O V I 
89 
O V I 
capitoU and pleafant gardens on the Appian way, as well 
as a villa in his native country. 
A lively genius and a fertile imagination gained him 
many admirers 5 Virgil, Propertius, Tibullus, and Ho¬ 
race, honoured him with their correfpondence, and A11- 
gultus patronifed him with the molt unbounded libera¬ 
lity. . He had rendered himfelf famous by feveral poetical 
compofitions, when, at about the age of fifty, he fud- 
denly incurred a fentence of banilhment, which was 
never revoked, and which made him an exile for the re¬ 
mainder of his life. The true caufe of this circumftance 
has never been known. Few incidents in claffical bio¬ 
graphy have more excited the difcuffion of the curious 
than this; Hill a myftery hangs upon it which no eluci¬ 
dation can thoroughly clear. He has himfelf aligned 
two reafons for the anger of Auguftus : one, and that 
the oftenfible caufe, though certainly not the true reafon, 
the licentioufnefs of his juvenile poems ; the other, he 
fays, was “ an error not a crime,” fomething of which 
his eyes had been guilty, not his intentions: 
Curaliquid vidi ? Cur noxia lumina feci ? 
Cur imprudens cognita culpa mihi eft ? 
Infcius A 61 aeon vidit fine vefte Dianam, 
Prasda fuit canibus non minus ille fuis. 
Again, 
Infcia quod crimen viderunt lumina pledtor, 
Peccatumque oculos eft liabuilTe meum. 
And jn another place, 
Perdiderunt cum me duo crimina, carmen et error, 
Alterius fadti culpa filenda mihi eft. 
It was fomething in which the emperor’s feelings were 
particularly concerned; fome attribute it to an amour of 
Ovid with Livia, the wife of Auguftus; while others 
fuppofe it arofe from the knowledge which the poet, in¬ 
voluntarily, had of the fhocking inceft of the emperor 
with his daughter Julia. 
The place of Ovid’s exile was Tomi, a town in Scythia, 
near the Euxine Sea, and not far from the mouths of the 
Danube. His elegiac epiftles from that place are full of 
complaints of the feverity of the climate, the wildnefs 
of the fcenery, and the favage manners of the furround¬ 
ing people. In his banilhment he betrayed his pufillani- 
mity in a great degree; and, however affected and dif- 
treffed his fituation was, yet the flattery and impatience 
which he (flowed in his writings are a difgrace to his 
pen, and lay him more open to ridicule than to pity. 
Though he proftituted his pen and his time to adulation, 
yet the emperor proved deaf to all entreaties, and refufed 
to liften to his moft ardent friends at Rome who wilhed 
for his return. Ovid, who really wilhed for a Brutus to 
deliver Rome of her tyrannical Auguftus, ftill continued 
his flattery even to meannefs; and, when the emperor 
died, he was fo mercenary as to confecrate a fmall temple 
to the departed tyrant on the Ihore of the Euxine, where 
he regularly offered frankincenfe every morning. Tibe¬ 
rius proved as regardlefs as his predeceffor to the entrea¬ 
ties which were made for the poet, and he died in the fe- 
venth or eighth year of his banilhment, in the fifty-fe- 
venth year of his age. He was buried at Tomi, the peo¬ 
ple of which place are faid to have mourned publicly 
for him, and to have erefted a (lately monument to his 
memory without the walls of their city. 
Ovid was a copious writer, and the greater part of his 
works has come down to our times. Thofe which we 
poffefs are his “ Heroical Epiltles,” compofed in the cha¬ 
racters of diftinguiftied lovers in the heroical ages ; his 
elegies, entitled “ Amorum,” and books on the “Art of 
Love;” his fifteen books of “ Metamorphofeshis fix 
books of “ Fafti” on the Roman calendar, which are only 
half the number that he compofed ; his elegiac lamenta¬ 
tions entitled “ Triftia,” and “ Epiftolse ex Ponto.” Be- 
fides thefe, there is his Ibis,” written in imitation of a 
VOL. XVIII. No. 1226. 
poem of Callimachus of the fame title, which is a fati- 
rical performance: there are alfo fragments of other 
poems; among thefe, fome of a tragedy entitled “ Me¬ 
dea.” The lofs of half the Fafti is to be greatly regretted, 
as it is probable it contained much valuable and intereft- 
ing information refpe&ing the religious antiquities of the 
Romans. The tragedy of Medea was regarded as one of 
the bed productions of the Roman theatre. 
_ It is unneceffary here to enter into the particular me¬ 
rits of works fo well known to the claffical reader as thofe 
of Ovid. In general it may be faid of him, that, in the 
qualities of faculty and ingenuity, he probably furpaffed 
every other poet, ancient and modern. There is no fub- 
jeCt which, in his hands, does not turn into poetry, or, 
at lead, into elegant verfe. His vein is inexhauftible; 
and his principal faults arife from that fuperabundance 
of wit and fancy which is apt to run him out of breath, 
while he chafes one thought or image after another. He 
abounds, beyond any other ancient, with points and 
turns of expreffion, fometimes really beautiful and (Ink¬ 
ing, often deviating into trifling puerility. In his hap- 
pieft moods, he defcribes with wonderful force and viva¬ 
city ; fometimes fplendid and piCturefque, fometimes ele¬ 
gantly chafte and Ample. With all his tendency to fu- 
perfluity, no one has exceeded him in the neat and ener¬ 
getic brevity with which he occafionally gives a moral 
fentiment; fo that his works are an admirable (lore of 
mottos and fentences. He is fometimes, though rarely, 
fublime ; often brilliant, frequently pathetic, and aimed 
always amufing. If he does not rank with the very fir ft 
clafs of poets, he certainly is one of the moft agreeable. 
He poffeffed great erudition, as well as imagination; and 
poetical hiftory is indebted to him for fome of its choiceft 
ornaments. The editions of the whole and of parts of 
his works have been extremely numerous. Among the 
moft valuable of the whole may be mentioned Hcinfius’s, 
Elzev. 3 vol. 12mo. 1629, frequently reprinted; Bur- 
man’s, Amft. 4. vol. 4to. 1727 ; Wetftein’s, Amft. 3 vol. 
iamo. 1751; Barbou’s, Paris, 3 vol. umo. 1762; and 
Fifcher’s, Lipf. 4 vol. 8vo. 1773. Gen. Biog. Ency. 
Brit. —It is to be lamented that there is no good com¬ 
plete tranflation of the works of this elegant poet. 
O'VIDUCT, /. [from the Lat. ovum, an egg, and duc¬ 
tus, a paffage.] A paffage for the egg from the ovary to 
the womb.—The torpedo’s ovarium is near the liver and 
double oviduct and womb, wherein the young ones fwim 
free, and have no communication with the womb. Hid. 
R. Soc. 
OVIE'DA, f. [named by Linnteus in honour of Gon- 
falvo Ferdinand© d’Oviedo, otherwife de Valde, a Spanifh 
divine, who, in the reign of Ferdinand V. was fuperin- 
tendantof the gold-mines of South America, and redded 
at Santa Maria in Darien, of which he was reCtor. He 
wrote a Hiftory of the Weft Indies, containing an account 
of many American plants 5 which may be feen in the 
Collection of Voyages publilhed by the Giunti at Venice 
in 1556, and which is taken from the Spanilh edition, 
printed at Toledo in 1526. Of this there are Englifh, 
Italian, and French, tranflations. Plumier, who firft 
eflablilhed the prefent genus, called it Valdia, which 
Linnseus properly corrected.] In botany, a genus of the 
clafs didynamia, order angiofpermia, natural order of 
perfonatte, (caprifolia, Juff.) Generic characters—Ca¬ 
lyx: one-leafed, five-cleft, bell-lhaped, acute, ereCt, 
broadifli, (hort, permanent. Corolla : one-petalled, rin- 
gent; (funnel-form, trifid, Gcertner.) Tube very long, 
narrow, fubcylindric; border (hort, three-lobed, almoft 
equal. Stamina : filaments four, longer than the co¬ 
rolla ; anthers roundifli. Piftillum; germ inferior, glo¬ 
bular ; ftyle filiform, the length of the llamens ; ftigma bi¬ 
fid, acute. Pericarpium: berry globular, one-celled, qua- 
dripartile, placed upon the calyx, enlarged, bell-lhaped, 
ereCt. Seeds four, gibbous on one fide, angular on the 
other, one-celled.r- EJJential Character, Calyx five-cleft 3 
A a corolla, 
