LECTURE XIII.
Of Elegy.
This is a Subject, which, if I am not mistaken, very few have largely treated of. Scaliger, indeed, and some others, have just mention'd it, and made some short Strictures upon it: But no one, that I know of, except Vossius, of the better Sort of Writers, have writ a professed Dissertation of this Species of Poetry, tho' it is the sweetest, the most engaging, and every way worthy our Consideration. Who the Inventor was, Horace professes himself ignorant:
[228] Quis tamen exiguos elegos emiserit Auctor, Grammatici certant; & adhuc sub judice lis est.
But to whose Muse we owe that Sort of Verse, Is undecided by the Men of Skill. Roscom.
Nor is this an Enquiry of much Moment. Under the Title of Elegy, is generally and primarily understood a mournful Poem, bewailing the Loss of some Person lately dead; and sometimes has any other melancholy plaintive Circumstance for its Subject. Scaliger calls it a Poem proper for Complaints:
[229] ——Neu miserabiles Decantes elegos;
says Horace, addressing himself to Tibullus, the best of Eleglic Writers. This appears clear enough, from the Etymology of the Word; either from ελεος, or (as others more justly) from ι, a Particle of Grief, and λεγειν to speak; not from εν λεγειν, as some have ill judg'd, because, forsooth, we generally speak in Praise of whose Deaths we lament. It is certain, this Sort of Poem was anciently, and from its first Origin, made use of at Funerals. That, therefore, of one famous Elegiac Poet upon the Death of another, of equal Fame, of Ovid, I mean, on Tibullus, deserves, in the most proper Sense, this Title: The Writer himself observes as much, in the following Lines:
[230] Flebilis indignos Elegeia solve capillos; Ah! nimis ex vero nunc tibi nomen erit.
In wild Disorder let thy Tresses flow, Thy Name now too much verify'd by Woe!