many traces of Virgilian expression in the prose style of Livy1. The author of the dialogue 'De Oratoribus' testifies to the favour which the poet enjoyed, even before the publication of his epic, both with the Emperor and with the whole people, who 'on hearing some of his verses recited in the theatre rose in a body and greeted him, as he happened to be present at the spectacle, with the same marks of respect which they showed to the Emperor himself2. He would thus appear, even in his lifetime, to have thoroughly touched the national fibre 3,' and to have gained that place in the admiration of his countrymen which he never afterwards lost. By the poets who came after him his memory was cherished with the veneration men feel to a great master, united to the affection which they feel to a departed friend. Lucan indeed rather enters into rivalry with him than follows in his footsteps; nor can there be any surer way of learning to appreciate the peculiar greatness of Virgil's manner than by reading passages of the Aeneid alongside of passages of the Pharsalia. The new poets under the Flavian dynasty, Statius, Silius Italicus, and Valerius Flaccus, though they failed to apprehend the secret of its success, made the Aeneid their model, in the arrangement of their materials, in their diction, and in the structure of their verse. Statius, in bidding farewell to his Thebaid, uses these words of acknowledgment : Vive, precor, nec tu divinam Aeneida tempta, Sed longe sequere et vestigia semper adora *; and Silius, having occasion to mention Mantua, celebrates it as Mantua, Musarum domus, atque ad sidera cantu Martial, among many other tributes of admiration scat 1 Cf. Wölflin in the Philologus, xxvi, quoted by Comparetti. 2 Tac. De Oratoribus, ch. xiii. 3 Si Virgile faisait aux Romains cette illusion d'avoir egalé ou surpassé Homère, c'est qu'il avait touché fortement la fibre Romaine.' Sainte-Beuve. Thebaid, xii. 816. 5 Silius, Punic. viii. 595. 6 e.g. iv. 14. 14; xii. 4. 1; xiv. 186; v. 10. 7; viii. 56, etc. tered over his poems, says of Virgil that he could have surpassed Horace in lyric, Varius in tragic poetry, had he chosen to enter into rivalry with them. The younger Pliny, speaking of the number of books, statues, and busts possessed by Silius, adds these words: 'Vergilii ante omnes cuius natalem religiosius quam suum celebravit, Neapoli maxime, ubi monumentum eius adire ut templum solebat.' But the greatest proof of Virgil's influence on the later literature of Rome is seen in many traces of imitation of his style in the language of the historian Tacitus, the one great literary genius born under the Empire. So great a master of expression would not have incurred this debt except to one whom he regarded as entitled above all others to stamp the speech of Rome with an imperial impress. In Juvenal there are many references and allusions to familiar passages in the Aeneid3: and it appears from him that the works of Virgil and Horace had in his time become what they have since continued to be, the common school-books of all who obtained a liberal education. It is one of the hardships of the schoolmaster's life, described in his seventh Satire, to have to listen by lamplight to the 'crambe repetita' of the daily lesson, Quum totus decolor esset Flaccus et haereret nigro fuligo Maroni*. After the end of the first century A.D., even the imitative poets of Rome become rare; but the pre-eminence still enjoyed by Virgil is attested by the number of commentaries written on his works, the most famous of them being the still extant commentary of Servius, belonging to the latter part of the fourth century. The fortune of Virgil has in this respect been similar to that of his great countryman Dante. From the time of his death till the extinction of ancient classical culture, there was a regular 1 viii. 18.5-9. 2 Ep. iii. 7. 3 e.g. i. 162; iii. 199; v. 45, 138; vi. 434, etc.; vii. 66, 226, 236, etc. 1 vii. 226. succession of rhetoricians and grammarians who lectured and wrote treatises on his various poems. Among those who preceded Servius, the most famous names are those of Asconius Pedianus, Annaeus Cornutus, the friend of Persius, and Valerius Probus, in the first century A.D. These commentators supplied materials to Suetonius for the life on which that of Aelius Donatus, which is still extant, is founded. The frequent quotations from Virgil in the desultory criticism of Aulus Gellius and the systematic discussions in the Saturnalia of Macrobius attest the minute study of his poems in the interval between the second and the fifth centuries. Similar testimony to his continued influence is afforded by the early Christian writers, especially by Augustine. And though there may be traced in them a struggle between the pleasure which they derived from his poetry and the alienation of their sympathies arising from his being a pagan, yet it is probable that the favour shown to him and to Cicero during the first strong reaction from everything associated with the beauty of the older religion, was due as much to the pure and humane spirit of their teaching as to the fascination of their style: nor perhaps was this teaching inoperative in moulding the thought and giving form to the religious imagination of the Latin Church. The number and excellence of the MSS. of Virgil, the most famous of which date from the fourth and fifth centuries, confirm the impression of the continued favour which his works enjoyed before and subsequent to the overthrow of the Roman rule in the West. Wherever learning flourished during the darkest period of this later time, the poems of Virgil were held in special esteem. Thus we read in connexion with the literary studies of Bede: Virgil cast over him the same spell which he cast over Dante: verses from the Aeneid break his narratives of martyrdoms, and the disciple ventures on the track of the great master in a little eclogue descriptive of the approach of spring. His works were 1 Green's History of the English People, p. 37. taught in the Church schools: and the feeling with which he was regarded by the more tolerant minds of the mediaeval Church appears in a mass sung in honour of St. Paul at the end of the fifteenth century: Ad Maronis mausoleum Piae rorem lacrimae ; The traditional veneration attaching to his name, among the classes too ignorant to know anything of his works, survived during the middle ages in the fancies which ascribed to him the powers of a magician or beneficent genius, appearing in many forms and at various times and places widely separated from one another. With the first revival of learning and letters in different countries, the old pre-eminence of Virgil again asserts itself. In England 'the earliest classical revival' (to quote again the words of Mr. Green) 'restored Caesar and Virgil to the list of monastic studies, and left its stamp on the pedantic style, the profuse classical quotations of writers like William of Malmesbury or John of Salisbury.' One of the earliest works in Scottish literature is the translation of the Aeneid by Gawain Douglas. It is characteristic of the rudimentary state of learning at the time when this translation appeared that the Sibyl is represented as a nun, who directs Aeneas to tell his beads 2. But the greatest testimony to the persistence of Virgil's fame and influence in the western world is the homage which the genius of Dante pays to the shade of his great countryman. May the long zeal avail me and the great love that made me search thy volume. Thou art my master and my author. Thou art he from whom I took the good style that did me honour. The feeling with which Dante gives himself up to the guidance of Virgil 1 Quoted by Comparetti; and also in Bähr's Römische Literatur. 2 Works of Gavin Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld, by John Small, M.A., vol. i. p. cxlv. through all the mystery of the lower realms is like that under which Ennius evokes the shade of Homer from the 'halls of Acheron' to interpret to him the secrets of creation. Dante combines the reverence for a great master, which seems to be more natural to the genius of Italy than to that of other nations, with a high self-confidence and a bold and original invention. Lucretius expresses a similar enthusiasm for Homer, Ennius, Empedocles, and Epicurus; and by Virgil the same feeling is, though not directly expressed, yet profoundly felt towards Homer and Lucretius. And in all these cases the admiration of their predecessors is an incentive, not to imitative reproduction, but to new creation, It was as the poet of 'that Italy for which Camilla the virgin, Euryalus, and Turnus and Nisus died of wounds' that the poet of mediaeval Florence paid homage to the ancient poet of Mantua. The admiration of Dante, like that of Tacitus, is the more corroborative of the spell exercised over the Italian mind by the art and style of Virgil from the difference in the type of genius and character which these poets severally represent. The influence of Virgil was exercised, with a power more over-mastering and injurious to their originality, upon the later poets and scholars of Italy with whom the Renaissance begins. The progress of modern poetry was for a long time accompanied—and it would be difficult to say whether it was thereby more obstructed or advanced-by a new undergrowth of Latin poetry, for the higher forms of which Virgil served as the principal model. Petrarch attached more importance to his epic poem of 'Africa,' written in imitation of the rhythm and style of the Aeneid, than to his Sonnets. The influence of Virgil on the later Renaissance in Italy is abundantly proved in the works of poets, scholars, and men of letters in that age. Ninety editions of his works are said to have been published before the year 15001. From Italy this influence passed to France and England, and was felt, not 1 Mr. Small, in his account of the writings of Bishop Gavin Douglas, says, 'The works of Virgil passed through ninety editions before the year 1500.' |