TIBULLUS, Albius, a very elegant poet, was born at Rome about the year of the city 690. He belonged to the equestrian order; but as his father had espoused the cause of Pompey, his estate was impaired in the issue of tire unhappy contest which ensued. About the age of twenty-two, the son retired to his villa at Pedum, and by the cultivation of his demesne endeavoured to retrieve his fortune. Love and poetry likewise occupied no inconsiderable share of his attention; and the names, real or fictitious, of his mistresses, Delia, Neaera, and Nemesis, are familiarly known to all classical readers. He had contracted a friendship with Messala Corvinus, who was distinguished by his eloquence as well as by his military talents. The inhabitants of Pannonia having revolted in the year of Rome 718, Augustus employed this general to reduce them to subjection. He invited Tibullus to accompany him, nor did the poet shrink from the toils and dangers of such an expedition. When Messala was soon afterwards raised to the consulship, he composed the panegyric which appears at the beginning of his fourth book of Elegies. It is however written in hexameters, and in a style inferior to that of his elegiac verse. The same distinguished individual was in 725 intrusted with an extraordinary command in Syria, and was again accompanied by Tibullus; but he soon became so seriously indisposed, that he was sent on shore and left in the island of Phaeacia. This was poetic ground, and here he composed the third elegy of his first book. Having afterwards been enabled to resume his voyage, he attended his friend through Cilicia, Syria, Egypt, and Greece. Aquitania revolted in the course of the ensuing year, when Messala was despatched on another expedition, being still attended by the poet; and having reduced this province, he in 727 obtained the honour of a triumph, in which the military services of Tibullus entitled him to some sharc. This was the last of his warlike expeditions, and he now returned to his favourite pursuits. He lived on terms of intimacy with Horace, who has addressed to him one of his odes and one of his epistles. Macer and Valgius were likewise among the number of his poetical friends. He appears to have cherished the love of freedom, and to have scorned to advance his fortunes by flattering Augustus. According to the authority of Domitius Marsus, a poet of that age who wrote his epitaph, he died nearly at the same time with Virgil:

Te quoque Virgilio comitcm non aequa, Tibulle, Mors juvenem campos misit ad Elysios,

Ne foret aut elegis molles qui fleret amores,

Aut caneret forti regia bella pede.

Virgil died in the year of Rome 735; and if Tibullus died in the same year, he may have attained the age of forty-five. As he is represented by Marsus as a young man, he must have been under the age of forty-six. His loss was bewailed by Ovid in an affectionate elegy.

Flebilis indignos, Elegeia, solve capillos: Ah nimis ex vero nunc tibi nomen erit!

Ille tui vates operis, tua fama, Tibullus Ârdet in extructo, corpus inane, rogo.

Horace has described him as handsome in his person, as blessed with riches, and the art of enjoying them. Tibullus is always classed among the most tender and elegant of the Latin poets who have written in elegiac verse. He has more correctness, though certainly not more fancy, than Ovid, and is less mythological than Propertius. The cadence of his verse is often very pleasing.

The poems of Tibullus have very frequently been printed along with those of Catullus and Propertius. In this form, they were first printed at Venice in quarto about the year 1472; and several other impressions followed within a brief interval. Two editions issued from the press of Aldus, Venet. 1502-15, 8vo. And in the mean time appeared the edition of Junta, Florent. 1503, 8vo. An edition was published by Janus Dousa, several by Joseph Scaliger; and others which deserve particular notice are those of Morel in 1604, and of Passerat in 1608. Omitting other editions of the three poets, we hasten to state that the first separate edition of Tibullus was printed in quarto about the year 1472. This was speedily followed by at least other two editions without dates; and by a third, “cum commentario Bernardini (Cyllenii) Veronensis,” Romae, 1475, 4to. An edition with a commentary was published by a learned Portugueze, Achilles Statius, Venet. 1567, 8vo. For a more recent and valuable edition we are indebted to Janus Broukhusius, Amst. 1708, 4to. Another edition, sometimes described as the best, was published by Vulpius, Patavii, 1749, 4to. The next deserving particular notice is the [7:21:259]third edition published by Heyne, Lipsiae, 1798, 8vo. We shall close this enumeration by mentioning the edition of Wunderlich, Lips. 1817, 2 tom. 8vo. A supplement to it was published by Dissen in 1819.

An English translation of Tibullus was produced by Mr Dart in 1720. A more elegant version, accompanying the original, and illustrated with copious notes, was published by Dr Grainger in 1759, in 2 vols. 12mo. The translator, a man of literature and taste, soon afterwards distinguished himself by the publication of The Sugar cane; a classical poem founded on a subject which it required no mean talents to invest with the graces and allurements of poetry.^[1. Dr Grainger published a professional work, which has escaped the notice of some of his biographers: “Historia Febris Anomalae Bata-vae, annorum 1746, 1747, 1748, &c. Accedunt Monita Siphylica. Auctore Jacobo Grainger, Μ. D.” Edinb. 1753, 8vo. The latter tract is a reprint of his inaugural dissertation, on taking his degree. An edition of this volume was subsequently published in Holland. ]