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Return was poisoned with a Shirt fent by DEIANEIRA. This Hero had twice taken Troy in the Time of King Laomedon to whom Priam fucceeded, the Father of PARIS, at whofe Birth it was prophecied that he should occafion it to be destroyed a third time. Being therefore educated among the Shepherds, he contracted a Love to OENONE;'till hearing of HELENA, he failed to Sparta, and carried her from thence to Troy. This caufed the War of the Grecian Princes against Troy; among whom PROTESILAUS (the Hufband of LAODAMIA) was the firft that fet foot on the Enemy's Ground, and was killed on the Spot. After the War had been continued nine Years, a Quarrel arifing betwixt Agamemnon and Achilles, the latter abfented himself from the Army, and the former in revenge forced his Miftrefs BRISEIS from him. When Troy was taken, the Greeks returning homeward met with many Difafters. ULYSSES was ten Years detained from Ithaca, while his Queen PENELOPE was afflicted by the Suitors in his Abfence. DEMOPHOON was hofpitably received by PHILLIS, whom after he had married, he left, and purfued his Voyage home to Athens. Agamemnon himself at his Return to Argos was murdered by his Wife, whom his Son OR ESTES killed, who was betrothed to HERMIONE, the Daughter of Helena. About the fame time ENEAS going in fearch of Italy, was detained by DiDo, who ftabbed herself upon his Departure from Carthage.

The reft of the Subjects of Ovid have no Connexion with each other, neither can their Time be certainly fixed; only HYPERMNESTRA is fuppofed to have lived fome time before, and SAPHO long after all the rest.

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By Mr. DRYDEN.

HE Life of Ovid being already Writ ten in our Language before the Tranflation of his Metamorphofes, 1 will not prefume fo far upon myself, to think I can add any thing to Mr. Sandys his Undertaking. The English Reader may there be fatisfied, that he flourished in the Reign of Auguftus Cæfar, that he was extracted from an ancient Family of Roman Knights; that he was born to the Inheritance of a fplendid Fortune; that he was defigned to the Study of the Law, and had made confiderable Progrefs in it, before he quitted that Profeffion, for this of Poetry, to which he was more naturally formed. The Caufe of his Banishment is unknown; because he was himself unwilling further to provoke the Emperor, by afcribing it to any other Reason, than what was pretended

by Auguftus, which was the Lafcivioufnefs of his Elegies, and his Art of Love. 'Tis true, they are not to be excufed in the Severity of Manners, as being able to corrupt a larger Empire, if there were any, than that of Rome; yet this may be faid in behalf of Ovid, that no Man has ever treated the Paffion of Love with fo much Delicacy of Thought, and of Expreffion, or fearched into the Nature of it more Philosophically than he. And the Emperor who condemned him, had as little Reason as another Man to punish that Fault with fo much Severity, if at least he were the Author of a certain Epigram, which is afcribed to him, relating to the Caufe of the firft Civil War betwixt himself and Mark Antony the Triumvir, which is more fulfone than any Paffage I have met with in our Poet. To pafs by the naked Familiarity of his Expreffions to Horace, which are cited in that Author's Life, I need only mention one notorious Act of his, in taking Livia to his Bed, when he was not only married, but with Child by her Hufband, then living. But Deeds, it feems, may be juftified by Arbitrary Power, when Words are queftioned in a Poet. There is another Guefs of the Grammarians, as far from Truth as the firft from Reason ; they will have him banifhed for fome Favours, which they fay he received from Julia the Daughter of Auguftus, whom they think he Celebrates under the Name of Corinna in his Elegies: But he who will obferve the Verfes which are made to that Mistress, may gather from the whole Contexture of them, that Corinna was not a Woman of the higheft Quality: If Julia were then married to Agrippa, why fhould our Poet make his Petition to Ifis, for her fafe Delivery, and afterwards Condole her Miscarriage, which, for ought he knew, might

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be by her own Hufband? or indeed how durft he be fo Bold to make the least Discovery of fuch a Crime, which was no less than Capital, especially committed against a Person of Agrippa's Rank? Or if it were before her Marriage, he would fure have been more difcreet, than to have published an Accident, which must have been fatal to them both. But what most confirms me against this Opinion is, that Ovid himself complains that the true Person of Corinna was found out by the Fame of his Verses to her: Which if it had been Julia, he durft not have owned; and befide, an immediate Punishment must have followed. He feems himself more truly to have touched at the Cause of his Exile in thofe obfcure Verfes,

Cur aliquid vidi, cur noxia Lumina feci? &c.

Namely, that he had either feen, or was confcious to, fomewhat, which had procured him his Difgrace. But neither am I fatisfied that this was the Inceft of the Emperor with his own Daughter: For Auguftus was of a Nature too Vindicative to have contented himself with fo fmall a Revenge, or fo unsafe to himself, as that of fimple Banishment, as would certainly have fecured his Crimes from public Notice by the Death of him who was Witness to them. Neither have Hiftorians given us any Sight into fuch an Action of this Emperor: Nor would he (the greatest Politician of his time) in all Probability, have managed his Crimes with fo little Secrefy, as not to fhun the Obfervation of any Man. It feems more probable, that Ovid was either the Confident of fome other Paffion, or that he had stumbled by fome Inadvertency upon the Privacies

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Privacies of Livia, and feen her in a Bath: For the Words

Sine vefte Dianam,

agree better with Livia who had the Fame of Chastity, than with either of the Julia's, who were both noted of Incontinency. The firft Verses which were made by him in his Youth, and recited publickly, according to the Custom, were, as he himself affures us, to Corinna: His Banishment happened not till the Age of Fifty, from which it may be deduced, with Probability enough, that the Love of Corinna did not occafion it: Nay he tells us plainly, that his Offence was that of Error only, not of Wickedness: And in the fame Paper of Verfes alfo, that the Caufe was notoriously known at Rome, though it be left fo obfcure to after Ages.

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But to leave Conjectures on a Subject fo uncertain, and to write fomewhat more Authentick of this Poet: That he frequented the Court of Auguftus, and was well received in it, is moft undoubted: All his Poems bear the Character of a Court, and appear to be written as the French call it Cavalierement: Add to this, that the Titles of many of his Elegies, and more of his Letters in his Banifhment, are addreffed to Perfons well known to us, even at this diftance, to have been confiderable in that Court.

Nor was his Acquaintance lefs with the famous Poets of his Age, than with the Noble Men and Ladies; he tells you himself, in a particular Account of his own Life, that Macer, Horace, Tibullus, Propertius, and many others of them, were his familiar Friends, and that some of them communicated

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