The Works of the British Poets

et arbitrii," of age, and fit to make vows for her-
felf; but had that ingenious commentator attend-
ed to the words" clam et tacita" in the fame line,
he would have feen that the true reading was that
which is retained in the text.

Ver. 17. Menage obferves of the original of
this paffage, that an active should not follow a
paffive verb; and therefore contends that the
urunt" fhould be "uruntur:" and yet we know
that the contrary practice is warranted by fome of
the pureft writers of the Auguftan age; and, if
the tranflator is not mistaken, that learned gram-
marian himself has, in his Latin poems, fallen into
the mode of expreffion, which he here condemns
in Sulpicia.

POEM VII.

Ver. 2. The villa, mentioned in the original,
is Eretum, now Monte Ritondo. It was fituated
upon a high hill, not far from the banks of the
Tiber, and was therefore cool, even in the midft
of fummer. Cluverius places it at the distance of
fourteen miles from Rome; but Holftenius, in his
Annot. Geogr. on the authority of Antoninus's
Itinerary, and Ferrarius removes it four miles far-
ther off.

POEM IX.

Ver. 1. From the original, the commentators
conclude, that Sulpicia was the daughter of that
famous Servius Sulpicius, who died at Modena,
whilft he was engaged in an embassy to Antony,
which he had undertaken at the request of the con-
fuls Hirtius and Panfa, and of the fenate: but then
they feem to forgot that Servius was a prænomen
common to all the males of the Sulpician family
and therefore not distinguishingly characteristic of
any one of them. Those who fuppofe that Tibul-
lus wrote these poems, and believe he was born
in 710, make him a poet before his birth; for,
fays Brockhufius, Sulpicia fpeaks of her parents as
if both were alive. Although the tranflator is
perfuaded that the pieces in this book are not Ti-
bullus's, yet he can fee nothing in the poem to
fupport this affertion. Sure Sulpicia might call
herself the daughter of Servius Sulpicius, notwith-
standing her father's death; and the two laft lines
of the original may be applied to her nearest rela-
tions or guardians, with as much propriety as to
her parents.