VIRGIL, Polydore, English ecclesiastic and author: b. Urbino, Italy, about 1470; d. there, 1555. He was educated at Bologna and ded icated his first work, (Proverbiorum Libellus) (1498), to the Duke of Urbino. His (De In ventoribus Rerum,) which followed (1499), be came popular and was translated into English, Spanish and Italian. Being appointed chamber lain to Pope Alexander VI, he was sent to England in 1501 to collect the Peter's-pence with his kinsman, Adrian de Castello, then Cardinal Santi Chrysogoni, who was soon after made bishop of Hereford. Polydore was pre sented to the living of the Church at Langton, Leicestershire, in 1503, and after obtaining sev eral preferments and becoming naturalized in England, he was imprisoned for sending abroad slanderous lefters about Wolsey (1515), but ap parently was soon released. In 1525 he pub lished the first genuine edition of Gildas, the year after the treatise (De Prodigiis,) dialogues in an attacic upon divination. His most import ant work, (Historim Anglicae Libri XXVI,) ap peared in 1534; the 27th book was added in 1555. About 1550 he obtained leave from Ed ward VI to return to Italy for his health's sake, without forfeiting his preferments and there he lived in Urbino until his death. His
(History) is a work of research, written in elegant Latin, and is the fullest narrative of the reign of Henry VII extant. He spared no pains to ensure accuracy, and a rational mind hindered him from accepting the eicploits of Brut and Arthur as related by Geoffrey of Monmouth. Consult The Camden Society's translation of Polydore Virgil's (History of England.) vntGILIA, ver-j111-5. (from name of Latin poet Virgil), genus of leguminous trees, com pnsing only one species, V. capensis, the Cape Virrha, native of the Cape of Good Hope. It attams a height of 15 to 30 feet; has rose purple flowers, pinnate leaves with small leaflets. It is cultivated as an ornamental tree. In Cape Colony the wood of virgilia is used for yokes, spars, etc.- but it is not durable, being liable to be attar:Iced by worms. The American yel low-wood tree, formerly regarded as a species of virgilia, is now referred to Cladastris, a genus native in Kentucicy and Tennessee.