Publisher's Synopsis
The story of the last days of Virgil's life at Brundisium has been told in English blank iambic verse by the President of Magdalen, Oxford. By calling the piece "A Dramatic Narrative, ' he intends to imply that the elements of truth and fiction are blended. "It is not a play," says the author in his notes, "but a story told in a dramatic form, following generally fact and tradition, but not professing to be strictly historic." We do not think that any one could find fault with this poem on the score either of accuracy or robability. The action opens with the anding of Virgil at Brundisium in the company of Augustus, Maecenas, and the poet's secretary, Eros. In the middle of the second scene Augustus and Maecenas say farewell, and during the remaining two-thirds of the poem Virgil soliloquizes and finds Eros an attentive listener. With commendable ingenuity every fragment of tradition has been worked into the action, "if action it can be called and not rather passion." The circumstances of the piece are well imagined, and the writer looks out from these pages as a man of culture, with a sound philosophy of life, and a vigorous style which is capable at times of tenderness and delicacy. Yet for all this we find the piece too long. Such a moment as the death of a poet like Virgil should be susceptible of exquisite treatment; but it should be handled briefly, and in fact as little more than a moment, and not allowed to drag out into three days of soliloquizing. However choice the thoughts, a length of soliloquy is apt to be depressing; and we cannot resist the feeling that, even for a death-bed, Virgil is made to indulge in introspection to a wearisome extent. Mr. Warren wields his metre with some power, but he has some irritating mannerisms....
-The Athenaeum [1907]
