M. Ribbeck has conferred a great boon on all critical students of Virgil by the careful collations which he has made or caused to be made of the principal MSS. In his Prolegomena he has accumulated a large amount of collateral learning, bearing on the life of the poet and the criticism of the text, the value of which I cannot appraise as I should wish, owing to my want of acquaintance with the subject. I am anxious to say this at starting, because the remarks which I am going to make will be chiefly concerned with points on which I have the misfortune to differ from him. The parts of his Prolegomena which I purpose to examine are the three later chapters on the Georgics, the chapter on the Aeneid, and a few points in later chapters, all of them connected with the integrity of the text as we at present possess it.

The present paper will be confined to the chapters on the Georgics.

That Virgil retouched the Georgics after their original publication is likely enough. The lines in the exordium of the Third Book (vv. 30 foll.) seem to point to events belonging to the later years of the poet's life: Servius' story that the Fourth Book was altered after the fall of Gallus (four years after the probable date of the completion of the work) looks the same way: and the grammarians and commentators speak occasionally of verbal changes found in the author's own handwriting.