378 



OVIDIUS-OWEN. 



solemn passage. Gluck, in his overture to Iphigenia 

 in .-lulls, was the first who used this form. 



OVIDIUS, PDBLIUS, surnamed Naso, one of the 

 most celebrated Roman poets of the Augustan age, 

 was of an equestrian family, born at Suhno, in the 

 country of the Pelignians, B. C. 43. Though 

 inferior to some of his contemporaries in purity and 

 finish of style, he is surpassed by none of them in 

 graceful elegance and versatility, although sometimes 

 disfigured by prolixity, a straining after antitheses, 

 and a forced pleasantry. But he is very happy in 

 exhibiting the minute and peculiar traits of passion. 

 Many of his tales are uncommonly lively and pleas- 

 ing ; for example, Pyramus and Thisbe, Dasdalus 

 and Icarus, Philemon and Baucis. Ovid says him- 

 self, in the tenth elegy of the fourth book, in which 

 he describes his feelings and his life, that he was 

 born a poet. In spite of the exhortations of his 

 father, who wished to make him a lawyer, he had 

 been inclined from childhood to the service of the 

 Muses. His travels in Greece and Asia added to 

 his accomplishments. His fondness for ease and 

 the enjoyments of life, which his fortune placed 

 within his power, prevented him from spending 

 much time in perfecting his verses. His poetry has 

 much of a sensual character, but is distinguished for 

 the choice of the subjects, and for beauty of descrip- 

 tion. His most celebrated work, a poetic picture of 

 mythology, is the Metamorphoses, written in hexa- 

 meters an extraordinary work, if we regard it as a 

 whole, as it unquestionably was the design of the 

 author that it should be. Connected by a band 

 which we are often in danger of losing from our 

 sight, we see a beautiful series of different tales 

 drawn from a formless chaos. We see the world, 

 with its harmony and order, and every thing which 

 lives and moves in it, unfolded, through the mytholo- 

 gical and ancient times, down to the days of Julius 

 Cesar. Each one of these tales ends with a meta- 

 morphosis ; but this frequently appears like an epi- 

 sode, while a long series of verses, which have not 

 the least relation to it, contain all that is most beauti- 

 ful and attractive. Similar to this is another poem 

 of Ovid's, in distichs, in which some tale from mytho- 

 logy, or from the old Roman and Italian history, is 

 given for every remarkable day and festival of the 

 Roman calendar. It is called the Fasti, but em- 

 braces in six books only the first six months. We 

 have three other poems of his on the subject of love, 

 all written in elegiac measure ; the Amores, or 

 Roman love songs ; the Ars Amandi (Art of Love) ; 

 and the Remedium Amoris, or Remedy of Love. 

 They contribute to give us an idea of the corrupt 

 state of morals at that time in the Roman empire. 

 Ovid also attempted, and not without success, a new 

 and peculiar kind of poetry. We have twenty-one 

 pieces called Heroides, some of which, however, are 

 considered as spurious. He wrote also elegies, in 

 the proper sense of the word, that is, songs of 

 lamentation (he calls them Tristia), and letters 

 (Epistolee ex Pontd), likewise in elegiac verses, and 

 written in a similar train of thought, during his 

 exile. Even in these poems his tone is far from 

 being depressed, although his heart was heavy, and 

 the burden of years was already pressing upon him. 

 The stream of his verses, however, in these produc- 

 tions, is sometimes shallow ; yet here and there we 

 find places where his feelings are expressed with 

 truth and liveliness. 



Until his fiftieth year Ovid appears to have lived 

 almost solely for poetry and for pleasure, in an easy 

 intimacy with his relations and friends, and was a 

 welcome visitor at the court of Augustus. His 

 works were well adapted to the public taste, and 

 had obtained him much Deputation ; and he might 



have hoped to pass the remaining years of his life in 

 peace under the shadow of his laurels. But Augus- 

 tus suddenly banished him to Toinos, on the inhospi- 

 table coasts of the Black sea, the habitation of the 

 rude Getae. He declares, in more than one place, 

 that an error, and not a crime, was the cause of his 

 exile. He frequently calls his poetry the cause of 

 all his unhappiness. His licentious verses were cer- 

 tainly not the cause of his punishment, but he hints 

 that he had seen something, and thus drawn upon 

 himself the anger of Augustus. Many think that 

 this had reference to -the shameful licentiousness of 

 Julia, the infamous daughter of the emperor. Ovid 

 died at Tomos, after ten years of exile, at the age of 

 sixty, A. D. 18. Among the poems which he left, 

 there is a piece, in elegiac verses, called the Ibis, full 

 of abuse and maledictions against some unknown 

 person. Some other smaller poems are falsely attri- 

 buted to him. But many really authentic pieces 

 have been lost ; among others, his tragedy Medea. 

 Among the best editions of the entire works of Ovid, 

 and of some . particular poems, is that of Nicholas 

 Heinsius (Amsterdam, 1658 61, 3 vols., 12mo), 

 improved, and accompanied with notes by Burmann 

 (1727, Amsterdam, 4 vols., 4to). From this, with 

 the notes of Heinsius, and an excellent verbal index, 

 Fischer published a new edition (Leipsic, 1758 and 

 1773, 4 vols.) Mitscherlich published an edition of 

 the complete works from the text of Burmann (Got- 

 tingen, 179698, 2 vols.) The latest is that of 

 Baumgarten Crusius (1825.) Of the Metamorphoses 

 Gierig has given a good edition, with an excellent 

 Latin commentary (Leipsic, 1804 7; new edition, 

 Leipsic, 1821 23, 2 vols/); and likewise of the 

 Fasti (Leipsic, 1812 14.) Of the elegies and epis- 

 tles an edition with notes has been published by 

 Harles (Erlangen, 1772) and Oberlin (Strasburg, 

 1778.) De St Ange (died in 1811) made a good 

 translation of Ovid's works into French verse (new 

 edition, Paris, 1824. 11 vols.) 



OVIPAROUS. See Egg. 



OWEN, JOHN, D. D., an English nonconformist 

 divine, was born at Stadham, in Oxfordshire, in 1616, 

 of which place his father was vicar. He studied at 

 Oxford, and remained at college until his 21st year. 

 On the breaking out of the civil war, he took part 

 with the parliament, became a tutor in the family of 

 Sir Robert Dormer, and chaplain to lord Lovelace, 

 but subsequently repaired to London, where he wrote 

 his Display of Arminianism, which was published in 

 1642. He had hitherto been a Presbyterian in mat- 

 ters of church government, but now adopted the 

 Congregational or Independent mode, as more con- 

 formable to the New Testament, and published his 

 reasons. During the siege of Colchester, he became 

 acquainted with general Fairfax, and, having acquired 

 great celebrity, was appointed to preach at White- 

 hall, the day after the execution of Charles I. He 

 was soon after introduced to Cromwell, whom he ac- 

 companied in his expeditions both to Ireland and 

 Scotland, and, in 1651, was made dean of Christ- 

 church college, Oxford, and, in 1652, was nominated 

 by Cromwell, then chancellor of the university, his 

 vice-chancellor. On the death of the protector, he 

 was deprived both of that and his deanery, by the 

 influence of the Presbyterian party. At the meeting 

 of his brethren at the Savoy in 1658, he took a great 

 part in drawing up the confession of faith of the 

 Congregational churches. While the bill to revise 

 the conventicle act was pending, he drew up reasons 

 against it, which were laid before the lords. He died 

 in 1683, in the 63d year of his age. Doctor Owen's 

 works, which are of a high Calvinistic character, 

 amount to seven volumes in folio, twenty in 4to, and 

 thirty in 8vo. In this number are an Exposition on 



