A war enfues, the Cretans own their cause, TRANSLA CONCERNING όν OVID'S EPISTLES. Tlanguage before the tranflation of his Metamor HE life of Ovid being already written in our phofes, I will not presume fo far upon myself, to think I can add any thing to Mr. Sandys his undertaking. The English reader may there be fatisfied, that he flourished in the reign of Auguftus Cæfar; that he was extracted from an ancient family of Roman Knights; that he was born to the inheritance of a fplendid fortune; that he was defigned to the ftudy. of the law, and had made confiderable progress in it, before he quitted that profeffion, for this of Poetry, to which he was more naturally formed. The cause of his banishment is unknown; because he was himfelf unwilling further to provoke the emperor, by afcribing it to any other reason, than what was pretended by Auguftus, which was, the lafcivioufnefs of his Elegies, and his Art of Love. It is true, they. are not to be excused in the feverity of manners, as being able to corrupt a larger empire, if there were any, than that of Rome: yet this may be faid in behalf of Ovid, that no man has ever treated the paffion of love with fo much delicacy of thought, and of expreffion, or searched into the nature of it more philofophically than he. And the emperor, who condemned him, had as little reafon as another man to punish that fault with so much severity, if at least he were the author of a certain Epigram, which is afcribed to him, relating to the caufe of the first civil war betwixt himself and Marc Antony the triumvir, which is more fulfome than any paffage I have met with in our Poet. To pafs by the naked familiarity of his expreffions to Horace, which are cited in that author's life, I need only mention one notorious act of his, in taking Livia to his bed, when fhe was not only married, but with child by her husband then living. But deeds, it feems, may be juftified by arbitrary power, when words are queftioned in a Poet. There is another guefs of the grammarians, as far from truth as the first from reafon: they will have him banished for fome favours, which, they fay, he received from Julia the daughter of Auguftus, whom they think he celebrates under the name of Corinna in his Elegies: but he, who will obferve the verfes, which are made to that miftrefs, may gather from the whole contexture of them, that Corinna was not a woman of the highest quality. If Julia were then married to Agrippa, why fhould our Poet make his petition to Ifis, for her fafe delivery, and afterwards condole her mifcarriage; which, for ought he knew, might be by her own hufband? Or, indeed, how durft he be fo bold to make the leaft difcovery of fuch a crime, which was no lefs than capital, especially committed against a perfon of Agrippa's rank? Or, if it were before her marriage, he would fure have been more difcreet, than to have published an accident which muft have been fatal to them both. But what most confirms me against this opinion, is, that Ovid himself complains, that the true perfon of Corinna was found out by the fame of his verfes to her: which if it had been Julia, he durft not have owned; and, befides, an immediate punishment muft have followed. He feems him felf more truly to have touched at the caufe of his exile in thofe obfcure verses; Cur aliquid vidi, cur noxia Lumina feci? &c. Namely, that he had either feen, or was conscious to fomewhat, which had procured him his difgrace. But neither am I fatisfied, that this was the incest of the |