily this leaf is preserved in the Vatican Library in Rome, where I saw it in the year 1850.

2. The oldest Gudian; preserved in the Bibliotheca Guelferbytana at Wolfenbüttel. This MS. is numbered on the back 70, and is so quoted by Heyne. It is numbered 903 in Ebert's Catal. Biblioth. Guelferb. I have never seen any MS. so full of alterations and corrections; often, as I think, for the worse. It is difficult to read, and the interlineal and marginal glosses still more difficult, frequently impossible. It does not so generally agree with the Medicean as has been supposed. Both it and the Medicean have been greatly overrated by Nicholas Heinsius, Heyne, and Wagner. I had full opportunity of carefully examining this MS., which was obtained for me from Wolfenbüttel by the kindness of my friend Dr. Klemm, Chief Librarian of the Royal

Library in Dresden. I read the whole of the first six Books of the Eneis in it, and took memorandums of its readings in one hundred and eleven places, a great number of which (not all however) I have quoted in this work.

3. 4. The two Leipzig MSS., viz. Nos. 35 and 36 (Naumann's Catal.). These MSS. were also obtained for me by Dr. Klemm. I carefully collated in these MSS. almost all the important passages in the first six Books of the Eneis, and made one hundred and sixty seven memorandums of the readings of No. 35, and about an equal number of No. 36, and have quoted a great part of these readings in the following work. No. 35 is in much better condition, and much easier to read than No. 36. I will not pretend to say which is the older, or more correct; they do not by any means coincide with each other,

5. The Dresden MS. (D. 134 in Ebert's Geschichte der kön. Biblioth. zu Dresden); a comparatively modern MS., but in several places containing good readings rarely to be found in other MSS. I consider it as deserving of more attention than it has hitherto received. I collated this MS. with the two Leipzig, in the whole of the above mentioned number of places, and have always quoted its readings along with theirs. This MS. has been rarely, if ever, quoted by any of Virgil's editors.

6. 7. 8. 9. The four Gotha MSS., viz. Nos, 54, 55, 56, & 236 (Jacobs's Catal.). My opportunity for collating these MSS. not having been good, I have quoted them only in a few places.

10. 11. 12. 13. The four Munich MSS., viz. Nos. 305, 523, 18059, and 21562 in the Library Catalogue. These MSS. also, and for a similar reason, I have quoted only in a small number of places, viz. twenty two in all. They have never, so far as I know, been quoted by any of Virgil's editors.