In Folio: Rare Volumes in the Stanford University Libraries

VIRGIL, 70-19 B.C.

The Works of Virgil: Containing his Pastorals, Georgics, and Aeneis. Translated into English Verse by Mr. Dryden ….

London: Printed for Jacob Tonson, 1697.

This large folio edition of Virgil was translated by John Dryden (1631-1700), famous as a playwright, poet, and translator, and England’s Poet Laureate from 1668-1689. As a Catholic, he refused to take the oaths to support the new monarch, William III, at the time of the Glorious Revolution (1688), and so lost the laureateship. This translation of Virgil was a thorough success for Dryden. The publisher, Jacob Tonson (1656-1736), secured five guineas from 101 customers, for which the customer received his name and coat of arms on one of the 101 plates in the book as well as a copy of the book when it was published. Tonson illustrated the book with the sumptuous plates that had been done by Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677) for John Ogilby’s 1654 folio translation of Virgil. Tonson tried in vain to get Dryden to dedicate the translation to William III; what better homage than the greatest Roman epic, featuring such a hero as Aeneas? Dryden refused, dedicating this vast work to a Catholic, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, (1663-1730), and two men public in their opposition to William III: Philip Stanhope, second Earl of Chesterfield (d. 1713) and John Sheffield, first Duke of Buckingham and Normanby, third Earl of Mulgrave (1648-1721). Tonson, in perhaps a desperate gesture of reconciliation with his monarch, had the plates retouched, giving the hero Aeneas the easily-recognized hooked nose of William III.

 

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