he made it, and had either himself seen the Hebrus at its spring flood, or had received his information direct from those who had themselves witnessed it. Commentators of so accurate a poet should be very guarded in their conjectural emendations, and know the facts in the case, before they venture to discard the authority of all the early copies of the text.

Can we wonder, then, that the Æneid, abounding, as it does, in passages evincive of such consummate technical acquaintance with both ancient and contemporary Roman usages and facts, in so many departments of life's phases, took so strong a hold of the Roman heart and mind, and has possessed a charm to some of the greatest minds in ages since? No book, we venture to say, in any branch of classic literature, has been more read and valued. It was one of the few works which Martin Luther specially prized. His Virgil and his Missal constituted his staple, as a library, in his cloistered hours; and it retained its place, even by the side of his Bible, though subordinate to it, on his table till the day of his death. It was simply his tacit testimony to its inestimable worth. The Æneid is a model epic, whose high estimate by scholars time has only tended to enhance. Probably no classic work has had more scholarship brought to bear on its interpretation, both in ancient and modern times, than the Æneid; and judging from the many scholarly works in its elucidation published of late years, its critical study has not yet by any means reached its ultimate limit. There are difficulties, it is true, both in its phraseology and allusions, which have puzzled the best annotators; but in the main, few poets have been more transparent in style and diction than Virgil. His poetry is the perfection of harmony in conformity to the strict rules of Latin prosody. With his numbers and rhythm the ear never tires. His nice adaptation of sound in the words to the rhythm in the meter has often been remarked. Instances of these felicitous alliterations and musical accommodations will readily recur to every student familiar with the original, and need be only alluded to here. But this charming feature forms one of the chief difficulties in translating his poems into any other language. How are these correspondences of sound and sense, of thought and expression, of image and

embodiment, to be represented to modern ears, when they are in any other language than the poet's own-simply inimitable? Some of these poise on archaic terms and phrases, and a play upon words, pleasing to ears vernacular, but which are shorn of their peculiar beauty to any other.

The aim of the present version, held steadily in view throughoutas will be gathered by even a casual comparison of it with the originalhas been, not to equal the rhythmic beauty of the poet's numbers, for this is a sheer impossibility, but to permit Virgil to utter his own thoughts in his own phraseology as nearly as practicable, without retrenchment or meretricious embellishment. Every word, save the occasionally often-recurring minor conjunctions, has been rendered, and a constant effort made to give each its full force; whilst additions, when indispensable to complete ellipses or to accommodate the meter, are scrupulously in the line of the poet's thought. The lines left incomplete by Virgil (of which there are 56 in all) are left the same in the version. The rendering is line by line, and as literal as justice to the two languages, in the restricted plan, would admit. It is the result of no slight critical labor, prosecuted con amore throughout; and if it shall be found to contribute, in any measure, to a closer study of this incomparable epic, the chief object of its publication will have been attained. Perfection in it is not claimed. It is at best a venture in a direction signalled, but not traversed, with like design in the translation of the Æneid, before: but, if others shall be prompted by it to achieve more perfect success in the same line, the venture will not have been in vain. The pleasure derived from the close intimacy with this noble classic, necessitated by the restricted plan adopted, is of itself an ample compensation for the long and exactive labor it has cost. Begun some twenty years since, and then simply as an experiment, without, at the outset, the most distant thought of its completion, much less its publication, the work has rather grown into than been made what it is. The track proposed was so untrodden, that aid from any source could only be at best subsidiary; and yet every available help has been welcome. At hand for reference have been the forty different editions of the Æneid, or

Works of Virgil, in the translator's possession, to each of which he is more or less indebted for suggestions, but to none for the meter or even a single line as it stands. It has been the recreation of many an otherwise weary hour, as opportunity, amid other cares and duties, allowed. Through encouragement from classical scholars, without which the version would probably never have been completed, or if completed, never published, it is now committed to an indulgent public, simply as an honest effort to stimulate the study, by an attempted reproduction in English, in its original meter, of one of the grandest epics ever written in any language. With this end even proximately accomplished, the aim in its preparation will have been fully attained.

At the suggestion of the late Prof. Robert Potts, LL. D., of Cambridge University, England, whose interest in it was a cheer, the plan of adding Notes was at one time entertained; and material, to a certain extent, was collected, drawn in part from the writer's nine years' residence in the Orient, in regions and on lines of travel made familiar by the poet's vivid descriptions, as well as from other sources; but this was abandoned as mainly needless. The idea broached by his long-esteemed friend, the late Prof. Thomas A. Thacher, LL. D., of Yale University, of printing the Latin text on each opposite page, to correspond with the version, was contemplated; but this would have increased both the size of the volume and the price, when the text is so easily available: hence the decision to omit it. A third proposal-early adopted, and carried through the entire work, and cancelled even after it had begun to be executed in type-was to give foot-references to passages where phrases or sentences were repeated by the poet, or to allusions throwing light on the point in hand, or to words used in similar sense by Virgil himself. To illustrate Book i. line 313; Note, See Book xii. 165, or Book i., line 354; See Book x. 823. And under 2d head; Book i., line 28, Ganymede; Note, See Book v., l. 252; while under 3d head, take two examples. Book i., line 1, the much-vexed word "primus," Note its use in line 24; and in line 8, "quo numine læso," compare "pro numine læso," in Book ii., line 183. But all these encumbrances of page and book it was deemed best to dispense with, and

leave the version wholly free of either note or comment, as it now appears. In regard to the spelling of the poet's name; undoubtedly Vergilius, has the sanction of antiquity; but the usage of at least three centuries of English Literature has certainly legitimated in our language its Anglicized form. There is force, therefore, in the conclusion of Prof. B. H. Kennedy, D. D., of Cambridge: "Virgilius in Latin is indefensible; but, while we write Vergilius only, it may be long before the Italians give up their long-cherished Virgilio, the French their Virgile, and we English our familiar VIRGIL."

It only remains to express acknowledgments for the kindly aid, in suggestion and encouragement, given by esteemed friends, to whom specimens of the work were shown, especially to the late Prof. Robert Potts, LL. D., of Cambridge, England, and Prof. Thomas A. Thacher, LL. D., of Yale, both of whom took a kindly interest in the work; to Prof. Francis Bowen, LL. D., of Harvard, to whose admirable Notes on Virgil's entire Works, reference has already been made; to Prof. Henry S. Frieze, LL. D., of the University of Michigan, whose Æneid is a standard in Academic studies; to Prof. Basil Gildersleeve, LL. D., of Johns Hopkins University; to Prof. John Stuart Blackie, LL. D., of the Edinburgh University, and to ex-president Theodore D. Woolsey, D. D., LL. D., of Yale, both of whom, though objecting to hexameter, approved of the general aim of the version; to Rev. S. Dryden Phelps, D. D., of New Haven, himself a poet and author; to Rev. Robert Aikman, D. D., of Madison, N. J.; to his college classmates, Gen. Henry B. Carrington, LL. D., of Boston, Prof. Edward Olmstead, M. A., of Wilton, Conn., and Rev. Guy B. Day, M. A., of Bridgeport, Conn., the two latter classical teachers of many years experience—to these, and others, who have kindly taken interest in his tentative yet difficult effort, the translator would tender his sincere thanks for the cheer which their words and letters of encouragement have given him.

Morristown, N. J., January 25, 1888.

O. C.

ANALYSIS.

BOOK L

ÆNEAS STRANDED AT CARTHAGE,

THE poem opens in the seventh year after the fall of Ilium, with the hero, Æneas, a wanderer, exiled by fate, and under the ban of Juno's wrath: the Muse invoked to reveal its causes: 1-11. These briefly stated; 12-32. Then, with a glance at Carthage, Juno's pet-city and the scene of an important episode, the Trojan fleet of twenty ships is seen at sea off the coast of Sicily, bound for Italy, and Juno soliloquizing over it: 34-49. Her plan formed, she hastens to Eolia, and cajolingly invokes Eolus the king of the winds, to destroy the hated fleet, who complaisantly responds: 50-80. He lets loose the winds from their caye, raising a terrible storm at sea, which sinks one vessel and scatters the rest: 81-123. Neptune interposes, rebukes the winds, and calms the sea: 124-156. The hero, with seven of his ships and their weary crews, takes refuge in a landlocked harbor on the Libyan coast: 157-179. Landing, he, with his faithful attendant, Achates, ascends a hill in hope of discovering the missing twelve ships; none seen, but instead, a herd of deer he shoots seven stags, and returning, distributes them, one to each ship, and cheers his comrades as they feast on the vension : 180-222. Venus meanwhile appeals to Jupiter in behalf of the Trojan wanderers: 223-253. Jupiter consoles her, by unrolling the scroll of fate, and revealing events consequent on a war to be waged by Æneas in Italy, and the future grandeur of Rome: 254-296. Mercury, at Jupiter's command, is sent to Carthage to predispose queen Dido to a favorable reception of the stranded Trojans: 297-304. Venus, in the meantime, disguised as a huntress, meets her son, Æneas, in a forest, whither he and Achates had gone to reconnoitre: 305-334. She informs him where he is, and relates in brief the sad tale of Dido's early history and settlement in Carthage: 335-371. Æneas, in return, describes his circumstances and sufferings, and appeals to her for friendly aid; when she, predicting the safety of his lost companions, urges him to go to the city, and, screening the two in a mist, manifests her divinity, and departs sublimely to Paphos: 272-417. He, following her directions, enters the city unobserved; and making his way to the temple of Juno, is cheered to find on its walls pictures of Trojan battlescenes: 418-493. The queen appears with her retinue: his surprise, while observing her, to see delegates from the missing vessels come appealing to her for redress from an outrage in being forbidden to land: 494-560. Dido's cheering response, and her desire to see their king: 561-573The mist suddenly vanishes, and Æneas presents himself to the queen, thanks her, and greets his recognized comrades: 579-612. Dido's welcome and preparation for a banquet: 613-642. Eneas sends Achates back to the harbor for his son, Iulus, and for special presents to Dido: 643656. Venus, full of anxiety, persuades Cupid to personate Iulus: 657-697. He appears in the impersonation, amid the splendors of the banquet, and captivates the queen, who falls in love with Eneas: 697-722. The libation, the song of the ministrel Ispas, and the queen's request to Æneas to entertain them with an account of the downfall of Ilium, and his subsequent adventures, thus preparing the way for the vivid narration in the next Book: 723-756.

BOOK II.

THE FALL AND SACK OF ILIUM,

ENEAS, in compliance with Dido's request, though loath to revive its sad memories, proceeds to relate the scenes attendant on the fall of Ilium: 1-12. In the tenth year of the siege, the Greeks, despairing of success otherwise, have recourse to a stratagem-the building of an immense wooden HORSE filled with soldiers, which being left on the plain in front of the city, the fleet withdraws to