praestare
potuerit, si ingenio suo temperare quam indulgere maluisset [277]. Lib.
x. c. 1.

It is a peculiarity in the productions of this author, that, on whatever
he employs his pen, he exhausts the subject; not with any prolixity that
fatigues the attention, but by a quick succession of new ideas, equally
brilliant and apposite, often expressed in antitheses. Void of obscenity
in expression, but lascivious in sentiment, he may be said rather to
stimulate immorally the natural passions, than to corrupt the
imagination. No poet is more guided in versification by the nature of
his subject than Ovid. In common narrative, his ideas are expressed with
almost colloquial simplicity; but when his fancy glows with sentiment, or
is animated by objects of grandeur, his style is proportionably elevated,
and he rises to a pitch of sublimity.

No point in ancient history has excited more variety of conjectures than
the banishment of Ovid; but after all the efforts of different writers to
elucidate the subject, the cause of this extraordinary transaction
remains involved in obscurity. It may therefore not be improper, in this
place, to examine the foundation of the several conjectures which have
been formed, and if they appear to be utterly imadmissible, to attempt a
solution of the question upon principles more conformable to probability,
and countenanced by historical evidence.

The ostensible reason assigned by Augustus for banishing Ovid, was his
corrupting the Roman youth by lascivious publications; but it is evident,
from various passages in the poet's productions after this period, that
there was, besides, some secret reason, which would not admit of being
divulged. He says in his Tristia, Lib. ii. 1--

Perdiderent cum me duo crimina, carmen et errors. [278]

It appears from another passage in the same work, that this inviolable
arcanum was something which Ovid had seen, and, as he insinuates, through
his own ignorance and mistake.

Cur aliquid vidi? cur conscia lumina feci?
Cur imprudenti cognita culpa mihi est?--Ibid.
* * * * * *
(180) Inscia quod crimen viderunt lumina, plector:
Peccatumque oculos est habuisse meum. [279] De Trist. iii. 5.

It seems, therefore, to be a fact sufficiently established, that Ovid had
seen something of a very indecent nature, in which Augustus was
concerned. What this was, is the question. Some authors, conceiving it
to