Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

Library in Dresden. I read the whole of the first six Books of the Eneis in it, and took memorandums of its readings in one hundred and eleven places, a great number of which (not all however) I have quoted in this work.

3. 4. The two Leipzig MSS., viz. Nos. 35 and 36 (Naumann's Catal.). These MSS. were also obtained for me by Dr. Klemm. I carefully collated in these MSS. almost all the important passages in the first six Books of the Eneis, and made one hundred and sixty seven memorandums of the readings of No. 35, and about an equal number of No. 36, and have quoted a great part of these readings in the following work. No. 35 is in much better condition, and much easier to read than No. 36. I will not pretend to say which is the older, or more correct; they do not by any means coincide with each other.

5. The Dresden MS. (D. 134 in Ebert's Geschichte der kön. Biblioth. zu Dresden); a comparatively modern MS., but in several places containing good readings rarely to be found in other MSS. I consider it as deserving of more attention than it has hitherto received. I collated this MS. with the two Leipzig, in the whole of the above mentioned number of places, and have always quoted its readings along with theirs. This MS. has been rarely, if ever, quoted by any of Virgil's editors.

6. 7. 8. 9. The four Gotha MSS., viz. Nos. 54, 55, 56, & 236 (Jacobs's Catal.). My opportunity for collating these MSS. not having been good, I have quoted them only in a few places.

10. 11. 12. 13. The four Munich MSS., viz. Nos. 305, 523, 18059, and 21562 in the Library Catalogue. These MSS. also, and for a similar reason, I have quoted only in a small number of places, viz. twenty two in all. They have never, so far as I know, been quoted by any of Virgil's editors.

14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

1

The eight oldest of the MSS. preserved in the Royal Library in Vienna, viz. Nos. 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 120, 121, in Endlicher's Catal. My quotations from these MSS. in the course of the following work amount to eighty one. These MSS. also have never, so far as I know, been quoted by any of Virgil's editors. The remaining Vir→ gilian MSS. in this library, being more modern, I did not collate at all.

22. A very beautiful MS., preserved in the library of the Convent at Kloster-Neuburg near Vienna. The handsomest, I think, of all the Virgilian MSS. I have ever seen; on parchment, folio, and in perfect preservation. It seems to have been wholly unknown to the Virgilian editors. In the Library Catal. it is set down as of the 12th Century. I have quoted the readings of this MS. in fifteen places.

[ocr errors]

23. 24. 25. The three MSS. preserved in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, viz. Nos. 79 and 107 in the Catal., and the Petrarchian. The first I have quoted in six, the second in two, and the third in twenty two, places. None of these MSS. has been quoted by any of the Virgilian editors. The last mentioned. I denominate Petrarchian, because it belonged to Petrarch, who, it is said, caused it to be made for his own use. It contains numerous observations in Petrarch's own hand-writing, which however I found it impossible to decypher. It is not likely that they throw any light whatever on the Virgilian text. This MS. has an allegorical frontispiece said to have been painted by the hand of Simon Memmi.

Besides the above Virgilian MSS. I have occasionally consulted, and on two or three occasions quoted, the MS. of Servius preserved in the Royal Library in Dresden.

Circumstances having prevented me from consulting

the Vatican MSS. I have quoted the Vatican Fragment and the Roman, from Bottari.

In the Laurentian Library in Florence is a copy of the Roman Princeps of Virgil which I have quoted on one occasion only.

The Royal Library at Dresden contains one of the only two existing copies of the edition of Virgil published at Modena in 1475. It is stated by Brunet (Manuel du Libraire) that this edition is a mere copy of the Milan Ed. of 1474. This latter edition I have never seen, and am acquainted with only through its Variantes as cited by Maittaire; but having compared those Variantes with the Modena Ed. I find sufficient discrepancy between them and that edition to make me believe that the latter is, not a copy of the Milan Ed., but an improved edition formed mainly on the Milan Ed. as a basis. In proof of the correctness of which opinion I shall only cite En. III. 329; where according to Maittaire, the Milan Ed. reads "me famulamque famulo," but where I find in the Modena Ed. the much better reading "me famulam famuloque." So much care seems to me to have been taken in the formation of the text of the Modena Ed. that I esteem it as of greater authority than many of the MSS. and have accordingly made much use of it, and quoted it very frequently in the course of the following work. I may add that it is a beautifully printed book, and, being at the same time the first book ever printed in Modena, affords astounding evidence of the small progress made in the art of printing beautifully and correctly, I will not say in the art of printing quickly and cheaply, since the first invention of the printing press. This edition seems to have been wholly unknown both to Maittaire and De Bure.

The Dresden Library contains also a copy of that extremely rare book (not even so much as mentioned by Brunet in his enumeration of the works of Pierius)

Castigationes et Varietates Virgilianae Lectionis per Johan. Pierium Valerianum, Romae, 1521 (altered with pen to 1534). When I have had occasion to quote this work, I have taken care to quote the author's own words (never quoted by Burmann or Heyne), believing that very few indeed of my readers will have an opportunity to consult the author himself. The Dresden copy of this extremely rare, and at the same time intrinsically excellent, work belonged to Fabricius, and bears his Autograph: Georgius Fabricius, Chem. Patavii, mense Julio. M. D. XXXX. This therefore is the identical copy of Pierius whence Fabricius obtained the Varietates which he inserted into his edition of Virgil published at Basle in 1547, a copy of which edition is in the Dresden Library and has been frequently consulted by me for the sake of Donatus's commentary printed in full (for the first time) in that edition, commonly called (from the name of the printer) the Henrico-Petri Edition.

I have frequently had occasion to quote Henry Stephens's Ed. 1583 (the place where printed not stated). The Dresden Library copy (the only one I have ever seen) of this edition belonged to Taubmann, and bears his autograph corrections for his own edition, of which it formed the basis.

I have made much use of Bersmann's Ed. Leipzig, 1596. This edition is valuable in as much as it contains in the margin the Varietates of a MS. lent to Bersmann by Louis Camerarius.

I have made constant use of the edition of Daniel Heinsius, Leyden, 1636. This rare book is generally stated to be very incorrect, and to be admired only by book collectors on account of its rarity and the beauty of its typography: "Peu exacte." BRUNET, Manuel du Libraire. "Referatur sane illa, si ita placet, inter rariores Elzevirianas; interioris tamen indolis bona habet nulla." HEYNE. This is, I think, an

[ocr errors]

unjust judgment. beautifully, but correctly, printed, and I frequently prefer its readings to those of the edition of Nicholas Heinsius; See Comm. En. I. 744.

I have found it to be not only

The edition of Nicholas Heinsius which I have used is that of Utrecht, 1704.

The Epistolae Graecanicae Mutuae, which I have occasionally quoted, is a collection of Letters attributed to various celebrated Greeks, edited, and furnished with a Latin translation, by Cujacius, and bearing the imprint: Aurel. Allobr. 1606.

The edition of Petronius to which I refer, is that of Hadrianides, Amsterdam, 1669; the edition of Apuleius, that of Hildebrand, Leipzig, 1842.

§ II.

How I have been received by Virgilian editors and other learned men.

In order to obtain further information respecting my Author, I have visited several of his principal living editors. In Sept. 1850, I walked all the way from Utrecht to Helversum and back, in one day, in order to see Peerlkamp. This visit was wholly fruitless. I found a man so entirely engrossed by his own views as to have no room for those of any one else: one of the worst arguers and least rational men, not to be mad, whom I ever met; in one word, exactly what one might a priori suppose the editor of Peerlkamp's Virgil to be, a man wholly destitute, not merely of all literary taste, but all literary judgment.

In 1846, I became acquainted with Phil. E. Wagner, at Dresden. I had for four years such intimacy with him as it was possible to have with a man, who however unreserved and incautious in his published

« ForrigeFortsæt »