The works of Virgil: containing his pastorals, Georgics and Æneis. Translated into English verse; by Mr. Dryden. In three volumes. Adorn’d with above a hundred sculptures

by VIRGIL [Publius Vergilius Maro]

Third Edition

Price: $1,385.00
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Book desription: London: Printed by Jacob Tonson, at Grays-Inn-Gate, MDCCIX, 1709. Third Edition. Full Calf. Near Fine. The third edition, complete in three volumes, with 105 full-page copperplate engravings, including three frontispiece portraits of Dryden at various ages and a portrait in profile of Virgil. 8vo; [2],1-2, 7-108, 857, [1]pp. Title pages printed in red and black; vols. 2 and 3 with no edition statement (as called for). Apart from the life of Virgil and the prefaces at the beginning of vol. 1, pagination and register are continuous, with one gathering of two leaves (pp. 3-6 from Dryden's dedication to Lord Clifford) never bound in. Vols. 2 and 3 bound in contemporary full paneled calf, the spine in six compartments divided by raised bands with a red morocco gilt lettering piece in the second compartment and all edges sprinkled red. Vol. 1, recently bound by Fitterer to match, in identical-looking mottled calf, Cambridge-styled paneling, and the board edges ruled in blind—altogether a magnificent performance. The bindings of all three volumes Near Fine or better, with only slight weakening of the joints and the end papers in vol. 1 renewed. Internally, all plates are deep, rich impressions, some lightly toned, the pages for the most part clean, but showing varying degrees of browning from gathering to gathering. Provenance: Engraved armorial bookplate of Pollexfen Bastard (a distant descendant of William the Conqueror) of Gerson Devon, Esq., dated 1715, to pastedown of vol. 2. ESTC Citation No. T64661; OCLC Number: 85874155 Just three months before the publisher Tonson and the poet Dryden signed their agreement on June 15, 1694, for Dryden's translation, the March installment of The Gentleman's Journal, perhaps expressing a widely held sentiment, averred: We hope that Mr. Dryden will undertake to give us a Translation of Virgil; 'tis indeed a most difficult work, but if any one assure himself of success, in attempting so bold a task, 'tis doubtlets the Virgil of our Age, for whose noble Pen that best of Latin Poets seems reserv'd. Dryden was already 62 years old when he undertook his translation, a fact emphasized in his 'Postscript to the Reader:' "What Virgil wrote in the vigor of his Age, in Plenty and at Ease, I have undertaken to translate in my Declining Years: struggling with Wants, oppress'd with Sickness, curb'd in my Genius, liable to be misconstrued in all I write." In a fascinating essay, Pablo Alvarez, Curator of Rare Books at the University of Rochester, wonders whether the phrase, "liable to be misconstrued in all I write," alludes to Dryden's veiled intent that his translation be interpreted in light of the political circumstances of his age. Because Dryden had become a Catholic in 1685, he lost his post as poet laureate after the Glorious Revolution of 1688, when the Catholic James II abdicated and the Dutch Protestant William of Orange was enthroned. Alvarez suggests that Dryden's translation be seen as the work of a religious minority critical of the new political regime. In fact, in Dryden's Life of Virgil, the Roman poet is described as a man like Dryden himself, an individual who quietly opposed Augustus's imperial revolution as Dryden resisted the Revolution of 1688. Tellingly, Dryden managed not to dedicate his Virgil to the king and was against any attempt to identify the hero Aeneas with William III. So, in a letter to his sons, he complained of Tonson attempt to establish this comparison by manipulating the design of the plates: "for in every figure of Eneas he has causd him to be drawn like King William with a hookd nose.

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