James Lonsdale
Published: 2017-09-13
Total Pages: 320
Get eBook
Excerpt from The Works of Virgil: Rendered Into English Prose, With Introductions Running Analysis, Notes and an Index NO age of Rome, perhaps, was so favorable to the pro duction of poetry as that of its first emperor, and no other, if Horace is to be believed, ever saw verse-making quite so much the fashion. That, out of much that was poor, still more whose mediocrity was far from golden, there has survived what is justly regarded as the most nearly perfect flower of the Latin speech, seems the natural outcome of the life of the city itself. For the writings of the Augustans, like the early Empire itself, may be likened not to the expres sion of a fresh unfolding youth, but to the more matured and reflective happiness of a strong man restored to health and peace after lingering long in the Valley of the Shadow. The Rome of Augustus and her people were then also, a century before there was a Tacitus SO to express it, survivors of themselves, and the dawn of the Empire saw for a season that rare and happy combination of youth's enthusiasm tem pered by the self - control of deep experience. Before that enthusiasm had become jaded, before the luster of the reforms of Augustus had greatly dimmed, it had left as its bequest to undreamt-of multitudes a thing better and greater than Vergil foresaw in his Age of Gold or Horace pictured in his Fortunate Isles. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.