_Portraits of Virgil and Lucretius_.
In the Letter on Virgil some remarks are made on a bust of the poet. It
is wholly fanciful. Our only vestiges of a portrait of Virgil are in two
MSS.; the better of the two is in the Vatican. The design represents a
youth, with dark hair and a pleasant face, seated reading. A desk is
beside him, and a case for manuscript, in shape like a band-box. (See
Visconti, "Icon. Rom." i. 179, plate 13.) Martial tells us that
portraits of Virgil were illuminated on copies of his "AEneid." The
Vatican MS. is of the twelfth century. But every one who has followed
the fortunes of books knows that a kind of tradition often preserves the
illustrations, which are copied and recopied without material change.
(See Mr. Jacobs's "Fables of Bidpai," Nutt, 1888.) Thus the Vatican MS.
may preserve at least a shadow of Virgil.
If there be any portrait of Lucretius, it is a profile on a sard,
published by Mr. Munro in his famous edition of the poet. The letters
LVCR are inscribed on the stone, and appear to be contemporary with the
gem. This, at least, is the opinion of Mr. A. S. Murray, of the late Mr.
C. W. King, Braun, and Muller. On the other hand, Bernouilli ("Rom.
Icon." i. 247) regards this, and apparently most other Roman gems with
inscriptions, as "apocryphal." The ring, which was in the Nott
collection, is now in my possession. If Lucretius were the rather
pedantic and sharp-nosed Roman of the gem, his wife had little reason for
the jealousy which took so deplorable a form. Cold this Lucretius may
have been, volatile--never! {11}