Quæ fuerit noftri fi quæris regia nati, Adfpice de canna ftraminibufque domum: In ftipula placidi carpebat munera fomni. Ov. Faft. I. iii. We are certain, that Rome at first was only a huddle of cottages, without any regular openings and streets; nay, fome philologifts have conjectured, that that city never had regular streets like ours, as there is no Latin word which properly fignifies a street: Neither were Rome's firft places of worship much more fuperb than its houfes, fince we know, from Pliny, that, till after the conquest of Afia, the Romans had only wooden, or at best earthen gods in their temples. The tranflator muft finish this note by correcting an error into which he has fallen, in his notes upon the first elegy of the first book. There; it is afferted, that no purchaser was entitled to the fpoils with which any house he might buy was adorned. But the fact is quite otherwife; for Pliny exprefsly fays, it was unlawful to take down these trophies, "Affixis hoftium fpoliis, nec emptori refigere liceret." Nat. Hift. l. xxxv. c. 2. Thus it was that the Romans endeavoured to perpetuate the martial glory of their ancestors. Ver. 55. Broekhufius, contrary to the opinion of most of the commentators, joins "verno" to "alveo;" and, in a far-fetched manner, juftifies this conftruction by a paffage from Columella. The tranflator cannot, however, help joining “rus," lib. viii. Ep. "verno" with "rure." It is certain, that Martial couples "æftivum" to 61. Fruterius reads it, Rure levis vernos flores, &c. But the ear may eafily convince any one, that Tibullus never wrote it fo. Ver. 59. Pip'd to his household gods.] A noble origin this of poetry! After the hymns and facrifices were over, the villagers devoted the rest of the day to feasting and merriment. Their merriments, as Horace informs us, chiefly confifted in alternate, gay, extempore, innocent, and awkward jokes. Verfibus alternis opprobria rustica fudit. This holiday wit, and rude fpecies of poetry, was called "Fefcennine et Saturnine," from the places in Tuscany and Latium, where it chiefly prevailed. From being practised by rustics, and only on thefe occafions, this fpecies of witty raillery foon became the entertainment of towns, at their public diverfions. Then it was, probably, that mufic and dancing, with geftures fuited to the fubject, were added, and the raillery levelled not only at the actors, but fpectators. The fuccefs of this motely entertainment suggested in time the idea of another poem, as various and sarcastic as the former. From the country cuftom of making prefents of baskets filled with fruits, flowers, &c. (fature lances upon particular occafions, this new enter tainment affumed the name of " fatura poemata" or fatire. By degrees, both these kinds of railler became fo petulent, that worth and virtue we often treated by them with the fame feverity vice and folly. This obliged the magiftrate interpofe his authority; in confequence of which, a law was made, A. U. C. 302. fubiecting only the authors of these "mala carmina," thofe alfo who recited and acted them, to a druh bing; and hence the punishment was called "t ftilegium," Thus was illiberal and danger wit restrained; and chafte fatire, by the fuccefie endeavours of Lucilius and others, advanced tea eminent degree of perfection. But as policy discovered that theatrical entertainments of kind or another was neceffary, a company of Te the beft actors), were invited to Rome about fe can hiftors, or players (for the Tufcans were the ty years after the law above-mentioned had puf ed. The language of thefe Tufcans not bet understood at Rome, they endeavoured to fupp this deficiency by a dumb fort of declamation, r eloquent action, wherein the motions and gets of the body were regulated by the flute, is in a manner as to reprefent every fentiment a paffion to the eye of the spectator. This difufe, either through the death of the la mimical entertainment foon, however, får performers, or because it poffeffed not th nant raillery of the former pieces. Accord (for fo hiftorians call it) raged at Rome, the we find, that in A. U. C. 390. when a pele giftrates were admonished to avert the agethe gods by exhibiting plays. In confequent this, a company was fent for from Tufcary; now they began to act (as Mr. Dryden ap it) a kind of civil cleanly farce, the music ing, and geftures being retained. Thele tions, which had fomething in them to the fenfes, and were not withal devoid of t ridicule, continued in quiet poffeffion of the man theatre for 124 years. Livius Andratic was the first who brought a regular play the Roman stage. His plays were divided acts, and modelled after the old comedy. A dronicus was a Grecian by birth, and had be taken captive by the Romans. Having acquired a competent knowledge of the language of the people, he was prefented with his freedom, his mafter Salinator, whofe children he had e cated. This grand fcenical revolution, as T informs us, happened a year after the firft Pa war, and a year before Ennius was born. Nor it was that, among the Romans, the learned he gan to study the Greek authors: and, as the gic poets of Greece had carried the bufkin t great perfection, thofe among the Romans whe wrote for the stage, thonght they could not be enploy their talents than in tranflating th great originals, for the entertainment of ther countrymen: And it was not till the age of A guftus that any piece, entirely Roman, was inte duced upon the stage. Although Horace, as well as our poet, attr bute the invention of poetry to the husbandırı yet many critics, and especially Scaliger, bestow that honour on the fhepherd: And, indeed, when we confider that flocks were tended before the earth was ploughed, their opinion is not improbable. But as poetry is natural to man, and peculiar to no nation, who can afcertain its inventor? Ver. 64. Bleft be the country.] Broekhufius fays, the poet means the fun by the "calidum fidus " It feems rather that he meant the dog-ftar. Tibullus calls the growing corn the earth's annual hair. This metaphor will not do in English. Ver. 66. Tragedy was at firft nothing but an annual hymn, fung by peafants, in honour of Bacchus; and he who acquitted himself beft upon this topic, was rewarded with a goat. Hence the Greek name Teaywire. But as the fameness of the fubject muft at laft have proved irkfome, not only to the poet, but to the audience; it was no wonder that this entertainment was afterwards diverfified. Thefpis, a native of Icaria, a mountainous part of Attica, where this ceremony first obtained, interrupted the Bacchic chorus, A. Mund. 3530, by recitation, on pretence of easing the chorus, and varying the amusement. He happily fucceeded; and what at first was only a fubfidiary interlude, foon became the principal entertainment. Rude, doubtlefs, it was; for Thefpis, as Ariftotle hints, employed but one interlocutor. The entertainment yet fearce merited the name of tragedy, which cannot fubfift without dialogue. Succeeding poets faw this; and, by improving on one another, carried tragedy to perfection. The chorus was retained; but then it was no longer a hymn in honour of Bacchus. The fubject of the fong arose from the subject of the play; and thofe who performed it in the chorus, became effential perfons in the drama. Although the Greeks fix upon Attica as the place where tragedy made its first appearance, yet as man is an imitative animal, the fource of this fpecies of poetry, as well as of the other imitative arts, is to be fought for in human nature. The Chinese, from the earliest antiquity, have had dramatic entertainments; and that excellent hiftorian, Garcilaffo de la Vega, informs us, in the first part of his Commentarios Reales, that the Peruvians compofed and acted feveral tragedies and comedies. The reason for facrificing a goat to the god of wine, the antiquarians tell us, was this: Bacchus, having found out the fecret of cultivating the vine, and of making wine from the grape, taught his discovery to one Icarus (Vid. Bulinger. de Theat. I. i. c. I.) a native of Icaria, who fuccefsfally continued the practice. One day, as Icarus as vifiting his vineyard, he caught a goat, which had made great havoc among his vines. Interest, and gratitude to his inftructor, equally confpiring, he facrificed the creature to Bacchus. fants, who doubtlefs had been invited to fee the foe immolated, danced around the facrifice, and "joyfully fung the praifes of the god. Inflitutions of this kind need but be begun to make them TRANS, II. His pea continual. Hence what at first was merely accidental, became a part of annual devotion Ver. 71. See a fine defcription of wool-fhearing in Mr. Thomson's Summer. Ver. 74. Weaving was held in fuch eftimation by the ancients, that the goddefs of wifdom patronized that art. Hence not only the greatest queens of old, but Circe, the daughter of the fun, and a goddefs, practifed it. The reader who chooses to fee this fubject treated of, with all the importance it deferves, must peruse that most elegant of didactic poems, the Fleece. Ver. 76. The author of that delicate poem, the Pervigilium Veneris, alfo makes the god of love to have been born in the country. Ipfe amor, puer Dionæ, rure natus dicitur. This birth of love is prettily imagined; and the epifodical addrefs to him, in a precatory hymn to the rural deities, is not without its propriety. We know, that to gratify the farmer's hopes, hid cattle muft increafe, as well as his grain flourish, and that beafts as well as men were fuppofed to feel the influence of almighty love. Poetry animates every thing. In an heathen poet's creed, not only hills, trees, fountains, are inhabited by fuperior intelligencies, but the very paffions themfelves must be exalted into deities. If we ftrip the defcription of Tibullus of its poetical ornaments, it will be found to agree very well with truth and nature. The workings of the paffions in minds rude and uncultivated, fuch as an heathen poet must fuppofe the first man to have been, nuft needs be tumultuous and undistinguishing. Love in this cafe would be mere luft, without either choice or difcernment, raised and gratified by the first object that offered; and when exalted into a perfon, may justly be fut pofed to have his birth amongst beafts, or men little fuperior to them, and to throw his arrows about at random. But when the mind begins to admit. of refinement, becomes curious about its obj cs, and delicate in its pursuits, then love will only be excited in it by excellence, either real or imagined; and, defpiling promifcuous concubinage, and the poffeffion of eafter gratifications, it will, with much pain and a xicty, and fevere distress upon mifcarriage, confine itfcif to the pursuit of fome favourite object. Then it is that the deified paffion must be fuppofed to become fkilful in its business, to take exact aim, and neglecting the beftial throng, to wound thofe hearts deepest that are capable of the most exquifite feeling. Thus does our poet keep clofe to nature, even when C his language is moft figurative, and fpeaks of the | And "lovely girls, the whispers, guard your hear paffions almoft with as much precision as the moft curious theorist. B. Ver. 88. Ariofto, as Broekhufius remarks, has happily imitated our poet, in his fable of Jocondo and Aftolphus. Il Greco, fi come ella li disegna Fa lunghi passi, e sempre in quel di dietro Which is thus rendered by a late translator, The Greek, just as fhe had defigned at night, He makes long ftrides, ftill on his foot behind This sweetness, however, the author of the Pervigilum Veneris has attained to. Ipfa Nymphas Diva luco juffit ire Myrteo, Now fair Dione to the myrtle grove Sends the gay nymphs, and fends her tender love. Ruris hic erunt puellæ, &c. To fill the prefence of the gentle court, From waters curling with the wanton gales. 66 My boy, though stript of arms, abounds in arts.” Ver. 93. O come-but throw.] Come Cupid then, but throw thy shafts away, Thy burning fhafts, &c. "Hæc funt belliffima," as Brockhufius juf y remarks, " et amænæ fimplicitatis lenocinio am biliffima. Fruftra ad hanc fuavitatem adfpirar: illi, qui perfpicere non poffunt, quid fit pulchr tudo naturalis." Ver. 97. When the fuperftitious among the ancients were folicitous to obtain what moraity forbade them to defire, they put up private p titions to the gods, and imagined that the god were, in that cafe, obliged to grant their requests, more cfpecially when the offerings they prefented were sufficiently coftly. See this abominable t perftition, forcibly redargued by that great motd fatirift Perfius, whom now the EnglOC may with pleasure perufe, in no lefs faithful the elegant poetical verfion. When the ancients wer particularly anxious about the attainment of ar thing, they used to bribe the keepers of the tem of their favourite god, to let them come nerd his ftatue, in order that their petition migh the best heard. Senec. Ep. 41. Ver. 100. Evening and night are varie prefented by both poets and painters: land the hymns usually afcribed by critics to Orga the ftars, as in our poet, are called the daug of night. And Theocritus names them Ευκηλοι κατ' ανταγα νυκτός οπαδοί. Mr. Thomson's defcription of a fummer and night is exquifitely fine, containing mar propriated and original images: Neither s following picture, by Mr. Smart, deflituted poetry. Night, with all her negro train, See bis Orig. Perms,p. T Mr. Spence, in the notes on his Dialogue of it: Planets, Times, and Seafons, converts the "Ma trus" of the original into " Martis," and fo applica it to the planet Mars. But as this readings authorised by any MSS. or good edition, and a truth has no fort of connection with the contest, night being there reprefented as the mother the ftars, we have been obliged to reject it. Ver. 104. Statius and Claudian make sleep the charioteer of night. But the poft affigned s nus by our poet, is both more poetical, and mart confonant to truth. This night-piece is worthy the pencil di a Claude Lorraine or a Guido Rheni. THIS elegy celebrates the birth-day of Cornutus; | and is addreffed to genius, a fort of divinity, who was fuppofed conftantly to attend every man through the whole courfe of his life. It exhibits a defcription of the rites usually performed on that occafion. In fome lefs perfect editions, the perfon, on whofe birth-day this elegy was written, is called Cerinthus; but as the laborious Broekhufius has proved, that Cerinthus is the foreign name of a flave, and flaves, according to him, were not permitted to marry, "fervis enim non uxores, fed concubernales erant;" a wife being mentioned by the poet as the chief boon his friend had to demand of his natal god: and as the oldeft MSS. and least corrupted editions read Cornutus, we also have retained that name. After all, as we know nothing certain of either Cerinthus, or Cornutus, the reader may adopt what name he fhall think proper. Ver. 1. The god meant in the text Genius. Plutarch (in Lib. de Oracul.) and Plato inform us, that being of a middle nature between gods and men, the genii were fuppofed to be the fecret menitors, by whofe infinuations mankind were inclined to the practice of goodness. According to Varro, in his book intituled Atticus, the ancients abitained from all bloody facrifices at the festival of Genius; and the reafon given for this conduct le, that they might not deprive other beings of life, on that day, wherefore they themselves joyfully commemorated the reception of it. They offered wine indeed, because that promotes hilarity; as alfo pulfe, which they call "tritilla," that being in ancient times a child's firft fpoon meat. Vid. Cenfor de Die natal. & Boxhorn. Quæst. Rom. p. 94. Genius is derived from "Gigno; and therefore Natale Comes qui temperat aftrum, Vid. Notes on El. viii. B. 1. and El. v. B. 4. Ver. 2. This Cornutus, if Broekhufius is not miftaken in his conjecture, is he who was prætor of Rane A. U. C. 710. in the confulate of Hirtius and Panfa; who, in their abfence, enjoyed the confular authority, and was appointed by the fenate" fupplicationes per so dies ad omnia pulvinaria conftituere," for the victory obtained at Modena. Vid. Cicer. Lib. 10. Ep. fam. 12. & 16. See alfo the notes on El. v. B. 3. However as this fuppofition is founded upon the famenefs of name only, fo the perfon, whose birth our poet celebrates, may have been fome young nobleman of the Sulpician or Caecilian families, Cornutus being a furname in both these houses. It was the custom, fays Dart, to enjoin filence at all religious invocations; the pricft began with the known expreffion of "Favete linguis," left any words of ill omen fhould injure the facrifice. Vid. Hor. Ep. Lib. iii. Ode 1. and Virg. Æn. Lib. 5. but as Tibullus enjoins "bona verba," which Övid calls “bonæ preces:" it would feem, that filence was not fo much expected, as that the words and prayers of the fpectators fhould have a tendency to further the happiness of him, for whom the offering was made. The different manners in which these two lines are printed in the original, have occafioned a va riety of interpretations. See a more particular account of the feftival of Genius in Ovid. Lib. 3. Trift. El. 13. Lib. 5. Trift. El. 5. alfo Lib. 1. Faft. V. 72. and Lib. 3. Pont. Epift. 4. Ver. 9. Although among the Romans each perfon was fuppofed to have his own diftin&t genius, who was born and died with him, and confequently, though genius was but a plebeian divinity, yet it appears from this, and fome other paffages in the claffics, that the genii were thought to have a power of beftowing important favours on thofe they attended. They feem, however, to be nothing else, but the particular bent of each perfon, made into a deity; and as every body's own temper is, in a great measure, the cause of his happiness or mifery, they were fuppofed to fhare in all the enjoyments and fufferings of the perfons they attended. Hence, probably, come thofe expreffions among the ancients, of indulging or defrauding your genius. The Comes, or prefiding genius of the fex, was a female, and called Juno. The women, as well as their admirers, used to fwear by this deity. Of the latter we have an infance in the laft elegy of the last book of Tibullus; and Petronius gives us a pleasant inftance of the former," Junonem meam iratem habeam," fays the debauched Quartilla, "fi me unquam virginum fuiffe memini!" On medals thefe deities are fometimes dreffed, like the perfons over whom they prefided. Thus the Juno of a vestal was habited like a nun of that order. There was no harm in this; but when the medallifts reprefent the genius of that monfter Nero, with the infignia of piety, plenty, and profperity, we cannot help lamenting at least the depravity of these artists. Ver. 16 Where rudy waters lave, &c.] A quotation from that accurate and curious Roman traveller Pietro della Valle, will show the propriety of this expreffion. "Mi maravigliai ben' affai del nome di Roffo, che fi dà a quefto more: perche non è come il mar Nero, che per la ficurezza fua, che nasce dal fondo cupo e porcho, merita degnamente quel Dome: in questo l'acqua ë chiar flima, che fi vede il fundo più, che non fi fa a Pofilipo la ftate; ed a vederla di lontano piglia, come gli altri mari color di turchino. L'arena poi dalla quale vogliono alcuni che il nome derivi, (fon tutte bugie) è come le altre; anzi bianca affai più delle noftre: di maniera, che il nome non può venir da altro, che dal nome proprio di quel rè Eythra, fepolto in un' ifola del oceano meridionale come dice Strabone che fignificava Roffo; dal quale, come fi vede in ufo appreffo'i Latini, tutto quel mare, e non il folo feno Arabice, che è una particella & effo, prefe di Roffo il nome, che da' modern po forfe perche così lo chiama la Sacra Scrittura s passaggio degli Ebrei, al seno Arabico, di cui pu. liamo, più fpetialmente a stato appropriato.'” — Broekhuf p. 232. in Ver. 19. The original of this paffage Mr. Dar, conformity to Achilles Statius, interprets, Alas your prayers are flighted, &c. But the fubfequent part of the elegy shows the mistake. Befides, we know the ancients fuppofed, the genius was never complaisant upon those occafion, never refusing any petition. The nuptial bel was confecrated to this god. Not only men, but cities and nations had ther genii. The concealment of the names of the lat ter was looked upon as of the highest cal quence; it being believed, that when a town NY invefted, or a country haraffed by wars, if the enemy implored them by their right appellation, they would abandon that city or nation. Cicero twice ufes the word "cadere" in th same sense that our poet uses it. Ver. 20. Yellow was confecrated, by the as cients, to the god of marriage. Ver. 23. The original of this paffage is vari read. According to Heinfius's correction a “Huc venias natalis avi, prolemque minite But Scaliger, and other editors, print it thu, "Huc veniat Natalis avis prolemque minite." The natal bird, which this reading fupp was, according to them, the crow. Itit Ælian (de Anim. Lib iii. c. 9) tells us, informed, that the ancients, in their mar were wont to invoke that bird, after the dreffes to Hymenæus, it being regarded as a bol of concord by those who married on acc children. The paffage, however, upon which ther built this their interpretation, plainly fhows, the crow was not looked upon, in the day a Hadrian, as propitious to marriage; and we be the authority of Virgil and Horace, not to ment Pliny the elder, for afferting, that the crow wa bird of had omen. The" hac Avi" then, of the original fignifies "hoe Augurio," as is exprežvi in the verfion, where fomething of Scalige's » terpretation is also retained According to Vulpius they used to oblerve the birth of a child, what birds either flow pat or made a noife, and from thefe circumstance predicted good or bad fortune to their prog But as Cupid fome few lines before is reprefented with "Strepitantibus alis," that critic is of op nion that the "Natalis Avis" meationed in the text, is the god of love, who, at the birth of C nutus and his wife, gave happy omens though it is true, that Bion has reprefented e as a large bird, the interpretation feemu too fetched for Tibullus. |