116

He has even preserved some superstitious usages, which are to be met with in no other poet: but as these are also characteristical, and must be preserved in the version, who can hope to give a translation of Tibullus the easy air of a modern original?

Besides this, Tibullus abounds in images of rural theology.

Verbal translations are always inelegant, because always destitute of beauty of idiom and language; for by their fidelity to an author's words, they become treacherous to his reputation : on the other hand, a too wanton departure from the letter often varies the sense, and always alters the manner.

The translator chose the middle way, and meant neither to tread on the heels of Tibullus, He had not the vanity to think, he could improve on his poet: nor yet to lose sight of him. and though he has sometimes endeavoured to give a more modern polish to his sentiments, he has seldom attempted to change them. To preserve the sense of his original was his first care; his next was, to clothe it in as elegant and becoming a dress as possible. Yet he must confess, that he has now and then taken the liberty to transpose, and sometimes paraphrastically to enlarge the thoughts. Where a sentiment was too much contracted by the closeness of the Latin idiom to be unfolded in a corespondent expression in English, or from its peculiarity might, in a modern language, seem flat, he has endeavoured to inspirit it by collateral thoughts from other poets; and where its colours were languid, to heighten them-with what success, the reader must determine.

The The hexameter and pentameter is said to be peculiarly suited to plaintive subjects. English have no stanza correspondent to that, but the alternate, which is supposed to possess a solemnity and kind of melancholy flow in its numbers. This Mr. Hammond chose for his imitation Yet, as in this stanza of Tibullus; and it must be confessed, that he has happily succeeded. the sense naturally ends at the fourth line, the translator thought he could not in general have adopted it, without violence to the original: he therefore preferred the heroic measure, which is not better suited to the lofty sound of the epic muse, than to the complaining tone of elegy. The reader, however, will find one or two elegies rendered in the alternate stanza, which is by no means so difficult as the heroic.

As Tibullus wrote love poems like a Roman, any translation of them without notes, would have been extremely obscure to an English reader: most of his commentators are mere philologers, or at best they have only displayed their erudition in the history of a heathen god, or the topography of a river. From this censure, however, Broekhusius, his Dutch editor, and Vulpius, his Italian commentator, may in part be exempted; they have, indeed, sometimes entered into the propriety of our poet's thoughts. Yet even their chief excellence consists in arranging the text; in selecting the most approved readings; and in giving those passages, which they suppose Tibullus either borrowed from his predecessors, or the moderas copied from him. The design of the translator is very different; he has commented on his author as a Roman poet, and as a Roman lover: and although he owns himself enamoured of his beauties, (as who can draw a pleasing resemblance of a face which disgusts him?) he hopes he has not been blind to his imperfections. These, indeed, he has touched upon with the tenderness of a friend, not the acrimony of a critic.

Yet as most of the commentators were consulted, the translator has taken from each of them such notes, as he imagined would be most serviceable to an English reader, always ascribing them however to the author who furnished them. Thus, beside Broekhusius and Vulpius, the Nor must it be name of Mr. Dart will sometimes be found at the bottom of an observation. forgotten, that the translator has been obliged to that gentleman for ten or twelve lines in his version.

It has been judged necessary to print the Latin text along with the version: this the translator would willingly have declined, as his work can hope to find favour with those only who understand not the original. Yet, when he considered, that the English press had afforded no one accurate edition of Tibullus; and that even the best of those printed abroad were not

This is omitted in the present edition.-C.

exempted from material errours; he surmounted his scruples, and has endeavoured to give a less exceptionable text of his poet than any hitherto published.

By what

Before he concludes, the translator must return his sincere thanks to a worthy friend, for his el gant version of the first elegy, and of Ovid's poem on the death of Tibullus. accident his own translation of the first elegy was lost, is of no consequence; especially too, as the reader, from a perusal of Mr. P's specimen, will probably be induced to wish, that more of those now published had undergone a like fate, provided the same gentleman had likewise translated them.

Nor is that the only good office which challenges his gratitude: the translator is particularly obliged to his friend, for having procured him the valuable acquaintance of another learned gentleman; who not only took the trouble to compare his version of the three last books with the original; but who also favoured him with some notes, which constitute the chief ornament of the second volume. Thus, like the Britons of old, the translator has called in auxiliaries to Conquer him.

THE

LIFE OF TIBULLUS.

WE are not only unacquainted with the prænomen of Tibullus, but with the year of his birth. The biographers, from a line in the fifth elegy of his third book, indeed inform us, that Ovid and he were born the day that Hirtius and Pansa were killed, viz. on the tenth of the calends of April, A. U. C. 710. This was the opinion of the learned for many centuries; nor was it controverted, till Joseph Scaliger first entertained some doubts of it; and Janus Douza the younger, about a hundred and seventy years ago, was induced, by comparing what our poet had said of himself, with what Horace and Ovid have wrote concerning him, to reject that line as spurions, and to assert that Tibullus must have been born almost twenty years sooner, Although we think some considerable objections may be raised against Douza's opinion, yet as the old account is liable to still greater, we shall venture with that critic to inform the reader, that Albius Tibullus, the prince of elegiac poets, was born at Rome, A. U. C. 690, six years after the birth of Virgil, and one after that of Horace. Tibullus might say with his great admirer, Ovid,

usque a proavis vetus ordinis hæres, Non modo militiæ turbine factus eques 3,

being descended from an equestrian branch of the Albian family: and though some of the old biographers assert, that his ancestors made a figure in the forum and in the field, yet as history makes no mention of them, posterity would have been unacquainted with this branch of that illustrious house, had it not been for our poet.

As the ancient writers of Tibullus's life have favoured us with no particulars of his infancy, it is probable it was distinguished by nothing remarkable. The human mind does not always blossom at the same period; and it by no means follows that his childhood must have flourished, whose mature age has produced fair fruits of science. Perhaps too, details of early excellence are less useful than is commonly imagined, as they often dispirit those who would otherwise in due time have expanded into an extensive reputation.

But if such accounts are less useful, it would have been no unprofitable gratification of curi⚫sity to have known by what plan his studies were conducted, and who were his preceptors. Antiquity, however, having left us in the dark with regard to these matters, we can only suppose that as his father's condition was considerable, so nothing was omitted to render our poet an useful and elegant member of society.

Natalem nostri primum videre parentes

Quum cecidit fato consul úterque pari.

See the arguments on both sides of the question in the notes to the fifth elegy of the third book, 3 Amor. lib. iii. el. 14.

Crinitus, &c.

The Romans possessed a rcal advantage over the moderns in point of education; for as the same citizen might plead causes, command armies, and arrive at the first dignities of the priesthood, so their literary institutions were made to comprehend these several objects. It is easy to see of what vast utility so general a plan must have been to a state; and perhaps it is not paying letters too high a compliment, to say, that the successes of the Romans were in a great measure owing to this advantage.

In the year of Rome 705, the civil war broke out between Cæsar and Pompey. The army and corrupt part of the legislature followed Cæsar; while the majority of the senate and of the knights, with all those who dreaded a perpetual dictator, sided with Pompey, as the person from whom the republic had less danger to apprehend. Of this number was the father of Tibullus; and there is reason to suspect, that he either fell in the field, or was butchered by proscription, for we know that a considerable part of his estate was left a prey to the rapacious soldiery. These events probably determined our author's public attachments; but without these motives to revenge, it is not unlikely that Tibullus had, before this time, adopted the political opinions of his father6.

At what actions in the civil war our young knight was present, as it was not prudent in him to mention in his poems, so historians do not inform us: but as principle and revenge equally conspired to rouse his courage (and courage he certainly possessed 7), may we not safely infer, that Tibullus did not run away, like his friend Horace, from Philippi 8, at which battle he was present with his patron the illustrious Messala Corvinus?

But the fortune of Octavius prevailing over the better cause of Brutus and Cassius, Messala too (who was next in command to these patriot citizens) going over with his forces to the conqueror, Tibullus, although he paid the greatest regard to the sentiments of that excellent soldier and orator, yet determined to leave the army; for as he would not fight against the party which his friends had now espoused, so neither could he appear in arms against those whom his principles taught him to regard as the assertors of liberty. Besides, the bad success of the patriotparty, and his own experience, had now inspired him with an abhorrence of the war; he therefore retired, A. U. C. 712, to his country-seat at Pedum, there, by an honest industry, to raise his impaired fortune to its ancient splendour, while his hours of leisure were either devoted to philosophy or the Muses 9.

But we are not to imagine that rural objects and study solely engaged our poet's attention; for being formed with a natural tenderness of disposition, he began to enlarge the sphere of his pleasures by conversing with the fair sex. The first object of his affection was probably Glycera; and we have Horace 10 on our side, when we add, that she at first gave him hopes of success: but though his person was 'elegant ", his fortune not contemptible, and his life was then in the prime, Glycera deserted him for a younger lover 12. As he entertained a real affection for that lady, her infidelity gave him much uncasinesss; he therefore endeavoured, by exerting his elegiac genius, to reclaim her. But his poems producing in Glycera no change to his advantage, his friend and old fellow-soldier, Horace, advised him to abate of his sorrow for her loss, and send her no more elegies,

None of these elegies having come down to our times, Lilio Giraldi 13 supposes that Nemesis and Glycera were the same; but the poems which are inscribed to Nemesis 14 do not favour this

5 Vile Panegyr. ad Messalam, lin. 191. Jan. Douz, Sched. Succid.

6 Sec Francis's notes on the thirty-third ode of the first book of Horace.