The Transcriber's Note is at the end of the book. |
TO
PRINCIPAL OF THE UNITED COLLEGE, ST. ANDREWS,
PROFESSOR OF POETRY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD,
IN ACKNOWLEDGMENT
OF MUCH ACTIVE AND GENEROUS KINDNESS,
AND OF
A LONG AND STEADY FRIENDSHIP,
THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.
In preparing a second edition of this volume, whichhas been for some years out of print, I have, with theexception of a few pages added to Chapter IV, retainedthe first five chapters substantially unchanged. ChaptersVI and VII, on Roman Comedy, are entirely new. Ihave enlarged the account formerly given of Luciliusin Chapter VIII, and modified the Review of the FirstPeriod, contained in Chapter IX. The short introductorychapter to the Second Period is new. The four chapterson Lucretius have been carefully revised, and, in part,re-written. The chapter on Catullus has been re-writtenand enlarged, and the views formerly expressed in it havebeen modified.
In the preface to the first edition I acknowledged theassistance I had derived from the editions of the Fragmentsof the early writers by Klussman, Vahlen, Ribbeck,and Gerlach; from the Histories of Roman Literatureby Bernhardy, Bähr, and Munk, and from the chapterson Roman Literature in Mommsen's Roman History;from a treatise on the origin of Roman Poetry, by Corssen;from Sir G. C. Lewis's work on 'The Credibility of EarlyRoman History'; from the Articles on the Roman Poetsby the late Professor Ramsay, contained in Smith's 'Dictionaryof Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology';and from Articles by Mr. Munro in the 'Journal of Classicaland Sacred Philology.' In addition to these I have,[page v]in the present edition, to acknowledge my indebtednessto the History of Roman Literature by W. S. Teuffel,to Ribbeck's 'Römische Tragödie,' to Ritschl's 'Opuscula,'to the editions of some of the Plays of Plautus by Brixand Lorenz, to that of the Fragments of Lucilius byL. Müller, to the Thesis of M. G. Boissier, entitled 'QuomodoGraecos Poetas Plautus Transtulerit,' to Articles onLucilius by Mr. Munro in the 'Journal of Philology,' andto the edition of Lucretius, and the 'Criticisms and Elucidationsof Catullus' by the same writer, to Schwabe's'Quaestiones Catullianae,' to Mr. Ellis's 'Commentary onCatullus,' to R. Westphal's 'Catull's Gedichte,' and toM. A. Couat's 'Étude sur Catulle.' I have more especiallyto express my sense of obligation to Mr. Munro's writingson Lucretius and Catullus. In so far as the chapterson these poets in this