Silius Italicus in England

Abstract

THAT longest of Latin poems, the Punica of Silius Italicus, is not much read nowadays, even by the professional Latinist. excellent version which Mr. J. D. Duff brought out in the Loeb Library in 1934 renewed interest in the work for a while. But the general tendency for the last hundred odd years has been either to ignore the Punica or to castigate it about as Macaulay did in his essay on Addison;1 it has almost fallen into the oblivion that was its lot during the Middle Ages.2 There are, however, a number of English writers of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries to say nothing of Macaulay himself in the first part of the nineteenth who show an acquaintance with Silius.3 Sometimes these authors were influenced by him; sometimes they just refer to him or quote from him. But mere citation proves how familiar a Burton or an Addison or a Gray was with the Latin poets. Furthermore, while finding some disparagement of Silius in the English men of letters whom we are about to study, we shall also find words of praise. On the whole, we shall meet with a more balanced criticism than the contemporary one, for those who judge have read the poet whom they are judging.4 most inclusive statement of Silius' fortunes in England is that made by W. C. Summers in his Silver Age of Latin Literature. He writes: in his Governour, Castiglioni [sic] in his Cortegiano, mention Silius without revealing the extent of their familiarity with his work; Montaigne occasionally quotes him; Dryden holds him worse writer but more of a poet than Lucan; Addison ... often cites and translates him in his Remarks on Italy, and one of these versions contains a line that may well the original of Pope's 'pale ghosts' that 'start at the flash of day.' Gray read him in Piedmont, Coleridge never (he is ashamed to say): Macaulay revenged a labour that was not of love by scribbling 'Heaven praised!' at the end of his copy and penning a criticism in the essay upon Addison.5 present paper is an attempt to expand what Summers has written about Silius in English letters to say a little more in connection with the British authors whom he cites, to give an account of some whom he has not cited, and to mention what references to Silian influence upon these writers I have found, whether I feel that it always really exists or not. English began to reminded of Silius' merits early in the sixteenth century. Vives recommends him in the plan of studies which he wrote for the young Charles Mountjoy in 1523.6 In Boke Named the Gouernour, published by Sir Thomas Elyot in 1531, the only specific reference to Silius comes in Book I, chapter x. Elyot has already suggested Aesop, Lucian, Aristophanes, Homer, Virgil, Ovid, and Horace for the reading of the yonge gentil man and now recommends the two Silver Age epic poets who had chosen Roman themes. The two noble poetis Silius, and Lucane, he explains,7 be very