Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 1.pdf/29

 having got together some Mony, which Stock he improv'd by his skill in Planting and Husbandry, had the good Fortune, at last, to Marry his Master's Daughter, by whom he had Virgil; and this Woman seems, by her Mother's side, to have been of good Extraction; for she was nearly related to Quintilius Varus, whom Paterculus assures us to have been an Illustrious, tho' not Patrician Family; and there is honourable mention made of it in the History of the second Carthaginian War. It is certain, that they gave him very good Education, to which they were inclin'd; not so much by the Dreams of his Mother, and those presages which Donatus relates, as by the early indications which he gave of a sweet Disposition, and Excellent Wit. He passed the first Seven Years of his Life at Mantua, not Seventeen, as Scaliger miscorrects his Author; for the initia ætatis can hardly be supposed to extend so far. From thence he removed to Cremona, a Noble Roman Colony, and afterwards to Milan. In all