Part 14

When this immortal work was completed, Virgil resolved on retiring into Greece and Asia for three years, that he might devote himself entirely to polishing it, and have leisure afterwards to pass the remainder of his life in the cultivation of philosophy. But meeting at Athens with Augustus, who was on his return from the East, he determined on accompanying the emperor back to Rome. Upon a visit to Megara, a town in the neighbourhood of Athens, he was seized with a languor, which increased during the ensuing voyage; and he expired a few days after landing at Brundisium, on the 22nd of September, in the fifty-second year of his age. He desired that his body might be carried to Naples, where he had passed many happy years; and that the following distich, written in his last sickness, should be inscribed upon his tomb:

Mantua me genuit: Calabri rapuere: tenet nunc Parthenope: cecini pascua, rura, duces.

He was accordingly interred, by the order of Augustus, with great funeral pomp, within two miles of Naples, near the road to Puteoli, where his tomb still exists. Of his estate, which was very considerable by the liberality of his friends, he left the greater part to Valerius Proculus and his brother, a fourth to Augustus, a twelfth to Mecaenas, besides legacies to L. Varius and Plotius Tucca, who, in consequence of his own request, and the command of Augustus, revised and corrected the Aeneid after his death. Their instructions from the emperor were, to expunge whatever they thought improper, but upon no account to make any addition. This restriction is supposed to be the cause that many lines in the Aeneid are imperfect.

Virgil was of large stature, had a dark complexion, and his (172) features are said to have been such as expressed no uncommon abilities. He was subject to complaints of the stomach and throat, as well as to head-ache, and had frequent discharges of blood upwards: but from what part, we are not informed. He was very temperate both in food and wine. His modesty was so great, that at Naples they commonly gave him the name of Parthenias, “the modest man.” On the subject of his modesty; the following anecdote is related.

Having written a distich, in which he compared Augustus to Jupiter, he placed it in the night-time over the gate of the emperor’s palace. It was in these words:

Nocte pluit tota, redeunt spectacula mane: Divisum imperium cum Jove Caesar habet.

All night it rained, with morn the sports appear, Caesar and Jove between them rule the year.

By order of Augustus, an inquiry was made after the author; and Virgil not declaring himself, the verses were claimed by Bathyllus, a contemptible poet, but who was liberally rewarded on the occasion. Virgil, provoked at the falsehood of the impostor, again wrote the verses on some conspicuous part of the palace, and under them the following line:

Hos ego versiculos feci, tulit alter honorem; I wrote the verse, another filched the praise;

with the beginning of another line in these words:

Sic vos, non vobis, Not for yourselves, you----

repeated four times. Augustus expressing a desire that the lines should be finished, and Bathyllus proving unequal to the task, Virgil at last filled up the blanks in this manner:

Sic vos, non vobis, nidificatis, aves; Sic vos, non vobis, vellera fertis, oves; Sic vos, non vobis, mellificatis, apes; Sic vos, non vobis, fertis aratra, boves.

Not for yourselves, ye birds, your nests ye build; Not for yourselves, ye sheep, your fleece ye yield; Not for yourselves, ye bees, your cells ye fill; Not for yourselves, ye beeves, ye plough and till.

The expedient immediately evinced him to be the author of the distich, and Bathyllus became the theme of public ridicule.

When at any time Virgil came to Rome, if the people, as was commonly the case, crowded to gaze upon him, or pointed at him with the finger in admiration, he blushed, and stole away (173) from them; frequently taking refuge in some shop. When he went to the theatre, the audience universally rose up at his entrance, as they did to Augustus, and received him with the loudest plaudits; a compliment which, however highly honourable, he would gladly have declined. When such was the just respect which they paid to the author of the Bucolics and Georgics, how would they have expressed their esteem, had they beheld him in the effulgence of epic renown! In the beautiful episode of the Elysian fields, in the Aeneid, where he dexterously introduced a glorious display of their country, he had touched the most elastic springs of Roman enthusiasm. The passion would have rebounded upon himself, and they would, in the heat of admiration, have idolized him.

HORACE was born at Venusia, on the tenth of December, in the consulship of L. Cotta and L. Torquatus. According to his own acknowledgment, his father was a freedman; by some it is said that he was a collector of the revenue, and by others, a fishmonger, or a dealer in salted meat. Whatever he was, he paid particular attention to the education of his son, for, after receiving instruction from the best masters in Rome, he sent him to Athens to study philosophy. From this place, Horace followed Brutus, in the quality of a military tribune, to the battle of Philippi, where, by his own confession, being seized with timidity, he abandoned the profession of a soldier, and returning to Rome, applied himself to the cultivation of poetry. In a short time he acquired the friendship of Virgil and Valerius, whom he mentions in his Satires, in terms of the most tender affection.

Postera lux oritur multo gratissima: namque Plotius et Varius Sinuessae, Virgiliusque, Occurrunt; animae, quales neque candidiores Terra tulit, neque queis me sit devinctior alter. O qui complexus, et gaudia quanta fuerunt! Nil ego contulerim jucundo sanus amico.--Sat. I. 5.

Next rising morn with double joy we greet, For Plotius, Varius, Virgil, here we meet: Pure spirits these; the world no purer knows, For none my heart with more affection glows: How oft did we embrace, our joys how great! For sure no blessing in the power of fate Can be compared, in sanity of mind, To friends of such companionable kind.--Francis.

By the two friends above mentioned, he was recommended to the patronage not only of Mecaenas, but of Augustus, with whom he, as well as Virgil, lived on a footing of the greatest intimacy. Satisfied with the luxury which he enjoyed at the first tables in (174) Rome, he was so unambitious of any public employment, that when the emperor offered him the place of his secretary, he declined it. But as he lived in an elegant manner, having, besides his house in town, a cottage on his Sabine farm, and a villa at Tibur, near the falls of the Anio, he enjoyed, beyond all doubt. a handsome establishment, from the liberality of Augustus. He indulged himself in indolence and social pleasure, but was at the same time much devoted to reading; and enjoyed a tolerable good state of health, although often incommoded with a fluxion of rheum upon the eyes.

Horace, in the ardour of youth, and when his bosom beat high with the raptures of fancy, had, in the pursuit of Grecian literature, drunk largely, at the source, of the delicious springs of Castalia; and it seems to have been ever after his chief ambition, to transplant into the plains of Latium the palm of lyric poetry. Nor did he fail of success:

Exegi monumentum aere perennius.--Carm. iii. 30. More durable than brass a monument I’ve raised.

In Greece, and other countries, the Ode appears to have been the most ancient, as well as the most popular species of literary production. Warm in expression, and short in extent, it concentrates in narrow bounds the fire of poetical transport: on which account, it has been generally employed to celebrate the fervours of piety, the raptures of love, the enthusiasm of praise; and to animate warriors to glorious exertions of valour:

Musa dedit fidibus Divos, puerosque Deorum, Et pugilem victorem, et equum certamine primnm, Et juvenum curas, et libera vina referre.--Hor. De Arte Poet.

The Muse to nobler subjects tunes her lyre; Gods, and the sons of Gods, her song inspire; Wrestler and steed, who gained the Olympic prize, Love’s pleasing cares, and wine’s unbounded joys.--Francis.

Misenum Aeoliden, quo non praestantior alter Aere ciere viros, Martemque accendere cnatu. Virgil, Aeneid, vi. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Sed tum forte cava dum personat aequora concha Demens, et canto vocat in certamina Divos.--Ibid.

Misenus, son of Oeolus, renowned The warrior trumpet in the field to sound; With breathing brass to kindle fierce alarms, And rouse to dare their fate in honourable arms.