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defence of the new fashion of English hexameters, he has given us his own verfion of two of Virgil's BUCOLICS, written in that unnatural and impracticable mode of verfification". I must not forget here, that the fame Webbe ranks Abraham Fleming as a translator, after Barnabie Googe the tranflator of Palingenius's ZODIAC, not without a compliment to the poetry and the learning of his brother Samuel, whofe excellent Inventions, he adds, had not yet been made public.

Abraham Fraunce, in 1591, tranflated Virgil's ALEXIS into English hexameters, verfe for verse, which he calls The lamentation of Corydon for the love of Alexis. It must be owned, that the selection of this particular Eclogue from all the ten for an English verfion, is fomewhat extraordinary. But in the reign of queen Elifabeth, I could point out whole fets of fonnets written with this fort of attachment, for which perhaps it will be but an inadequate apology, that they are free from direct impurity of expreffion and open immodesty of fentiment. Such at least is our obfervance of external propriety, and fo strong the principles of a general decorum, that a writer of the prefent age who was to print love-verfes in this ftyle, would be feverely reproached, and univerfally profcribed. I will inftance only in the AFFECTIONATE SHEPHERD of Richard Barnefielde, printed in 1595. Here, through the courfe of twenty fonnets, not inelegant, and which were exceedingly popular, the poet bewailshis unsuccessful love for a beautiful youth, by the name of Ganimede, in a strain of the most tender paffion, yet with profefsions of the chastest affection. Many descriptions and incidents,

"In 1594, Richard Jones published "PAN HIS PIPE, conteyninge Three Paf"torall Eglogs in Englyfhe hexamiter with "other delightfull verfes." Licenced Jan. 3. REGISTR. STATION. B. fol. 316. b.

At the end of the counteffe of Pembroke's Joy-church, in the fame measure, Lond. 8vo. He wrote alfo in the fame verfe, The lamentation of Amyntas for the death of Phillis. Lond. 1587. 4to. He tranflated into English hexameters the beginning of

Heliodorus's ETHIOPICS. Lond. 1598% 8vo.

P At London, for H. Lownes, 1596. 16mo. Another edition appeared the fame year, with his CYNTHIA and Legend of CASSANDRA. For the fame, 1596. 16mo. In the preface of this fecond edition he apologises for his Sonnets, "I will vn"fhaddow my conceit: being nothing else "but an imitation of Virgill in the fecond "Eclogue of ALEXIS." But I find, "CYN

which have a like complexion, may be found in the futile novels of Lodge and Lilly.

Fraunce is alfo the writer of a book, with the affected and unmeaning title of the "ARCADIAN RHETORIKE, or the pre"ceptes of Rhetoricke made plaine by examples, Greeke, Latyne, Englishe, Italyan, Frenche, and Spanishe." It was printed in 1588, and is valuable for its English examples '.

In confequence of the verfions of Virgil's Bucolics, a piece appeared in 1584, called " A Comoedie of Titerus and Gala"thea '." I fuppofe this to be Lilly's play called GALLATHEA, played before the queen at Greenwich on New Year's day by the chorifters of faint Pauls.

It will perhaps be fufficient barely to mention Spenfer's CuLEX, which is a vague and arbitrary paraphrase, of a poem not properly belonging to Virgil. From the testimony of many early Latin writers it may be juftly concluded, that Virgil wrote an elegant poem with this title. Nor is it improbable that in the CULEX at prefent attributed to Virgil, fome very few of the original phrases, and even verses, may remain, under the accumulated incrustation of critics, imitators, interpolators, and paraphrafts, which corrupts what it conceals. But the texture, the character, and fubftance, of the genuine poem is almoft entirely loft. The CEIRIS, or the fable of Nifus and Scylla, which follows, although never mentioned by any writer of antiquity, has much fairer pretenfions to genuineness. At least the CEIRIS, allowing for uncommon depravations of time and transcription, appears in its present state to be a poem of the Auguftan age, and is perhaps the identical piece dedicated to the Meffala whose patronage it folicits. It has that rotundity of verfification, which seems to have been studied after the Roman poetry emerged from barba

"THIA with certeyne SONNETTES and the "Legend of CASSANDRA," entered to H. Lownes, Jan. 18, 1594. REGISTR. STATION. B. fol. 317. a.

Entered to T. Gubbyn and T. New

man, Jun. 11, 1588. REGISTR. STATION. B. fol. 229. b.

• Entered April 1, to Cawood. Ibid. fol. 203. b. Lilly's GALATEA, however, appears to be entered as a new copy to T. Man, Oct. 1, 1591. Ibid. fol. 280. b.

rifm.

rism. It has a general fimplicity, and often a native strength, of colouring; nor is it tinctured,, except by the cafual innovation of grammarians, with those fophiftications both of fentiment and expreffion, which afterwards of course took place among the Roman poets, and which would have betrayed a recent forgery. It feems to be the work of a young poet but its digreffions and defcriptions which are often too prolix, are not only the marks of a young poet, but of early poetry. It is interfperfed with many lines, now in the Eclogues, Georgics, and Eneid. Here is an argument which feems to affign it to Virgil. A cotemporary poet would not have ventured to steal from poems fo well known. It was natural, at least allowable, for Virgil to steal from a performance of his youth, on which he did not fet any great value, and which he did not scruple to rob of a few ornaments, deferving a better place. This confideration excludes Cornelius Gallus, to whom Fontanini, with much acute criticifm, has afcribed the CEIRIS. Nor, for the reafon given, would Virgil have ftolen from Gallus. The writer has at least the art of Virgil, in either fuppreffing, or throwing into shade, the trite and uninteresting incidents of the common fabulous, history of Scylla, which were incapable of decoration, or had been preoccupied by other poets. The dialogue between the young princess Scylla, who is deeply in love, and her nurfe, has much of the pathos of Virgil. There are fome traces which discover an imitation of Lucretius: but on the whole, the ftructure of the verses, and the predominant caft and manner of the compofition, exactly resemble the ARGONAUTICA of Catullus, or the EPITHALAMIUM of PELEUS AND THETIS. I will inftance in the following paffage, in which every thing is distinctly and circumftantially touched, and in an affected pomp of numbers. He is alluding to the ftole of Minerva, interwoven with the battle of the giants, and exhibited at Athens in the magnificent Panathenaic feftival. The claffical reader will perceive one or two interpolations: and lament, that this rich piece of embroi

dery

dery has fuffered a little from being unskilfully darned by another and a more modern artificer.

Sed magno intexens, fi fas eft dicere, peplo,
Qualis Erectheis olim portatur Athenis,
Debita cum caftæ folvuntur vota Minervæ,
Tardaque confecto redeunt quinquennia luftro,
Cum levis alterno Zephyrus concrebuit Euro,
Et prono gravidum provexit pondere cursum.
Felix ille dies, felix et dicitur annus :
Felices qui talem annum videre, diemque!
Ergo Palladiæ texuntur in ordine pugnæ :
Magna Gigantæis ornantur pepla tropæis,
Horrida fanguineo pinguntur prælia cocco.
Additur aurata dejectus cufpide Typho,
Qui prius Offæis confternens æthera faxis,
Emathio celfum duplicabat vertice Olympum.
Tale deæ velum folemni in tempore portant.

The same stately march of hexameters is obfervable in Tibullus's tedious panegyric on Meffala: a poem, which, if it should not be believed to be of Tibullus's hand, may at least, from this reasoning be adjudged to his age. We are fure that Catullus could not have been the author of the CEIRIS, as Meffala, to whom it is infcribed, was born but a very few years before the death of Catullus. One of the chief circumstances of the story is a purple lock of hair, which grew on the head of Nifus king of Megara, and on the preservation of which the safety of that city, now befieged by Minos, king of Crete, entirely depended. Scylla, Nifus's daughter, falls in love with Minos, whom she fees from the walls of Megara: fhe finds means to cut off this facred ringlet, the city is taken, and she is married to Minos. I am of opinion that Tibullus, in the following paffage, alludes to the CEIRIS, then newly published,

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and which he points out by this leading and fundamental fiction of Nifus's purple lock.

Pieridas, pueri, doctos et amate poetas ;

Aurea nec fuperent munera Pieridas!

CARMINE PURPUREA eft Nifi coma: carmina ni fint,
Ex humero Pelopis non nituiffet ebur‘.

Tibullus here, in recommending the study of the poets to the Roman youth, illuftrates the power of poetry; and, for this purpose, with much addrefs he felects a familiar inftance from a piece recently written, perhaps by one of his friends.

Spenfer seems to have shewn a particular regard to these two little poems, fuppofed to be the work of Virgil's younger years. Of the CULEX he has left a paraphrase, under the title of VIRGIL'S GNAT, dedicated to lord Leicester, who died in 1588. It was printed without a title page at the end of the "TEARES "OF THE MUSES, by Ed. Sp. London, imprinted for Wil"liam Ponfonbie dwelling in Paules church-yard at the fign of "the bishops head, 1591 "." From the CEIRIS he has copied a long paffage, which forms the first part of the legend of Britomart in the third book of the FAIRY QUEEN.

Although the story of MEDEA exifted in Guido de Columna, and perhaps other modern writers in Latin, yet we seem to have had a verfion of Valerius Flaccus in 1565. For in that year, I know not if in verfe or profe, was entered to Purfoote, "The ftory of Jafon, how he gotte the golden flece, and howe he "did begyle Media [Medea], oute of Laten into Englisshe by Nycholas Whyte "." Of the tranflator Whyte, I know nothing more.

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Of Ovid's METAMORPHOSIS, the four first books were tranflated by Arthur Golding in 1565*. "The fyrst fower bookes "of the Metamorphofis owte of Latin into English meter by

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ELEG. Lib. i. iv. 61.

REGISTR. STATION. A. fol. 134. a

In quarto. White Lett. Containing * Lond. Bl. Lett. 4to%

twenty-four leaves.

VOL. III.

3 F

"Arthur

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