or Publius OVIDIUS NASO, a celebrated Latin poet of the Augustan age, was a Roman knight, born at Sulmo, in the 43d year before the Christian era. He studied rhetoric under Aurelius Fuscus, and for some time frequented the bar. His progress in the study of eloquence was great, but the father's ex- pectations were frustrated; his son was born a poet, and nothing could deter him from pursuing his natural inclination to write poetry, though he was often re- minded that Homer lived and died in the greatest po- verty. Every thing he wrote was expressed in poeti- cal numbers, as he himself says, Et quod tentabam scri- bere versus erat. A lively genius and a fertile imagina- tion soon gained him admirers; the learned became his friends: Vireil, Propertius, Tibullus, and Horace, honoured him with their correspondence, and Augustus patronized him with the most unbounded liberality. These favours, however, were but momentary; for after having obtained the esteem of Augustus, he in- curred his displeasure, and was banished to Tomos, a city on the Poetus Euxinus, near the mouth of the Da- nube, when he was 55 years of age. The true cause of this sudden exile is unknown. Some attribute it to a shameful amour with Livia the wife of Augustus, while others suppose that it arose from the knowledge which Ovid had of the unpardonable incest of the emperor with his daughter Julia. These reasons are in- deed merely conjectural; the cause was of a very pri- vate and very secret nature, of which Ovid himself is afraid to speak. It was, however, something improper in the family and court of Augustus, as these lines seem to indicate:

Cur aliquid vidi? Cur noxia lumina feci? Cur imprudenti cognita culpa mihi est? Inscius Actaeon vidit sine veste Dianaem, Praeda fuit canibus non minus ille suis.

Again,

Inscia quod crimen viderunt lumina pector, Peccatumque oculos est habuisse meum.

And in another place,

Perdidierunt cum me duo crimina, carmen et error, Alterius facti culpa silenda mihi est.

In his banishment, Ovid betrayed his pusillanimity in a great degree; and however affecting and distressed his situation was, yet the flattery and impatience which he showed in his writings are a disgrace to his pen, and lay him more open to ridicule than to pity. Though he prostituted his pen and his time to adulation, yet the emperor proved deaf to all entreaties, and refused to listen to his most ardent friends at Rome who wish- ed for his return. Ovid, who really wished for a Bru- tus to deliver Rome of her tyrannical Augustus, still continued his flattery even to meanness; and when the emperor died, he was so mercenary as to consecrate a small temple to the departed tyrant on the shore of the Euxine, where he regularly offered frankincense every morning. Tiberius proved as regardless as his predeces- sor to the entreaties which were made for the poet, and he died in the seventh or eighth year of his banishment, in the 57th year of his age. He was buried at Tomos. In the year 1508 of the Christian era, the following epitaph was discovered at Stain, in the modern kingdom of Austria.

Hic situs est vates quem Divi Caesaris ira, Augusti patria cedere jussit humo. Sepe miser voluit patriis occumbere terris, Sed frustra! hunc illi fata dedere locum.

This, however, is an imposition to render celebrated an obscure corner of the world, which never contained the bones of Ovid. The greatest part of his poems are remaining. His Metamorphoses, in 15 books, are extremely curious, on account of the great variety of mythological facts and traditions which they relate, but they can have no claim to epic honours. In com- posing this the poet was more indebted to the ex- isting traditions, and to the theology of the ancients, than the powers of his own imagination. His Fastia were divided into 12 books, like the constellations in the zodiac, but of these six are lost; and the learned world have reason to lament the loss of a poem which must have thrown so much light upon the religious rites and ceremonies, festivals and sacrifices, of the an- cient Romans, as we may judge from the six that have survived the ravages of time and barbarity. His Tris- tia,

which are divided into five books, contain much elegance and softness of expression; as also his Elegies on different subjects. The Heroïdes are nervous, spirited, and diffuse; the poetry is excellent, the language varied, but the expressions are often too wanting and indelicate; a fault which is very common with him. His three books Amorum, and the same number de Arte Amandi, with the other de Remedio Amoris, are written with peculiar elegance, and contain many flowery descriptions; but the doctrine which they hold forth is dangerous, and they are to be read with caution, as they seem to be calculated to corrupt the heart, and to sap the very foundations of virtue and morality. His Ibis, which is written in imitation of a poem of Callimachus of the same name, is a satirical performance. Besides these, there are extant some fragments of other poems, and among these part of a tragedy called Medea. The talents of Ovid as a dramatic writer have been disputed, and some have remarked that he who is so often void of sentiment was not born to shine as a tragedian. He has attempted, perhaps, too many sorts of poetry at once. On whatever he has written, he has totally exhausted the subject. He everywhere paints nature with a masterly hand, and adds strength even to vulgar expressions. It has been judiciously observed, that his poetry after his banishment from Rome was destitute of that spirit and vivacity which we admire in those which were written before. His Fasti are perhaps the best written of all his poems; and after them we may fairly rank his love verses, his Heroïdes, and after all his Metamorphoses, which were not totally finished when Augustus banished him. His Epistles from Pontus are the language of a weak and sordid flatterer. However critics may have cause to censure the indelicacy and the inaccuracies of Ovid, it is to be acknowledged that his poetry contains great sweetness and elegance, and like that of Tibullus, charms the ear and captivates the mind.—Another person of the name of OVID accompanied his friend Cæsarius when banished from Rome by Nero.