©Biblioteca Nacional de Colombia

IV
©Biblioteca Nacional de Colombia
PREFACE.
of the lakr with which I have compared conflicting opinions,
and, weighing each case upon its own mcrits, formed a judgment
of my own. The result of hours of study is sometimes
embodied in a single line, credited to some commentator.
'rhe Arguments of the different Books have been taken
from Bryce, with occasional additions from other sources.
The Life of Virgil is in the main a compilation from Ladewig,
iVagner, Thomp on, and Long. Madvig, Znmpt, and
Wagner are my chief authorities for the Remarks appended
to the Metrical Index.
As in all similar editions designed for text-books, in Great
Britain and America, the necessi ty has heen felt of retaining
the orthography of the dictionaries and grammars. But even
were the edition of such a kind as to justify my cntering into
questions of antiquarian scholarship,-questions in which I
conre' s a peculiarfnscination,-I shoulU he embarrassed by the
unsettled state in which the true Virgilian orthography still
remnins. The uniformity of Wagner is in many cases arbitrary,
and some of his conclusions have already been shaken;
the varying and inconsistent orthography of Ribbeck represents
to be sure the condition of the manuscripts, but cannot
be supposed to be the orthography of Virgil ; and the attempts
of Paldamus and eonington to pursue a midille course, while
not without commenuaLle features, can never be satisfactory
to scholars. Careful study of inscriptions, manuscripts, and
grammarians is still oeeucd, before we can be confident that
we are writing words as Virgil wrote them.
I congratulate those who shall study this volume upon their
introduction to one of the most charming of poets, who will
delight them in their youth, and still more, if possible, when
they read him anew in after-days. Let them dwell long and
luvingly upon his graceful verses, committing some of his
conicest passages to memory, and they will find on every
lJerusal old beauties that never pall, and new beauties contlOU'l.lIy
presented from an exhauhtless store.
'frrOMAS CHASE.