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Virgil
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Virgil : Georgics
'Here I am reading Virgil?s delightful Georgics for the first time. They really attune perfectly well with the plains and climate of Naseby. Valpy (whose edition I have) cannot quite follow Virgil?s plough?in its construction at least. But the main acts of agriculture seem to have changed very little, and the alternation of green and corn crops is a good dodge. And while I heard the fellows going out with their horses to plough as I sat at breakfast this morning, I also read? Libra die somnique pares ubi fecerit horas, Et medium luci atque umbris jam dividit orbem, Exercete, viri, tauros, serite hordea campis Usque sub extremum brum? intractabilis imbrem. One loves Virgil somehow.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Fitzgerald Print: Book
Virgil :
I have been reading in my Boat?Virgil, Juvenal, and Wesley?s Journal. Do you know the last? one of the most interesting Books, I think, in the Language. It is curious to think of his Diary extending over nearly the same time as Walpole?s Letters, which, you know, are a sort of Diary. What two different Lives, Pursuits, and Topics!
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Fitzgerald Print: Book
Virgil : Aeneid
'On the inside cover of D[ove] C[ottage] MS 2, in use during 1786-7, a faint pencil inscription survives from c.1786: "Non hoc ista sibi tempus spectacula," from Virgil, Aeneid vi 37. In The Death of the Starling several pages later, we find the epigraph, "Sunt lacrimae rerum" ... from Aeneid i.462.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth Print: Book
Virgil : Georgics
' ... as a student at Cambridge, W[ordsworth] made a number of translations from Virgil's Georgics .. surviving manuscripts indicate that the translations were made in summer 1788 and spring 1789.'
UnknownCentury: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth
Virgil : Eclogues
William Wordsworth to Francis Wrangham, 19 February 1819: 'I ought to have thanked you before for your versions of Virgil's Eclogues, which reached me at last. I have lately compared it line for line with the original, and think it very well done ... I think I mentioned to you that these Poems of Virgil have always delighted me much; there is frequently in them an elegance and a happiness that no translation can hope to equal. In point of fidelity your translation is very good indeed.'
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth
Virgil : unknown
'Gladstone's reading habits were described in "The Home Life of Mr. Gladstone," Young Man (January 1892): "He was most particular, it said, in mantaining variety in his reading and, during the previous summer, had on hand Dr Langer's Roman History (in German) for morning reading, Virgil for afternoon, and a novel in the evening."'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Wiliam Ewart Gladstone Print: Book
Virgil :
My circumstances were perhaps well fitted to the task of self-culture - too straitened to admit of much expenditure on books, but sufficiently easy to afford me plenty of leisure to read and study them when they were lent to me. At one time I longed to read Virgil but could not just then obtain it; night after night I dreamed of it, and when after many another book had been read and dismissed, I did procure it, I was exquisitely delighted with it.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Lutton Print: Book
Virgil :
'We get by heart Greek grammar or Virgil every evening'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
Virgil : Aeneid
Frances Burney to Esther Burney: 'Well I recollect your reading with our dear Mother all Pope's Works, & Pitt's "Aeneid".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Esther Sleepe Burney and Esther Burney Print: Book
Virgil :
'I have heard Doctor Collier say [wrote Hester Thrale in undated letter] that Harry Fielding quite doated upon his Sister Sally till she had made herself through ... Dr. Collier's Assistance, a competent Scholar, & could construe the 6th. Book of Virgil ...'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Fielding Print: Book
Virgil : [unknown]
[Sedgwick read the 'Essay' twice in 1811]
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Adam Sedgwick
Virgil : Works
[Marginalia]: ms note in Latin on inside front cover may or may not be connected with the text as the book has evidence of its young owner using the blank spaces to play around with versions of his name and dates. Chpt 7 has every fifth line numbered in pencil for ease of reference and is initialed and dated at the end.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: William Erskine Print: Book
Virgil : Aeneid
?Milton?s miscellaneous works were still my favourites. I copied many of his poems into a writing book, and this I did, not only an account of the pleasure which I felt in their repetition, and in the appropriation ? so to speak ? of the ideas, but also as a means for improvement of my handwriting, which had continued to be very indifferent. The "Odyssey" and "Aeniad", which I also procured and read about this time, seemed tame and languid, whilst the stirring call of the old Iliadic battle trumpet was ringing in my ears, and vibrating within my heart. In short, I read or attentively conned [sic] over, every book I could buy or borrow, and as I retained a pretty clear idea of what I read, I became rather more than commonly proficient in book knowledge considering that I was only a better sort of porter in a warehouse.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Bamford Print: Book
Virgil : Eneid
?With this proposal I of course readily closed and accordingly the next day my father gave me the 1st vol of the "Universal History" (beginning with the life of Mohamed) and the 1st of Rapin?s "History of England", to begin with, an each of which in turn, I bestowed an hour in reading on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Friday mornings, allotting the other two mornings to a more amusing kind of reading such as Dryden?s "Virgil", "Telamachus", "Charles 12th". etc. I also began a translation of "Diable Boiteaux" & a prose one of Virgil?s "Eneid".?
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: John Marsh Print: Book
Virgil : Eclogues
'Began Virgil's "Eclogues" again'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud] Print: Book
Virgil : unknown
'[B]e not thrown into wild delight because his genius has shone forth--misfortune & rage have occasioned this & whenever he may speak himself [underlined] Lord Byron will succeed--self is the sole inspirer of his genius he cannot like Homer Dante Virgil Milton Dryden Spencer Gray--Goldsmith [underlined] Tasso write on other subjects well[--]but what he feels he can describe extravagantly well--& therefore I never did doubt that he would one day or other write again as at first--but for God sake do not let this circumstance make you forget what a Rogue he is'.
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Caroline Lamb Print: Book
Virgil : [unknown]
'In the old solitary years, a long time ago, by the shores of Canadian rapids, on the edge of West Indian swamps, his Virgil had been an inestimable solace to him...The book was a Delphin edition of 1798, which had followed him in all his wanderings; ther was a great scratch on the sheep-skin cover that a thorn had made in a forest of Alabama.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Gosse Print: Book
Virgil : Eclogues
'One evening my father took down his Virgil from an upper shelf...And then, in the twilight, as he shut the volume at last, oblivious of my presence, he began to murmur and to chant the adorable verses by memory...I stopped my play, and listened as if to a nightingale ... My prosodical instinct was awakened, quite suddenly that dim evening, as my father and I sat alone in the breakfast-room after tea, serenely accepting the hour, for once, with no idea of exhortation or profit ... I persuaded my Father, who was a little astonished at my insistance, to repeat the lines over and over again. At last my brain caught them."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Gosse Print: Book
Virgil : Aeneid
'I was very well pleased with having seen this entertainment [a marksmanship contest for the ladies of the Austrian court], and I do not know but it might make as good a figure as the prize-shooting in the Eneid, if I could write as well as Virgil.'
UnknownCentury: Reader/Listener/Group: Mary, Lady Wortley Montagu
Virgil : Aenied
'Finished the "Aeneid". Virgil's excellence, it is obvious, consists, not in the daring flights of a vigorous and sublime imagination, but in the exquitie art and consummate taste with which he turn, and polishes, and refines into perfection...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Green Print: Book
Virgil : Georgics
[italics] 'The Maie 3th vol. of Gibbon 607. Virgils Georgics'. [end italics]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
Virgil : unknown
[Mary Shelley's Reading List for 1815. Only those titles not mentioned in journal entries are given separate database entries. xs denote books also read by Percy Shelley] 'Posthumous Works. 3. Sorrows of Werter Don Roderick - by Southey Gibbons Decline & fall. x Paradise Regained x Gibbons Life and Letters - 1st edition 2 x Lara New Arabian Nights 3 Corinna Fall of the Jesuits Rinaldo Rinaldini Fo[n]tenelle's Plurality of the Worlds Hermsprong Le diable boiteux Man as he is. Rokeby. Ovid's Meamo[r]phoses in Latin x Wordsworth's Poems x Spenser's Fairy Queen x Life of the Philipps x Fox's History of James II The Reflector Wieland. Fleetwood Don Carlos x Peter Wilkins Rousseau's Confessions. x Espriella's Letters from England Lenora - a poem Emile x Milton's Paradise Lost X Life of Lady Hamilton De l'Alemagne - by Made de Stael 3 vols. of Barruel x Caliph Vathek Nouvelle Heloise x Kotzebue's account of his banishment to Siberia. Waverly Clarissa Harlowe Robertson's Hist. of america x Virgil xTale of Tub. x Milton's speech on Unlicensed printing x Curse of Kehama x Madoc La Bible Expliquee Lives of Abelard and Heloise The New Testament Coleridge's Poems. 1st vol. Syteme de la Nature x Castle of Indolence Chattertons Poems. x Paradise Regained Don Carlos. x Lycidas. x St Leon Shakespeare's Play. Part of which Shelley reads aloud Burkes account of civil society x Excursion Pope's Homer's Illiad x Sallust Micromegas x Life of Chauser Canterbury Tales Peruvian letters. Voyages round the World Pluarch's lives. x 2 vols of Gibbon Ormond Hugh Trevor x Labaume's Hist. of the Russian War Lewis's tales Castle of Udolpho Guy Mannering Charles XII by Voltaire Tales of the East'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin
Virgil : [unknown]
'Shelley's 24th birthday. Write read [underlined] tableau de famille [end underlining] - go out with Shelley in the boat & read aloud to him the fourth book of Virgil - after dinner we go up to Diodati but return soon - I read Curt. with Shelley and finish the 1st vol. after which we go out in the boat to set up the baloon but there is too much wind. We set it up from the land but it takes fire as soon as it is up - I finish the Reveries of Rousseau. Shelley reads and finishes Pliny's letters. & begins the panegyric of Trajan'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Godwin Print: Book
Virgil : Georgics
'I have read since last October a good deal of the history relating to the East ... : not much of books not connected with India. ... ; the Georgics; ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mountstuart Elphinstone Print: Book
Virgil : [Works]
'I have read since last October a good deal of the history relating to the East ...: not much of books not connected with India [but included] Warburton on the Sixth Book, from Warton's Virgil ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mountstuart Elphinstone Print: Book
Virgil : [Works]
'I have read since last October a good deal of the history relating to the East ...: not much of books not connected with India [but included] Warburton on the Sixth Book, from Warton's Virgil; some essays of Heyne, at the end of the sixth volume; ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mountstuart Elphinstone Print: Book
Virgil : Georgics
'Read Tacitus - 100 lines of the Georgics'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
Virgil : Aeneid
[Mary Shelley's Reading List for 1818. As far as possible texts mentioned in journal entries are not given separate database entries] Clarke's travels Aeneid Terence Hume's dissertation on the passsions Sterne's Tristram Shandy - Sentimental Journey. & letters 2 Vols of Montaigne Schlegel on the Drama Rhododaphne Aminta of Tasso Auvres de Moliere 2 books of the odes of Horace Aristippe & Les Abderites de Wieland French trans. of Lucian Monti's trajedies Orlando Furioso
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
Virgil : Aeneid
'Read S. the 6th & 1st book of the Aeneid'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
Virgil : Aeneid
'Read 2nd book of the Aeneid - read Dr Clarke's travels'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
Virgil : Aeneid
'Read part of the 7th book of Virgil - walk - finish the 3rd vol of Clarke'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
Virgil : Aeneid
'S. reads the Memorabilia - walk out & Read 250 lines of the 8th book of the Aenied[sic]'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
Virgil : Aeneid
'Read 37 Canto - Virgil - & Perigrine Proteus'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
Virgil : Georgics
'S. reads Theocritus and Virgil's Georgics - after tea he reads aloud and finishes the play of Henry VIII'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
Virgil : Aeneid
'Read Vita di Alfieri - half the 9th book of Virgil - S reads Winters tale aloud'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
Virgil : Georgics
'Read the Georgics'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
Virgil : Georgics
'Finish 1st Book of the Georgics - S. begins reading Winkhelmann's Histoire de l'art to me in the evening'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
Virgil : Georgics
'Finish the Georgics - read 25th & 26th Cantos of Dante'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
Virgil : Georgics
[Mary's reading list for 1819, an x denoting Percy having read a text too. All texts are also mentioned in the journal so database entries are based on these references] 'm Georgics x Sismondis Histoire des Republics Italiennes 2 Vols of MOntaigne Forsyth's tour x Romans de la Chevalerie Visions de Quivedo Bocaccio'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
Virgil : Aeneid [?]
'Translate Sxxxxxa [Spinoza] - S. reads 1 1/2 Virgil aloud - he reads Political Justice - Read Tasso'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
Virgil : Aeneid
'Translate s[pinoza] - S reads the Aenied [sic] aloud'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
Virgil : Aeneid
'S finishes aloud the 3rd book of the Aenied [sic] aloud'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
Virgil : Aeneid
'Translate Sxxxxxa - Read life of Voltaire. finish life of Castruccio. - S. reads Political Justice - finishes the 4th Book & all we mean to read of 5th book of Virgil - Visit at Casa Silva. S. reads Locke'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
Virgil : Aeneid
'S finishes 8th book of Virgil - read Ovid'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
Virgil : Aeneid
'Finish 40th Book of Livy - Finish Virgil - S. reads Riciadetto to me'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary and Percy Shelley Print: Book
Virgil : Georgics
'Begin the Georgics with S.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary and Percy Shelley Print: Book
Virgil : Georgics
'Read Sismondi - Ride to Pisa - Georgics - B.[occaccio]'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary and Percy Shelley Print: Book
Virgil : Envy
'I must own that Virgil's "Envy" and Spenser's "Cave of Error" are my aversion, as well as some other most exquisitely disgusting allegories. Our own Milton, I think, always keeps clear of this fault, and I cannot believe, in spite of Mr. Maturin, and Mr. Wilson, and Lord Byron, that it is true taste which tolerates it.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Eleanor Anne Porden Print: Book
Virgil : [probably] Georgics
'Read Homer - I Book of Virgil'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
Virgil : The Aeneid, Books III and probably V
'Is it the third or the fifth book of Virgil you so much liked; I have taken to reading the third.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson Print: Book
Virgil : Eclogues
'You seem so much interested with the translation of "Pastor Fido" that I shall take the liberty of sending it to you, that you may judge of its merits: not being skilled in the Italian tongue I cannot possibly give an opinion of it as a [italics] translation [end italics]. As anything else, I do not like it, nor ever liked pastorals or pastoral writing, even of the first order, further than as vehicles for fine poetry; and then the poetry would have pleased me better had it spoken for itself, than from the mouth of a creature to me so inconceivable as a shepherd or shepherdess, whose chief, or rather [italics] only [end italics] characteristics are innocence and simplicity. I am sorry to say they are but too apt to be insipid and uninteresting to those who merely read about them [she continues this critique at length, concluding] It may be owing to some defect in my mind that I really never yet knew an interesting pastoral character, or cared a straw about whether they hanged themselves upon the first willow, or drowned themselves in the neighbouring brook. I can enter into the delights of Homer's gods, and follow to their darkest recesses Milton's devils, and delight in the absurdities and extravagancies of Shakespeare's men and women, but I never could sympathise in the sufferings of even Virgil's shepherd swains'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Miss V[-] Print: Book
Virgil : Georgics
'He appears, from his early notes or memorandums in my possession, to have at various times attempted, or at least planned, a methodical course of study, according to computation, of which he was all his life fond, as it fixed his attention steadily on something without, and prevented his mind from preying upon itself. Thus I find in his handwriting the number of lines in each of two of Euripides' Tragedies, of the Georgicks of Virgil, of the first six books of the Aeneid, of Horace's Art of Poetry, of three of the books of Ovid's Metamorphosis, of some parts of Theocritus, and of the tenth satire of Juvenal; and a table, shewing at the rate of various numbers a day (I suppose verses to be read), what would be, in each case, the total amount in a week, month, and year'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
Virgil : Aeneid
'He appears, from his early notes or memorandums in my possession, to have at various times attempted, or at least planned, a methodical course of study, according to computation, of which he was all his life fond, as it fixed his attention steadily on something without, and prevented his mind from preying upon itself. Thus I find in his handwriting the number of lines in each of two of Euripides' Tragedies, of the Georgicks of Virgil, of the first six books of the Aeneid, of Horace's Art of Poetry, of three of the books of Ovid's Metamorphosis, of some parts of Theocritus, and of the tenth satire of Juvenal; and a table, shewing at the rate of various numbers a day (I suppose verses to be read), what would be, in each case, the total amount in a week, month, and year'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
Virgil : Eclogues
'In his [Johnson's] manuscript diary of this year, there is the following entry: "Nov. 27. Advent Sunday. I considered that this day, being the beginning of the ecclesiastical year, was a proper time for a new course of life. I began to read the Greek Testament regularly at 160 verses every Sunday. This day I began the Acts. In this week I read Virgil's 'Pastorals'. I learned to repeat the 'Pollio' and 'Gallus'. I read carelessly the first 'Georgick'." Such evidences of his unceasing ardour, both for "divine and human lore," when advanced into his sixty-fifty year, and notwithstanding his many disturbances from disease, must make us at once honour his spirit, and lament that it should be so grievously clogged by its material tegument. It is remarkable, that he was very fond of the precision which calculation produces. Thus we find in one of his manuscript diaries, "12 pages in 4to Gr. Test, and 30 pages in Beza's folio, comprize the whole in 10 days".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
Virgil : 8th Eclogue
'In his [Johnson's] manuscript diary of this year, there is the following entry: "Nov. 27. Advent Sunday. I considered that this day, being the beginning of the ecclesiastical year, was a proper time for a new course of life. I began to read the Greek Testament regularly at 160 verses every Sunday. This day I began the Acts. In this week I read Virgil's 'Pastorals'. I learned to repeat the 'Pollio' and 'Gallus'. I read carelessly the first 'Georgick'." Such evidences of his unceasing ardour, both for "divine and human lore," when advanced into his sixty-fifty year, and notwithstanding his many disturbances from disease, must make us at once honour his spirit, and lament that it should be so grievously clogged by its material tegument. It is remarkable, that he was very fond of the precision which calculation produces. Thus we find in one of his manuscript diaries, "12 pages in 4to Gr. Test, and 30 pages in Beza's folio, comprize the whole in 10 days".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
Virgil : 1st Georgic
'In his [Johnson's] manuscript diary of this year, there is the following entry: "Nov. 27. Advent Sunday. I considered that this day, being the beginning of the ecclesiastical year, was a proper time for a new course of life. I began to read the Greek Testament regularly at 160 verses every Sunday. This day I began the Acts. In this week I read Virgil's 'Pastorals'. I learned to repeat the 'Pollio' and 'Gallus'. I read carelessly the first 'Georgick'." Such evidences of his unceasing ardour, both for "divine and human lore," when advanced into his sixty-fifty year, and notwithstanding his many disturbances from disease, must make us at once honour his spirit, and lament that it should be so grievously clogged by its material tegument. It is remarkable, that he was very fond of the precision which calculation produces. Thus we find in one of his manuscript diaries, "12 pages in 4to Gr. Test, and 30 pages in Beza's folio, comprize the whole in 10 days".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
Virgil : Aeneid
'He repeated a good many lines of Horace's "Odes", while we were in the chaise. I remember particularly the Ode [italics] Eheu fugaces [italics]. He said, the dispute as to the comparative excellence of Homer or Virgil was inaccurate. "We must consider (said he) whether Homer was not the greatest poet, though Virgil may have produced the finest poem. Virgil was indebted to Homer for the whole invention of the structure of an epick poem, and for many of his beauties".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
Virgil : Eclogues
'[from the 1780 Johnsoniana passed to boswell by Bennet Langton] Theocritus is not deserving of very high respect as a writer; as to the pastoral part, Virgil is very evidently superiour. He wrote when there had been a larger influx of knowledge into the world than when Theocritus lived. Theocritus does not abound in description, though living in a beautiful country: the manners painted are coarse and gross. Virgil has much more description, more sentiment, more of Nature, and more of art. Some of the most excellent parts of Theocritus are, where Castor and Pollux, going with the other Argonauts, land on the Bebrycian coast, and there fall into a dispute with Amycus, the King of that country; which is as well conducted as Euripides could have done it; and the battle is well related. Afterwards they carry off a woman, whose two brothers come to recover her, and expostulate with Castor and Pollux on their injustice; but they pay no regard to the brothers, and a battle ensues, where Castor and his brother are triumphant. Theocritus seems not to have seen that the brothers have the advantage in their argument over his Argonaut heroes. "The Sicilian Gossips" is a piece of merit.'
Century: Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
Virgil :
'[from the Johnsoniana imparted by Bennet Langton to Boswell in 1780] Spanish plays, being wildly and improbably farcical, would please children here, as children are entertained with stories full of prodigies; their experience not being sufficient to cause them to be so readily startled at deviations from the natural course of life. The machinery of the Pagans is uninteresting to us: when a Goddess appears in Homer or Virgil, we grow weary; still more so in the Grecian tragedies, as in that kind of composition a nearer approach to Nature is intended. Yet there are good reasons for reading romances; as--the fertility of invention, the beauty of style and expression, the curiosity of seeing with what kind of performances the age and country in which they were written was delighted: for it is to be apprehended, that at the time when very wild improbable tales were well received, the people were in a barbarous state, and so on the footing of children, as has been explained.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
Virgil : Aeneid
'Johnson asked Richard Owen Cambridge, Esq., if he had read the Spanish translation of Sallust, said to be written by a Prince of Spain, with the assistance of his tutor, who is professedly the authour of a treatise annexed, on the Phoenician language. Mr. Cambridge commended the work, particularly as he thought the Translator understood his authour better than is commonly the case with Translators: but said, he was disappointed in the purpose for which he borrowed the book; to see whether a Spaniard could be better furnished with inscriptions from monuments, coins, or other antiquities which he might more probably find on a coast, so immediately opposite to Carthage, than the Antiquaries of any other countries. JOHNSON. "I am very sorry you was not gratified in your expectations". CAMBRIDGE. "The language would have been of little use, as there is no history existing in that tongue to balance the partial accounts which the Roman writers have left us." JOHNSON. "No, Sir. They have not been [italics] partial [end italics], they have told their own story, without shame or regard to equitable treatment of their injured enemy; they had no compunction, no feeling for a Carthaginian. Why, Sir, they would never have borne Virgil's description of Aeneas's treatment of Dido, if she had not been a Carthaginian".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
Virgil : Aeneid
'[Johnson said] The books that we do read with pleasure are light compositions, which contain a quick succession of events. However, I have this year read all Virgil through. I read a book of the "Aeneid" every night, so it was done in twelve nights, and I had great delight in it. The "Georgicks" did not give me so much pleasure, except the fourth book. The "Eclogues" I have almost all by heart. I do not think the story of the "Aeneid" interesting. I like the story of the "Odyssey" much better; and this not on account of the wonderful things which it contains; for there are wonderful things enough in the "Aeneid";--the ships of the Trojans turned to sea-nymphs,--the tree at Polydorus's tomb dropping blood. The story of the "Odyssey" is interesting, as a great part of it is domestick.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
Virgil : Eclogues
'[Johnson said] The books that we do read with pleasure are light compositions, which contain a quick succession of events. However, I have this year read all Virgil through. I read a book of the "Aeneid" every night, so it was done in twelve nights, and I had great delight in it. The "Georgicks" did not give me so much pleasure, except the fourth book. The "Eclogues" I have almost all by heart. I do not think the story of the "Aeneid" interesting. I like the story of the "Odyssey" much better; and this not on account of the wonderful things which it contains; for there are wonderful things enough in the "Aeneid";--the ships of the Trojans turned to sea-nymphs,--the tree at Polydorus's tomb dropping blood. The story of the "Odyssey" is interesting, as a great part of it is domestick.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
Virgil : Georgics
'[Johnson said] The books that we do read with pleasure are light compositions, which contain a quick succession of events. However, I have this year read all Virgil through. I read a book of the "Aeneid" every night, so it was done in twelve nights, and I had great delight in it. The "Georgicks" did not give me so much pleasure, except the fourth book. The "Eclogues" I have almost all by heart. I do not think the story of the "Aeneid" interesting. I like the story of the "Odyssey" much better; and this not on account of the wonderful things which it contains; for there are wonderful things enough in the "Aeneid";--the ships of the Trojans turned to sea-nymphs,--the tree at Polydorus's tomb dropping blood. The story of the "Odyssey" is interesting, as a great part of it is domestick.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
Virgil : fifth Eclogue
'Did not Virgil mean by his Epithet [italics] Puniceis [end italics] to Rosetis in the fifth Eclogue the rose of Tyrian Dye! The [italics] Punic [end italics] or Damask Rose. I perswaded Johnson to believe it one day at Streatham as we read the Eclogue together - in the Year 1769'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Mrs Thrale and Dr Johnson Print: Book
Virgil :
'[Dr Johnson] used to mention Harry Fielding's behaviour to her [his sister Sarah] as a melancholy instance of narrowness; while she read only English Books, and made English Verses it seems, he fondled her Fancy, & encourag'd her Genius, but as soon [as] he perceived She once read Virgil, Farewell to Fondness...'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Fielding Print: Book
Virgil : 'Second Eclogue'
'I have had put into my Hand the First Copy of Pope's Pastorals, with the gradual Alterations and Emendations marked in the Margin: that he should Attain to Perfection by repeated Touches, & slow Degrees, is not at all strange tho' 'tis curious; it is however odd enough that a Man should be so [italics] imbued [end italics] with the classicks as to write Love Verses from one Shepherd to another, because Virgil wote his Corydon & Alexis; The Third Pastoral runs all thro' with the name Thyrsis instead of Delia in the Book before me'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Thrale Print: Book
Virgil : Aeneid
'I walked into Robson's Shop the other day, and seeing a very fine Virgil was tempted to open it with something of Superstitious Intention by way of trying the "Sortes Virgilanae": the Book spontaneously open'd where Turnus welcomes Camilla, and fixing his fine Eyes upon her cries out with a mixture of Admiration & Gratitude Oh Decus Italiae &c. I thought it a good omen'.
