less because already so early as the age of Domitian, we find Saleius Bassus (ad Pisonem 218) figuring Virgil's ascent from bucolic to epic poetry, under the identical trope under which it is figured in these verses, viz. that of a rural musician issuing forth out of the obscurity of the woods, and presenting himself before the great world as a performer of the most complicated and difficult pieces:

"ipse per Ausonias Aeneia carmina gentes

qui sonat, ingenti qui nomine pulsat Olympum,
Maeoniumque senem Romano provocat ore,

forsitan illius nemoris latuisset in umbra,

quod canit, et sterili tantum cantasset avena,
ignotus populis, si Maecenate careret.",

where the reference, in the first three lines, to the Aeneis, and, in the second three, to the Bucolics, plain and unmistakeable as it is, is scarcely plainer or less mistakeable than the reference, in the fourth and fifth lines to the first, second, and latter half of the fourth verse of the first Bucolic, taken in connexion with the EGRESSUS SILVIS of the disputed verses; less because Priscian, although in his Formula Interrogandi he parses the verse ARMA VIRUMQUE CANO, as first verse of the Aeneis, nevertheless, in his Grammar, not only distinctly and expressly, but repeatedly, recognizes these verses (verses, be it observed, which make no sense except in connexion with ARMA VIRUMQUE CANO) as Virgil's; lib. 12: "Nec mirum cum etiam tertia persona soleat figurate primae adiungi, ut Virgilius: ILLE EGO QUI QUONDAM GRACILI MODULATUS AVENA." lib. 17: "Prima persona et tertia in unum figurate coeunt, ut Virgilius: ILLE EGO QUI QUONDAM GRACILI MODULATUS AVENA CARMEN. Est enim intellectus, Ego Virgilius ille qui quondam scripsi Bucolica et Georgica.” lib. 17: "Inveniuntur enim et alia pronomina appositiva [i. e. STITYμATIXA]; Virgilius: ILLE EGO, QUI QUONDAM MODULATUS AVENA CARMEN."; less because two of our greatest English poets were unable to find nobler commencement for two of the greatest poems in the English language, than an imitation of the commencement afforded by these lines to the Aeneis (see Rem. 1, 1-5); than because the

GRACILI

beginning ARMA VIRUMQUE CANO had been essentially and in itself a bad beginning, bad as being brusque, abrupt, turgid, the very twin brother of the

"cantabo Priami fortunam et nobile bellum"

immortalized by Horace, and wholly devoid of that fascinating molle atque facetum, which, especially in the beginnings of his books, is so peculiarly Virgil's characteristic; and bad as being ambiguous, so ambiguous that commentators have never yet been able to agree, whether it is of Aeneas, the warrior (Burmann, Wagner [1832, 1861], and compare Ovid, Trist.

2,533:

"et tamen ille tuae felix Aeneidos auctor

contulit in Tyrios arma virumque toros,"

where, as proved by Statius's [Silv. 4, 2, 1] exactly parallel "regia Sidoniae convivia laudat Elisae

qui magnum Aeneam Laurentibus intulit arvis.",

"arma virumque" can be neither more nor less than the warrior Aeneas), or of Aeneas and the wars between the Trojans and Italians (Interpr. Virg. Maii, Servius, Heyne, Voss, Thiel, Forbiger, Caro, Tasso, Dryden, and compare Ovid, Amor. 1, 15, 25:

"Tityrus et segetes Aeneiaque arma legentur,

Roma triumphati dum caput orbis erit."

Auson. Epigr. 131:

"arma virumque docens, atque arma virumque peritus,

non duxi uxorem, sed magis arma domum."),

or of Aeneas and his armour (Veget. de re mil. 2, 1: "Res igitur militaris, sicut Latinorum egregius auctor carminis sui testatur exordio, armis constat et viris." Tib. Donat.: "ARMA, h. e. scutum et alia quae Aeneae Vulcanum fabricasse praescripsit." and again: "virum qui talia arma et tam pulcra et habere et gerere potuerit: qui Romani imperii auctor esse meruerit" etc. and compare Virgil himself, Aen. 11, 746:

Sil. 1, 132

"volat igneus aequore Tarchou,

arma virumque ferens"

"iacet [Marcellus] ore truci super arma virosque tertia qui tulerat sublimis opima Tonanti."

Sil. 1, 362:

"haec [lampas] vastae lateri turris ceu turbine fixa,

dum penitus pluteis Vulcanum exercet adesis,
arma virosque simul pressit flagrante ruina."),

Virgil, commencing his poem with the words ARMA VIRUMQUE, professes to treat. Not only all this ambiguity, but all this abruptness and turgidity ceases when the introductory lines are adopted as the commencement of the poem, ILLE EGO affording an easy, simple, natural and not unusual beginning (Ovid, Trist. 4, 10, 1 [giving an account of himself to posterity]:

"ille ego, qui fuerim, tenerorum lusor amorum,

quem legis, ut noris, accipe, posteritas.

Sulmo mihi patria est, gelidis uberrimus undis,"

compare Priscian, 12 (cited above): "Nec mirum cum etiam tertia persona soleat figurate primae adiungi, ut Virgilius: ILLE EGO QUI QUONDAM GRACILI MODULATUS AVENA"), and HORRENTIA MARTIS fixing the meaning of ARMA, happily separating that word from QUI, ILLE, UNDE, and the clauses connected with those relatives, and by such separation throwing an emphasis on it which it could not possibly have had, standing without preparation, without predicate, without explanation, first word of the poem (see Rem. 2, 246).

But abruptness, turgidity and ambiguity are not the only faults of the commencement of the poem with the words ARMA VIRUMQUE. Let us close our eyes to those faults or forgive them, and let us set about to choose between the various interpretations of the words. Do they represent two distinct conceptions, arms and the man, in the sense of the wars of Aeneas, and Aeneas himself? if they do, how has it happened that the conception which, as placed in the first and most prominent position, must be assumed to be the principal and most important (see Rem. 2, 246), is left standing naked by itself, neither ornamented, nor explained; nor rendered weighty by the addition even of one single word, while the conception which, as occupying the inferior, less honorable position, must be looked upon as the inferior or secondary conception, is dwelt upon throughout the whole of the long and labored exordium? Do they repre

sent two distinct conceptions, arms and the man, in the sense of the armour of Aeneas and Aeneas himself? if they do, how has it happened not only that the most important conception, the armour, has been left standing naked by itself, but that no further word is said about it until nearly two thirds of the poem have been finished or until near the end of the eighth book? Do they, on the contrary, represent one single conception, the warrior? if they do, how has it happened that here, in this formal enunciation of the subject matter of the poem, a great and important, if not the greatest and most important, part of that subject matter, the wars between the Trojans and Latinsthose wars out of which the settlement of the Trojans in Italy, the union of the Latin and Trojan races into one people, and the foundation of the Roman Empire, arose as consequenceshas been wholly omitted? Not one of the three interpretations satisfies our expectations of the poet, and there is no fourth, so we reject the words as the commencement of the poem, and turning to the verses in question, and finding in them neither abruptness nor turgidity, but, on the contrary, all Virgil's usual ease and suavity, nay, the strongest, most striking resemblance to his commencing verses of other poems; observing, besides, that they not only remove all ambiguity from the enunciation of the subject matter of the poem, but restore to that enunciation a limb which cannot well be absent without rendering the enunciation lame and imperfect (“Arma sind überhaupt Hauptgegenstand des Epos," Thiel), hail those verses with joy, and reinstate them in their rightful and most honorable position as the commencing verses of the great Roman epic.

§ II.

The exordium of our author's heroic poem, the Aeneis, is cast in the selfsame mould as the exordium of his bucolic poem Varus; the subjects of both exordiums being not only the same, viz. the contrast of the writing of bucolic verse with the writing of heroic, but handled in the same manner. With the single exception that the poem of Varus does not itself afford an

example of the contrast, that our author does not, in his poem of Varus, pass from his former more humble style into a loftier, but continues in the more humble, the parallelism is complete even to the most minute particulars, ILLE EGO QUI QUONDAM Of the Aeneis, corresponding to "Prima nostra Thalia" of Varus; MODULATUS CARMEN of the Aeneis, to "dignata est ludere" of Varus; GRACILI AVENA of the Aeneis, to "Syracosio versu❞ of Varus; EGRESSUS SILVIS of the Aeneis, to "[nec] erubuit silvas habitare" of Varus; AT NUNC of the Aeneis, to "nunc" of Varus (there could be no at in Varus, there being no transition, no passing out of the one style into the other); and, finally, HORRENTIA MARTIS ARMA VIRUMQUE CANO, the new subject to which he is now passing in the Aeneis, corresponding to "Agrestem tenui meditabor arundine Musam," the old subject to which he expresses his determination to adhere, in Varus. Had the one exordium been fashioned on the other by an imitator, the verbal resemblance would have been greater, the real resemblance less. Only by the same hand could two beginnings have been made so essentially like, and, at the same time, so apparently different. With a similar reference to, and contrast of the present subject with, a former, begins the Pollio:

"Sicelides Musae, paullo maiora canamus.

non omnes arbusta iuvant humilesque myricae;

si canimus silvas, silvae sint consule dignae.",

where we have the same silvas and the same canere as in our text, the same present greater, former inferior subject, with aspirations added after a still greater, viz. an epic poem:

"o mihi tam longae maneat pars ultima vitae,

spiritus et, quantum sat erit tua dicere facta:

non me carminibus vincet nec Thracius Orpheus,

nec Linus, huic mater quamvis atque huic pater adsit,

Orphei Calliopea, Lino formosus Apollo.

Pan etiam, Arcadia mecum si iudice certet,

Pan etiam Arcadia dicat se iudice victum."

With a not very dissimilar reference to, and contrast of,

former subject, our author begins his second Georgic:

"hactenus arvorum cultus, et sidera caeli:

nunc te, Bacche, canam"

a