RAPE OF PROSERPINE:

WITH OTHER POEMS,

From Claudian;

TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH VERSE.

WITH A PREFATORY DISCOURSE, AND

OCCASIONAL NOTES.

BY JACOB GEORGE STRUTT.

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LONDON:

PRINTED BY A. J. VALPY, TOOKE'S COURT,

CHANCERY LANE.

SOLD BY MESSRS. LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN,

PATERNOSTER ROW;

AND JOSIAH CONDER, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD,

1814

PREFACE.

THE poet, from whose works the following selection is translated, was a native of Alexandria, and flourished at Rome in the time of the Emperors Honorius and Arcadius; his character as a writer was of the highest reputation, and he enjoyed, for a long period, the favor of the court, to the glory of which his muse was chiefly devoted. His prosperity, however, was interrupted by the ruin of his friend and patron, Stilicho, the great general and minister of the Western Empire; and the few remaining years of the poet were passed in poverty and disgrace: but his name is preserved and esteemed in every country,

and posterity classes him among the most celebrated

heroic poets.

It has been the study of the translator to present to the English reader, as far as the genius of the language admitted, a correct view of the style and manner of his author, for which purpose he has chosen the exterior decoration of blank verse, as being more sonorous and majestic than rhyme, and better adapted to express the varied excellence of the poet, the powerful redundancy, and the occasional, and grateful, brevity of his muse. A due attention has, likewise, been paid to exhibit such of his works only as present his poetical character in the fairest light; those are consequently avoided which denote a courtly and servile flatterer. The Rape of Proserpine is, perhaps, the only one of his larger pieces, so entirely unmixed with baser matter, as to demand our unqualified praise; but the poem of Rufinus has been admitted, in order to exhibit the talents of Claudian, exerted upon a subject that justly