1808.] 
-in the court of Centumviri, vith equal 
force and elegance. He was even made 
one of the ¢riumviri, who were magi- 
strates of great authority, specially, ap- 
pointed for the trial of criminal cases. 
At the earlyage of seventeen, he had been 
previously invested by Aug ustus with 
the /atus clavus, an oruament worn only 
by persons of quality. 
But the predilection he had imbibed 
from his miancy for the Muses, induced 
him to relinquish the bar, after a short 
trial of its fatiguesand uncertainties. He 
abandoned every future hope of advance- 
ment, to devote himself altogether to 
poetry; in the pursuit of which, he ex- 
pected to obiain a more illustrious pame, 
and, in the mean time, to live in greater 
ease and quiet. The death of bis elder 
brother, by which he is said to have suc- 
ceeded toa plentiful fortune, was another 
motive for him to resign all public affairs, 
and confine hisambition to the enjoyment 
of his friends and lis favourite study. His 
genius and his wit soon procured him ad- 
mission amoug the first societies of Rome. 
He lived in friends hip with Tiballus, Seve- 
rus, Sabinus, Sext. Pompeius, Greecinus, 
and Flaccus, all men of patrician fami- 
lies, and conspicoous for their learning 
and accomplishments. He possessed a 
happy talent which equally adapted itself 
to all kinds of poetry, in most of which 
he might haveexce:led, had he accustomed 
himself toa greater degree of application 
in his youth, and had the latter part of ius 
life been less clouded by misfortunes. 
But the natural indolence of his temper, 
the affluciice of his fortune, which placed 
every enjoyment within his reach, and 
the careless gatety of his disposition, left 
him little time for the correction and im- 
provement of his works. He was three 
times marned : his first wife he divorced 
on account of herextreme youth; for the 
hasty dismissal of the second, he does 
not assign areason; but the third, Perilla, 
he tender ‘ly loved, and has frequently oe 
tolled her beauty and ber virtues. He 
lived mostly at Rome, hear the capitol; 
or he occasionally retired to lis gardens, 
a short-distance from the city, on the Via 
Appia. He also possessed, as ap pears 
from the second elegy de Ponto, another 
villa in his native province. 
The amorous disposition of Ovid is al- 
most proverbially known. Indulging in 
the fashionable vice of the age, ‘he had 
several mistresses, among whom, Coruna 
-is highly celebrated by his pen. Yo the 
pleasures of love ha was beyond measure 
-addicted; and to record the physical 
Moniny Mac. No, 17%. 
Lyceum of Ancient Literature--Ovtd. 
417, 
delights of that passion, as well as its 
pleasing solicitudes, is the object of inost 
of his amatory poems. He condescends 
to inform us, how well he was qualified by 
nature ‘for these purposes, and asserts, 
‘that neither his body nor bis mind wasever 
depressed “by his frequent. intercourse 
with the sex. He even expresses 2 wish, 
that, like Lais, he might expire in the ac- 
tual fruition ‘of that enjoyment. — Eis 
writings teem withexpressions like these, 
and other images equally warm. Wedo 
not, indeed, find. in:them the gross inde- 
hicacies of Catullus, Horace, and Mar tial; 
much less, does he even mention a vice 
of a more offensive nature, of which those 
poets speak so freely. But that appa- 
rent delicncy and choice of words in 
which Ovid excels, render most of his 
works the more dangcrous, as they repre-= 
sent in very intelligible, though in elegant 
terms, the most laseivwwus arts of love. 
And these he gives us, not as the effect of 
bis own imagination, or from the report 
of others; bat as the result of his own 
experience and practice. When age, 
indeed, and the rigour of his exile made 
him blush, and repent these impurities 
of his youth, he apologizes for the impro-= 
per abnse of*his poetical talent. He de- 
clares that he bad not committed the 
actions he describes, and that his head 
had a much greater share in those- de- 
rane than his hearts It might be 
fair perhaps, to withhold our credit from 
either of these accounts: We may sus- 
pect that in the first instance his vanity 
betrayed him into a detail of voluptuous 
scenes, in which he was willing to be sup- 
posed a principal actor. A poet, whose 
trade is fiction,” may, after a lapse of 
tune, persuade, hageele that he was the 
bere ‘of his own imaginary triumphs. How 
far this was the case with Ovid; whether 
he wrote from actual experience, or from. 
the dictates of a fancy luxurious and de- 
praved itis now,of course,impossibletode= 
termine, But the assertion which he makes 
in his old age, that the indelicacy of his 
earlier poems is not to be charged to any 
corrupt design, itis still less possible to ad- 
mit. Thedeairedtieeniinine to Rome, from 
which he was ostensibly banished on ac- 
count of those very poems, made him, no 
doubt, eager to frame an apology, which 
neithen satisfied Augustus at the time, 
nor merits the belief of posterity. Many 
writers, when they have found theic 
works brought 4 as evidence against them, 
have boasted their innuceuceof i intention, 
notwithstanding the clear-and inexpiable 
guilt of their publication, Our own Dry- 
Si dean 
