I HAVE found it not more difficult to translate Virgil, than to find such patrons as I desire for my translation; for though England is not wanting in a learned nobility, yet such are my

2

9 Our author's translation of Virgil, which was begun in 1694, and completed in about three years, was published in folio, by subscription, in 1697.-The several parts were dedicated to different noblemen; the Eclogues to Lord Clifford, the Georgicks to Lord Chesterfield, and the Æneid to the Marquis of Normanby,

I of this nobleman, who was son of the Lord Treasurer Clifford, (see vol. i. p. 379,) no memorials have been transmitted to us. He died in 1730.

2 In a former Essay our author has spoken less respectfully of the English Nobility. See vol. ii. p. 35. His present sentiment, however, was, I believe, well founded.

unhappy circumstances, that they have confined ms to a narrow choice. To the greater part I have not the honour to be known; and to some of them I cannot shew at present, by any publick act, that grateful respect which I shall ever bear them in my heart.3 Yet I have no reason to complain of fortune, since in the midst of that abundance I could not possibly have chosen better than the worthy son of so illustrious a father. He was the patron of my manhood, when I flourished in the opinion of the world; though with small advantage to my fortune, till he awakened the remembrance of my royal master. He was that Pollio, or that Varus, who introduced me to Augustus; and though he soon dismissed himself

3 This description seems intended to include those who, like our author, had been unfriendly to the Revolution.

4 See Virgil's fourth and sixth Eclogues.-Who the poet's Varus was, has been much disputed among the learned; and their various opinions have been collected by Professor Heyne, in a Dissertation on this subject.VIRG. vol. i. Excursus ad Bucal. ii.

Virgil's patron, C. Asinius Pollio, was one of the most accomplished men of his age, at once an able and successful general, an excellent poet, orator, and historian. His Letters to Cicero shew him in a less favourable light. He lived to the age of eighty, dying A. U. C. 757, about ten years before Augustus.

Pollio was the first person who erected a publick library at Rome, adorned with statues of the most famous authors. Vid. PLIN. 1. vii. c. 30; l. xxxv. c. 2.

Having been appointed Governor of Cisalpine Gaul,

from state affairs, yet in the short time of his administration he shone so powerfully upon me, that like the heat of a Russian summer, he ripened the fruits of poetry in a cold climate; and gave me wherewithal to subsist, at least, in the long winter which succeeded.

What I now offer to your Lordship is the wretched remainder of a sickly age, worn out with study, and oppressed by fortune; without other support than the constancy and patience of a Christian. You, my Lord, are yet in the flower of your youth, and may live to enjoy the benefits of the peace which is promised Europe; I can only hear of that blessing; for years, and, above all things, want of health, have shut me out from sharing in the happiness. The poets who condemn their Tantalus to hell, had added to his torments, if they had placed him in Elysium; which is the proper emblem of my condition. The fruit and the water may reach my lips, but cannot enter;

A. U. C. 711, within which district Mantua lay, he there became acquainted with Virgil, who was born at Andes, (now Pietola,) a village two miles from thence, in the year 684; and he was so much pleased with the young poet, that he procured for him the restoration of his portion of the lands of Mantua, which, with those of Cremona, had been distributed, under Pollio's direction, among the successful veterans after the battle of Philippi. Virgil having gone to Rome in 713 on this business, is supposed to have been then made known by Pollio to Mæcenas, by whom he was introduced to Octavius, See MART. viii. 56.

and if they could, yet I want a palate, as well as a digestion. But it is some kind of pleasure to me, to please those whom I respect; and I am not altogether out of hope, that these PASTORALS of Virgil may give your Lordship some delight, though made English by one who scarcely remembers that passion which inspired my author when he wrote them. These were his first essay in poetry (if the CEIRIS was not his): and it was more excusable in him to describe love, when he was young, than for me to translate him when I am old. He died at the age of fifty-two, and I began this work in my great climacterick; but having perhaps a better constitution than my author, I have wronged him less, considering my circumstances, than those who have attempted him before, either in our own, or any modern language. And though this version is not void of errours, yet it comforts me that the faults of others are not worth finding. Mine are neither gross nor frequent, in those Eclogues wherein my master has raised himself above that humble style in which Pastoral delights, and which I must confess is proper to the education and converse of shepherds; for he found the strength of his genius betimes,"

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Lord Surrey, Phaer, Twyne, Stanyhurst, Fleming, May, Vicars, Boys, Harrington, Ogilby, &c.

• Virgil is supposed to have written his first Eclogue, the ALEXIS, (now misplaced) in his twenty-seventh year, A. U. C. 711.

It is probable, from various circumstances, that the

and was even in his youth preluding to his GEORGICKS and his ENEIS. He could not forbear to try his wings, though his pinions were not hardened to maintain a long laborious flight; yet sometimes they bore him to a pitch as lofty as ever he was able to reach afterwards. But when he was admonished by his subject to descend, he came down gently circling in the air, and singing to the ground like a lark, melodious in her mounting, and continuing her song till she alights; still preparing for a higher flight at her next sally, and tuning her voice to better musick. The Fourth, the Sixth, and the Eighth Pastorals, are clear evidences of this truth. In the three first? he contains himself within his bounds; but ad

Eclogues were written, and ought to be arranged, in the following order. The Arabick figures denote the order in which they stand at present; the Roman numerals that in which they ought to be placed. The year in which each Pastoral has on probable grounds been supposed to be written, is subjoined.