or PUBLIUS VIRGILIUS MARO, the most excellent of all the Latin poets, was the son of a potter of Andes, near Mantua, where he was born, 70 years B. C. He studied first at Mantua; then at Cremona, Milan, and Naples; whence going to Rome, he acquired the esteem of the greatest wits and most illustrious persons of his time; and among others of the emperor Augustus, Maecenas, and Pollio. He was well skilled not only in polite literature and poetry, but also in philosophy, the the mathematics, geography, medicine, and natural history. Though one of the greatest geniuses of his age, and the admiration of the Romans, he always preserved a singular modesty, and lived chaste at a time when the manners of the people were extremely corrupt. He carried Latin poetry to such a high perfection, that he was justly esteemed the prince of Latin poets. He first turned himself to pastoral; and being captivated with the beauty and sweetness of Theocritus, was ambitious to introduce this new species of poetry among the Romans. His first performance in this way is supposed to have been written U. C. 709, the year before the death of Julius Caesar, when the poet was in his 25th year: it is entitled Alexis. Possibly Palamon was his second: it is a close imitation of the fourth and fifth Idylls of Theocritus. Mr Wharton places Silenus next; which is said to have been publicly recited on the stage by Cytheris, a celebrated comedian. Virgil's fifth eclogue is composed in allusion to the death and deification of Caesar. The battle of Philippi in 712 having put an end to the Roman liberty, the veteran soldiers began to murmur for their pay; and Augustus, to reward them, distributed among them the lands of Mantua and Cremona. Virgil was involved in this common calamity; and applied to Varus and Pollio, who warmly recommended him to Augustus, and procured for him his patrimony again. Full of gratitude to Augustus, he composed the Tityrus, in which he introduces two shepherds; one of them complaining of the distraction of the times, and of the havoc the soldiers made among the Mantuan farmers; the other rejoicing for the recovery of his estate, and promising to honour as a god the person who restored it to him. But our poet's joy was not of long continuance; for we are told, that when he returned to take possession of his farm, he was violently assaulted by the intruder, and would certainly have been killed by him if he had not escaped by swimming hastily over the Mincio. Upon this unexpected disappointment, he returned to Rome to renew his petition; and during his journey seems to have composed his ninth eclogue. The celebrated eclogue, intitled Pollio, was composed U. C. 714, upon the following occasion: The confid Pollio on the part of Antony, and Maecenas on the part of Caesar, had made up the differences between them; by agreeing, that Octavia, half-sister to Caesar, should be given in marriage to Antony. This agreement caused an universal joy; and Virgil, in his eclogue, testified his. Octavia was with child by her late husband Marcellus at the time of this marriage; and whereas the Sibylline oracles had foretold, that a child was to be born about this time, who should rule the world, and establish perpetual peace, the poet ingeniously supposes the child in Octavia's womb to be the glorious infant, under whose reign mankind was to be happy, the golden age to return from heaven, and fraud and violence to be no more. In this celebrated poem, the author, with great delicacy at the same time, pays his court to both the chiefs, to his patron Pollio, to Octavia, and to the unborn infant. In 715, Pollio was sent against the Parthi, a people of Ilyricum; and during this expedition, Virgil addressed to him a beautiful eclogue, called Pharsaeceutria. His tenth and last eclogue was addressed to Gallus.

In his 34th year, he retired to Naples, and laid the plan of his Georgics; which he undertook at the intreca- ties of Maecenas, to whom he dedicated them. This wise and able minister resolved, if possible, to revive the decayed spirit of husbandry; to introduce a taste for agriculture, even among the great; and could not think of a better method to effect this, than to recommend it by the infusing charms of poetry. Virgil fully answered the expectations of his patron by his Georgics. They are divided into four books. Corn and ploughing are the subject of the first, vines of the second, cattle of the third, and bees of the fourth.

He is supposed to have been in his 45th year when he began to write the Aeneid; the design of which was to reconcile the Romans to the government of Augustus. Augustus was eager to peruse this poem before it was finished; and intreated him by letters to communicate it. Macrobius has preferred to us part of one of Virgil's answers to the emperor, in which the poet excuses himself: who, however, at length complied, and read himself the sixth book to the emperor; when Octavia, who had just lost her son Marcellus, the darling of Rome, and adopted son of Augustus, made one of the audience. Virgil had artfully inserted that beautiful lamentation for the death of young Marcellus, beginning with—O nate, ingenium luctum ne quare tuorum—but suppressed his name till he came to the line—Tu Marcellus eris: upon hearing which, Octavia could bear no more, but fainted away, overcome with surprise and sorrow. When she recovered, she made the poet a present of ten sesterces for every line, which amounted in the whole to above 2000l.

The Aeneid being brought to a conclusion, but not to the perfection our author intended to give it, he resolved to travel into Greece, to correct and polish it at leisure. It was probably on this occasion that Horace addressed that affectionate ode to him, Sic te Dives potens Cypri, &c. Augustus returning victorious from the east, met with Virgil at Athens, who thought himself obliged to attend the emperor to Italy: but the poet was suddenly seized with a fatal distemper, which being increased by the agitation of the vessel, put an end to his life as soon as he landed at Brundufium, in his 52d year. He had ordered in his will, that the Aeneid should be burnt as an unfinished poem; but Augustus forbade it, and had it delivered to Varius and Tucca, with the strictest charge to make no additions, but only to publish it correctly. He died with such readiness and tranquillity, as to be able to dictate his own epitaph in the following words:

Mantua me genuit: Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc Parthenope: cecini Pafcia, Rura, Duces.

His bones were carried to Naples, according to his earnest request; and a monument was erected at a small distance from the city.

Virgil was of a fairthy complexion, tall, of a sickly constitution, and afflicted with frequent headaches, and spitting of blood. He was so very balthful, that he often ran into the shops to prevent being gazed at in the streets; yet was so honoured by the Roman people, that once coming into the theatre, the whole audience rose up out of respect to him. He was of a thoughtful and melancholy temper; he spoke little, and loved retirement and contemplation. His fortune was affluent; he had a fine house and well furnished library near Maecenas's gardens, on the Esquiline mount at Rome, and al- Virgil, to a delightful villa in Sicily. He was so benevolent and inoffensive, that most of his contemporary poets, though they envied each other, agreed in loving and esteeming him. He revised his verses with prodigious severity; and used to compare himself to a she bear, which licked her cubs into shape.

The best edition of Virgil's works are those of Mos- vicus, with the notes of Servius, printed at Lewarden in 1717, two vols 4to; and that of Burman, at Amsterdam, 1746, in four vols 4to. There are several English translations, which are well known.

Virgil, Polydore, an English historian, born at Urbino in Italy, was sent in the beginning of the 16th century by Pope Alexander VI, as sub-collector of the Papal tax, called Peter-pence, in this kingdom. He had not been long in England before he obtained preferment in the church; for in 1503 he was presented to the rectory of Church-Langton in the archdeaconry of Leicester. In 1507 he was collated to the prebend of Scambleby in the church of Lincoln; and in the same year was made archdeacon of Wells, and prebendary of Hereford. In 1513, he resigned his prebend of Lincoln, and was collated to that of Oygate in St Paul's, London. We are told, that on his preferment to the archdeaconry of Wells, he resigned the office of sub-collector to the pope, and determined to spend the remainder of his life in England, the History of which kingdom he began in the year 1505, at the command of Henry VII. That work cost him 12 years labour. In 1526, he finished his treatise on Prodigies. Polydore continued in England during the whole reign of Henry VIII. and part of that of Edward VI. whence it is concluded that he was a moderate Papist. In 1559, being now an old man, he requested leave to revisit his native country. He was accordingly dismissed with a present of 300 crowns, together with the privilege of holding his preferments to the end of his life. He died at Urbino in the year 1555. As an historian, he is accused by some as a malignant flanderer of the English nation; yet Jovius remarks, that the French and Scotch accuse him of having flattered that nation too much: (See his Elog. cap. 135. p. 179.) Besides the above, he wrote, 1. De Rerum Inventoribus; of which an English translation was published by Langley in 1663. It was also translated into French and Spanish. 2. De Prodigiis et Sortibus. 3. Episcoporum Anglicae Catalogus. Manuscript. 4. De Vita Perfecta, Basil, 1540, 1553, 8vo. 5. Epistolae Erudite; and some other works.