written when the author was eighty years old. This is unquestionably the most important of all the treatises upon ancient agriculture now extant, being far superior to the more voluminous production of Columella, with which alone it can be compared. The one is the well-digested system of an experienced and successful farmer who had seen and practised all that he records, the other is the common-place book of an industrious compiler, who had collected a great variety of information from a great variety of sources, but was incapable of estimating justly the value or the accuracy of the particulars which he detailed. The work before us exhibits to a remarkable extent, perhaps to excess, the methodical arrangement, the technical divisions, and laborious classifications in which Varro appears to have taken such delight. Thus, in the first book, addressed to his wife Fundamia, which is occupied with agriculture proper, that is, with the cultivation of the ground in order to render it susceptible of producing abundantly and profitably various crops, we are told that the science of tilling the earth (agricultura) may be reduced to four great heads.

A. A knowledge of the farm itself (cognitio fundi), that is, of the locality which is to be the scene of the operations to be performed, including the situation, soil, climate, and buildings.

B. A knowledge of the instruments requisite for performing the necessary operations (quae in eo fundo opus sint ac debeant esse culturae causa).

C. A knowledge of the operations to be performed (quae in eo fundo colendi causa sint facienda).

D. A knowledge of the time when each operation ought to be performed (quo quidquid tempore in eo fundo fieri conveniat).

Each of these four heads must be divided into two. A.{a. The things appertaining to the soil itself (quae ad solum pertinent terrae).b. The things appertaining to the buildings (ad villas et stabula).B.{a. The human instruments.b. All other instruments.C.{a. The various crops to be cultivated.b. The localities suitable for each.D.{a. The time when with reference to the course of the sun.b. The time when with reference to the course of the moon.

Again, each of these divisions is split up into a number of subdivisions, as for example A. a.{1. The outward aspect of the ground.2. The qualities of soil.3. The quantity of ground.4. The security of the farm.A. b.{1. Their situation.2. Their size.3. The arrangement of the different parts.B. a.{1. Free labourers.2. Slaves.B. b.{1. Animate, such as oxen, horses, &c.2. Inanimate, such as ploughs, harrows, &c.

and so on for the rest. But even these last are sometimes broken down still farther, as in the case of B. a. 2, where we have slaves separated into two classes -- α. Servi soluti, β. Servi vincti.

The second book treats of the management of stock, oxen, sheep, goats, swine, horses, asses, mules, together with supplemental chapters on shepherds and dogs, on milk, cheese, and wool.

Villaticae pastiones form the subject of the third book, a term embracing not only the domestic fowls which we comprehend under poultry, but also animals kept in a half-wild state in parks and enclosures, such as boars, bares, deer, and the like, together with snails and dormice, the whole being wound up by instructions for the management of fish-ponds, both salt and fresh-water.

a grammatical treatise which extended to twenty four books. Six only (x-x.) have been preserved, and these are in a very shattered condition, disfigured by numerous blanks, corruptions and interpolations. It seems clear from the researches of Müller that the whole of the MSS. now extant were derived from one common archetype, which at the period when the different copies were made, was itself in a very confused and mutilated state, many of the leaves having been lost, others displaced, and even the most entire full of defects, arising partly from the ignorance of transcribers, and partly from the ravages of time. This work, judging from sundry repetitions and contradictions which may be here and there detected, and from the general want of polish, was never finally revised by the author; and may perhaps, as Müller conjectures, never have been published under his sanction. We gather from Cicero (Cic. Att. 13.12, Acad. 1.1 ) and from internal evidence (5.100, 6.13, 22, ed. Müller) that it must have been in progress during the years B. C. 46-45, and must have been finished before the death of the orator, to whom the last twenty hooks are inscribed (5.1, 6.97, 7.109, 110). It was portioned out into three great divisions.

(I.) De Impositione Vocabulorum, the origin of words and terms, formed the subject of the first seven books. The first was introductory and treated of the history of the Latin language (De Origine Linguae Latinae. See Priscian, 1.7). The second, third, and fourth of etymology considered as a science (De Etymologica Arte), what might be said for, against, and concerning it (contra eam--pro ea--de ea); the author then entered fairly on the origin of words (a quibus rebus vocabula imposita sunt), considering, in the fifth, the names of places and of things in these places (De Vocabulis Locorum et quae in his sunt), the primary division of places being into Heaven and Earth (De Coelo -- De Terra), and of the things in these places into things immortal and things mortal (De Immortalibus -- De Mortalibus), things mortal being again distributed into, 1. Living creatures (De Animalibus) ; 2. The vegetable kingdom (De Virgultis et similibus) ; 3. The works of man (De Manufactis); the sixth comprehended words denoting time, and in which the notion of time is implied (De Vocabulis Temporum et earum rerum quae dicuntur cum tempore aliquo); and in the seventh poetical words were discussed (De verbis quae a poetis sunt posita).

(II.) Books eight to thirteen were devoted to the inflections of nouns and verbs, the only two classes of words acknowledged by Varro (De Declinationibus). He here examined into the nature and object of these forms which he separated into two divisions, the natural and the arbitrary, the former falling under ἀναλογία, the latter under ἀνωμαλία.

(III.) Books fourteen to twenty-four were occupied with the laws of syntax (Ut verba inter se conjungantur).

The remains of this treatise, imperfect as they are, must be regarded as particularly valuable, in so far as they have been the means of preserving many terms and forms which would otherwise have been altogether lost or would have proved unintelligible, and much curious information is here treasured up connected with the ancient usages, both civil and religious, of the Romans. The principle also upon which Varro proceeds of connecting Latin words as far as possible with the ancient dialects of Italy, instead of having recourse at once and exclusively to the Greek, as was the fashion of many of his contemporaries in all cases of difficulty and doubt, is in itself sound; and if not pushed to extravagant excess ought to have led to most important results. But when he proceeds to the actual work of determining roots, that spirit of folly which seems to have taken possession of his countrymen whenever they approached the subject of etymology, asserts its dominion over him, and we find a farrago of absurd derivations. Thus, within the compass of a few lines, we are told that canis is taken from cano because dogs give signals at night and in the chase, as horns and trumpets give signals (canunt) in the field of battle; that agnus is so called because it is agnatus to a sheep ; that cervi comes from gero (changing g into c) because stags carry (gerunt) great horns; that virgultum is from viridis and viridis from vis, because if the strength (vis) of the sap is dried up the green leaf perishes; that dives is from divus because the rich man, like a god, is in want of nothing -- and examples equally ridiculous abound in every page.

Vincentius of Beauvais, who flourished during the first half of the thirteenth century, quotes several pithy sayings which he ascribes to Varro; and in his (7.58) introduces a collection of these with the words " Exstant igitur sententiae Varronis ad Atheniensem auditorem morales atque notabiles de quibus has paucas quae sequuntur excerpsi." Barthius, who seems to have been altogether unacquainted with the previous researches of Vincentius, published in his (15.19) eighteen " sententiae " which he found ascribed to Varro in a MS. of no very ancient date, but written before the invention of printing, and these were reprinted by Fabricius in his lib. i. c. 7.4. Schneider picked out forty-seven of these sententiae from the works of Vincentius, of which sixteen coincided with those of Barthius, and appended the whole to the life of Varro contained in the first volume of the Scriptores Rei Rusticae Latini veteres (8vo. Lips. 1794). Finally, Professor Devit of Padua greatly increased the number from two MSS. in the library of the seminary to which he belongs, and gave them to the world, together with those formerly known, and some others derived from different sources, making up in all one hundred and sixty-five, in a little volume entitled Sententias M. Terentii Varronis maioari ex parte ineditas, &c. edidit, &c. Vincentius Devit, 8vo. Patav. 1843. Notwithstanding the expression of Vincentius of Beauvais, Sententiae Varronis ad Atheniensem auditorem, and the inscription. of one of the Paduan codices, Proverbia Varronis ad Paxianum (or rather P. Axianum, as Devit ingeniously conjectures), it is manifest that these proverbs were not strung together by Varro himself, but are scraps gleaned out of various works, probably at different times and by different hands. They appear, however, to have been gathered together and divided into regular sections at an early period, for we find a sixth and a seventh book quoted in the Liber Moralitatum of Matthias Farinator, 2 vols. fol. Aug. Vindel. 1477. There is no ground whatever for the theory maintained by Orelli and others that they are fabrications of the fifth or sixth century-all internal evidence is against this supposition - we know that the style of Varro was distinguished by its sententious gravity (Augustin. de Civ. Dei, 6.2), and his voluminous works would in all probability supply ample stores to those who desired to make a collection of apophthegms.

(See the preface and commentary attached to the publication of Devit; also Spangenberg in the Bibliotheca Critica, vol. i. p. 89, Hildes. 1819 ; and Oehler, M. Terentii Varronis Saturarum Menippearum Reliquiae, p. 5, foll. 8vo. Quedling. 1844.)

divided into two sections, in twenty-five books, and in sixteen books. This was the magnum opus of Varro; and upon this chiefly his reputation for profound learning was based.

In the Human Antiquities he discussed the creation of man, his bodily frame, and all matters connected with his physical constitution. He then passed on to take a survey of ancient Italy, the geographical distribution of the country, the different tribes by which it was inhabited, their origin and fortunes. The legends regarding the arrival of Aeneas served as an introduction to the early history and chronology of Rome, in which he determined the era for the foundation of the city (B. C. 753), which usually passes by his name, and as he advanced gave a view of the political institutions and social habits of His countrymen from the earliest times.

The Divine Antiquities, with whose general plan and contents we are, comparatively speaking, familiar, since Augustine drew very largely from this source in his " City of God," comprehended a complete account of the mythology and rites of the inhabitants of Italy from the most remote epoch, including a description of the ministers of things holy, of temples, victims, offerings of every kind, festivals, and all other matters appertaining to the worship of the gods.

Of all the didactic treatises of the classical ages there is not one whose loss excites more lively regret, and our sorrow is increased the more we reflect upon the deep interest attached to the topics of which it treated, the impossibility of obtaining satisfactory information from any works now accessible, the remarkable taste evinced by Varro for these pursuits, and the singular facilities and advantages which he enjoyed for prosecuting such researches. It has been concluded from some expressions in one of Petrarch's letters, expressions which appear under different forms in different editions, that the Antiquities were extant in his youth, and that he had actually seen them, although they had eluded his eager researches at a later period of life when he was more fully aware of their value. But the words of the poet, although to a certain extent ambiguous, certainly do not warrant the interpretation generally assigned to them, nor does there seem to be any good foundation for the story that these and other works of Varro were destroyed by the orders of Pope Gregory the Great, in order to conceal the plagiarism of St. Augustine. There is no sure evidence thai they survived the sixth century,. and it is by no means improbable that they may have fallen a sacrifice to the fanatic zeal of ignorant churchmen, who could behold in them nothing save a repository of idle and blasphemous superstition. (See L. H. Krahner, Commentatio de M. Terentii Varronis Antiquitatum Rerum Humanarum atque Divinarum Libris, 8vo. Hal. Sax. 1834; Franeken, Dissertatio exhibens fragmenta Terentii Varronis quae inveniuntur in libris S. Augustini de C. D., 8vo. Lug. Bat. 1836.)

We gather from Quintilian (10.1.95) that the Satires of Varro differed in form from those of earlier writers, such as Ennius, inasmuch as they were composed not only in a variety of metres, but contained an admixture of prose also. From the words placed by Cicero in the mouth of Varro (Cic. Ac. 1.2), compared with the statements of later critics (Gel. 2.18 ; Macr. 1.11), we learn that in these pieces he copied to a certain extent the productions of Menippus the Gadarene [MENIPPUS]. Hence he designated them as s. Cynicae, and is himself styled Varro Menipicus by Arnobius (ad v. Gentes, 6.23), and Cynicus Romanus by Tertullian (Apolog. 14). They appear to have been a series of disquisitions on a vast variety of subjects, frequently if not uniformly couched in the shape of dialogue, the object proposed being the inculcation of moral lessons and serious truths in a familiar, playful, and even jocular style (. . . quadam hilaritate conspersimus multa admista ex intima philosophia, multa dialectice dicta). The names of eighteen Satires, mentioned as such, are to be found in ancient writers, but the titles of ninety-six pieces by Varro have been collected from the grammarians and other sources, of which the whole or the greater number ought to be ranked under this head. Among those, concerning which no doubt exists, we find one inscribed δὶς παῖδες οἱ γέροντες -- another Nescis quid serus vesper vehat--a third τὸ ἐπὶ τῇ φάκῃ μύρον -- all of them apparently illustrations of popular proverbs -the Περὶ ἐδεσμάτων would dwell upon the luxurious indulgences of the table, while the Τρικάρηνος (Appian, App. BC 2.9), which, however, we are not specially told was a satire, may have been an exposure of the schemes of the first triumvirate.

The although written entirely in prose, bore some affinity to the Saturae, being intended to expose and correct the vices and follies of the day, by contrasting them with the pure and simple manners and sentiments of the most distinguished sages of the olden time. Four essays are quoted under this name. 1. Catus, de Liberis educandis. 2. Marius, de Fortuna. 3. Messala, de Valetudine. 4. Tubero, de Origine humana; but at least twelve more may be added to the list.

Of the Saturae and Libri Logistorici nothing now remains but a few short mutilated fragments, but they appear to have existed entire until the commencement of the fifth century at all events, since they are freely quoted not only by Gellius and Nonius Marcellus, to the latter of whom we are indebted for a large proportion of the relics preserved, but are spoken of and cited by Macrobius, Charisius, Diomedes, Priscian, Atilius Fortunatianus, and the older scholiasts upon Horace and Virgil, in such terms that we can scarcely doubt that the collection was in their hands.

As to the remaining prose works of Varro we can present little except a mere catalogue of titles.

In verse, however, we possess eighteen short effusions, some of them mere fragments, which were probably included in his or attached to his but they can scarcely belong to the piece or pieces to which Cicero alludes when he says (Acad. 1.3), " plurimumque poetis nostris omninoque Latinis et literis luminis attulisti et verbis, atque ipse varium et elegans omni fere numero poema fecisti." Quintilian (1.4.4) mentions " Varronem ac Lucretium in Latinis qui praecepta sapientiae versibus tradiderunt," words by no means explicit, and which moreover leave us in ignorance whether Terentius Varro or Varro Atacinus is the individual indicated.

On Historico-Antiquarian topics we hear of De Cultu Deorum Liber -- De Vita Populi Romani, otherwise, De Vita Patrum, dedicated to Atticus, of which the eleventh book is quoted -- De Gente Populi Romani Libri IV. -- De Initiis Urbis Romae Liber -- De Republica, of which the twentieth book is quoted -- De Familiis Trojanis -- Annales, of which the third book is quoted -- Bellum Punicum secundum, of which the second book is quoted -- but although we find the whole of the above titles in the grammarians, it seems probable that several of them belong to particular sections of the

In biography, De Vita sua Liber, and a production of a very singular character, Hebdomades vel De Imaginibus, which, according to the most natural explanation of the obscure description in Pliny compared with the allusions found elsewhere, must have been a sort of album containing (engraved ?) portraits of seven hundred remarkable personages from Homer and Hesiod downwards, with a biographical notice and an epigram attached to each. How these representations were executed and multiplied is a problem very hard to solve, and one which has excited much discussion. (See Plin. Nat. 35.2.; Gel. 3.10, 11; Auson. Mosell 307; Symmach. Ep. 1.2, 4; and the dissertation of Creuzer, Die Bildpersonalien des Varro in the Zeitschrift für Alterthumswissenschaft, 1843.

In criticism, De Proprietate Scriptorum -- De Poetis Libri, of which the first is quoted--De Poematis Libri, of which the second is quoted -- Theatrales s. De Actionibus scenicis Libri, of which the second and fifth are quoted--De scenicis Originibus Libri, of which the first and third are quoted -- De Plautinis Comoediis Liber--De Plautinis Quaestionibus Libri, of which the second is quoted -- Rhetoricorum Libri, of which the twentieth is quoted--De Utilitate Sermonis Libri, of which the fourth is quoted -- De Compositione Saturarum.

In philosophy, De Philosophia Liber, containing, it would appear, a sketch of the different schools and of the peculiar doctrines by which they were characterised. (See Augustin, de Civ. Dei, 12.4, 19.1.) To this Cicero may refer when he observes (Acad. 1.3), " philosophiam multis locis inchoasti, ad impellendum satis, ad edocendum parum," although these words seem to point not so much to any single work as to passages scattered up and down in various works. Charisius quotes the second book De Forma Philosophiae, and Servius a treatise entitled s. Causae, of the same nature as those by Callimachus, Butas, Plutarch, and others.

In geography, Ephemeris Navalis--Ephemeris--Libri Navales -- De Ora maritima -- Litoralia -- De Aestuariis -- Prognostica -- but all of these belong, it would appear, to a single essay, a sort of Mariner's Directory to the coast of Spain, drawn up for the use of Pompeius when about to proceed thither and assume the command.

Of a miscellaneous character were Epistolicarum Quaestionum Libri, of which the eighth is quoted--Disciplinarum Libri, one of which treated of Architecture and another of Arithmetic --Complexionum Libri, of which the sixth is quoted-- addressed to C. Caesar, Fabius, Ser. Sulpicius, Marcellus, and others -- Ad Libonem, of which the first book is quoted -- De Bibliothecis, of which the second book is quoted -- De Gradibus Necessitudinum -- Περὶ χαρακτήρων, of which the third book is quoted -- Mensuralia s. De Mensuris -- and many others, of which several, as remarked above, ought to be classed under the