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 OVERYSSEL For his share in the labors of the expedition, see BARTH, HEINRICH. His reports, from time to time, appeared in the German geographical journals. OVERYSSEL, or Overijssel, an E. province of the Netherlands, bordering on Friesland, Drenthe, Prussia, Gelderland, and the Zuyder Zee ; area, 1,282 sq. m. ; pop. in 1873, 260,543. The sur- face is generally low, but diversified by a few small hills locally called mountains, and in the E. part the soil is principally marshy. Large peat moors are found here, and in other places there are sandy heaths. The best land is near the Yssel, which enters the province from Gel- derland, forming part of the boundary between the two provinces. The other chief rivers are the Vechte, Schipbeek, Zwarte Water, and Linde. The Zwarte Water and Yssel are uni- ted by a canal. The province contains several small lakes. The principal productions are rye, buckwheat, hemp, fruits, cattle, and peat ; and the most important manufactures are linen and cotton goods, wicker ware, mats, and iron. The pasture lands are particularly rich, and cattle breeding and peat digging are the most impor- tant branches of industry. Considerable at- tention is also given to the fisheries and to bee keeping. The climate is moist and unhealthy. The chief towns are Zwolle, the capital, De- venter, and Kampen. OVID (PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO), a Roman poet, born at Sulmo in the country of the Pe- ligni, March 20, 43 B. C., died at Tomi on the Euxine, S. of the mouth of the Danube, A. D. 18. He was of an ancient equestrian family, and was educated for the forum ; but his taste for poetry interfered so seriously with his pro- fessional studies, that the elder Seneca, who had seen one of his rhetorical exercises, de- scribes it as solutum carmen rather than an argumentative discourse. His father endeav- ored in vain to wean him from these tastes, but subsequently allowed him to follow his inclina- tions. He accordingly finished his education in Athens, travelled in Asia and Sicily, and returned to Rome, where, though it is doubtful if he ever practised the law, he discharged the functions of judge in several of the minor courts, and was finally promoted to be one of the decemviri who presided over the court of the centummri. The poets Macer, Propertius, Ponticus, and Bassus were among his intimate friends, and he had frequent opportunities of hearing Horace recite his compositions. He was thrice married, his first wife being quick- ly put aside for unfaithfulness, and his second because she was irksome to the poet, who was then enamored of a mistress celebrated by him under the name of Corinna. According to Sidonius Apollinaris, this was Julia, the profit gate daughter of the emperor Augustus. She was undoubtedly a married woman of high rank, and may be said to have incited Ovid to his first successful attempts at writing in ele- giac verse the series called the Amores, pub- lished by him in a second edition under the OVID 747 title of Amorum Libri III. At about the age of 30 he married his third wife, with whom he appears to have lived happily, and by whom he had one child, a daughter. His poetical reputation was enhanced by his Epistola He- rodium, his Ars Amatoria or I)e Arte Amandi and Eemedia Amoris, and his tragedy of Me- dea, now lost. In A. D. 8 an imperial edict banished him for life to Tomi, in the country of the Getse. No reason for this banishment was assigned, beyond his having published his poem on the art of love ; but it has been justly supposed that so severe a punishment would not have been inflicted for an offence of this nature, committed ten years before, unless it had been accompanied by another of greater heinousness. The poet himself hints at some " error," which however he never mentions, as the real cause of his punishment. His al- leged intrigue with the emperor's daughter Julia has been presumed to be the " error " in question; but she was exiled more than ten years before Ovid. Others have maintained that it was the younger Julia with whom he had an amour ; and notwithstanding the dis- parity in their years, the coincidence of his banishment with hers gives ground for the idea. In the latter part of December Ovid left Rome, and after a journey of nearly a year reached the inhospitable spot to which he was banished. The people among whom his lot was cast were scarcely less rude than their cli- mate ; and he never ceased to offer affecting but unavailing supplications for the imperial clemency. Besides applying the finishing touch- es to his Fasti, he wrote during his exile the Tristia, a record of his sufferings and appeals for pardon ; the letters to his wife and friends Ex Ponto, very similar in style and substance to the Tristia; and the His, a satire. His modest bearing and affable manners won upon the simple inhabitants of Tomi, among whom he rendered himself exceedingly popular by publicly reciting some poems composed in the Getic language, which he had succeeded in mastering. He died in the 10th year of his exile. His chief work, both in bulk and pre- tensions, was his Metamorphoses, in 15 books, composed previous to his exile, and burned by him during the hurry of his departure from Rome, but of which copies had been previous- ly taken by his friends. It is written in heroic verse, and, as the title denotes, includes such legends of mythology as involved a transfor- mation. Of the numerous complete editions of Ovid, the more remarkable are the editio princeps by Azoguidi (2 vols. fol., Bologna, 1471), the Aldine edition (3 vols. 8vo, Venice. 1502), the Elzevir edition by Heinsius (3 vols 12mo, Leyden, 1629), the Delphin edition (4 vols. 4to, Lyons, 1689), Bnrmann's, esteemed the best (4 vols. 4to, Amsterdam, 1727), and Burmann's text with Bentley's MS. emenda- tions (5 vols. 8vo, Oxford, 1825). Among edi- tions of his separate works is P. Omdii Na- sonis Heroides XIV, edited with a commen-