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sertion, and in many cases I have preferred the readings of other MSS., of which Ruperti has given a catalogue and description. I myself am in possession of one which is not in Ruperti's list. It is neatly written on parchment in 8vo. form, but is incomplete and of no particular value, being an Italian MS. of the early part perhaps of the fifteenth century. As it is not a transcript of any MS. referred to by other editors, I have occasionally noticed it, and have called it M. Many of its readings in disputed passages I have rejected.

I have not followed implicitly the judgment of any editor. Jahn and Hermann rely too much I think on the MS. they do well to prefer. Hermann keeps more closely to it than Jahn, sometimes I think with good reason. They have not published commentaries. The notes to which I attach most value are those of Heinrich, published by himself without the text in 1806, 1810, and republished by his son two years after his death (Bonn, 1839), with a text corrected in accordance with his father's commentary. These notes did not satisfy the judgment of Madvig, who thought them beneath the reputation and abilities of their author. . To me they appear throughout manly and sensible, free from pedantry (the plague of commentaries), and worthy of the great writer whom it is their only object to explain. As there is no ancient author that requires masculine sense to understand and explain his meaning so much as Juvenal, so I know of no commentator on any author that surpasses Heinrich in that quality. His notes are in German, and

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suppose this is the reason why Ruperti's edition continues to be much used by students in this country. It is the work of an industrious man of weak mind, always liable to waver when his judgment happens to be right, but never to be relied upon in cases of difficulty. Nor is he strictly honest, for he changed his interpretations in some instances in his later edition, without acknowledging that he was indebted to Heinrich for his second thoughts. A smart and rather sarcastic review of Ruperti's notes was put forth by Heinecke (Halle, 1804), and is sometimes referred to in the notes of this edition. Heinecke is often wrong himself. He was young when he wrote. The Parisian editor, Achaintre (1810), has

nothing to recommend him. He has borrowed without acknowledgment from Ruperti; so at least that editor says. His remarks are very feeble. He has added in a separate volume notes more valuable than his own by the two brothers Valesii, written at the end of the seventeenth century, but never before published entire. He also had access to a large number of MSS. in the then imperial library at Paris. How he used them his references are too general to enable the reader to judge. The only English edition I have had occasion to notice is one by Mr. Mayor (Cambridge, 1853), intended for the use of schools; the chief feature of which is a large compilation, from various sources, of references to other authors, classical and ecclesiastical, some given as quotations, but most by reference to the places in which the passages are to be found. The object of this is said to be "to rescue certain authors from undeserved contempt." The authors meant are those later than the Augustan age. Whether they are held in undeserved contempt, or whether this commentary has helped to rescue them, I do not know. Mr. Mayor does not approve of Heinrich, and from the nature of his own commentary it was not to be expected that he would. His text professes to be that of Jahn, "except in orthography and punctuation." In his interpretation when he has an opportunity he follows the judgment of Madvig, in whose Opuscula there are two essays in which some passages of Juvenal are commented upon. With all respect for that eminent scholar, I do not think the interpretation of Juvenal was quite in his way. I have mentioned his opinion in several places. The names of Grangaeus, Britannicus, Henninius, and other scholars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, will be found in these notes. Their commentaries, in part or entire, are collected in a thick quarto volume, published at Leyden by Henninius in 1695, which book Ruperti calls "indigestam vanae speciosaeque doctrinae farraginem, rudemque rerum inutilium molem." It contains much that is wrong and a great deal that is good, and Ruperti need not have despised it. The edition of Lubinus (Hanover, 1603) I have had by me. Ruperti looks upon him as "verbosus nugator." He was a learned man and the friend of learned men, and often understood Juvenal where Ruperti did not.

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Of the English translations I have referred to, those of Dryden and Gifford are the ablest. Dryden has not translated all the Satires. Holyday's is a quaint piece of rhyming prose, with some learned notes. He often hits the sense where others miss it. Dr. Johnson's imitations of the third and tenth Satires I have noticed in their places. Happening to have the Italian translation by Teodoro Accio (Lugano, 1828), I have sometimes referred to it; and have found it, as far as I have done so, sensible and often correct. I believe it has a high reputation in Italy.

Having edited Horace for this series, I have referred freely to my own notes in that edition. I hope I shall not appear egotistical in so doing. I must either have taken this course, or repeated almost word for word what I had written before.

This has been found still more necessary with respect to Persius, who has imitated Horace so freely as to compromise his character for originality, though he has merits, as well as defects, that are his own.

This author has lately been edited (Leipzig, 1843) with much care by Otto Jahn, whose edition of Juvenal is mentioned above. His notes on Persius are in the style of Ruperti's on Juvenal, though they have more merit. Readers who wish to be referred to a great variety of authors and critics, will use Jahn's edition for that purpose'. For the author's meaning Heinrich is a better guide in my opinion. His notes were edited at the request of his son by Jahn the year after his own edition, and seven years after the death of Heinrich. They are shorter and less elaborate even than those on Juvenal, but whatever Heinrich says is to the purpose and the fruit of his own intelligence. The freshness of that sort of commentary is very pleasant to those who have waded through a sea of complicated notes, in which every thing more or less remotely bearing upon the text is brought in to smother it. When are authors to be made their editors' first and only consideration?

The edition of Casaubon represents the learning of that great

1 Jahn's Prolegomena on the Life and Scholia and MSS. of Persius are the best part of his book. Though long and rather tedious, they are scholarlike and useful.

scholar. It has been lately republished by Duebner (Leipzig, 1839), with the text revised but not improved by this editor, who has added to Casaubon's notes the conflicting opinions of other commentators. The notes of Lubinus are so wordy and embarrassed as to be quite unreadable. Plum and Koenig have furnished the world with long commentaries, of which Plum's is the better. Passow's edition (Leipzig, 1809) is accompanied by a German translation, and a commentary in the same language on the first Satire: In cases of difficulty I have not been able to rely upon his judgment. Orelli has given the text, scholia, and many of the various readings of Persius in his Eclogae Poetarum Latinorum. His text is good, and I have never failed to consider it with respect. Every editor who thinks as he ought, independently, will have his own opinion of his author's meaning; and so will choose, out of many that may have authority, that reading which best represents his opinion. With this remark I disclaim any want of proper deference to the scholarship of others more learned than myself. Scholarship (of a certain sort) and learning do not always go along with judgment; sometimes they tend to obscure it; nor are all editors learned that contrive to seem so.

The scholia on this author, published with great care by Jahn, are more numerous than those on Juvenal. They passed among scholars of the early time as the production of one person, and he no other than Annaeus Cornutus, the teacher of Persius. It does not require much discrimination to see that they are not from that source, and do not contain a syllable that was written near the time of the poet. Jahn has taken great pains to show that they are the work of a later Cornutus of the tenth century, who wrote a commentary also on Juvenal. If this be so, he may have used notes of earlier Grammarians than himself without acknowledgment. There is a great deal of useful and a great deal of foolish matter in these scholia.

Of the MSS. of Persius Jahn has mentioned and described sixtyseven, of which the most memorable are a fragment of the first Satire, edited by Mai from the famous Vatican Palimpsest, and two others of the ninth and tenth centuries which bear an inscrip

tion, showing that they were both copied from a MS. written in

the year A.D. 402, by one Fl. Julius. The later of these, which is at Rome, Heinrich collated. The collation of the earlier used by Jahn is by Duebner. Their task was rendered more laborious by the strange orthography of the MSS. and their many palpable blunders. A more accurate and useful MS. is one of the tenth century (which is not however complete), in the library of Bern. There are several of the tenth and eleventh centuries, and it is clear that Persius, though he must have been but little understood, was a good deal read among the semipagani of the mediaeval monasteries.

The Satires of Persius are here joined with those of Juvenal, according to a common practice. But except for the convenience of publication, there is no reason why they should be so. United they form a fair-sized volume, which separately they would not do except by extending the notes on either to an inordinate and useless length. Persius, though older than Juvenal, yet, as being less read and of less importance, is usually and rightly put after him.

It is easy to write long notes on such authors as these; indeed the difficulty is to write at moderate length; even without the practice, which I think objectionable, of overlaying the text with an embarrassing heap of references. Among other ways of lengthening this commentary was one which to some general readers would have been acceptable. I might have dwelt upon the immorality of the age, and contrasted the practice of the heathen with the contemporary precepts of the Christian. But I do not think any observations of mine would have strengthened the language of Juvenal, and if I have helped Christians to read and understand him, I shall be satisfied. They will be able then to compare the profligacy of the degenerate Roman with the purity of the Christian's profession, and perhaps may find in the rebukes of the Satirist matter for more useful contemplation than that which dwells upon the vices and superstitions of former ages, and overlooks the vices and superstitions of our own.

2 Jahn gives an instance of a gloss written in the eleventh century, in the margin of the last-named MS., on vi. 28 : “ Bruttia Saxa, in quibus Brutus superatus est."

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