o the time of Manutius, various other theories have | from Livia. A few months before his own death, Aubeen devised to account for the exile of Ovid. Dry-gustus, attended by Fabius Maximus alone, privately den, in the Preface to his translation of Ovid's Epis- visited Agrippa in his retirement of Planasia; and tles, thinks it probable that "he had stumbled by some the object of his journey from Rome having been disinadvertency on the privacies of Livia, and had seen covered by Livia, the death of this counsellor followed er in a bath; for the words sine veste Dianam,' he shortly after. It will be remarked, however, that this remarks, agree better with Livia, who had the fame voyage was undertaken in 666, four years subsequentof chastity, than with either of the Julias." It would ly to the exile of Ovid, and was disclosed through the no doubt appear that our poet had a practice of break-indiscretion of the wife of Fabius. (Tacit., Ann., 1, ing in unseasonably on such occasions (A. A., 3, 245). 5.) But the French author conjectures, that the But it is not probable that Augustus would have pun- scene to which Ovid alludes in his writings as having ished such an offence so severely, or that it would witnessed, had some close connexion with the ensuing have affected him so deeply. Livia, at the time of visit to Planasia, and gave a commencement to those Ovid's banishment, had reached the age of sixty-four, suspicions which terminated in the death of his friend. and was doubtless the only person in the empire who His chief objection to the theory of Tiraboschi is, that would consider such an intrusion as intentional.-Ti- Augustus would not have banished Ovid for discoverraboschi has maintained, at great length, that he had ing or revealing the disgrace of Julia, when, by her been the involuntary and accidental witness of some exile, he had already proclaimed her licentiousness to moral turpitude committed by one of the imperial the whole Roman people. But, in fact, Ovid was not family, most probably Julia, the granddaughter of Au- banished for the sake of concealment. The discovery gustus, who had inherited the licentious disposition of which proved so fatal to himself was no secret at Rome; her mother, and was banished from Rome on account and, had secrecy been the emperor's object, banishof her misconduct, nearly at the same time that the ment was the very worst expedient to which he could sentence of exile was pronounced on Ovid. This have resorted. Ovid might better have been bribed to theory, on the whole, seems the most plausible, and silence; or, if sentence of death could have served the most consistent with the hints dropped by the poet purpose more effectually, the old triumvir would not himself. He repeatedly says, that the offence for have scrupled to pronounce it. The secret, however, which he had been banished was a folly, an error, an was already divulged, and was in the mouths of the imprudence rather than a crime: using the words citizens. Ovid was therefore exiled as a punishment stultitia and error in opposition to crimen and faci- for his temerity, as a precaution against farther disnus. (Tristia, 1, 2, 100, et passim.) He invariably coveries, and to remove from the imperial eye the talks of what he had seen as the cause of his misfor- sight of one whose presence must have reminded Autunes (Tristia, 2, 103, seqq.), and he admits that what gustus of his disgrace both as a sovereign and pehe had seen was a fault. But he farther signifies, that rent.-Whatever may have been the real cause of the the fault he had witnessed was of a description which exile of Ovid, the pretext for it was the licentious offended modesty, and which, therefore, ought to be verses he had written. (Ep. e Ponto, 2, 9.) Augus covered with the veil of night. (Tristia, 3, 6.) It is tus affected a regard for public morals; and concealby no means improbable that he should have detected ing, on this occasion, the true motive by which he was the granddaughter of the emperor in some disgraceful actuated, he claimed a merit with the senate, and all intrigue. Neither of the Julias confined their amours who were zealous for a reformation of manners, in to the recesses of their palaces, so that the most dis- thus driving from the capital a poet who had reduced solute frequenter of the lowest scenes of debauchery licentiousness to a system, by furnishing precepts, demay have became the witness of her turpitude. Far- duced from his own practice, which might aid the inther, it is evident that it was something of a private experienced in the successful prosecution of lawless nature, and which wounded the most tender feelings love. He carefully excluded from the public libraries of Augustus, who, we know from history, was pecu- not merely the " Art of Love," but all the other wriliarly sensitive with regard to the honour of his family. tings of Ovid. (Tristia, 3, 1, 65.) It is evident, Lastly, it appears, that, after being a witness of the however, that this was all colour and pretext. Ovid shameful transgression of Julia, Ovid had fallen into himself ventures gently to hint, that Augustus was some indiscretion through timidity (Ep. e Ponto, 2, 2), not so strict a moralist that he would seriously have which might have been avoided, had he enjoyed the thought of punishing the composition of a few licenbenefit of good advice (Tristia, 3, 6, 13); and it tious verses with interminable exile. (Tristia, 2, seems extremely probable, that the imprudence he 524.) In point of expression, too, the lines of Ovid committed was in revealing to others the discovery he are delicate compared with those of Horace, whom had made, and concealing it from Augustus. It is the emperor had always publicly favoured and supportnot likely that any better guess will now be formed on ed. Nor was his sentence of banishment passed until the subject. Another, however, has been recently at- many years after their composition; yet, though so tempted by M. Villenave, in a life of Ovid prefixed long an interval had elapsed, it was suddenly proto a French translation of the Metamorphoses. His nounced, as on the discovery of some recent crime, opinion, which has also been adopted by Schöll (Hist. and was most rapidly carried into execution. The Lit. Rom., vol. 1, p. 240), is, that Ovid, from accident mandate for his exile arrived unexpectedly in the or indiscretion, had become possessed of some state evening. The night preceding his departure from secret concerning Agrippa Posthumus, the son of Rome was one of the utmost grief to his family, and Agrippa and Julia, and grandson of Augustus. The of consternation and dismay to himself. In a fit existence of the family of Julia long formed the great of despair, he burned the copy of the Metamorphoses obstacle to the ambition of Livia and her son Tiberius. which he was then employed in correcting, and some Agrippa Posthumus, the last surviver of the race, was others of his poems. He made no farther preparations banished from Rome to the island of Planasia, near for his journey, but passed the time in loud complaints, Corsica, in 758; but considerable apprehensions seem and in adjuration to the gods of the Capitol. His to have been entertained by Livia that he might one chief patron, Fabius Maximus, was absent at the day be recalled. Ovid, in a poetical epistle from Pon- time, and his only daughter was with her husband in tus, written in the fifth year of his exile, accuses him- Africa; but several of his friends came to his house, self as the cause of the death of his friend Fabius where they remained part of the night, and endeavMaximus; and this Fabius Maximus, it appears, was oured, though in vain, to console him. After much the chief confidant of the emperor in all that related irresolution, he at length departed on the approach to the affairs of Agrippa, which he wished concealed of dawn, his dress neglected and his hair dishevelled.

stances wanting in his fate which might have contributed to impart consolation. His third wife, to whom he was tenderly attached, though not permitted to accompany him on the voyage to Scythia, continued faithful to her husband during his long exile, and protected his property from the rapacity of his enemies. (Tristia, 1, 5.) Many of his friends remained unshaceived letters from them, giving him hopes of recall. The Gete, though they at length became displeased with his incessant complaints of their country (Ep. e Ponto, 4, 14), received him at first with kindness and sympathy, and long paid him such distinguished honours, that he almost appears to have realized the fables of Orpheus and Amphion, in softening their native ferocity by the magic of the Roman lyre. (Ep. e Ponto, 4, 9.-Ibid., 4, 14.)-Nothing, however, could compensate for the deprivations he suffered; nor was anything omitted on Ovid's part which he thought might prevail on the emperor to recall him to Rome, or assign him, at least, a place of milder exile; and Sicily was particularly pointed at as a suitable spot for such a mitigation of punishment. (Tristia, 5, 2.) This is the object of all his epistles from Pontus, the name of the district of Moesia in which Tomi was situate, and not to be confounded with the Pontus of Asia Minor. He flattered Augustus during his life with an extravagance which bordered on idolatry (Ep. e Ponto, 4, 6.—Tristia, 2); and the letters addressed to his friends inculcate skilful lessons of choosing the most favourable opportunities for propitiating the despot. It does not appear, however, that any one of his numerous and powerful acquaintances ventured to solicit his recall, or to entreat Augustus in his behalf. Yet the poet seems to suppose that Augustus, previous to his decease, was beginning to feel more favourably towards him. (Ep. e Ponto, 4, 6.) After the death of the emperor, with a view, doubtless, of propitiating his successor, Ovid wrote a poem on his Apotheosis, and consecrated to him, as a new deity, a temple, where he daily repaired to offer incense and worship. (Ep. e Ponto, 4, 9.) Nor was he sparing in his panegyrics on the new emperor (Ep. e Ponto, 4, 13); but he found Tiberius equally inexorable with Augustus.-The health of Ovid had been early and severely affected by his exile and confinement at Tomi. He was naturally of a feeble constitution, and, in the place of his banishment, every circumstance was combined which could wear out the mind and the body. The rigour of the climate bore hard on one who had passed a delicate youth of pleasure and repose under an Italian sky. In consequence, soon after his arrival at Tomi, he totally lost his strength and appetite (Ep. e Ponto, 1, 10), and became thin, pale, and exhausted. From time to time he recovered and relapsed, till at length, at the age of 60, he sunk under the hardships to which he had been so long subjected. His death happened in the year 771, in the ninth year of his exile, and the fourth of the reign of Tiberius. Before his decease, he expressed a wish that his ashes might be carried to Rome; even this desire, however, was not complied with. His bones were buried in the Scythian soil, and the Getæ erected to him a monument near the spot of his earthly sojourn.-It would seem that Ovid had commenced his poetical career with some attempt at heroic subjects, particularly the Gigantomachia. But he soon directed his attention from such topics to others which were more consonant to his disposition. Accordingly, the earliest writings of Ovid now extant are amatory elegies in the style of Tibullus and Propertius. These elegies are styled Amores, amounting in all to forty-nine, and were originally divided by the poet into five books. There are now only three books in the printed editions of Ovid; but it has been doubted whether all the elegies he wrote be still included in this division, or if two

His wife, who had wished to accompany him, but was not permitted, fainted the moment he left the house. -After his departure from Rome, Ovid proceeded to Brundisium, where he had an interview with Fabius Maximus. He recommended his wife to the care of his friend, and received repeated assurances of his support. The destined spot of his perpetual exile was Tomi, the modern Temiswar, on the shore of the Eux-ken by his misfortunes, and from time to time he reine, a few miles to the south of the spot where the most southern branch of the Danube unites with that sea. (Vid. Tomi.) The place had been originally an Athenian colony, and was still inhabited by a few remains of the Greeks, but it was chiefly filled with rude and savage barbarians, of whose manners and habits the poet draws a most vivid description. The town was defended by but feeble ramparts from the incursions of the neighbouring Getæ, or still more formidable tribes to the north of the Danube. Alarms from the foe were constant, and the poet himself had sometimes to grasp a sword and buckler, and place a helmet on his gray head, on a signal given by the sentinel (Tristia, 4, 1, 73), when squadrons of barbarians covered the desert which Tomi overlooked, or surrounded the town in order to surprise and pillage it. Without books or society, Ovid often wished for a field (Ep. e Ponto, 1, 8) to remind him of the garden near the Flaminian Way, in which, in his happier days, he had breathed his love-sighs and composed his amorous verses. Some of the barbarian inhabitants were along with our poet in the small and inconvenient house which he inhabited (Tristia, 2, 200), and kept him in a state of constant alarm by their ferocious appearance. They neither cut their beards nor hair, which, hanging dishevelled over the face, gave a peculiar horror to their aspect. The whole race were clothed in the shaggy skins of various animals (Tristia, 3, 10), and each barbarian carried with him constantly a bow, and a quiver containing poisoned arrows. (Tristia, 5, 7.) They daily filled the streets with tumult and uproar, and even the litigants sometimes decided their cause before the tribunals by the sword. (Tristia, 5, 10.) But if there was danger within the walls of Tomi, destruction lay beyond them. Tribes, who foraged from a distance, carried off the flocks and burned the cottages. From the insecurity of property and severity of climate, the fields were without grain, the hills without vines, the mountains without oaks, and the banks without willows. (Tristia, 3, 10, 71.) Absinthium, or wormwood, alone grew up and covered the plains. (Ep. e Ponto, 4, 8.) Spring brought with it neither birds nor flowers. In summer the sun rarely broke through the cloudy and foggy atmosphere. The autumn shed no fruits; but, through every season of the year, wintry winds blew with prodigious violence (Tristia, 3, 10, 17), and lashed the waves of the boisterous Euxine on its desert shore. (Tristia, 4, 4, 57.) The only animated object was the wild Sarmatian driving his car, yoked with oxen, across the snows, or the frozen depths of the Euxine (Tristia, 3, 10,.32), clad in his fur cloak, his countenance alone uncovered, his beard glistening and sparkling with the hoar-frost and flakes of snow. (Tristia, 3, 10, 21.) -Such was the spot for which Ovid was compelled to exchange the theatres, the baths, the porticoes, and gardens of Rome, the court of Augustus, the banks of the Tiber, and the sun and soil of Italy.-While thus driving him to the most remote and savage extremity of his empire, Augustus softened the sentence he had pronounced on Ovid with some alleviating qualifications. He did not procure his condemnation by a decree of the senate, but issued his own mandate, in which he employed the word "relegation" (relegatio), and not "banishment" (exsilium), leaving him, by this choice of terms, the enjoyment of his paternal fortune and some other privileges of a Roman citizen. (Tristia, 5, 11, 21.-Ibid., 4, 9.) Nor were other circum

object the poet may have had in view when composing
this work, it may be safely concluded that the poem
itself did not in any degree tend to the corruption of
the morals of his fellow-citizens, since the indulgence
of every vice was then so licensed at Rome that they
could hardly receive any additional stain; on the con-
trary, this very depravation of manners gave birth to
the work of Ovid, suggested its pernicious counsels,
and obtained for it the popularity with which it was
crowned.-The book De Remedio Amoris is connect-
ed with that De Arte Amandi, and was written a short
while after it. This poem discloses the means by
which those who have been unsuccessful in love, or
are enslaved by it to the prejudice of their health and
fortune, may be cured of their passion. Occupation,
travelling, society, and a change of the affections, if
possible, to some other object, are the remedies on
which the author chiefly relies. This work, on the
whole, is not so pleasant and entertaining as the De
Arte Amandi. It is almost entirely destitute of those
agreeable episodes by which the latter poem is so
much beautified and enlivened. It has fewer sport-
ive touches and fewer fascinating descriptions.-The
Metamorphoses of Ovid had been composed by him
previous to his exile. But he received the mandate
for his relegation while yet employed in the task of
correction, and when he had completed this labour
only on the first three books. Finding himself thus
condemned to banishment from Rome, he threw the
work into the flames, partly from vexation and disgust
at his verses in general, which had been made the pre-
text for his punishment, and partly because he consid-
ered it an unfinished poem, which he could no longer
have any opportunity or motive for perfecting. (Tris-
tia, 1, 6.) Fortunately, however, some transcripts had
been previously made by his friends of this beautiful
production, which was thus preserved to the world.
After Ovid's departure from Rome, these quickly
passed into extensive circulation; they were gener
ally read and admired, and a copy was placed in his
library, which was still preserved and kept up by his
family.. (Tristia, 1, 1, 118.) In the depths of his
dreary exile, Ovid learned, perhaps not without satis-
faction, that his work had been saved; and he even
expressed a wish that some of his favourite passages
might meet the eye of Augustus. (Tristia, 2, 557.)
But he was annoyed by the recollection that the poem
would be read in the defective state in which he had
left it. (Tristia, 3, 14, 23.) He had no copy with him
at Tomi, on which he could complete the corrections
which he had commenced at Rome. He therefore
thought it necessary to apprize his friends in Italy,
that the work had not received his last emendations;
and, as an apology for its imperfections, he proposes
that the six following lines should be prefixed as a
motto to the copies of his Metamorphoses which were
then circulating in the capital. (Tristia, 1, 6.)
"Orba parente suo quicumque volumina tangis;

books have been suppressed. These elegies, with a very few exceptions, are of an amatory description.As an elegiac writer, Ovid has more resemblance to Propertius than to Tibullus. His images and ideas are for the most part drawn from the real world. He dwells not amid the visionary scenes of Tibullus, he indulges not in his melancholy dreams, nor pours forth such tenderness of feeling as the lover of Delia. The Amores of Ovid have all the brilliancy and freshness of the period of life in which they were written. They are full of ingenious conceptions, graceful images, and agreeable details. These are the chief excellences of the elegies of Ovid. Their faults consist in an abuse of the facility of invention, a repetition of the same ideas, an occasional affectation and antithesis in the language of love, and (as in the elegies of Propertius) the too frequent, and sometimes not very happy or appropriate, allusion to mythological fables.-Before finishing the elegies styled Amores, Ovid had already commenced the composition of the Heroïdes (Am., 2, 18), which are likewise written in the elegiac measure. They are epistles supposed to be addressed chiefly from queens and princesses who figured in the heroic ages, to the objects of their vehement affections, and are in number not fewer than twenty-one; but there is some doubt with regard to the authenticity of six of them, namely, Paris to Helen, Helen to Paris; Leander to Hero, Hero to Leander; Acontius to Cydippe, Cydippe to Acontius. These six, though they appear in the most ancient MSS. under the name of Ovid, along with the others, are of doubtful authenticity, and have been generally ascribed by commentators to Aulus Sabinus, a friend of Ovid's, who was also the author of several answers to the epistles of our poet, as Ulysses to Penelope, and Æneas to Dido.-The Heroides present us with some of the finest and most popular fictions of an amorous antiquity, resounding with the names of Helen, Ariadne, and Phædra. Julius Scaliger pronounces them to be the most polished of all the productions of Ovid. (Poet., 6, 7.) But there is a tiresome uniformity in the situations and characters of the heroines. The injudicious length to which each epistle is extended has occasioned a repetition in it of the same ideas; while the ceaseless tone of complaints uttered by these forsaken damsels has produced a monotony, which renders a perusal, at least of the whole series of epistles, insupportably fatiguing. There is also a neglect of a due observance of the manners and customs of the heroic ages: and in none of the works of Ovid is his indulgence in exuberance of fancy so remarkable to the reader, because many of the epistles, as those of Penelope, Briseïs, Medea, Ariadne, and Dido, lead us to a comparison of the Latin author with Homer, the Greek tragedians, Catullus, and Virgil, those poets of true simplicity and unaffected tenderness. The work of Ovid entitled De Arte Amandi, or, more properly, Artis Amatoria Liber, is written, like the Amores and Heroides, in the elegiac measure. There is nothing, however, elegiac in its subject, as it merely communicates, in a light and often sportive manner, those lessons in the Art of Love which were the fruits of the author's experience, and had been acquired in the course of the multifarious intrigues recorded in the Amores. This poem was not written earlier than The Metamorphoses, therefore- at least the twelve the year 752; for the author mentions in the first concluding books-should be read with some degree of book the representation of a sea-fight between the that indulgence which is given to the last six books of Greek and Persian fleets, which was exhibited at that the Eneid; though, from what we see in the perfectperiod in the Naumachia, under the direction of Au- ed works of Ovid, can hardly be supposed that, even gustus. The whole work is divided into three books. if he had been permitted, he would have expunged This work is curious and useful, from the informa- conceits and retrenched redundancies with the pure tion it affords concerning Roman manners and an- taste and scrupulous judgment of the Mantuan bard. tiquities in their lighter departments; and, though not-In the composition of his Metamorphoses, Ovid can written in the tone or form of satire, it gives us nearly lay no claim to originality of invention. Not one of the same insight as professed satirical productions the immense number of transmutations which he has into the minor follies of the Augustan age. Whatever recorded, from the first separation of Chaos till the

His saltem vestra detur in urbe locus.
Quoque magis faveas, non hæc sunt edita ab ipso,
Sed quasi de domini funere rapta sui.
Quicquid in his igitur vitii rude carmen habebit,
Emendaturus, si licuisset, erat."

apotheosis of Julius Cæsar, is of his own contrivance. | speeches of the contending Grecian chiefs. In the They are all fictions of the Greeks and Oriental na- tragic history of Pyramus and Thisbe, the lovers themtions, interspersed, perhaps, with a few Latin or Etrus- selves are not metamorphosed, but the fruit of the mul can fables. In fact, a book of Metamorphoses which berry-tree under which their blood was shed assumes were feigned by the poet himself, would have pos- a crimson dye. It would be endless to point out in sessed no charm, being unauthorized by public belief, detail the blemishes and beauties of such an extensive or even that species of popular credulity which be- work as the Metamorphoses. The luxuriance of thought stows interest and probability on the most extravagant and expression which pervade all the compositions of fictions. And, indeed, Ovid had little motive for in- Ovid, prevails likewise here; but his comparisons are vention, since, in the relations of those who had gone pleasing and appropriate, and his descriptions are rich before him in this subject, he could enter the most ex- and elegant, whether he exhibits the palace of the Sun tensive field ever opened to the career of a poet.-or the cottage of Philemon. The many interesting sitThe Metamorphoses of Ovid are introduced by a de- uations displayed in the Metamorphoses have formed scription of the primeval world, and the early changes a mine for the exertion of human genius in all sucit underwent. All that he writes of Chaos is merely ceeding periods, not merely in the province of narraa paraphrase of what he had found in the works of the tive fable, but in the department of the drama and fine ancient Greeks, and is more remarkable for poetic arts; and no work, with the exception of the Sacred beauty than philosophic truth and consistency. The Scriptures, has supplied so many and such happy subaccount of the creation, which is described with im-jects for the pencil. The Greek books from which pressive brevity, is followed by a history of the four the Metamorphoses were chiefly taken having been ages of the world, the war with the giants, Deucalion's lost, the work of Ovid is now the most curious and deluge, and the self-production of various monsters in valuable record extant of ancient mythology. It those early periods by the teeming and yet unexhaust- would be difficult to reduce every story, as some ed earth. This last subject leads to the destruction writers have attempted, into a moral allegory (Garth, of the serpent Python by Apollo, and the institution of Pref. to Translation); it would be impossible to find the Pythian games in honour of his victory: at their in them, with others, the whole history of the Old first celebration, the conquerors were crowned with Testament, and types of the miracles and sufferings oak, the laurel being unknown till the transformation of our Saviour, or even the complete ancient history of Daphne, when it became the prize of honour and of Greece, systematically arranged (compare Müller, renown. Our poet thus glides into the series of his Einleitung, vol. 4, p. 163, &c.-Fabric., Bibl. Lat., vol. metamorphoses, which are extended to fifteen books, 1, p. 447.-Goujet, Bib. Franc., vol. 6, p. 16, 52.) It and amount in all to not less than two hundred and cannot be denied, however, that the Metamorphoses fifty. The stories of this description related by Ovid's are immense archives of Grecian fable, and that, bepredecessors were generally insulated, and did not neath the mask of fiction, some traits of true history, hang together by any association or thread of dis- some features of manners and the primeval world, course. But the Roman poet continues as he had may yet be discovered. In this point of view, the commenced, and, like the Cyclic writers of Greece, Fasti of Ovid, though written in elegiac and not in who comprehended, in one book, a whole circle of fa- heroic measure, may be considered as a supplement or bles, he proceeds from link to link in the golden chain continuation of the Metamorphoses. Its composition of fiction, leading us, as it were, through a labyrinth was commenced at Rome by the author previous to of adventures, and passing imperceptibly from one tale his exile. The work was corrected and finished by to another, so that the whole poem forms an uninter- him at Tomi (Fasti, 4, 81), and was thence sent to rupted recital. In themselves, however, the events Rome, with a prefatory dedication to the great Gerhave frequently no relation to each other, and the con- manicus. The plan of this production was probably nexion between the preceding and succeeding fable suggested by the didactic poem which Callimachus often consists in nothing more than that the transfor- had published under the title of Airía, in which he mation occurred at the same place or at the same feigns that, being transported to Helicon, he was there time, or had reference, perhaps, to the same amorous instructed by the Muses in the nature and origin of deity. In such an infinite number, the merit of the various religious usages and ancient ceremonies. It stories must be widely different; the following, how- would appear that, before the time of Ovid, some ever, may be mentioned as among the best: the fables vague design of writing a poem of this description had of Cephalus and Procris, of Philemon and Baucis, of been entertained by Propertius (Eleg., 4, 1). But Hippomanes and Atalanta, the flight of Daedalus and Ovid, in his Fasti, executed the work which Propertius Icarus, the loves of Pyramus and Thisbe. But of the did not live, or, perhaps, found himself unable, to acwhole, the story of Phaethon is, perhaps, the most splen-complish. In the Latin language, the word Fasti oridid and highly poetical. It has been objected, how-ginally signified, in opposition to Nefasti, the days on ever, to the Metamorphoses, that, however great may be the merit of each individual tale, there is too much uniformity in the work as a whole, since all the stories are of one sort, and end in some metamorphosis or other. (Kaimes's Elements of Criticism, vol. 1, c. 9.) But this objection, if it be one, can lie only against the choice of the subject; for if a poet announces that he is to sing of bodies changed and converted into new forms, what else than metamorphoses can be expected? Besides, in the incidents that lead to these transformations, there is infinite variety of feeling excited, and the poet intermingles the noble with the familiar, and the gay with the horrible or tender. Sometimes, too, the metamorphosis seems a mere pretext for the introduction of the story, and occupies a very inconsiderable portion of it. The blood which flowed from Ajax, when he slew himself in a transport of indignation, because the arms of Achilles were adjudged to Ulysses, produced a hyacinth, and on this feeble stem the poet has ingrafted the animated and eloquent

which law proceedings could be legally held, or other ordinary business transacted; and thence it came, in course of time, to denote the books or tables on which the days in each month accounted as Fasti or Nefasti were exhibited. The term at length was applied to any record digested in regular chronological order, as the Fasti Consulares; and with Ovid it signifies the anniversaries of religious festivals, of dedications of temples, or of other memorable events, indicated in the calendar under the name of Dies Fasti, and which in general belonged, in the ancient meaning, to the class of Dies Nefasti rather than Fasti. C. Hemina and Claudius Quadrigarius had given histories of these festivals in prose: but their works were dry and uninteresting; and Ovid first bestowed on the subject the embellishments of poetry and imagination. The object of the Fasti of Ovid is to exhibit in regular order a history of the origin and observance of the different Roman festivals, as they occurred in the course of the year; and to associate the celebration of these holydays with the