418 
' dén, perhaps, was'the only man, who, in 
compliance with the demands of a vitious 
age overstepped the modesty of his own 
nature, and polluted his pages with 
‘scenes, in which his heart had no share. 
~ Ovid, however, in the mtervals of his 
gallantry, found time to write his Heroic 
Epistles, and his Fasti. Several otber 
pieces have been attributed to him, most 
of which have perished through the inju- 
ry of time. ‘There are still: many little 
poems extant which bear his name, but 
they have been pronounced spurious, 
by the best critics, except that De 
Nuce, and de Medicamine Faciet, which 
may, perhaps, be classed among his ju- 
. venile compositions. A poem de Piscibus, 
which Oppian is said to have copied in 
his Haheutics, a Sat.re on bad Poets, 
now lost, a poem on the triumphs of Au- 
gustus, which he mentions in his epistle 
to Rufinus, and a tragedy on the subject 
of Medea, commended by Quintilian for 
its beauty of expression, and divnity of 
sentiment, are said to have been written 
by him. About this time also, the Me- 
tamorphoses were composed. In these 
and other pursuits, more or less imnocent 
as his sense or passions predominated, 
Ovid lived beloved, if not respected, tll 
he attained the fiftieth year of hisage. — 
At this period, when he was in the full 
enjoyment of his friends and the Muses ; 
and blest with the smiles of fortune, and 
the favour of his prince, he experienced 
a reverse equally singular and unexpected. 
Tt has long exercised the patience and in- 
genuity of critics, to ascertain the real 
cause of the poet’s disgrace. By some 
indiscretion in his conduct, or by an ac- 
cidental discovery of some event at court, 
he incurred the displeasure of Augustus. 
All the conjectures that have been torm- 
ed, are liable to such insuperable objec- 
tions, that we shall merely state those 
which appear to have some foundation, 
with the difficulties that occur to us, leav- 
ing it to the sagacity of the reader to 
form some hypothesis of bis own, It is 
in the first place, generally asserted that 
‘the looseness of his poetry, which had 
corrupted the minds of the Roman youth, 
‘was the occasion of the very severe pu- 
nishmentinficted uponhim. Butitseems 
scarcely probable, that Augustus should 
ass a sentence of exile on the author of 
the Art of Love, at a time when he was 
the avowed friend and patron of Horace, 
whose Satires contain expressions and al- 
lusions of the most imdelicate nature. 
}le, who amid the contusion and slauch- 
ter of a civil war, could write the well- 
Lyceum of Ancient Literature—Ovid. 
[June 1,’ 
known infamous epigram on Fulvia; who 
endured the society of the most abandon- 
ed men in Rome; whose morals were 
so decried and so broadly mentioned: by 
- Suetonius; wasnot likely to take serious 
offence at the amorous effusions of a Ro- 
man knight, which, however exceptiona- 
ble, are at least veiled by the decent co- 
vering of words. If Augustus thought 
proper to urge as a reason the poems 
he had written, it is probable that it 
was only used as a pretext tu cover some 
offence of a more private and less par- 
donable nature. Ovid, indeed, himself 
confesses, that there were two causes for 
his misfortunes; the one, that he had 
composed some books upon the Art of 
Love, the other that he had seen some- 
thing; but he declines explaining this 
second cause, and merely gives us to un- 
derstand, that it contributed, more than 
his book, to his disgrace. 
Cum me perdiderint dua ctimina, carmen & 
error, 
~ Alterius facti culpa tacenda mihi. 
And again, 
Utque hee, sic utinam defendere czxtera 
posses, og 
Scis aliud quod te lzserit esse majus. 
From the words in the first of these qua- 
tations, Adterius facti culpa, it may be pre- 
sumed, that he was not guilty of any parti- 
cular crime himself; but that he was un- 
lucky enough to be the unexpected witness 
of some nefarious transaction in the impe- 
rial court. It has been supposed that 
the poet surprised Augustus in the com- 
mission of a flagrant crime, with Julia his 
daughter; and that such a surmise was 
current in Rome, appears frem a passage. 
in Suetonius, that Caligula ‘affected ‘te 
despise his mother, because he believed 
her to be the offspring of that incestuous 
commerce. Predicabat autem Matrem 
suam, ea incesto quod Augustus cum Julia 
jfilia commisisset, procreatam. (Suet._ in 
Vit. Calig.) The morals, indeed, of Au- 
gustus were not so pure, and the charac- 
ter of Julia was too notoriously depraved, 
to 1nduce us to disbelieve the fact, mere- 
ly because we suppose them incapabie of 
committing it. ‘The Annals of the House — 
of Medici are polluted with a similar 
crime. But this account is refuted, by 
the single circumstance that the disgrace 
of Ovid did not take place till some years 
after Jntia had been removed from Rome, | 
and had hecome the object of her father's 
indignation. And, admitting that this 
anachronism could ye removed, the em-_ 
peror had been too much accustomed 
to 
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