Virgil

PUBLIUS VIRGILIUS MARO, (vur'jil,) the greatest of Latin epic poets, was B. at Andes, near Mantua, 70 B. c., of humble parentage. Upon being deprived of a small farm which he had inherited from his father, and recovering it by a personal appeal to the Emperor August us, he expre ed his gratitude to the latter by inscribing to him his first eclogue. This secured him that monarch's patronage, as well as that of Mecenas, and the poet took up his residence at Rome, where he lived in ease, enjoying the friendship of Horace and other eminent literati of that age. Returning from a visit to Athens, he D. at Brundusium, 19 B. c., and was buried at Naples. His principal work, the epic called the Eneid one of the few poems destined to immortality-which he wrote at the desire of August us, he did not live long enough to revise. The Georgics, and the Bucolic a, or pastoral eclogues, (written in imitation ofTheocritus,) were written at the instigation of Mecœenas. Though deficient in force, V.'s writings are replete with beauty of sentiment, harmony of versification, and animated descriptive ne , and have received the unqualified admiration of such judges as Add is on, Voltaire, Words worth, and Hallam. [s. 940]