PREFACE, CONCERNING OVID'S EPISTLE S. THE life of Ovid being already written in our language before the tranflation of his Metamorphofes, I will not presume so far upon myself, to think I can add any thing to Mr. Sandys' undertaking. The Englith 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 splendid fortune; that he was defigned to the ftudy of the law, and had made confiderable progrefs in it, before he quitted that profeffion, for this of Poetry, to which he was more naturally formed. The caufe of his banifliment is unknown; because he was himself unwilling further to provoke the emperor, by afcribing it to any other reafon than what was pretended by Augustus, which was, the lafciviousness of his Elegies, and his Art of Love. It is true, they are not to be excused in the severity 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 fearched into the nature of it more VOL. IV. M phi philofophically than he. And the emperor, who con demned him, had as little reason as another man to punish that fault with fo much feverity, if at least he were the author of a certain Epigram, which is ascribed to him, relating to the firft civil war betwixt himself and Marc Anthony the triumvir, which is more fulfome than any paffage I have met with in our Poet. To pass 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 the was not only married, but with child by her husband then living. But deeds, it seems, may be juftified by arbitrary power, when words are questioned 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 inifcarriage; which, for aught he knew, might be by her own husband? Or, indeed, how durft he be fo bold to make the leaft discovery of fuch a crime, which was no less than capital, efpecially committed against a perfon of Agrippa's rank? Or, if it were before her mariage, he would fure have been more difcreet, than to have published an accident which must 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 durst not have owned; and, befides, an immediate punishment must have followed. He feems himself more truly to have touched at the caufe of his exile in those obscure verfes ; : "Cur aliquid vidi, cur noxia lumina feci ?" &c. Namely, that he had either feen, or was confcious to fomewhat, which had procured him his difgrace. But neither am I fatisfied, that this was the incest of the emperor with his own daughter : for Auguftus was of a nature too vindictive, to have contented himself with fo small a revenge, or fo unfafe to himself, as that of fimple banishment; but would certainly have fecured his crimes from public notice, by the death of him who was witness to them. Neither have historians given us any fight into fuch an action of this emperor: nor would he (the greatest politician of his time), in all probability, have managed his crimes with fo little fecrecy, as not to shun the observation of any man. It feems more probable, that Ovid was either the confident of fome other paffion, or that he had stumbled by fome inadvertency upon the privacies of Livia, and seen her in a bath: for the words "Sine vefte Dianam " M 2 agree agree better with Livia, who had the fame of chastity, than with either of the Julia's, who were both noted of incontinency. The first verfes, which were made by him in his youth, and recited publicly according to the cuftom, were, as he himself affures us, to Corinna: his banishment happened not till the age of fifty: from which it may be deduced, with probability enough, that the love of Corinna did not occafion it: nay, he tells us plainly, that his offence was that of error only, not of wickedness; aud in the same paper of verses also, that the caufe was notoriously known at Rome, though it be left fo obfcure to after-ages. But to leave conjectures on a fubject so uncertain, and to write fomewhat more authentic of this Poet: that he frequented the court of Augustus, and was well received in it, is moft undoubted: all his Poems bear the character of a court, and appear to be written, as the French call it, Cavalierement: add to this, that the titles of many of his Elegies, and more of his letters in his banishment, are addreffed to perfons well known to us, even at this diftance, to have been confiderable in that court. He Nor was his acquaintance lefs with the famous Poets of his age, than with the noble men and ladies. tells you himself, in a particular account of his own life, that Macer, Horace, Tibullus, Propertius, and many others of them, were his familiar friends, and that fome of them communicated their writings to him; but that he had only feen Virgil. If the imitation of nature be the bufinefs of a Poet, I know no author, who can juftly be compared with ours, especially in the defcription of the paffions. And,` to prove this, I fhall need no other judges than the generality of his readers: for, all paffions being inborn with us, we are almoft equally judges, when we are concerned in the reprefentation of them. Now I will appeal to any man, who has read this Poet, whether he finds not the natural emotion of the fame paflion in himfelf, which the Poet defcribes in his feigned perfons? His thoughts, which are the pictures and results of thofe paffions, are generally fuch as natually arife from those disorderly motions of our fpirits. Yet, not to speak too partially in his behalf, I will confefs, that the copiousness of his wit was such, that he often writ too pointedly for his fubject, and made his perfons fpeak more eloquently than the violence of their paffion would admit: fo that he is frequently witty out of feafon; leaving the imitation of nature, and the cooler dictates of his judgment, for the falfe applaufe of fancy. Yet he feems to have found out this imperfection in his riper age: for why elfe fhould he complain, that his Metamorphofes was left unfinished? Nothing fure can be added to the wit of that Poem, or of the rest: but many things ought to have been retrenched; which, I fuppofe, would have been the business of his age, if his misfortunes had not come too faft upon him. But take him uncorrected, as he is tranfmitted to us, and it must be acknowledged, in fpite of his Dutch friends the commentators, even of Julius Scaliger himfelf, M 3 |