Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/94

 V I O V I of the Roman world in its moral and social relations, his place is important as marking a stage of transition between the representa tion of Horace, in which the life of pleasure and amusement has its place, but one subordinate to the life of reflexion and of serious affairs, and the life which reveals itself in the cynicism of Martial and the morose disgust of Juvenal. From the times of Ennius and Lucilius, Roman poetry occupied itself much with the lives, pursuits, and personal feelings of its authors, and this is one element of interest which it has in common with such works as the Letters of Cicero and of Plin) . Few poets of any age or country bring themselves into such close relation with their readei-s as Catullus, Horace, Ovid, and Martial. Ovid is in mind and character perhaps the least interesting of the four. But an exceptional interest attaches to his history. He attracts curiosity by having a secret, which, though it may be guessed with an approach to certainty, is not fully revealed. He excites also personal sympathy by the contrast presented in his writings between the unclouded gaiety of his youth and prime and the long heart-break of his exile. If we knew him only from the personal impression which he makes in the Amores and the Ars Ama- tvria, it would be allowed that few men of equal genius had so little claim on the esteem of the world. In the ten books of complaint which he pours out from his place of exile, though he shows no sign of a manlier temper than when he wrote his &quot;imbelles elegi,&quot; yet by the vividness with which he realizes the contrast between his past and present, by his keen capacity for pleasure and pain, by the unreserve with which he exposes all his feelings, he forces himself on our intimacy, and awakens those sym pathies which all sincere and passionate confessions create, where there is nothing base or malignant in the temper of their author to alienate them. Though his fate does not rouse the powerful interest inspired by the &quot;h ery courage&quot; and &quot;Titanic might&quot; with which Byron struggled during his self-imposed exile, yet to it, too, apply the sympathetic words of Virgil &quot;Mentem mortalia tangunt.&quot; But it was not owing to the historical and personal interest of his works that he gained his great name among his countrymen and the readers of a former generation, nor is it on that ground solely that he claims attention now. He is the last true poet of the great age of Roman literature, which begins with Lucretius and closes with him, of the age which drew the most powerful stimulus from the genius and art of Greece, from the sentiment inspired by Rome, and from the Italian love of nature. Among the live or six great poets of that time Ovid is distinguished both as a brilliant artist who brought one branch of poetry to the highest perfection and also as a poet in whom one rich vein of the genius of Italy most conspicuously manifested itself. It is mainly through his reproduction of the forms, metres, and materials of the chief Alexandrian poets that these have maintained an enduring place in literature. But, great as he was, in art and imitative faculty, his spontaneous gifts of genius were still more remarkable. If his works had perished we should have had a most inadequate idea of what the fervid Italian genius could accomplish in ancient times. Xo other Roman poet can invent and tell a story and make an outward scene and dramatic situation present to the eye and mind with such vivid power. If he does not greatly move the deeper .sources of emotion, he has the power of lightly stirring many of them. No Roman poet writes with such ease, life, and rapidity of movement. None is endowed with such fertility of fancy, such quickness of apprehension. In respect of his vivacity and fertility we recognize in him the countryman of Cicero and Livy. But the type of genius of which he affords the best example is more familiar in modern Italian than in ancient Roman literature. While the .serious spirit of Lucretius and Virgil reappeared in Dante, the qualities attributed by his latest and most accomplished critic to Ariosto may be said to reproduce the light-hearted gaiety and the brilliant fancy of Ovid. There were several editions of Ovi i s collected works in the 16th and 17th centuries, the time in which he enjoyed his greatest popularity. Recent editions of the text have been published by R. Merkel and A. Riese. The most important aids to the study of Ovid recently made in England are the editions of the Jlti.i by Mr Robinson Ellis, and those of the //eroides by .Mr A. Palmer. Much light is thrown on the diction of Ovid by lingerie in his Ovidius und sein Verhdlt- niss zu den Vorgiingern. The most interesting discussion on the cause of his exile is that of M. Gaston Boissier, which originally appeared in the Revue des iJtux Mondes, and novv forms part of his volume entitled L Opposition sous let Ce iart. ( W. y. S.) OVIEDO, a city in the north of Spain, capital of a province of the same name, 1 stands on a gentle northern slope, about 72 miles by rail and diligence to the north 1 The province of Oviedo, corresponding to the ancient province and principality of ASTURJAS (&amp;lt;?..), has an area of 4091 square miles and a population (1877) of 576,352. At that census the ayuntamientos 12,614 ; Pilona, 18,648 ; Salas, 16,394 ; Siero, 21,494 ; Tiueo! 21,41 4; Valdes, 22,014; and Villaviciosa, 20,179. of Leon, and 14 miles to the south of the Bay of Biscay. About a mile to the north-west is the Sierra de Naranco, a Red Sandstone hill 1070 feet above the sea and about 470 above the town, which is thus shel tered from the north wind, but subject in consequence to a large rainfall. Most of the town was burnt in 1521, and the reconstruction, till recently, has been irregular. The four main streets are formed by the roads connecting Gijon and Leon (north and south) and Grado and Santander (east and west), which cross each other in a central square, the Plaza Mayor. The streets are clean and well lighted ; the projecting roofs of the houses give a characteristic effect, and some portions of the old Calle de la Plateria are highly picturesque. In the Plaza Mayor are the handsome Casas Consistoriales, dating from the 17th century ; one or two deserted mansions of the nobility are architecturally interesting. The university, founded by Philip III. in 1604, is lodged in a plain building, 180 feet square ; connected with it are a small library and physical and chemical museums. The cathedral, an elegant Perpendicular building of the 14th century, occupies the site of an earlier edifice, founded in the 8th century, of which only the Camara Santa remains. The west front has a fine portico of ornamented arches between the two towers. Of these one, very richly adorned, has been completed, and is 284 feet high ; the other, which is larger, does not as yet rise above the nave. The interior has some fine stained glass, but has been much disfigured with modern rococo additions. The Capilla del lley Santo (Alphonso II., who died in Oviedo in 843) contains the remains of many successive princes of the house of Pelayo ; and the Camara Santa (dating from 802) preserves in an area the crucifix, sudarium, and other relics saved by Don Pelayo in his flight. The cathedral library has some curious old MSS., mostly from Toledo. On the Sierra de Naranco is the ancient Santa Maria de Naranco, originally built by liamiro in 850 as a palace, and afterwards turned into a church. Higher up the hill is San Miguel de Lino, also of the 9th century ; and on the road to Gijon, about a mile outside the town, is the Santullano or church of St Julian, also of very early date. The modern town has the usual equipments in the way of hospitals, schools, theatre, casino, and the like ; and in the neighbourhood are some pleasant paseos or promenades (San Francisco, Bombe, Jardin Botanico). The industries of the town include hat- making and tanning, and there is also a manufactory of arms. The population of the ayuntamiento in 1877 was 34,460. Oviedo, founded in the reign of Fruela (762), became the fixed residence of the kings of the Asturias in the time of Alphonso the Chaste, and continued to be so until about 924, when the advancing rcconquest led them to remove their capital to Leon. From that date the history of the city was comparatively uneventful. It was twice plundered during the war of independence by Ney in 180i&amp;gt; and by Bonnet in the following year. OYIEDO Y VALDEZ, GONZALO FERNANDEZ DK (1478-1557), an early historian of Spanish America, was born at Madrid, of noble Asturian descent, in 1478. He was brought up at the court of Ferdinand and Isabella as one of the pages of Prince John ; in this capacity he was present at the surrender of Granada in 1492, and saw Columbus at Barcelona on his first return from America in 1493. In 1514 he was sent out to San Domingo as supervisor of the gold-smeltings. He only occasionally afterwards visited his native country and the American mainland. Among other offices subsequently added to his original appointment was that of historiographer of the Indies, in the discharge of which he produced, besides some unimportant chronicles, two large works of abiding interest and value La general y natural Historia de lax Indias and Quimuayenas de lus Notables de Espawt. He died at Valladolid in 1557.