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PREFACE BY PROFESSOR ANTHON.

assistance. These notes will be found to contain all that is valuable in the commentaries of the latest European editors, such as Nöhden, Heinrich, Hohler, Thiel, Forbiger, Valpy, but more especially Heyne and Wagner.

C. A.

COLUMBIA COLLEGE,
October 5, 1843.

LIFE OF VIRGIL.

The

PUBLIUS VIRGILIUS MARO was born at the village of Andes, a few miles distant from Mantua, about 70 B. C. His father was of low birth, having been, according to some authorities, a potter or brickmaker, and, according to others, the hireling of a travelling merchant named Maius, or Magus. He so ingratiated himself, however, with hist master, that he received his daughter Maia in marriage, and was intrusted with the charge of a farm which his father-in-law had acquired in the vicinity of Mantua. Our poet was the offspring of these humble parents. studies of Virgil commenced at Cremona, where he remained till he assumed the toga virilis. At the age of sixteen he removed to Mediolanum, and, shortly after, to Neapolis, where he laid the foundation of that multifarious learning which shines so conspicuously in the Æneid. During his residence in this city he perused the most celebrated Greek writers; and here he also studied the Epicurean system of philosophy, under Syro, a celebrated teacher of that sect. But medicine and mathematics were the sciences to which he was chiefly addicted; and to this early tincture of geometrical knowledge may, perhaps, in some degree, be ascribed his ideas of luminous order, and masterly arrangement, and that regularity of thought, as well as exactness of expression, by which all his writings were distinguished.

It does not seem certain, or even probable, that Virgil went at all to Rome from Naples. It rather appears that he returned to his native country, and to the charge of his paternal farm. While residing here, and turning his attention in part to poetic composition, he attracted the notice of Pollio, who had been appointed by Antony to the command of the district in which the farm of Virgil lay. Pollio, observing his poetic talents, and pleased with his amiable manners, became his patron and protector; and as long as this chief continued in command of the Mantuan district, Virgil was relieved from all exaction, and protected in the peaceable possession of his property. This tranquillity, however, was destined to be rudely disturbed. Previously to the battle of Philippi, the trium-. virs had promised to their soldiers the lands belonging to some of the richest towns of the empire. Augustus returned to Italy in A.U.c. 712, after his victory at Philippi, and found it necessary, in order to satisfy these claims, to commence a division of lands in Italy, on a more extensive scale even than he had intended. Cremona, unfortunately, having espoused the cause of Brutus, became peculiarly obnoxious to the victorious party, and its territory was accordingly divided among the veteran soldiers of the triumvir. This territory, however, not proving sufficient, the deficiency was supplied from the neighbouring district of Mantua, in which the farm of Virgil lay. The poet, no longer protected by Pollio (whose power, it would seem, had been diminished in consequence of his too close adherence to Antony), was dispossessed of his little property under circumstances of peculiar violence. His personal safety, was even endangered; and he was compelled, on one occasion, to escape the fury of the centurion Arrius by swimming over the Mincius.

At this juncture, Virgil had the good fortune to obtain the favour of Alphenus Varus, with whom he had studied philosophy at Naples, under Syro the Epicurean, and who now either succeeded Pollio in the command of the district, or was appointed by Augustus to superintend in that quarter the division of the lands. Under his protection Virgil twice repaired to Rome, where he was received not only by Maecenas, but by Augustus himself, from whom he procured the restoration of the patrimony of which he had been deprived. This happened in the commencement of the year 714 A.U.c.; and during the course of that season, in gratitude for the favours he had received, he composed his eclogue entitled Tityrus. The remaining eclogues, with the exception, perhaps, of the tenth, called Gallus, were produced in the course of this and the following year.

Virgil had now spent three years in the composition of pastoral poetry, and in constant residence on his farm, except during the two journeys to Rome which he was compelled to undertake for its preservation. The situation of his residence, however, being low and humid, and the climate chill at certain seasons of the year, his delicate constitution, and the pulmonary complaint with which he was affected, induced him, about the year 714 or 715 A.U.C., when he had reached the age of thirty, to seek a warmer sky. To this change, it may be conjectured, he was further instigated by his increasing celebrity, and the extension of his poetic fame. On quitting his paternal fields, therefore, he first proceeded to the capital. Here his private fortune was considerably augmented by the liberality of Maecenas; and such was the favour he possessed with his patron, that we find him, soon after his arrival at Rome, introducing Horace to the notice of this

minister. It is said, moreover, that he never asked any thing of Augustus that was refused; and Donatus, his biographer, even affirms, though, it must be confessed, without the least probability, that Augustus consulted him with regard to his resignation of the government, as a sort of umpire between Mæcenas and Agrippa.

It was probably during this period of favour with the emperor and his minister, that Virgil contributed the verses in celebration of the deity who presided over the gardens of Mæcenas; and wrote, though without acknowledging it, that well-known distich in honour of Augustus :

Nocte pluit totâ ; redeunt spectacula mane;

Divisum imperium cum Jove Cæsar habet.

The story goes on to relate, that Bathyllus, a contemptible poet of the day, claimed these verses as his own, and was liberally rewarded. Vexed at the imposture, Virgil again wrote the verses in question near the palace, and under them,

Hos ego versiculos feci, tulit alter honores;

with the beginning of another line in these words,

Sic vos non vobis,

four times repeated. Augustus wished the lines to be finished; Bathyllus seemed unable; and Virgil at last, by completing the stanza in the following order,

Sic vos non vobis nidificatis aves;
Sic vos non vobis vellera fertis oves;
Sic vos non vobis mellificatis apes;
Sic vos non vobis fertis aratra boves,

proved himself to be the author of the distich, and the poetical usurper became the sport and ridicule of Rome. During his residence at Rome, Virgil inhabited a house on

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