AN ECLECTIC LIBRARY.

Virgil.

Or Vergil for the pedantic.


Latin Texts.

Virgil. With an English translation by H. Rushton Fairclough. —Loeb edition.

Vol. I. Eclogues, Georgics, Aeneid I–VI.

Vol. II. Aeneid VII–XII; the minor poems.

The Works of Virgil in Latin and English. The Æneid translated by the Rev. Mr. Christopher Pitt; the Eclogues and Georgics, with notes on the whole, by the Rev. Mr. Joseph Warton. With several new observations by Mr. Holdsworth, Mr. Spence, C. Heyne, and others. Also, a dissertation on the sixth book of the Æneid, by Mr. Warburton. On the shield of Æneas, by Mr. W. Whitehead. On the character of Iapis, by the late Dr. Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester. And, three essays on pastoral, didactic, and epic poetry, by Mr. Joseph Warton. The third edition, with considerable improvements. London: Printed for J. Dodsley, 1778.

Vol. I. Eclogues, Georgics.

Vol. II. Æneid 1–4.

Vol. III. Æneid 5–8.

Vol. IV. Æneid 9–12.

The Works of Virgil translated into English prose, as near the original as the different idioms of the Latin and English languages will allow. With the Latin text and order of construction on the same page; and critical, historical, geographical, and classical notes, in English, from the best commentators both ancient and modern, beside a very great number of notes entirely new. For the use of schools, as well as of private gentlemen. A new edition. London: Printed by Assignment, from Joseph Davidson, [for a large number of booksellers], 1785. —The “Davidson” translation was often reprinted without the Latin text in cheap students’ editions; see Davidson in the section of English translations below, where you will also find critical remarks on Davidson by John Conington.

Vol. I. Eclogues, Georgics, Æneid books I–III.

Vol. II. Æneid books IV–XII.

The Æneïd of Virgil. With English notes, critical and explanatory, a metrical clavis, and an historical, geographical and mythological index, by Charles Anthon, LL.D. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1881.
1856 edition.

The Æneïd of Virgil, with English notes. By Charles Anthon, LL.D. Adapted for use in English schools, by the Rev. F. Metcalfe, M.A. New edition. London: Whittaker and Co., 1856. —Anthon was the first American classicist to establish a transatlantic reputation.

P. Vergili Maronis Opera. Recognovit brevique adnotatione critica instruxit Fredericus Artutus Hirtzel. Oxford, [no date, about 1900].


Scottish Translation.

☛The first true translation of Virgil into an Anglic language was made into Scottish, and therefore the Scots come first in our list.

Virgil’s Aeneis, translated into Scottish verse, by the famous Gawin Douglas Bishop of Dunkeld. A new edition. Wherein the many errors of the former are corrected, and the defects supply’d, from an excellent manuscript. To which is added a large glossary, explaining the difficult words: which may serve for a dictionary to the old Scottish language. And to the whole is prefix’d an exact account of the author’s life and writings, from the best histories and records. Edinburgh: Andrew Symson and Robert Freebairn, 1710.

The Aeneid of Virgil translated into Scottish verse by Gawin Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld. Printed at Edinburgh, for the Bannatyne Club, 1839.

Vol. I..
At Google Books.

Vol. II.
Another copy
At Google Books.

The Poetical Works of Gavin Douglas. Edinburgh: William Paterson, 1874. —The translations of Virgil are in the volumes below; unlike the Bannatyne edition, this one preserves the original marginal notes.

Volume II. Eneados I–V.
Another copy.

Volume III. Eneados VI–X.

Volume IV. Eneados XI–XIII.


English Translations.

Listed alphabetically by translator.

R. D. Blackmore, M.A.

Author of Lorna Doone, etc.

The Georgics of Virgil. Translated by R. D. Blackmore, M.A. London: Sampson Low, Son, and Marson, 1871.

A. Hamilton Bryce

The Works of Virgil. A literal translation by A. Hamilton Bryce, LL.D., F.R.S.E. With introduction and memoir. London: George Bell & Sons, 1894. —A prose translation.

William Caxton.

☛Caxton’s is not a direct translation of Virgil, but rather an Englished French romance based on the Aeneid the same way a Hollywood movie might be based on it. Nevertheless, it was the first printed English version of anything to do with Virgil. In the opinion of Bishop Douglas (see his Scottish translation above), Caxton “shamefully the story did pervert”:

Adherand to my protestatioun,
Thoch Williame Caxtoun, of Inglis natioun,
In pross hes prent ane buik of Inglis gros,
Clepand it Virgill in Eneados,
Quhilk that he sais of Frensch he did translait,
It hes na thing ado therwith, God wait,
Nor na mair like than the devill and Sanct Austyne;
Haue he na thank therfor, bot lost his pyne,
So schamfully that storye did pervert;
I red his werk with harmes at my hert,
That sic ane buik, but sentence or engyne,
Suld be intitillit efter the poet divyne;
His ornait goldin versis mair than gilt,
I spittit for despyt to see sua spilt
With sic a wycht, quhilk treulie be myne entent,
Knew neuer thre wowrdis of all that Virgill ment.

Caxton’s Eneydos, 1490. Englisht from the French Liure des Eneydes, 1483. Edited by the late W. T. Culley, M.A., Oxford, and F. J. Furnivall, M.A., Camb., with a sketch of the Old French Roman D’Eneas by Dr. Salverda de Grave. Early English Text Society, 1890.
The same, at the Internet Archive.

John Conington.

☛Conington has the distinction of being the only one on this list who published two completely different translations of the Aeneid, one in prose and one in verse.

The Works of Virgil. Translated into English prose with an Essay on the English translations of Virgil. By John Conington. Edited by John Addington Symonds. Philadelphia: David McKay, [no date].

The Poems of Virgil translated into English prose by John Conington, M.A. New impression. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1907.

The Æneid of Virgil translated into English verse by John Conington, M.A. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1866. —Conington uses the octosyllables and variable rhyme of Walter Scott.

Oliver Crane.

Virgil’s Æneid. Translated literally, line by line, into English dactylic hexameter, by Rev. Oliver Crane, D. D. New York: The Baker & Taylor Co., 1888.

Joseph Davidson.

What precise chronological place among the prose translators of Virgil is occupied by Davidson we cannot say, but there can be no doubt that he has been the most popular. His work was published as early as 1754, if not earlier, and it still continues to be reprinted, even Mr. Bohn being content with presenting it to the world in a revised edition. In its complete form [see the Latin texts above] it may certainly claim the praise of comprehensiveness, containing, as it does, not only a translation, ‘as near the original as the different idioms of the Latin and English languages will allow,’ but ‘the Latin text and order of construction on the same page, and critical, historical, geographical, and classical notes in English, from the best commentators, both ancient and modern, beside a very great number of notes entirely new;’ a most ample provision ‘for the use of schools, as well as of private gentlemen,’ especially if we throw in some seventy-five pages of prefatory matter. Its literary characteristics are such as will sufficiently account for its success, though they are not of that rare order which might have been expected to place it beyond the reach of future rivalry. It keeps fairly close to the Latin, at the same time that it is written in a fluent, respectable English style, such as might easily commend itself to a person without much poetical taste—the style of an ordinary newspaper or of a Polite Letter-writer.… There is not much rhythm here, not much of strictly poetical expression, and no attempt to preserve the peculiar character of Virgil’s style; but the language is such as an Englishman might speak or write, and we appeal to the class to whom Davidson dedicates his labors, ‘those gentlemen who have the immediate care of education,’ whether that is not something. —“English Translators of Virgil”, by John Conington.

The Works of Virgil translated into English prose, as near the original as the different idioms of the Latin and English languages will allow. For the use of schools as well as private gentlemen. A new edition, with illustrative notes and a copious index; to which is prefixes, the life of the author. Edinburgh: Stirling & Kenney, 1821.

The Works of Virgil. Literally translated into English prose, with notes, by Davidson. A new edition, revised, with additional notes, by Theodore Alois Buckley. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1874.

John Dryden.

☛Dryden’s translation is everywhere; we chose these editions for the quality of the scans.

The Works of Virgil, translated by John Dryden. London: Printed for Scott, Webster, and Geary, (Successors to Mr. Dove), [no date; inscription on title page dated 1838].

The Works of Virgil. Translated by John Dryden. Reprinted from the best editions. With memoir, &c. London: Frederick Warne and Co., [no date]. —The “Chandos Classics,” late 1800s.

Rann Kennedy and Charles Rann Kennedy.

The Works of Virgil: Translated. The first four Pastorals, the Georgics, and the first four Æneids, by the Rev. Rann Kennedy. The last six Pastorals, and the last eight Æneids, by Charles Rann Kennedy. London: 1849.

Vol. I. Pastorals, Georgics, Æneid I–IV.

Vol. II. Æneid V–XII; appendices.

John D. Long.

The Æneid of Virgil. Translated into English by John D. Long. Boston: L. C. Page & Company, 1900. —Blank verse.

James Lonsdale and Samuel Lee.

The Works of Virgil rendered into English prose, with introductions, running analysis, and an index, by James Lonsdale M.A. and Samuel Lee M.A. London: Macmillan and Co., 1871.

J. W. Mackail.

The Aeneid of Virgil. Translated into English by J. W. Mackail, M.A. London: Macmillan and Co., 1885. —A prose translation.

Georgics of Virgil. Translated from the Latin into English by J. W. Mackail. Boston: The Riverside Press, 1904. —Beautifully printed limited edition.

William Morris.

Morris renders the Aeneid in fourteeners like Chapman’s, adding heaps of alliteration that he must have learned from medieval English poets.

The Æneids of Virgil. Done into English verse by William Morris. London: Ellis and White, 1876.
Author’s edition, from the second London edition. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1876.
New impression, 1910. New York, London, Bombay, Calcutta: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1910.

Thomas Neville.

The Georgics of Virgil. Translated by Thomas Neville, A.M. Cambridge, 1767.

Samuel Palmer.

An English Version of the Eclogues of Virgil. By Samuel Palmer. With illustrations by the author. London: Seeley & Company, 1883.

Christopher Pitt.

See the Latin texts above.

Harriet Waters Preston.

The Georgics of Virgil. Translated into English verse by Harriet Waters Preston. Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1881.

Henry Duncan Skrine.

The Eclogues of Virgil. Translated into English verse. By Henry Duncan Skrine. 1868. Printed for private circulation among friends.

William Sotheby.

The Georgics of Virgil: Translated by William Sotheby, Esq. Middletown, (Conn.): Printed for J. Riley, New-York, 1808.

Joseph Warton.

See the Latin texts above.